Detroits population tipping point

[2blocksaway]

We all know Detroit's population peaked around 1950 at about 1.85 million.

I would like to ask all of you how low the population will go before it begins to rise again and when that will be?

I think it still has a long way to go. Probably somewhere around 350,000 people 20-30 years from now.

[Detroit500]

I hope not 350,000, but I do think we have a long way to go before hitting bottom. The biggest problem is, there comes a diminished opportunity to supply core services with each individual who leaves the city. The only way Detroit can buck this trend, is to call eminent domain, return some of these areas back to wildlife/community parks, etc. and force everyone into more centralized areas of the city. They've talked about it, though if they actually do it, we'll have to wait and see!

[buildingsofdetroit]

I hope not 350,000, but I do think we have a long way to go before hitting bottom. The biggest problem is, there comes a diminished opportunity to supply core services with each individual who leaves the city. The only way Detroit can buck this trend, is to call eminent domain, return some of these areas back to wildlife/community parks, etc. and force everyone into more centralized areas of the city. They've talked about it, though if they actually do it, we'll have to wait and see!

I couldn't agree more. It HAS to be done. No question. The problem would be the cost of doing it, not only for buying people out but for the lawsuits that are sure to rise. The other problem is the social cost and unfairness: Giving someone the fair market value for their rundown house of $5,000 isn't going to let them move anywhere else. You'd almost have to give them the $5K AND pay to put them up in Section 8 or something.

[Crumbled_pavement]

Zero. Once Detroit gets down to zero, the crime, education, economic, and moral issues will disappear. Guarantee you when Detroit gets down to zero people you won't see a single newstory about crime in Detroit!

[jbd441]

I couldn't agree more. It HAS to be done. No question. The problem would be the cost of doing it, not only for buying people out but for the lawsuits that are sure to rise. The other problem is the social cost and unfairness: Giving someone the fair market value for their rundown house of $5,000 isn't going to let them move anywhere else. You'd almost have to give them the $5K AND pay to put them up in Section 8 or something.

Thought I read where Flint was trying to do this. That city has come to the realization it will never be 1/4 as large[[population) as it was back in the 40's and 50's. Why try to support neighborhoods with city services when there is only one house left on a block.
What will hold up any solution to Detroit's problems will be corrupt city leaders who know that as long as they have a paycheck city services etc come 2nd. Same with the DPS.

[casscorridor]

Detroit's population will NEVER dip to 350,000.

If the population continues to decline, I don't think it will ever dip below 800,000... thats just my feeling. That means we could still loose another 100,000 people and I'd still be right.

But I don't think either will happen. I feel that we might continue to loose a little bit more, but that the bottom is here basically, or very close, and that soon the population will start to rise again.

I predict we will have at least 1,000,000 again by 2030. That is 28 1/2 years from now. Plenty of time to gain only mere 100,000 people.

I think the goal ought to be reestablishing the population at peak levels of around 1,800,000 pushing toward 2 million by 2050.... interestingly enough, one-hundred years after the peak.

These are conservative goals.

[casscorridor]

I hope not 350,000, but I do think we have a long way to go before hitting bottom. The biggest problem is, there comes a diminished opportunity to supply core services with each individual who leaves the city. The only way Detroit can buck this trend, is to call eminent domain, return some of these areas back to wildlife/community parks, etc. and force everyone into more centralized areas of the city. They've talked about it, though if they actually do it, we'll have to wait and see!

Like it or not, the least centralized areas in the city are often times the least abandoned. Look at the northwest and northeast sides that resemble suburbs more than city. The areas that these politicos with their grand visions are calling to "turn back to wilderness" are often core urban neighborhoods that absolutely must be preserved and redeveloped in order to have a real urban core-- and I mean an urban core to a metropolitan region... we need dozens of good, solid, dense, urban neighborhoods at the center.

So even though some of those core neighborhoods are in good condition -- Woodbridge, Corktown, Eastern Market, Midtown, New Center, etc. Others are resemble praire -- for example, Chene St/"poletown" is completely gone. The core urban fabric has already been compromised so much that destroying it anymore would such more life out of "good" neighborhoods. What would strengthen those good neighorhhods, along with Downtown, and the neighborhoods further out, is completely redeveloping this "donut" of sorts around the core.

The places that might have to be turned into prarie in the city, if any, will have to be the far flung areas that are 7, 8, 9, 10 miles away from Campus Martius. But it is my opinion that no areas should be turned back to nature intentionally within the city, with small exceptions for greenways. Instead, it is really outer ring suburbs that should be turned back to nature -- Sterling Heights, Rochester Hills, Auburn Hills, Novi, Canton, etc etc etc. -- these place have no future.

