10th Anniversary Post: Can Cities Change Their Luck?

 

The hit 90s TV series Friends was a harbinger of the "back to the city" years:
Where are today's "friends" living?

(6/13/2026) Ten years ago this month, I looked back on what had been the best ten years for American central cities in a long, long time. By 2015, the "back to the city" movement that had been growing for decades had burst into full flower. From 2005-2015, the U.S. population grew by 8.4 percent; the combined population of the central cities of the 51 metropolitan areas with more than one million population grew almost exactly the same (8.2 percent); however, this masks a wide variety of individual experiences. Using the crude measure of central city population to measure progress, I classified these 51 cities into four categories: 

• STARS (at least double the US population growth 2005-15): 14 cities
• ABOVE AVERAGE (exceeding US population growth rate): 12 cities
• BARELY KEEPING UP (increasing but at less than the national rate): 11 cities
• FALLING BACK (losing population over the period 2005-15): 14 cities

The three fastest growing cities over this period were (1) Charlotte, North Carolina 35.4%; (2) Austin, Texas 35.0%; (3) Raleigh, North Carolina 32.1%. The cities at the top mostly reflected the knowledge economy that emerged along with the Internet, so they were the ones who were most successful at attracting the technical professionals that starred in the new economy. Most were found on the coasts or in the Sun Belt of southern states. (See the map at Saunders 2026b.)

Public Square, Cleveland in 2017

The three biggest losers of population between 2005 and 2015 were (1) Detroit, Michigan -23.6%; (2) New Orleans, Louisiana -14.3%; (3) Cleveland, Ohio -14.1%. New Orleans's decade began with the horrors of Hurricane Katrina; the other cities in this category tended to be older industrial cities in the North which had been stars of the midcentury economy but now were known as the Rust Belt.

U.S. Census data for the ensuing ten years show continuation of some cities' previous experiences, whether positive or negative, while other cities saw interesting changes. From 2015-2025, the U.S. population grew somewhat more slowly, adding 6.6 percent. There are now 56 metropolitan areas of more than a million population in the United States: We've added Tucson, Arizona; Fresno, California; Grand Rapids, Michigan; Omaha, Nebraska; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Greenville, South Carolina. At the same time, the New Orleans metropolitan area fell under a million, but I left it in the dataset. 

Significantly (I think), the total population of these 57 central cities increased only 3.0 percent between 2015 and 2025, less than half the growth of the U.S. overall, and a very different experience from the previous ten years. There were fewer "stars" and more in the middle categories. Interestingly, the number of cities losing population was very slightly less, though eight cities gained between 0 and 1 percent, which barely put them in the "barely keeping up" group.

STARS (13+): 8 cities	ABOVE AVG (6.5-13): 15 cities	BARELY KPG UP (0-6.5): 21 cities	FALLING BACK (<0): 13 cities
Orlando FL 23.2 Jacksonville FL 17.2 Charlotte NC 16.6 Greenville SC 16.6 Seattle WA 14.7 Atlanta GA 14.1 Okla. City OK 14.0 Salt Lake City UT 13.4	Raleigh NC 12.2 Tampa FL 12.1 Miami FL 11.1 Columbus OH 10.2 Nashville TN 10.2 Omaha NE 10.1 Kansas City MO 9.6 Sacramento CA 9.3 Las Vegas NV 9.0 Providence RI 9.0 Denver CO 8.5 Richmond VA 7.7 Austin TX 7.6 Fresno CA 6.8 Phoenix AZ 6.6	Buffalo NY 6.4 Indianapolis IN 5.6 Cincinnati OH 5.3 San Antonio TX 5.3 Minneapolis MN 4.7 Houston TX 4.4 Louisville KY 4.3 Washington DC 3.2 Grand Rapids MI 3.1 Tucson AZ 3.1 Tulsa OK 3.1 Dallas TX 2.3 Pittsburgh PA 1.1 Boston MA 0.9 San Diego CA 0.8 Chicago IL 0.4 New York NY 0.4 Philadelphia PA 0.4 Portland OR 0.4 Riverside CA 0.2 Virginia Beach VA 0.2	Hartford CN -1.6 Rochester NY -1.8 Los Angeles CA -2.6 San Jose CA -3.6 Detroit MI -4.1 San Francisco CA -4.5 Cleveland OH -6.3 Milwaukee WI -6.3 Memphis TN -7.0 New Orleans LA -7.0 Birmingham AL -7.8 Baltimore MD -8.3 St. Louis MO -11.9

