Thank you for picking this topic as it used to irritate me slightly reading the Urbanophile and seeing repeated references to Indianapolis and Columbus as the two examples of Midwest "success stories" and noting the contrast with other struggling large Rust Belt cities. Not that I want to tear down Indianapolis, it’s just that this commentary was obviously missing some of the context in your post.
I did a similar type of analysis back in 2014 which I never published looking at the population changes occurring from 1940 to 2000 and from 2000 to 2010 within the historic core areas of eight US cities – Atlanta, Cincinnati, Dallas, Detroit, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Oklahoma City, and Portland Oregon.
One of my observations for Indianapolis was as follows:
“Indianapolis makes an interesting case in that it is typically presented in urban narratives as one of the few successful major cities in the Midwest, with this reputation due in part to the city’s continued population growth over recent decades. This growth is attributable in part to the annexation of former suburban areas which increased the area of the city from 53.6 square miles in 1940 to approximately 360 square miles by 2000. While the “headline” population count for the city was growing during recent decades through annexation and new construction in sparsely populated former suburban or previously annexed areas, the core 35.9 square mile area of the city in 1940 was losing over 150,000 residents, and the most densely populated 12.2 square mile area was losing over 110,000 residents. Furthermore, these declines appear to be continuing if not accelerating. Of the cities included in this study, Indianapolis had the second highest percentage population losses in its historically densest neighborhoods during the period 2000 to 2010, with losses totaling 17.1% of the population in these areas.”
I noted your use of "forget" in the following sentence: “Put another way, Unigov had the impact of absorbing and subsuming the inner city challenges seen in Indianapolis, so the city could contain – and forget – about them.” This highlights a dilemma I have long felt about Milwaukee and its status as one of the most segregated and poorest major cities in the US. The stigma is arguably on the mind of every corporate and civic leader in Milwaukee and there are a hundred different initiatives trying to improve conditions in these neighborhoods. I hate the stigma, but there's decades of work still to be done and the stigma is a motivator - even if it harms the city's reputation in other ways. I thought about this during the George Floyd protests and how there was relatively minimal violence in Milwaukee compared to cities like Minneapolis St Paul and Madison Wisconsin which don’t have (or at least didn’t have) a poor national reputation. Problems that can be forgotten will rarely if ever get prioritized given all of the other challenges and issues competing for attention.
As a former Midwesterner now living in the Bay Area, I'm always interested in comparisons like this.
The San Jose growth makes sense. Booming growth and now maturity, even if there is still open land to expand towards the south.
The slight changes in land area for San Francisco make less sense. The city/county is bounded by water, Daly City etc. Not sure why that ever changed.
I fed your chart to ChatGPT to ask why SF changed and it confirmed it was likely improvements:
"Given the chart you provided, if we are observing small changes in San Francisco’s area over time (e.g., less than 2% change from 1960 to 2020), it’s likely due to factors like more accurate measurement techniques or minor administrative adjustments rather than large-scale land reclamation or erosion. The percentage changes shown are relatively small, suggesting that the physical boundary changes, if any, are minimal and likely reflect measurement or data recording nuances."
Thank you for picking this topic as it used to irritate me slightly reading the Urbanophile and seeing repeated references to Indianapolis and Columbus as the two examples of Midwest "success stories" and noting the contrast with other struggling large Rust Belt cities. Not that I want to tear down Indianapolis, it’s just that this commentary was obviously missing some of the context in your post.
I did a similar type of analysis back in 2014 which I never published looking at the population changes occurring from 1940 to 2000 and from 2000 to 2010 within the historic core areas of eight US cities – Atlanta, Cincinnati, Dallas, Detroit, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Oklahoma City, and Portland Oregon.
One of my observations for Indianapolis was as follows:
“Indianapolis makes an interesting case in that it is typically presented in urban narratives as one of the few successful major cities in the Midwest, with this reputation due in part to the city’s continued population growth over recent decades. This growth is attributable in part to the annexation of former suburban areas which increased the area of the city from 53.6 square miles in 1940 to approximately 360 square miles by 2000. While the “headline” population count for the city was growing during recent decades through annexation and new construction in sparsely populated former suburban or previously annexed areas, the core 35.9 square mile area of the city in 1940 was losing over 150,000 residents, and the most densely populated 12.2 square mile area was losing over 110,000 residents. Furthermore, these declines appear to be continuing if not accelerating. Of the cities included in this study, Indianapolis had the second highest percentage population losses in its historically densest neighborhoods during the period 2000 to 2010, with losses totaling 17.1% of the population in these areas.”
I noted your use of "forget" in the following sentence: “Put another way, Unigov had the impact of absorbing and subsuming the inner city challenges seen in Indianapolis, so the city could contain – and forget – about them.” This highlights a dilemma I have long felt about Milwaukee and its status as one of the most segregated and poorest major cities in the US. The stigma is arguably on the mind of every corporate and civic leader in Milwaukee and there are a hundred different initiatives trying to improve conditions in these neighborhoods. I hate the stigma, but there's decades of work still to be done and the stigma is a motivator - even if it harms the city's reputation in other ways. I thought about this during the George Floyd protests and how there was relatively minimal violence in Milwaukee compared to cities like Minneapolis St Paul and Madison Wisconsin which don’t have (or at least didn’t have) a poor national reputation. Problems that can be forgotten will rarely if ever get prioritized given all of the other challenges and issues competing for attention.
As a former Midwesterner now living in the Bay Area, I'm always interested in comparisons like this.
The San Jose growth makes sense. Booming growth and now maturity, even if there is still open land to expand towards the south.
The slight changes in land area for San Francisco make less sense. The city/county is bounded by water, Daly City etc. Not sure why that ever changed.
I fed your chart to ChatGPT to ask why SF changed and it confirmed it was likely improvements:
"Given the chart you provided, if we are observing small changes in San Francisco’s area over time (e.g., less than 2% change from 1960 to 2020), it’s likely due to factors like more accurate measurement techniques or minor administrative adjustments rather than large-scale land reclamation or erosion. The percentage changes shown are relatively small, suggesting that the physical boundary changes, if any, are minimal and likely reflect measurement or data recording nuances."