The Youth Movement and Cedar Rapids

Census tract 11.02 has gained 153 of the "young and restless" since 2010

The idea factory that is City Observatory reported this week that census data show educated young adults continue to settle in city centers. The researchers looked at population change within a three-mile radius around the central business district in the 52 largest metropolitan areas in the United States. They found the number of those aged 25-34 with at least a bachelor's degree increased in each of those 52 cores; that in the vast majority of those areas the annual rate of increase was greater in 2010-16 than in 2000-10; and that college-educated young adults are 2.5 times more likely than other people to live in these city centers (Cortright 2020).

The site includes a dashboard where you can look at the record for individual metros. For example, downtown Chicago's young educated population was 93,179 in 2016; it increased at an annual rate of 3.5% between 2010 and 2016, down from 4.4 percent between 2000 and 2010. Downtown Washington, D.C. had a young educated population of 99,051 in 2016; its annual increase was 4.1 percent between 2010 and 2016, down from 5.6 percent between 2000 and 2010. Downtown Seattle's young educated population of 53,775 in 2016 was up at an annual rate of 8.8 percent since 2010, after rising a mere 3 percent annually between 2000 and 2010.

Highlights of Table 4 (Cortright 2020: 13)...

Biggest downtown populations, aged 25-34 with bachelor's degree+

New York NY 242,380

San Francisco CA 116,248

Washington DC 99,051

Chicago IL 93,179

Boston MA 90,889

NEXT: Philadelphia, Seattle, Denver, Baltimore, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Portland OR

#52: Las Vegas NV 2,393

Largest population changes, 2010-2016, aged 25-34 with bachelor's degree+

San Francisco CA 25,213

Seattle WA 22,120

Washington DC 21,400

Philadelphia PA 21,395

Boston MA 20,799

NEXT: Chicago, Denver, New York, Los Angeles, Austin, Dallas

#52: Rochester NY 279

Largest annualized rate of change, 2010-2016, aged 25-34 with bachelor's degree+

Detroit MI 16.0%

Phoenix AZ 12.9

Indianapolis IN 11.3

Nashville TN 10.4

Kansas City MO 9.5

NEXT: Seattle, Los Angeles, Dallas, Richmond, Oklahoma City

#52: Rochester NY 0.4%

Cortright concludes that cities continue to attract well-educated young adults, limited only by housing supply (see New York City), demonstrating "strong and sustained demand for urban living" in spite of rising costs and how easily technology facilitates mobility. This seems to sustain even in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, as early data from Zillow and Apartment Finder show searches in downtown areas actually increasing. The concentration of talent in cities, and within cities, in close-in urban neighborhoods is a key characteristic of the increasingly knowledge-based, urban economy that primarily drives US economic growth.... [H]aving an urban environment that both attracts and retains these talented workers is an essential part of any local economic development strategy (Cortright 2020: 3; see also Herriges 2020, Patino 2020).

Cedar Rapids is, of course, a much smaller city than those in Cortright's dataset, but a first pass with U.S. Census Bureau data shows similar growth in the young educated population of our core.

A three mile radius around the center of the business district roughly extends from Edgewood Road on the west to Forest Drive on the east, and from Wilson Avenue on the south to 29th Street/Coldstream Avenue on the north. That area includes, more or less, census tracts 11.01, 11.02, 12, 13, 17, 18, 19, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, and 27. Following Cortright (2020: 23), data are from the American Community Survey's 5-year estimates, comparing the 2012 and 2018 surveys (to which Cortright refers by their midpoints, 2010 and 2016). 

Between the 2012 and 2018 surveys, the Cedar Rapids metropolitan statistical area as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau increased its population of young educated people by 1,578, dispersed this way:

    Linn County 1,510

        Cedar Rapids 1,114

            downtown core 499

            rest of city 615

        Marion 117

        Hiawatha -227

        next five towns in size 125

        rest of county 381

    Other counties 68

The core of Cedar Rapids, defined as those 13 census tracts I listed above, increased in population from 42,568 to 42,852, a scant 0.67 percent, much smaller than the 7.5 percent gain in the largest metros reported by Cortright (2020: 11) . The young educated population in the core increased at a much higher rate, 30.8 percent, from 1,619 to 2,118. This is comparable to the 32.8 percent overall for the largest metros (Cortright 2020: 12), and much larger than the city as a whole (17 percent) or the Cedar Rapids metropolitan statistical area, which grew about 12 percent in young educated population. Outside of the city limits, experience was mixed. Some towns outside Cedar Rapids added well-educated young adults, albeit from tiny bases. Lisbon grew 333 percent (42 to 140), Mt. Vernon 21 percent (285 to 344), and Fairfax 15 percent (74 to 114). Linn County outside of its eight largest towns actually grew 67 percent (570 to 951).