Some factoids from this pile of data:

• Three cities were in the fastest growing group in both periods: Charlotte (+57.9% from 2005-2025), Seattle (+36.7%), and Oklahoma City (+35.5%).
• Nine cities lost population in both periods: Detroit (-26.8% from 2005-2015), New Orleans (-20.4%), Cleveland (-19.6%), St. Louis (-19.2%), Birmingham (-15.4%), Baltimore (-11.4%), Memphis (-9.3%), Rochester (NY) (-2.4%), and Hartford (-1.9%).
• Atlanta, Georgia dropped 1.4 percent in the first period, then leapt up 14.1 percent in the second. Salt Lake City, Utah moved up two categories, from "barely keeping up" to "stars."
• San Francisco, California increased 17 percent in the first period, but dropped 4.5 percent in the last ten years. Five other cities moved down two categories: Boston, Massachusetts; Portland, Oregon; San Antonio, Texas; San Jose, California; and Washington, D.C.

Mural, North Beach, San Francisco, 2014

Each one of those cities has a particular story to tell. And the next ten years promise new stories: Some Midwestern states--not Iowa, alas--have experienced increases in people moving in from elsewhere in the United States ("More People Coming" 2026). The Trump administration's success at strangling international migration to the United States will continue to impact cities even after Trump has left the scene.

All of this leads to the question: Is the urbanist moment over? My post ten years ago optimistically pointed to widespread success among central cities, with potential lessons for the less successful ones. Or do the experiences of the last ten years reflect broad adjustments (limits to growth, sectoral changes in the economy, changes in societal preferences in response to the pandemic, new TV series, or something else)? (Another possibility is that all these findings are altered by changing the unit of analysis to parts of cities, cf. Sanders 2026a).

Betting things will turn around soon?
Cleveland, Ohio has a downtown casino, and soon so will Cedar Rapids!

ORIGINAL POST: "Can Cities Change Their Luck?" 20 June 2016

US Census Data on Non-Car Commuting

 

0.7 percent of Cedar Rapids residents reported 
commuting to work by bus

The U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey annually asks respondents how they get to work. Nationwide in 2022, 68.7 percent of people drove to work alone, while 9.6 percent carpooled, for a total of 78.3 percent in private cars. Among the rest, 3.1 percent took public transit, 2.4 percent walked to work, 0.5 percent biked to work, and 1.5 percent got there by some other means, such as taxi or motorcycle. 15.2 percent of respondents worked from home, nearly three percentage points down from 2021.

I have to say I was surprised how many people walked, particularly relative to cycling. State data yields some surprises. While New York (21.5 percent), New Jersey (8.0), and Massachusetts (6.2) unsurprisingly lead on public transit, Hawaii comes in at #6 (3.5 percent). The state with the highest proportion of people walking to work is... Alaska, with 7.3 percent, followed by New York (5.6), Hawaii again (4.5), and... Montana (4.4). Oregon has the highest proportion of commuter cyclists (1.3 percent), followed by Colorado and Montana again (both at 1.0 percent). Right behind them are Hawaii and... Wyoming (both at 0.9 percent).

PUBLIC TRANSIT		WALKING		CYCLING
1. New York	21.5	1. Alaska	7.3	1. Oregon	1.3
2. New Jersey	8	2. New York	5.6	2. Colorado	1
3. Massachusetts	6.2	3. Hawaii	4.5	2. Montana	1
4. Illinois	5.6	4. Montana	4.4	4. Hawaii	0.9
5. Maryland	4	5. Vermont	4.2	4. Wyoming	0.9
* * *		* * *		* * *
45. Alabama	0.3	46. Florida	1.4	45. Alabama	0.1
45. Arkansas	0.3	46. Nevada	1.4	45. Arkansas	0.1
45. Mississippi	0.3	48. Georgia	1.3	45. Kentucky	0.1
45. New Hampshire	0.3	49. Alabama	1.2	45. Mississippi	0.1
45. North Dakota	0.3	49. Tennessee	1.2	45. Tennessee	0.1
45. Oklahoma	0.3			45. West Virginia	0.1

These are obviously small magnitudes, which can be easily over-interpreted, even without considering that random sampling error is going to invalidate any attempt at precise ranking. But what if we added those three percentages to get an overall sense of how many people were taking urbanist alternatives to private cars? 

