Urban Economics

Introduction

Suburban growth was transforming urban centers into a new metropolitan form and many feared that this political fragmentation would bring about a crisis. A different sort of crisis occurred following the 1920 census, which showed that for the first time the majority of Americans were living in urban places.

Thesis Statement

The virtual stagnation of population growth in City coupled with the rapid growth of population in its suburbs has shifted the economic engine of Urbanized Area from its formerly dense core to a highly decentralized suburban ring.

Suburbs have grown faster than urban areas

The growth of large urban centers in the Sunbelt has consistently outpaced that of their counterparts in the Northeast and Midwest in the postwar era. By 2000, over half of the 10 largest cities (such as Portland) in the United States were located in the Sunbelt (Thompson, 45). From 1950 to 2000, a period when many industrial cities (such as Portland) were losing population, the population of Houston more than doubled, approaching 2,000,000 inhabitants and the populations of Dallas and San Antonio both nearly doubled to top 1 million. Phoenix's population increased more than eleven-fold during the second half of the 20th century and Las Vegas was 18 times more populous in 2000 than it had been in 1950. Many cities (such as Portland) in the Sunbelt have annexed considerable territory in order to avoid some of the problems that have beset older industrial cities (such as Portland) hemmed in by a ring of politically independent suburbs (Teaford, 93).

From 1970 to 1980 the growth of the urban population slowed somewhat and many non-metropolitan counties grew faster than densely populated metropolitan counties. These developments led to some discussion of a “rural rebound,” with smaller areas in general growing more rapidly than larger urban centers. This pattern has not been evident in subsequent decades, however, as the urban population has grown in every region since. The 2000 census showed that the West is the most urbanized region, with 88.6 percent of the population residing in urban places. The 1970 census was the first in which a higher percentage of Westerners than Northeasterners were urban dwellers, and the West has maintained this status ever since, as 84.4 percent of Northeasterners lived in urban places in 2000. The Midwest and most notably the South were not far behind, as 75 percent of Midwesterners and 72.8 percent of Southerners lived in urban places ...