Detroit's Population [[now and the future)

[313WX]

i hear new delta city is going to be a nice place.

Yep, that's the same thing I'm hearing.

[Danny]

Detroit 2040

population: 629,345

49.5% Black

33.8% White

12.1% Hispanic

3% Asian

1% other


Detroit 2050

population: 681,908

42.6% black

41.9% white

14% Hispanic

1.9% Asian

1% other

Detroit 2060

population: 730,001

48% white

32.4% black

15.1% Hispanic

2% Asian

2.4% other

Detroit 2070

population 897,234

55.9% white

20% black

22.8% Hispanic

2.5% Asian

1% other

Detroit 2080

population: 923,990

62.7% white

11.4% black

24.8% Hispanic

5.1% Asian

2% other

Detroit 2090

population: 999,412

70.4% white

4% black

21.9% Hispanic

3.9% Asian

1% other [[new coming extraterrestrial race)

Detroit 2100

population: 1,498,908

50.9% white

1.8% black

29% Hispanic

5% Asian

11% Centaurians [[extraterrestrial race)

3% other

That would be the population.

[professorscott]

This is an interesting mental exercise. I think Danny's prediction about the extraterrestrial infill is spot on.

The thing that makes this impossible, from the point of view of trying to attempt it seriously and with reasonable accuracy, is that it is an extreme example of the "wind caused by the wings of a butterfly" problem in meteorology: small, seemingly insignificant local effects have massive effects over a long period of time.

There are two extreme outcomes, population wise, and they depend on which butterflies do what. If the City is able to restructure and they start electing grown-ups to office, who try to provide the best services possible while still living within their means, the businesspeople will invest in this, based on the affordability of real estate now and what it would be worth if City services were adequate. Eventually, in that case, the population will slowly grow back and likely top out in forty years in the 1.0 to 1.2 million range, and stabilize.

If the City cannot restructure, or if it is once again to be run by people who have a fanatical disbelief in arithmetic, then it will continue to lose population until only those who absolutely have to live there, and the super-diehard urban pioneers, will remain. I would expect the bottoming-out point in that case to be between a quarter and a half million.

Obviously, reality is going to be in between the bookends I've provided. Pray for the right butterflies.

[corktownyuppie]

My roommate moved in 2 weeks ago from New York. When the moving truck came, 3 different groups of people asked him if he was moving out and leaving a vacancy for them to rent.

Call it New Delta, call it Historic Corktown, call it an isolated example in a city that desperately shedding residents. I won't disagree with either of those.

But I'm just pointing out that there are definitely areas of the city that are vibrant and growing.

[Hermod]

The census estimates are always way off. If I remember correctly, the census was projecting a population of about 850,000 in Detroit right up to when the official 2010 count came in.

Also known as "whistling past the graveyard" on the part of the city boosters while all the evidence pointed to the true census results.

[mwilbert]

Also known as "whistling past the graveyard" on the part of the city boosters while all the evidence pointed to the true census results.

It wasn't just city boosters; there were estimates all over the place--the estimate from the Census ACS was quite high, maybe 850,000. Many people, including you as I recall, did not believe it, and of course they were correct not to. But the actual Census estimate in 2009 was still about 750,000.

[313WX]

It wasn't just city boosters; there were estimates all over the place--the estimate from the Census ACS was quite high, maybe 850,000. Many people, including you as I recall, did not believe it, and of course they were correct not to. But the actual Census estimate in 2009 was still about 750,000.

And the same thing will be the case in 2020. People will PREDICT Detroit's population is only around 650,000, when it reality it has fallen to around/below 500,000.

[Crumbled_pavement]

And the same thing will be the case in 2020. People will PREDICT Detroit's population is only around 650,000, when it reality it has fallen to around/below 500,000.

