Tag Archives: Migration

693,972 – new DC population estimates

Happy New Year to the very few people who swing by this blog…

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Ah, the benefits of living in a city-state – the only American city-state. You get your city’s updated population estimates from the US Census Bureau as part of the state-level estimates. And DC’s growth has continued apace, now estimated at 693,972 residents within the District in 2017.

I moved to DC a decade ago, and since then the city’s population has increased by more than 100,000 residents.

While the pace of population growth is remarkably steady (netting about 10,000 people a year) even as the pace slows, the contributors to that growth have changed dramatically. Domestic migration substantially declined after the post-recession peak. International migration steadily increased.

Within the District, apartment growth continues at an impressive pace. The impact of the additional housing supply in the face of increased demand over the past decade has finally started to appear in the asking rents and other concessions from landlords.

On a personal note, these stats aren’t just abstractions for me. 2017 was a big year for me and my family; since February, we’re contributors to that natural increase in DC’s population. Parenting sure isn’t conducive to an increase in blogging. But, since I have a string of cheap, easy to bang out blog posts (going back to 2009) celebrating DC’s population increases, I figured why not add one more?

Weekend Reading – “Taking my talents to South Beach”

"we are all witnesses" - partie traumatic

"we are all witnesses" - partie traumatic

I’m back from a summer blogging vacation.  It’s still damn hot in DC.

“I’m going to take my talents to South Beach.” The inescapable news in the sports world last week was LeBron James’ decision on where to play professional basketball.  James spurned his current (and hometown) team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, in favor of joining forces with multiple, talented free agent players in Miami.   The hoopla, as well as James’ decision to leave his hometown for greener pastures raises several interesting points about sports, place, labor mobility, and the economic benefits from professional sports and athletes.

Talent migration: Richard Florida takes note of how LeBron and his compatriots took control of their situation in picking a new location to showcase their talents, framing the decision as an entrepreneurial coup in the controlled world of professional sports.  The decision, he argues, isn’t all that different than the ones that many talented and skilled workers go through – minus the media circus.

Most people attempt to optimize their interests within the constraints imposed by their existing environment – what the great economist Joseph Schumpeter dubbed the typical “adaptive response.” But at critical junctures, certain kinds of entrepreneurs step outside the bounds of what is given and undertake to shape and actively construct an new environment of their own – what Schumpeter called the “creative response.”

Miami offered the best place where these three savvy, talented, and surpassingly entrepreneurial young men could create their own kind of space – a more open-ended space, where they could realize their ambitions and dreams.

Teams tied to place: Florida’s argument, however, doesn’t do much to dispute the common criticisms of LeBron’s decision (including one from the Cavaliers owner) – one that was selfish and about ego more than anything else.   While professional athletes may be individuals free to chose between teams, the teams themselves are rooted in place.  Teams profit from their connection and emotional bonds with local fans.  It’s no surprise that fans see this as a direct insult to their sense of place – in Richard Florida’s context, they are the ones attempting to optimize their interests within given constraints.

The narrative that ties teams and cities together is extraordinarily strong.  The recent passing of New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner offered a chance to reflect on that complex connection between city, fans, team, and players:

The life of George Steinbrenner is a ramp across modern New York, a bridge that spans the whirlpool of one man’s spinning psyche and the transformation of America’s biggest, baddest city… He championed ordinary New Yorkers, then took them for every last penny…

He remembered the elation of the city when the Yankees won the World Series in 1978, a troubled time. “We put the trophy in the rotunda at City Hall,” [former Mayor Ed] Koch said. “I knew, as the Romans knew, that the people require circuses and theatrics.”

Economic impacts: Perhaps George Steinbrenner’s crowning achievement as owner of the Yankees has been the creation of New Yankee Stadium, on the backs of substantial public subsidy.  Plenty of economists consistently argue that stadium subsidies are not wise investments, but the emotional connection between team and city is difficult to quantify.

Likewise, there is a question of geography.  Sports teams might not have an impact at the metropolitan scale, but many in Cleveland have seen a direct impact from LeBron James in the area immediately adjacent to the arena.  A similar narrative exists for DC’s Verizon Center and the subsequent revitalization of Chinatown.

However, accurately calculating all the costs and benefits of the intangible, emotional connection between a city and their team might be next to impossible.

There is no ‘Next Big Thing’: Aaron Renn uses LeBron’s departure from the Midwest to take a long, hard look at the strategic decisions behind the move and the reaction:

In a sense though, Cleveland’s disappointment was inevitable. LeBron James was never going to turn around the city. No one person or one thing can. Unfortunately, Cleveland has continually pinned its hopes on a never-ending cycle of “next big things” to reverse decline. This will never work. As local economic development guru Ed Morrison put it, “Overwhelmingly, the strategy is now driven by individual projects….This leads to the ‘Big Thing Theory’ of economic development: Prosperity results from building one more big thing.”

