Tag Archives: Census

702,445 – DC’s population reaches heights not seen since 1975

In case you were wondering what the hex code color is for 702,445, here it is.

While the pace of DC’s population growth has slowed a bit in the last year, the city nonetheless officially surpassed a big milestone this week. According to the state-level estimates from the US Census Bureau, DC topped 700,000 residents for the first time since 1975.

Last year’s estimates meant the city was close to this mark; the city even celebrated the (estimated) birth of the 700,000th resident back in February 2018.

Milestones like this are a good time to step back and look at the broader context:

700,000 is still 200,000 below DC’s all time peak population
The current level is more like 100,000 below DC’s sustained peak population level (absent war-time restrictions)
The pace of growth is impressive, but still slower than historic rates when DC had greenfield growth opportunities within the District limits
Population growth will continue due to the number of units already under construction, with approximately 15,600 units under construction right now.

On the other hand, it’s worth remembering how small DC remains. Brooklyn alone has a similar land area to the District (71 square miles to DC’s 61 square miles) housing nearly 4x as many people:

https://twitter.com/profschleich/status/1075504407431798786?s=21

Likewise, the new estimates put DC’s population density at approximately 11,500 per sq mile, still less than Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, and any number of other cities.

Even DC’s peak population of 900,000 would only yield a population density of 14,750/sq mile – less than San Francisco, Cambridge, Jersey City, Somerville, and others.

In other words, there’s lots of room to grow.

693,972 – new DC population estimates

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

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.

Slowdown of growth in DC seems to be from a drop off in domestic migration. Now births and international migration are the main drivers of population growth in DC. pic.twitter.com/smAd6SgYnS

— Ginger Moored (@gingermoored) December 21, 2017

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?

681,170 – DC population growth continues, with more to come

The things you find when googling for 681,172 – like hex color values.

One perk of living in the only true city-state in the US is getting new census data released as part of the state-level population estimates. Those estimates for 2016 show DC’s population continuing to grow, with the official estimate now standing at 681,170 residents – the highest mark in about 40 years.

Most of that growth came from migration, with most of the migrants arriving from other countries. The natural increase (net of births over deaths) accounted for 40% of the overall growth.

I’m a bit late in posting this news or any news (hence the New Year’s Eve post, getting one more in under the gun), in part because my wife and I have some personal news: we are getting ready to add to that ‘natural increase’ number for DC’s population in February, 2017. Look out, US Census Bureau. More babies coming to DC in the new year.

Here’s to 2017 – with less sleep for me.

Precedents for DC’s population growth

On the heels of the recent announcement from the US Census Bureau about DC’s continued growth, it’s worth asking how exceptional this growth is. Ask around, and you’ll find commentary about DC’s unprecedented building boom – or about how this growth isn’t particularly exceptional. So, which is true?

DC’s Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development released their economic intelligence dashboard, compiling various economic indicators for the District. The population data from the US Census Bureau is displayed both in absolute terms, but also showing year over year change:

A few observations:

DC’s current trend hasn’t been seen since the 1920s and 30s. While there have been a few years of growth here and there post-WWII, there hasn’t been a decade of sustained population growth like we’ve seen in the past ten years. The longest streak of years with consecutive population growth was over a period of 5-6 years in the early 1960s. In the lifetime of a resident, chances are they haven’t seen a boom like this – only 11% are 65+ years old.

Does that make this growth truly unprecedented? Not in terms of magnitude. Even with that sustained growth, DC’s current boom pales in comparison to the rate of growth seen before WWII. The current growth of ~2% seems paltry compared to 5% or 10% annual growth.

To be fair, those years were the last of greenfield development inside the District; but it’s not a surprise that about half of DC’s housing stock dates back to this era. Those kind of large-scale development sites are few and far between, as the frontier for Washington’s urban area pushes deeper into the suburbs.

DC’s current growth is largely based on the center city and redevelopment of low-density industrial and commercial areas. Without actively planning for additional development and incremental land use change, it’s not clear if that pattern alone can continue to sustain this kind of population growth.

672,228 – DC’s growth continues – short-term trend or long-term shift?