When people propose destroying entire core urban neighorhoods in Detroit, no one flentches, but if actually destroying entire suburban neighborhoods like the ones I mentioned, there would be incredible upheaval and resistance to the idea. A simple idea of fixing a mistake that led to the decline of the city... suburban sprawl. Not one single proposal for returning areas of Detroit back to nature ever include anything about the suburbs, it is completely out of context. A few small changes [[education, safety, economics, etc) could lead to a massive inward migration to the city and cripple the suburbs almost overnight.

To the dustbin of history for suburbs! Long live the city!

[casscorridor]

AND just to be clear: I am not anti-suburb. I am anti-suburban sprawl. I think there are good suburbs that will continue to be great places long into the future. Ferndale, Royal Oak, Dearborn, Grosse Pointe, are among these communities. In the future, when Detroit is once again great, it may be of great benifit to these suburbs to finally put away their individual governments and join the City of Detroit as neighborhoods instead of seperate cities.

[Detroit_ExPat]

I'd say about 500,000 by 2020, and down to 300,000-400,000 by 2030.

[Ray1936]

I think Detroit_ExPat nailed it.

[Roq]

A few small changes [[education, safety, economics, etc) could lead to a massive inward migration to the city and cripple the suburbs almost overnight.

Though I think this post is a work, I'm going to bite anyway. What makes you think if the scenario you describe happens that people will move back into the City? I say they leave the region altogether.

[R8RBOB]

I'd say about 500,000 by 2020, and down to 300,000-400,000 by 2030.

I'm sorry but you need to re-crunch the numbers. Did you factor the net gains/loss of the suburbs? Let's say in 11 years the population reaches a number of 500,000. That means you would have half the city basically empty. Empty for redevelopment and the suburbanites will simply do what they did fifty years ago. White flight in reverse. You forgot another group of people that will repopulate the city, Latinos. They have no problem moving in. Detroit's population will continue to dip because there is nothing here but losing close to 400,000 in 11 years is "off the wall."

[wolverine]

Think I'll wait for SEMCOG's numbers.

[MIRepublic]

People need to do some simple math and extrapolation, here, and look at the previous drops in the last few decades. The percentage loss has slowed every decade since the 70's, I believe. I think it's clear the percentage loss most likely sped up this decade, but even if it turns out the loss was twice the 7.4% population loss of the 90's [[14.8%), that'd still yield a population of 810,000 for the 2010 Census. And, to be honest, I don't see the loss as having doubled over the 90's. Now, let's double, unrealistically, 14.8% again [[29.6%) for 2020. That yields 570,000 for 2020.

Truth is, the doubling of loss each decade is just ridiculous. As you can see, even in the worst case scenario it'd take decades for Detroit to drop below half a million even with ridiculously postulating that the population loss percentage would double each decade from the 90's. Realistically, it probably won't ever drop much beyond 800,000. The truth of that matter is that it's getting harder and harder to leave Detroit for those that are left, so you'd expect the population loss to dwindle or stagnant, not explode.

I honestly don't think Detroit will post a gain, for decades, but I think it's just as ridiculous to believe that it's going to double, or more than double, every decade given the financial demographic left in the city. Detroit is most likely going to stagnate, population-wise, and stagnate hard in a weird limbo situation for decades to come barring some new technological innovation that the local economy will wrap itself around.

The tipping point is nigh; it simply almost has to be.

[iheartthed]

I actually think Detroit has just about bottomed out now. Whatever the census reports in 2010 is where Detroit will hover, if all external factors such as energy cost and job availability stays near what it has been in the past 10 years. As CassCorridor mentioned above, the areas of Detroit that experienced the most drastic depopulating were those neighborhoods that were the most densely populated [[and public transit oriented). Detroit is probably close to a balance where it will make economic sense for residents to keep these medium density neighborhoods populated rather than continue to abandon them for suburban areas. Also, the housing boom in the outer burbs has gone bust, so leaving the city won't be as cheap as it had been in recent years [[once the excess inventory gets soaked up or destroyed).

I doubt any of us reading this will ever live to see the day where Detroit's population is 350,000. That would take an extremely drastic external event, like say the domestic auto industry completely collapsing before the local economy is diversified... or some catastrophic situation like a hurricane [[highly unlikely), terrorist attack [[probable, but not likely), or nuclear explosion [[probable, but not likely).

[2blocksaway]

I think some of you are underestimating how rough the past couple of years have been.

Entire blocks of people vanish nearly overnight and houses go from occupied to boarded up in a couple of days. Nobody even tries to sell or rent them anymore.

When the 2010 Census comes out I think the City of Detroit will be lucky to come out with over 825,000 including homeless.