All one has to do is drive around the vast majority of neighborhoods in Detroit. There are miles and miles and miles, and I'm speaking literally, of wasteland and burnt out houses. Not every neighborhood. There are plenty of intact neighborhoods. Still there are also plenty of whole neighborhoods that are gone. Not a house, not a block, whole NEIGHBORHOODS. No way this can pass for stabilization. Places in Detroit that I know were vibrant just 7 - 8 years ago are wastelands now. I don't see what changes to slow the bleeding. If anything, all I've seen in the last few years are things that should increase the bleeding. Bing was a dismal failure. The last City Council was a dismal failure. The city is filing bankruptcy, no one knows what will really be the result of that, but that will take YEARS to sort through either way. Meanwhile, city services are still poor, crime is still high, enrollment in DPS is tumbling like an old woman falling down stairs. It just doesn't look pretty, not at all.

[313WX]

[QUOTE=Crumbled_pavement;397322]All one has to do is drive around the vast majority of neighborhoods in Detroit.

All one has to do is drive around the vast majority of neighborhoods in Detroit. There are miles and miles and miles, and I'm speaking literally, of wasteland and burnt out houses. Not every neighborhood. There are plenty of intact neighborhoods. Still there are also plenty of whole neighborhoods that are gone. Not a house, not a block, whole NEIGHBORHOODS. No way this can pass for stabilization. Places in Detroit that I know were vibrant just 7 - 8 years ago are wastelands now. I don't see what changes to slow the bleeding. If anything, all I've seen in the last few years are things that should increase the bleeding. Bing was a dismal failure. The last City Council was a dismal failure. The city is filing bankruptcy, no one knows what will really be the result of that, but that will take YEARS to sort through either way. Meanwhile, city services are still poor, crime is still high, enrollment in DPS is tumbling like an old woman falling down stairs. It just doesn't look pretty, not at all.

WE pretty much see eye to eye on this.

People keep bragging about what's happening downtown, but the fact of the matter is not only did downtown still lose population as of the last census, but the growth is so painstakingly slow that it's going to take forever before it posts numbers to even offset the decline in the neighborhoods.

Unlike what's happened in other cities in the past few decades, Detroit is trying to grow its downtown in the midst of the worst recession in modern history [[thus the economy most certainly isn't growing by leaps and bounds to create the number of jobs that would attract people to the city and the capital for private development certainly isn't flowing freely) while the city's in bankruptcy court and the city government is completely dysfunctional. There's no way we're going to see Chicago loop-like growth, or even downtown Seattle/Pittsburgh-like growth if that's what anyone's expecting any time soon.

[313WX]

And beyond all of that, there's the matter of simply changing the culture that has been ingrained into most Detroiter's lives over the past 40 years, which isn't going to happen overnight. Even with everything else being equal, no one wants to live around people who may shoot them to death because they asked them to quiet down. Detroit Future City can't be too successful if you bring the culture of so-called old Detroit with it.

[emu steve]

Demography isn't that difficult to understand:

Current population [[say July 1, 2013) = Population [[4/1/2010) + births [[between April 2, 2010 and July 1, 2013) - deaths [[for the same time period) + net migration [[which can be + or -) also for the same time period.

The April 1, 2010 population is from the decennial census.

Births and deaths can come for the state of Michigan vital records.

Migration is tougher. Can it come, in part, from Department of Motor Vehicles records [[e.g., address change requests) for adults with drivers licenses? That can only be a rough gauge.

So, 2 of the 3 components of change are pretty straight forward [[i.e., births and deaths).

Migration will be tough to measure.

As far as Detroit is concerned, I have no idea as to the birth rate, death rate or net migration.

[ProudMidwesterner]

My guess for the 2020 Census Population is 575,000 [[-19%).

This drops Detroit to

New York
Los Angeles
Chicago
Houston
Phoenix
Philadelphia
San Antonio
San Diego
Dallas
San Jose
Austin
Jacksonville
Indy
Columbus
San Francisco
Fort Worth
Charlotte
El Paso
Denver
Washington
Seattle
Boston
Nashville
Memphis
Louisville
Baltimore
Oklahoma City
Las Vegas
Portland
Albuquerque
Milwaukee
Tucson
Detroit

That's going from 18th to 34th in the country. However, both the metro area and Michigan will be up in 2020 as the state economy recovers.

[Crumbled_pavement]

WE pretty much see eye to eye on this.