Alternative commuting is found most in the West and Northeast,

 least in the South

 

The Census data on commuting are also available for towns, although only a few large cities in each state. Six Iowa places were included in the 2022 survey. While Iowa is in the middle of the pack of American states, these six cities demonstrate the wide variety of places and experiences in any state. [Where incidence among men is significantly higher than for women, I indicate with "m," with "f" where more female respondents chose that mode.]

MODE	IOWA	SIOUX CITY	AMES	CEDAR RAPIDS	DAVENPORT	DES MOINES	IOWA CITY
Drove alone	76.1	82.7	66.3	76.3	70.6	71.2	54.3
Carpooled	8	10.5	6.8	6.2	11.3	9.7	8.8
Transit	0.8	0.7	5.6	0.7	1.5	1.2	5.1f
Walked	2.9	1.1	9.5m	2.2	2	3	16.3f
Bicycle	0.4	0	2.9m	0.1	0.2	0.8	3.7m
Cab, motorcycle, &c.	0.9	0.3	0.8	0.6	1.7	0.6	0
WFH	11	4.7	8.1	13.8	12.8	13.4	11.8

Ames and Iowa City, home to the two flagship state universities, have percentages for all urbanist alternative modes of 18.0 and 25.1, respectively, both far higher than the statewide figure of 4.1 percent. Des Moines (5.0) and Davenport (3.7) are around the statewide number, with Cedar Rapids (3.0) and particularly Sioux City (1.8) coming in under that. In Sioux City, 93.2 percent of respondents reported commuting to work by private car, compared to 79.3 percent nationwide.

People choose how to get to work for personal reasons, but their choice is shaped by city design, weather, and culture. Given that the lowest number of non-drivers is found in the southeast with its relatively clement winters but newly-sprawled metros, maybe weather is the least important of the three. Culture is a hard phenomenon to specify, but it's worth noting that Joe Biden won the vast number of 2020 electoral votes in the top one-third of states in urbanist alternative percentage, while Donald Trump won the vast number of electoral votes in the bottom one-third. Which came first, the culture or the transportation choices? Which shaped which?

Beyond this, I can only say that my city of Cedar Rapids can be doing a lot better at facilitating alternative means of commuting. Completing our trails network will help. Is there more we should do?

Iowa and the vision thing

Brenna Bird, Iowa Attorney General

Iowa's legislative session ended this week, and there's not much to say about its efforts that I didn't say last year. In year eight of unified Republican control of state government, the legislative accomplishments (working off the lists in Opsahl 2024 and Sostaric 2024) again were a mix of punitive actions towards unfavored groups...

• funding cuts to the nine regional Area Education Agencies, though without the wholesale gutting advocated by Governor Kim Reynolds
• cracking down on foreign land ownership
• repealing gender balance requirements for voluntary boards
• tighter label requirements for vegan options to meat and eggs, prohibiting their purchase with SNAP or WIC funds
• criminal penalties and deportation (to where?) for illegal immigrants
• barring diversity-equity-inclusion programs at state universities 
• lowering the income eligibility limit for Medicaid
  

...and favors for the favored.

• qualified immunity for armed school personnel, in hopes of overcoming insurance industry objections to the arming
• less inspection for hotels and motels
  
• lowering the legal standard for religious exemptions from state laws (actually a good bill, but in the current climate likely to be used primarily to discriminate)
• limiting local regulation of stormwater and topsoil
• a social studies curriculum that emphasizes cheerleading and de-emphasizes critical understanding
• proposed constitutional amendments calling for a flat state income tax and requiring supermajorities to increase taxes (translation: tax cuts for the rich, fewer public services for everyone else)
  
• restrictions on local governments' use of traffic cameras (we only disapprove of lawbreaking when we aren't the ones doing it)
  

There was good stuff, too: expanded work-based learning, attention to the new and creepy problem of deepfake nudes, and higher teacher salaries, though where they find the money for the salaries while slashing taxes is anybody's guess. (For the impact of revenue cuts on Iowa City schools, see King 2024.)