To steal from Palin I can see Detroit from my front porch, I work in the city and commute on 94 and 75 daily. I see probably a fire a week in the morning and if I can see smoke I can smell it. Where else is this happening?

Cass were you just trying to be funny or are you that out of touch?

[mwilbert]

Pay no attention to SEMCOG until they decide to use more realistic numbers for future area employment. Their numbers are absurdly high, and the method they use to compute them is proprietary and therefore not open to scrutiny.

However, it is really hard to know how the relative attractiveness of different areas of the region will develop over the next couple of decades, so the only things I can say is that the population of the most attractive parts will probably be fairly stable, as they are unlikely to decline relatively enough to turn into prairie, and that the most undesirable parts will turn into prairie. Note that by "parts" I do not mean cities and towns, but smaller neighborhood areas.

I am quite sure that Detroit's population has not bottomed out, but 350000 is close to the lowest number I can come up with for the next 30 years, and basically assumes that everyone who can possibly leave does. Unless there is some deliberate resettlement program to move people out, I don't think it will get close to that low.

[HazenPingree]

I hope not 350,000, but I do think we have a long way to go before hitting bottom. The biggest problem is, there comes a diminished opportunity to supply core services with each individual who leaves the city. The only way Detroit can buck this trend, is to call eminent domain, return some of these areas back to wildlife/community parks, etc. and force everyone into more centralized areas of the city. They've talked about it, though if they actually do it, we'll have to wait and see!

Would be nice, but the Wayne v. Hathcock case has made this very hard.

[mwilbert]

I'm not a lawyer, but Wayne v. Hathcock doesn't look to address this issue directly. These takings would be for public purposes [[improving city services and public safety) more than for private economic development.

One specific objection was the taking of private land for transfer to private parties, which would not be happening a shrinkage plan.

[Stosh]

I think that the correct method would be one of simple unincorporation of any portion of land that the city would deem to be undesirable. That land would then revert to townships, which technically haven't had a government for a while. So, while the city would technically "shrink", the people living there would not have to move.

Their choice, I suppose, but they also would have the opportunity to tax themselves, form government, and possibly fire and police services. Or to join cities that abut their area. Or, more likely, just abandon their area altogether.

The whole premise of Detroit actually paying someone to move is probably the most insane move a city on the verge of bankruptcy could make.

[Bearinabox]

Why does the city need to take possession of anything to implement a centralization plan? If the only goal is to reduce the cost of providing city services, then just tell residents in those areas that services will no longer be provided after a certain date, and offer to buy them out before that date for X amount of money. Anyone who doesn't take the buyout is welcome to dig a well and buy a shotgun and drive their garbage to the dump, and will be exempted from all city taxes for as long as they want to stay there. I'm sure I'm not the first one to think of this, and I'm sure there's a reason why it wouldn't work, but I'd be curious to know what the reason is.

[mwilbert]

Reducing the cost of city services would not be the only goal--if that were the only goal, you could just stop providing city services now, and continue collecting the taxes.

[masterblaster]

If Detroit's population drops to 350,000 to 400,000 - where are all of those 500,000-600,000 people who left going to go!

It is infuriating that black people have to move away from black people in order to attain a good quality of life. And they have to do it by living amongst the same people who fled from them in the first place. It is a lot easier to flee from the problems than to join with your neighbors to help fix the problems.

Black folks would have moved out to the suburbs in the 50's, 60's, and 70's along with the white folks - if they were welcome.

What is saddening is that this continual 60-year decline in population is demonstrating that everybody - white and black - basically believes that the municipality encompassing 140 square miles, situated along the banks of the Detroit River, in southeastern Michigan, called the city of Detroit, is NOT worth saving.

[crawford]

Detroit's population will NEVER dip to 350,000.

If the population continues to decline, I don't think it will ever dip below 800,000... thats just my feeling. That means we could still loose another 100,000 people and I'd still be right.

There is no way in hell Detroit has 900.000 people right now. I do not believe that its population has decreased so little in recent years. I see more abandonment now than I have ever seen.

Even places like the University District have vacant homes all over the place. Green Acres has one block that looks like a mini-Brush Park.

This wasn't true even three years ago.

[crawford]

Also, the housing boom in the outer burbs has gone bust, so leaving the city won't be as cheap as it had been in recent years [[once the excess inventory gets soaked up or destroyed).

This is such a myth. Take crappy Macomb Township, home of cheap McMansions, tons of foreclosures, ugly as hell, and convenient to nothing.

A wanna-be Rochester Hills, which is a wanna-be Bloomfield.

The fact is that Macomb Township homes, on a per square foot basis, sell for more than any neighborhood in Detroit, including Palmer Woods!