Absolutely. I was just expounding on some of your observations. It just stuns me to see how Detroit continues to do all the wrong things in the face of breathtaking population losses. Up until Orr, many on the Council were still acting and behaving as if Detroit were still a city of over a million residents. Just stunningly crazy.......

[Gistok]

No diversity, overvalued homes, little density, low walkability, bland architecture, lack of history, provincial attitudes, an endless string of strip malls and tire shops, no reason to move to the suburbs.

Wait... don't those tire shops hire a lot of young [[otherwise unemployed) men? And don't the strip malls also hire both young men and women? If you have several unemployed teenagers at home... wouldn't moving to the suburbs make a difference?

[313WX]

Absolutely. I was just expounding on some of your observations. It just stuns me to see how Detroit continues to do all the wrong things in the face of breathtaking population losses. Up until Orr, many on the Council were still acting and behaving as if Detroit were still a city of over a million residents. Just stunningly crazy.......

For me, the jury's still out on Orr. Clearly, the fact that the city had to file for bankruptcy proves that the EM model was a failure. The question is, what happens to Detroit as it progresses through bankruptcy. And also, will we be able to build a stable city off whatever base bankruptcy leaves us at.

[mwilbert]

Clearly, the fact that the city had to file for bankruptcy proves that the EM model was a failure.

I think that is not a reasonable statement.

[313WX]

I think that is not a reasonable statement.

Actually, it is. The original purpose of the EM law was to give one individual broad powers to fix the financial problems of a municipality outside of the expensive, time-consuming, stigmatizing bankruptcy court.

We can clearly see how well the communities that have been operating under the EM model thus far has faired [[even Hamtramck).

[mwilbert]

No, even if we grant everything you say, it only shows that Orr's appointment was outside of the original EM model, not that the model itself is a failure. Whether EM's in general are supposed to keep cities out of bankruptcy, the goals of Orr's appointment clearly included using bankruptcy, threatened or actual, to help clean up Detroit's finances. That is why it was Orr, and not someone else, who was appointed.

[JenniferL]

History shows that Detroit's population can grow rapidly over the course of a decade-- the 1910s is one example; the 1940s is another. But it would take a major historical event akin to Henry Ford's Model T [[and $5 a day wages) or WW2 to make this happen again.

More recent history shows how much Detroit's population can drop over a ten-year period. The 1970s and the 2000s are two notable examples. I think one factor we are overlooking in our analysis is the availability of cheap housing in the suburbs. Right now, you can buy a house in south Warren or Hazel Park for less than $20,000. But this was not the case during the economic boom of the late 1990s, when these same inner ring suburban bungalows were going for $80,000. Detroit did lose population in the 1990s, but the exodus slowed down a bit during that decade. If we experience a similar economic boom in the 2020s and it drives up suburban housing prices like the 1990s boom did, Detroit's poor won't be able to afford to leave and young people in the burbs won't be able to afford to live in their hometowns; they might start looking for cheap housing in Detroit. Then again, a lot of that housing bubble was fake-- those little aluminum bungalows in Hazel Park really weren't ever worth $80,000-$100,000. We probably won't see anything like that again.

In the short term, I do think the downtown population will increase and, perhaps by the end of this decade, we'll see some growth in some of the neighborhoods that border the ones that are currently trendy. Even now, it's hard to find a house for sale in the 48216 Corktown zip code. If you want a house [[not an apartment) minutes from downtown, you might have to look into 48208, 48209, or 48210. Yet at the same time, the more far-flung neighborhoods will probably continue to decline. And someone needs to do something about the schools if they want to keep all those downtown hipsters from leaving the city after they grow up and have kids.

[emu steve]

History shows that Detroit's population can grow rapidly over the course of a decade-- the 1910s is one example; the 1940s is another. But it would take a major historical event akin to Henry Ford's Model T [[and $5 a day wages) or WW2 to make this happen again.