The ‘Big Thing’ theory has usually been applied to things like sports stadiums and arenas, not the individual players that use them.  Nevertheless, the comparison is illustrative.  The push to keep a team or even a player by giving them a new stadium might not make economic sense, but losing that player can be painful.   And even though a new stadium might not make economic sense for a metropolitan region, that doesn’t mean the team itself – despite being deeply rooted in a single place – can’t also migrate to greener pastures and better opportunities.  Unfortunately for Cleveland, that’s something they also know far too well.

There are a few other items of note, only semi sports-related:

LeBron likes bikes: One thing LeBron does like is bikes – he’s a partial owner of Cannondale and hosts a bike-a-thon for kids in his hometown of Akron, OH.   Given the negative reaction in Cleveland to his professional decision to play basketball in Miami, it’s unclear what will happen to events like this.

New York and Barcelona are boring: Mayor Bloomberg and others were on hand to see the final push of the tunnel boring machine for New York’s 7 line extension.  Second Avenue Sagas notes the challenges of urban tunneling, even with the advanced technology available today.   A few weeks ago, The Transport Politic took an in-depth look at Barcelona‘s massive subway expansion, also making extensive use of tunnel boring machines operating in dense urban environments.

Paris, automated: Jarret Walker, of the Human Transit blog, offers some observations from Line 1 of the Paris Metro.  The line is in the midst of an upgrade to fully automatic, driverless operation – no small feat for a line initially built in 1900.

Cross posted at Greater Greater Washington

Populating DC

Things going up. CC image from flickr.

Things going up. CC image from flickr.

Some assorted Census/demographic items from recent days:

DC’s population is closing in on 600,000 residents.  One of Ryan Avent’s commenters (rg) notes the historical issues with the accuracy of the Census Bureau’s annual population estimates for cities and urban areas:

Building on what Eric wrote: throughout the late 1990s, the Census Bureau estimated that the District was hemorrhaging population, right up to the 1999 estimate. Lo and behold, when they actually conducted the Census in 2000, it turned out that the 1999 estimate was off by tens of thousands of people: in 1999 the Census Bureau estimated the District’s population was 519,000; the 2000 Census counted 572,000 people in the District!!! They were WAY OFF in 1999. I write this not to trash the Census Bureau but to note that their estimates can be quite suspect. In the case of urban areas, it seems that their methodology, at least in 1990s, was biased against urban areas. So, do not be surprised if the actual 2010 Census count is much higher than this 2009 estimate.

This is indeed true.  The 1990 Census put DC’s population at 606,900.  That same year, the population estimate for the city pegged the population at 603,814 (the decennial census is a snapshot of the nation on Census Day, April 1 of each 10th year – the population estimates are supposed to be a snapshot of July 1 of each year…), and things went downhill from there, at least in terms of the estimates:

Year    Population    Change
1990    603814
1991    593239    -10575
1992    584183    -9056
1993    576358    -7825
1994    564982    -11376
1995    551273    -13709
1996    538273    -13000
1997    528752    -9521
1998    521426    -7326
1999    519000    -2426

This decade hasn’t seen the same massive declines from year to year, yet it remains to be seen if the positive signs from the population estimates will translate into the same kind of bump seen from the 1999 estimate to the 2000 Census.  Compare the previous decade to this one:

Year    Population    Change
2000    571744
2001    578042    6298
2002    579585    1543
2003    577777    -1808
2004    579796    2019
2005    582049    2253
2006    583978    1929
2007    586409    2431
2008    590074    3665
2009    599657    9583

Either way, the 2010 Census effort will be vital for the city.

More is better: Various folks chime in on the new growth  – Loose Lips, taking note of the Post’s article, for example.

D.C. Council member Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), whose district stretches from Georgetown to Shaw, gave credit to former mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) for the city’s apparent population rebound. Williams, who was in office from 1999 to 2007, set a goal in 2003 of adding 100,000 residents in a decade. Williams invested heavily in development, improving city services and reducing crime.

“The whole image of the District of Columbia began to change from a dangerous, dirty, unsafe place to a very different city,” Evans said.

Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) dates the changes to 2005, with the construction of thousands of downtown apartments. The ensuing influx, Graham said, changed the character of his ward, including neighborhoods near the Columbia Heights Metro station, 14th and U streets, and the eastern end of the U Street corridor.

“We’ve always felt that we were having this population growth, but it just wasn’t being reflected in the data,” Graham said.

Indeed – and the best way to get the data to reflect the on-the-ground reality is to have a strong showing for the 2010 Census.

Domestic Migrants: Ryan Avent and Matt Yglesias look at the primary cause in the uptick in DC’s population – domestic migration.  People are moving here, as a net positive, for the first time in a long time.

Data Types: Jarrett Walker notes some changes in the way detailed economic and transportation data will be collected and organized.

Overall, the neighborhood-level American Community Survey is going to be a great thing.  It will present in rolling averages of the last five years, so it will show a bit if a lag, but it’s an important step.  You can’t fix what you can’t quantify.

That last sentence brings to mind one of the City Paper’s quotes of the year, from former City Administrator Dan Tangherlini:

Optimism without data is really just an emotion.