Some tracts within the Cedar Rapids core dramatically increased their well-educated young adult population, though there were other neighboring tracts where that group decreased. Big increases were noted in 11.02 (Ellis Park west to Edgewood Road), 12 (east of Ellis Park along the river), 23 (east of Edgewood Road between 1st and E Avenues), 24 (stadiums west to Edgewood Road) and 26 (Czech Village and Hayes Park) on the west side, and 13 (Cedar Lake and the northern Mound View neighborhood) east of the river. For what it's worth--the tracts are not contiguous--these six increased their combined young educated population from 451 to 778, a gain of 72.5 percent .

Census tract 27, which has seen some very prominent construction in the New Bohemia district, saw a marginal decline in well-educated young adult population from 102 to 98.

New apartment construction in Oakhill-Jackson (census tract 27)

At this point, you may feel like saying "Nice confirmation," and prepare your clicking finger to move on to the next blog. However, humility compels me to say that:

1. because of how Cortright names his data points ("2010" and "2016"), I initially looked at the wrong surveys ("Big whoop," says a chorus of readers), and...
2. when a fellow uses the 2010 and 2016 surveys, the data for metropolitan Cedar Rapids look... totally different. Between those two surveys, Cedar Rapids's downtown core gained exactly 64 people aged 25-34 with bachelor's degree or higher, a mere 3.6 percent. That's less than the rest of the city (617), not to mention Marion (1,455) and Mount Vernon (130), and barely higher than tiny Lisbon (56).

There may be some volatility due to Cedar Rapids's catastrophic 2008 flood that would be affected by substituting 2006 and 2007 for 2011 and 2012 in the initial wave, or switching 2012-3 for 2017-8 in the second wave. Maybe cohorts of existing residents are aging into or out of the categories at once. Or there may be volatility due to random error in the survey data. Or maybe some of my math is off--only the 2016 and 2018 surveys include raw numbers, so that required calculations for 2010 and 2012--though I did double-check if some number looked weird.

Age 25-34 with bachelor’s or +	ACS 2010	ACS 2012	ACS 2016	ACS 2018
Cedar Rapids city	6252	6457	6933	7571
13 core tracts	1779	1619	1843	2118
Marion	846	2010	2301	2127
Hiawatha	331	530	382	303
Mount Vernon	101	285	231	344
7 LC towns not CR	1586	3246	3283	3261
Rest of Linn Co	1812	570	946	951
Tract 12	64	38	73	78
Tract 24	203	108	246	227
Tract 26	31	18	74	136
Tract 27	85	102	33	98

In any case, I'm not as confident in the robustness of what I reported above as I might have been if I'd just run it correctly the first time and left it at that.

There are other reasons to question how much Cedar Rapids's experience would match that of major metros. One way in which Cedar Rapids clearly differs is its lack of density, which when paired with its small size makes it very easy to get around as long as you own an automobile. If the reason to live in the core of a major city is to be close to the employment and entertainment action (Cortright 2020: 6-7, citing several studies including a 2015 NBER paper by Edlund et al. and a 2020 Knight Foundation/Urban Institute paper by Scott et al.), a short drive from anywhere in Linn County puts you smack in the center of the Cedar Rapids action. It takes about as much time on a Saturday afternoon to drive to downtown Chicago from 4950 N. Ashland Av (former address of my grandparents) than it does to drive to downtown Cedar Rapids from Mt.Vernon, but here the drive can practically be door-to-door, with parking plentiful and often free once you get to your destination.

My friend Chris Draper, a private economist and planner, suggested the earlier age of marriage and childbearing in Cedar Rapids might make closeness-to-entertainment less of a concern for young educated people. According to the Census, 37.1 percent of Cedar Rapids women aged 20-34 are married, which is about double the typical percentage for major metros. So that may be one factor encouraging young educated Cedar Rapidians to locate away from the city center. On the other hand, it doesn't explain differences between major metros. San Francisco (23.2) and Seattle (26.3) actually have higher percentages of young married women than Rochester, New York (16.0).

Cortright (2020:14) suggests one reason for low growth among young educated people in metros like New York City and Washington, D.C. is lack of available housing. That may apply to Cedar Rapids as well? We have a lot of pricey condominiums in the city center, as well as income-controlled apartments, but how much in between?

SEE ALSO: "Where are the Suburbs?" 24 June 2019