More recent history shows how much Detroit's population can drop over a ten-year period. The 1970s and the 2000s are two notable examples. I think one factor we are overlooking in our analysis is the availability of cheap housing in the suburbs. Right now, you can buy a house in south Warren or Hazel Park for less than $20,000. But this was not the case during the economic boom of the late 1990s, when these same inner ring suburban bungalows were going for $80,000. Detroit did lose population in the 1990s, but the exodus slowed down a bit during that decade. If we experience a similar economic boom in the 2020s and it drives up suburban housing prices like the 1990s boom did, Detroit's poor won't be able to afford to leave and young people in the burbs won't be able to afford to live in their hometowns; they might start looking for cheap housing in Detroit. Then again, a lot of that housing bubble was fake-- those little aluminum bungalows in Hazel Park really weren't ever worth $80,000-$100,000. We probably won't see anything like that again.

In the short term, I do think the downtown population will increase and, perhaps by the end of this decade, we'll see some growth in some of the neighborhoods that border the ones that are currently trendy. Even now, it's hard to find a house for sale in the 48216 Corktown zip code. If you want a house [[not an apartment) minutes from downtown, you might have to look into 48208, 48209, or 48210. Yet at the same time, the more far-flung neighborhoods will probably continue to decline. And someone needs to do something about the schools if they want to keep all those downtown hipsters from leaving the city after they grow up and have kids.

I like your thoughts.

As far as downtown and midtown, it does seem that Detroit can get the young college graduates who are not NOW concerned about schools.

Once they start having children then it might will be a different ball game.

They might be residents for say 5 - 10 years and then off to the 'burbs with good schools.

[mwilbert]

I like your thoughts.

As far as downtown and midtown, it does seem that Detroit can get the young college graduates who are not NOW concerned about schools.

Once they start having children then it might will be a different ball game.

They might be residents for say 5 - 10 years and then off to the 'burbs with good schools.

And that is a completely normal pattern in the US. That would be fine. And, as I never tire of saying, it is an ever-diminishing portion of US households that have children. Not that schools aren't important, but they aren't important to most households.

[poobert]

They might be residents for say 5 - 10 years and then off to the 'burbs with good schools.

What makes anyone think they won't leave the state altogether? Why would someone who likes living in Detroit all of a sudden want to move to the ex-burbs, freaking Novi or wherever garbage, which are really the only places with decent public schools anymore? Ferndale may be hip or something but the schools are still shit. Look forward to the continued decline of the city, suburbs, and state.

Anyway what do I know, I'm just a 20-something person who lives in Detroit who plans on moving out of state when I have kids.

[Scottathew]

If played around with the idea of carving up parts of Detroit and turning it into smaller cities that would have populations of 30-50k [[when land is fully utilized). If police protection could be beefed up in these areas and if they also got their own functioning school districts folks living in Detroit might flock to them. The housing would still be affordable.

There's also a lot of complications with a plan like that.

[mwilbert]

What makes anyone think they won't leave the state altogether? Why would someone who likes living in Detroit all of a sudden want to move to the ex-burbs, freaking Novi or wherever garbage, which are really the only places with decent public schools anymore? Ferndale may be hip or something but the schools are still shit. Look forward to the continued decline of the city, suburbs, and state.

Anyway what do I know, I'm just a 20-something person who lives in Detroit who plans on moving out of state when I have kids.

They might, but they probably won't. Interstate movement is at historically low levels. If you can attract them to your region when they are young and mobile, most likely you've got them for a long time. Also, city schools in most places leave a lot to be desired, so it isn't as if the urban alternatives on the education front are so attractive. And moving for schools is fraught with difficulty anyway, as many people find that despite living in a good or even an excellent school district the schools are still unsuitable for some or all of their particular children.

I'm curious where you think you are going to go that is urban but has schools worthy of your potential offspring? It is easy to find a place that has better schools than Detroit [[anywhere) but it sounds as if you are looking for something a bit more elevated than that.

[Hermod]

Actually, it is. The original purpose of the EM law was to give one individual broad powers to fix the financial problems of a municipality outside of the expensive, time-consuming, stigmatizing bankruptcy court.

If you go in with a workable plan and some buy-in from the creditors, the bankruptcy will be less expensive and time consuming. It is quite probable
that the judge will make Mr. Orr the "receiver in bankruptcy" and arm him with more powers than he would have had as EM because no one can run to a state or local court for an injunction every time Orr does something to make them unhappy.