Just before the end of the year, the US Census Bureau releases their state-level population estimates. Thanks to DC’s city-state status, we get an early view of the District’s population trends before other major cities. DC’s 2015 estimate clocks in at 672,228 people – an 1.9% increase over 2014.

In 2009 and early 2010, I had a chance to help coordinate the District’s local outreach for the decennial census, emphasizing the importance of getting an accurate count of the city’s population. Back then, we were hoping to see a number above 600,000. Five years later, we’ve blown past that, climbing back to the city’s population in 1977:

DC (and Baltimore) population estimates, hovered over 1977. Screenshot from a Google search for DC Population; data from the US Census Bureau.

(There’s also a great deal of uncertainty to contend with. Census estimates are often revised as better data is collected.)

DC’s press release about the data documents the elements of the recent population growth. Of DC’s increased population, about 1/3 was a natural increase, 1/3 from net new domestic migrants, and 1/3 from new international migrants:

According to the US Census Bureau, the main driver of the increase was domestic and international migration—people moving to the District from other parts of the United States, and from abroad. Between July 2014 and July 2015, in addition to the natural increase (births minus deaths) of 4,375 residents, a total of 8,282 more people moved into the District than moved out. Of these 8,282 net new residents to the city, 3,731 more people moved from other U.S. states than moved out and 4,551 more moved to the District from other countries than the number of residents that left the District for other countries. While net international migration made a greater contribution to the District’s population growth than net domestic migration, net domestic migration has grown four times its previous year total and demonstrates that the District continues to attract residents from other U.S. states.

Back in 2013, DC’s Chief Financial Officer forecast a slowdown in the District’s growth, citing slower economic growth in the region (thanks to decreased Congressional spending) as well as a slowdown in new housing starts. Part of the CFO’s job is to be appropriately conservative in these forecasts, but the Census Bureau’s estimates bucked the CFO’s forecast.

Part of the question is if this growth in DC represents a flash in the pan, or a real long-term shift in migration patterns. Last week saw some hearty twitter debate over this piece by Lyman Stone, questioning the narratives about a major shift away from suburbs and towards more urban locations (examples: here, here and a counter-example here). Stone argues that the data doesn’t support the conclusion of a major shift towards urban living. And given the macro-trends, it’s hard to argue against his broad conclusion.

Consider the analogue of driving, where a sustained period of high gas prices and a weak economy put a serious dent in US vehicle miles traveled, spawning all sorts of theories about how we’ve passed ‘peak car.’ But as soon as oil prices dropped, we’ve seen a massive increase in VMT (never mind the negative consequences of cheap gas). The broad narratives about a paradigm shift against car usage seemed hung up on anecdotes about Millennials using smartphones instead of cars, rather than looking at the broader trends of where people live and work (which hadn’t changed much). Beware reading too much into the data; or missing the outside factor.

However, the smaller-scale evidence is also hard to dismiss. Apartments in DC are sprouting like mushrooms (where they are allowed by zoning), and DC’s population can only increase as fast the city’s housing stock can expand. And even with the District’s sustained growth, rents and home prices continue to rise, indicating demand for urban living greater than the available supply.

Those peak-car arguments might accurately assess our desires to drive less, but the driving data is based on the reality of housing and transportation options available, rather than the options we might wish were available. Likewise, urban migration patterns are based on available housing, not what migrants might wish were available.

646,449 – DC’s population continues to grow

Cranes. CC image from Daniel Foster.

The latest state-level population estimates show another year of 2%+ growth for DC, bringing the city’s estimated population to 646,449. Former Mayor Tony Williams set a goal in 2003 of adding 100,000 new residents to the city back when the city’s population growth was essentially nil, following decades of population decline.

Even in the relatively short history of this blog, nearing the symbolic 600k threshold prior to the 2010 Census was a big deal.

Of the growth in the most recent estimates, about 1/3 of the gains are from natural increases in the population (births minus deaths), while 2/3rds are from net migration (more people moving into the city from elsewhere than moving out).

