Census Bureau has good news for Detroit: Population loss is slowing

[Carey]

I'm looking for more details. This is on Deadline Detroit:
http://www.deadlinedetroit.com/artic...ationwide_boom

[iheartthed]

I was just about to post the full article. Here is the relevant quote:

—The city of Chicago added nearly 9,000 people last year compared to annual losses of roughly 20,000 in the last decade, having benefited as fewer moved to the outlying exurban areas of Will and Kendall counties. Detroit saw much smaller losses last year, a sign that its 25 percent decline over the past decade has bottomed out.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/47992439.../#.T-xihhdDuSs

[Hermod]

"Detroit Population Loss Slows as Cities Nationwide Boom"

Do we understand the disconnect between a "slowing loss" for Detroit and cities nationwide "boom"?

[Scottathew]

Detroit is running out of people, that's why the loss is slowing!

Slowly as poor people lift themselves out of poverty they are moving out to the suburbs. With the economy starting to pick up again look for the migration to pick up.

[illwill]

So it's safe to say we've just about bottomed out at 700,000 people?

[Meddle]

Simply put, the ones that could afford to leave have left. The rest are stuck and couldn't leave if they wanted to.

[Hermod]

Simply put, the ones that could afford to leave have left. The rest are stuck and couldn't leave if they wanted to.

Eventually the crooks [[both government and free lance) will run out of stuff to steal in the city and will move out as well.

[313WX]

48091 and Meddle are absolutely correct.

Take that article with a very tiny grain of salt.

[Gistok]

Interestingly enough I was just looking at some pics of Frankfurt Germany... it has just 695,000 people, about Detroit's size. But that's where the similarities end.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt

[Det_ard]

"We're #18! We're #18!"

18th largest city in the US. But El Paso and Memphis are rising so we'll be #20 soon.

There's little new housing being built in metro Detroit so if metro Detroit's population stabilizes then Detroit's population stabilizes by default -- there are few "openings" in the suburbs for Detroiters to move to.

[daddeeo]

You have to have some money to move.

[iheartthed]

"We're #18! We're #18!"

18th largest city in the US. But El Paso and Memphis are rising so we'll be #20 soon.

There's little new housing being built in metro Detroit so if metro Detroit's population stabilizes then Detroit's population stabilizes by default -- there are few "openings" in the suburbs for Detroiters to move to.

Memphis is only growing by annexing its suburbs. The inner-city there looks a lot like Detroit... Except there are a lot more empty lots.

[dtowncitylover]

Memphis is only growing by annexing its suburbs. The inner-city there looks a lot like Detroit... Except there are a lot more empty lots.

Fieger was on with Mitch Albom yesterday evening and said Detroit should start to annex suburbs like Birmingham and Bloomfield Hills so the city can have a stable tax base...

[313WX]

Fieger was on with Mitch Albom yesterday evening and said Detroit should start to annex suburbs like Birmingham and Bloomfield Hills so the city can have a stable tax base...

Sounds like a plan to me...

[ndavies]

I would take this with a huge grain of salt. Year to year population numbers are generated through math models. Only the every 10 year census numbers are hard counts. They severely underestimated Detroit's population losses during the years 2000-2010. The 2010 numbers were a huge shock since they did such a bad job estimating the numbers in the previous 10 years.

[dtowncitylover]

Sounds like a plan to me...

Oh yeah, but it will never happen.

But then if it does, could we call downtown Birmingham, "Uptown"?

[mwilbert]

Data from between the censuses isn't very reliable, and the time period in question is too short to draw any conclusions about changes in a 60 year trend.

[Detroitnerd]

Oh yeah, but it will never happen.

But then if it does, could we call downtown Birmingham, "Uptown"?

Meh, just wait 50 years until gas is $50 a gallon and Detroit has mass transit. Then these distant suburbs will be clamoring to join the rebuilt, dense city.

[Crumbled_pavement]

So it's safe to say we've just about bottomed out at 700,000 people?

NO! I live in the city and the outmigration hardly seems like it has slowed down. In fact, it seems to have picked up steam.

Trust me, unless something radically different happens in the next 8 years, Detroit will not post a population above [[or even at) 500K in 2020.

[Hermod]

When the last of the victim population leaves or dies, the micro and macro parasites that feed off them will leave or die also. Then the hardy pioneers can slowly move in to reclaim the city from the rubble.

[313WX]

NO! I live in the city and the outmigration hardly seems like it has slowed down. In fact, it seems to have picked up steam.

Trust me, unless something radically different happens in the next 8 years, Detroit will not post a population above [[or even at) 500K in 2020.

Agreed.

They were blocks that were still intact even in 2010 that have bombed out now.

Not to get into conspiracy theories, but given Hermod's response and now that Detroit is no longer considered by most a "big city", I wonder if the last fifty years was in fact a social experiment to force Detroit into becoming an even smaller portion of Michigan, that way it wouldn't out-represent other towns in the state. The hate for the city does go back even into the 1800s. I say this because all of a sudden, after all of the damage has been done, everyone decides to show an interest in the city again.

[Gorath]

I would not put much weight into the census estimates.

Quote taken from this story about Grand Rapids.
http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapi...rapids_po.html

The numbers released today for U.S. cities and villages may have little value due to a change in methodology, said Kenneth Darga, state demographer.

“Although these are official estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau and they reflect county-level trends identified from tax returns and other data, they do not reflect data about activity below the county level,” he said. “Thus, they are not suitable for analysis of differences among cities, villages, and townships within counties.”

Census Bureau staff said they took county data on housing units and extrapolated those estimates down to cities within those counties. Because of that, population estimates for cities within the same county grow or decline at the roughly the same rate.

[renf]

Unfortunately, the Census Bureau did not really develop an estimate for the city of Detroit for July 1, 2011. The Census Bureau estimated that Wayne County's
total population declined by 1 percent between April 1, 2010 and June 30, 2011.They applied that 1 percent lost rate to every municipality in Wayne County. If you look at the Census Bureau's webpage, you will find that every location in Wayne County declined by 1 percent between April 1, 2010 and July 1, 2011. This array of Census Bureau estimates is not very valuable.

[Cincinnati_Kid]

"We're #18! We're #18!"

18th largest city in the US. But El Paso and Memphis are rising so we'll be #20 soon.

There's little new housing being built in metro Detroit so if metro Detroit's population stabilizes then Detroit's population stabilizes by default -- there are few "openings" in the suburbs for Detroiters to move to.

And to think in 1980, thirty two years ago, we were the 5th largest city in the U.S.

[Cincinnati_Kid]

You have to have some money to move.

That's a fact, especially to suburbia.