But while I'm glad to see the legislature go home, I'd say the poster children for Iowa's medieval attitude towards anyone who can't keep up are in the executive branch. Governor Kim Reynolds declined state participation in a federal summer meals program for poor children in order, she said, to fight childhood obesity. Attorney General Brenna Bird continues suspension of a state program providing Plan B birth control (Rappard 2023), and in some cases abortions, to rape victims. Her office is investigating the program, they say. What are they finding? They won't say. When will their investigation, now well into year two, conclude? They won't say. As with COVID, our government has other things on its mind than helping people in trouble. If it can't be solved with a tax cut or a gun, we got nothing for you.

Expect more stories like this: Algona Public Library faces possible closures

Whatever you think of this blog, I'm a better writer than I am a politician. While I complain, with ever-increasing erudition, Republican legislative majorities grow and executive branch members return with ever-larger electoral margins. So they have definitely found the formula that pleases the people of Iowa.

So, all congratulations to the election winners and their interest group allies. I am left wondering what is the plan for the future of this state? Perhaps our ever-lowering taxes and light regulatory touch on favored businesses will bring the world to our state, but so far they have not done that.

Iowa is part of a slow-growing region, the Upper Midwest. Our 2023 population estimate was 3,207,004, up 0.52 percent from the 2020 Census, about half the rate of the country as a whole, and up 5.27 percent from 2010 compared to 8.48 nationally. While for most of the 21st century Iowa's population growth has been concentrated in a few urban counties, the 2020-23 county-level data have a mixed message: Polk (Des Moines) and Johnson (University of Iowa) are found among the fastest growing counties, but Story (Iowa State University) added only 33 people, and Linn (Cedar Rapids) is down 0.5 percent. Overall, 31 counties increased in population, with 68 decreasing, though some changes were of trivial magnitude: Cass County lost four people, while Allamakee County gained ten. 

The biggest gains and losses since the 2020 Census:

COUNTY	2023 POP	2020-23 CHG	COUNTY	2023 POP	2020-23 CHG
Dallas	111,092	+11.39%	Henry	19,547	-4.56%
Warren	55,205	+5.36%	Adams	3,544	-4.40%
Lyon	12,324	+3.25%	Osceola	5,978	-3.44%
Johnson	157,528	+3.05%	Crawford	16,013	-3.06%
Polk	505,255	+2.61%	Monona	8.493	-2.97%
Madison	16,971	+2.57%	Lee	32,565	-2.96%
Dickinson	18,056	+1.99%	Chickasaw	11,658	-2.94%
Lucas	8,747	+1.32%	Louisa	10,513	-2.93%
Bremer	25,307	+1.27%	Kossuth	14,396	-2.90%
Jones	20,900	+1.24%	Hardin	16,463	-2.46%

(Calculations by author from U.S. Census Bureau data.)

Despite the mix of stories in the data, five of the ten fastest growing counties are near Des Moines, with two in the northwest corner Iowa Great Lakes area; the others are Johnson, Jones (near Cedar Rapids), and Bremer (near Waterloo and Cedar Falls). None of the ten fastest shrinking counties contain large cities, though Lee County--which briefly had major league baseball in 1871, and peaked in population in 1960--is home to Ft. Madison and Keokuk. Population losses are found all over the state, with clusters in the west central and southeast sections. Osceola, Chickasaw, and Louisa are actually located adjacent to fast-growing counties.

Nationally, large metro areas took some hits during the pandemic, but they have recovered their growth trajectory (see Frey 2024). Pete Saunders (2024) argues this was just a matter of time, as cities increasingly have the economic and social infrastructure that appeals to today's global movers and shakers.... But, in a nation with falling birth rates, and an increasing reliance on international immigration to fuel economic as well as population growth, what does this mean for smaller metros and even smaller non-metro places?

So what's the strategy here, Iowa, if there is one? The legislature will be back in 2025, with plans to resume consideration of bills limiting the legal liability of pesticide manufacturers, make early voting more difficult, ban local police review boards, and deny legal recognition of sex changes (Sostaric 2024).

So far Iowa has managed to reap both the economic benefits of growth in smaller metros like Cedar Rapids, Des Moines, and Iowa City, and the political benefits of bashing them. Tactics may get us from election to election, but with inequality increasing, brains draining, and everything else aging. how do we get to 2049, much less 2074? Do we have anything approaching a vision for our future?

SEE ALSO

"The Age-Race Gap in Iowa," 7 August 2023

"Iowa: You're on the Menu," 9 May 2023

"Is Iowa Becoming Even More Republican?" 3 December 2022