Explanations for DC’s recent growth spurt that focus on Federal government spending are tempting, but misleading. The region’s overall growth rate since World War II is fairly consistent; what’s changing now is how that regional growth is allocating itself within the region. Chris at R.U. Seriousing Me shows how DC’s share of the regional population decreased from 1950 to 2010. The region’s growth trajectory has been upward, while the District’s population declined. However, if you assumed that DC maintained the same regional share of that growth throughout the last half-century, you’d find a DC today with 2.6 million people inside the city limits.

The counterfactual scenario is intriguing: assume a DC population of 2.6 million still governed by the federal height limit, and suddenly the comparisons of DC to Paris (low-rise with high population density) aren’t so absurd. Chris notes that for those opposed to even modest changes to the height limit or the construction of by-right buildings, the kind of development needed to accommodate 2.6 million people “must sound apocalyptic.”

Leaving the apocalypse aside for the moment, the 2.6 million resident scenario illustrates that you must not only have demand for growth, but allow that growth to happen – that is, allow the city’s housing supply to increase. Again, a comparison to Paris is illustrative: the Paris region has continued to grow, while the city’s population has somewhat declined and flattened out. It’s not hard to see why; the city’s legal and regulatory constraints on development do not provide room to grow within the city.

Mayor Gray, like Mayor Williams, set an ambitious goal for growth the District’s population: adding 250,000 new residents by 2032. Unlike in 2003, it’s not hard to see the demand for city living – in fact, we’re on pace to meet that goal right now. If the city were to continue to grow by 13,000 per year (as it has over the past three) over twenty years, DC will hit that mark.

Demand is only half of the equation, however. Michael Niebauer notes that the population gains justify the increased development seen around DC, and more will be needed to accommodate increased demand for living in the city. If city does not add supply, the demand will continue to put pressure on housing prices.

Shifting DC’s mode share – Sustainable DC’s complimentary policies of population growth and increasing non-auto transportation

Last month, the Washington Post’s Dr. Gridlock column profiled DC’s various new transportation investments might change transportation in the District. However, Dr. Gridlock used some odd phrasing to frame the city’s varied goals:

“In the Sustainable D.C. plan we released earlier this year,” the mayor said at the crosswalk event, “we set an aggressive-but-realistic goal of increasing the use of public transit, biking and walking to comprise 75 percent of all commuter trips in the District in the next 20 years.”

In other words, Gray told me afterward, the future of city travel is about sharing routes safely. Look for more bus routes, streetcars, bike lanes and devices such as the pedestrian signal, which can make walking safer and more popular without infringing on people’s ability to drive autos.

But for any city, getting three of four commuter trips done without cars is a major shift in people’s behavior. Why set the target so high?

“We’re looking at adding 250,000 people over 20 years,” Gray said. “If everyone drives, that’s unsustainable.”

Is the Sustainable DC goal really setting the bar ‘so high?’

First things first, the Mayor is absolutely right: adding 250,000 new residents would not be sustainable if everyone drove. The good news, however, is that adding that many new people to the city is entirely complimentary to increasing the use of non-auto transport modes. There is no ‘if,’ those 250,000 new residents will not all drive.

What about that goal of 75% of trips by non-auto modes (with 25% of trips by bike or on foot)? First, let’s consider where we are today. On Page 80 of the full plan document:

The data is commute mode share from the 2010 Census for DC. That is, residents of DC who work (and therefore commute to work). The usual limitations apply; this data is for commute trips only, it only counts the primary mode for the commute (if I walk to a bikeshare staiton, bike to a Metro station, then ride a train, and walk to work – you wouldn’t know it from these stats), and it only applies to DC residents, not to all commuters into DC.

Looking at that 2010 data, the goal is a strong one, but hardly unreachable. Contrary to Dr. Gridlock’s focus on commuters from outside the city, basing the data on DC residents shows how close to the goal we already are. If you look at the 75% goal through the lens of the region (where 15.4% commute via transit), it indeed looks like a high bar. From the view of the city, however, the non-auto share keeps growing.

Not only are non-auto modes growing in their share of the commute, but the city is growing in population. Given DC’s fixed boundaries (no annexation of our neighboring states here), any growth in population, by definition, means an increase in DC’s population density. This growth is complimentary to the goals of increasing use of non-auto modes. Infill development, focused around transit, and built with walkability in mind all adds up to a city where non-auto modes are easier for more trips; therefore they are the ones used by the public.

As a point of comparison (with the caveat that some of the statistics might not be exact apples-to-apples comparisons) to other places and other commutes. In Paris, France: 60% walking, 27% transit, 4% bike, 7% by car. Note that this appears to be all trips, not just commute trips. Also note that 60% of Parisians do not own a car. Add in the macro-level trends concerning the drop in vehicle-miles traveled, particularly among younger Americans.

For American cities, compare the state of the DC’s non-auto mode share to other American cities in the 2012 State of Downtown report from the Downtown Business Improvement District:

The difference between DC residents commuting and people commuting to DC is significant, but not as large as the difference between DC and the region as a whole – such are the benefits of ruling out most of the auto-dominant suburb-to-suburb commutes.

Likewise, the total non-auto share for DC residents stands at 55%. Getting to 75% is a good target, but certainly not unreasonable given the starting point. Brooklyn, for example, currently has a 75% non-auto mode share (60.8 transit; 8.7 walk, 3.9 work from home, 2.1 other = 75.5%).

Making up that 20-point gap is realistic; adding 250,000 new residents is similarly realistic. These goals are complimentary to one another.

Changing suburbia

Some suburban items to share today:

Design: Infrastructurist takes a look at the problem of culs-de-sac (which I believe is the proper plural of cul de sac).

Commenters take note of some serious issues with this particular study, but the general point still stands – culs de sac remove key links from the street network, requiring longer and more circuitous routes to get to the same destinations. Developments of these kind of street patterns are no small part of America’s long history of vehicle miles traveled increasing far faster than the rate of population growth.

Diversity: The Washington Post has an article on the changing face of suburbia – more socially and economically diverse, and dealing with new sets of problems that many of these communities have never had to deal with before:

Demographers at Brookings say suburbs are developing many of the same problems and attractions that are more typically associated with cities. And cities, in turn, have been drawing more residents who are young and affluent, so the traditional income gap between wealthier suburbs and more diverse cities narrowed slightly.

“The decade brought many cities and suburbs still closer together along a series of social, demographic and economic dimensions,” said the report, titled “State of Metropolitan America.”

The other substantive point is about how Americans perceive their surroundings (urban, suburban, rural) compared to how their city and their urban economy actually functions:

The report outlines a decade in which several demographic milestones were passed as the nation’s population topped 300 million midway through. About two-thirds of Americans live in the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas, virtually all regions with populations of 500,000 or more.

“We think we’re a small-town nation,” Berube said. “But small towns exist because they’re connected to something bigger, which allows residents to make a living.”

Density: Ryan Avent has long marked the economic benefits of density and the nature of urban agglomerations, but he has an interesting point on the marginal benefits of added density, noting that modest increases in the less dense suburbs could have a troubling impact, while modest increases in the already dense core, already designed at a walkable scale, would have serious benefits for local retail.

So let’s think about the effects of doubling density in Fairfax and the District. Now on the one hand, the benefits to doubling density in Fairfax are likely to be larger than those in Washington for reasons of scale alone — in the Fairfax example, more people are added. That makes for a deeper labour pool, a larger skills base, and so on. On the other hand, Fairfax density is likely to be less effective density. Fairfax is built in a fairly standard, suburban way. It’s not built at a walkable scale, the road system is arterial rather than gridded, transit options are limited, and so on. Doubling density, absent major infrastructure improvements, might actually reduce the metropolitan access of Fairfax residents.

Not so in the District. Yes, with more people roads, buses, and the Metro would be more heavily taxed. At the same time, every neighborhood would become individually more convenient. Brookland is fairly low density for a District neighborhood, but it’s basically built to be walkable. Were density in Brookland to double, the retail and commercial options within easy walking distance of Brookland residents would more than double.

The problem with doubling the density in a place like Fairfax County, aside from the infrastructure issues that Ryan highlights, is that you’d end up with a place that’s stuck in the no-man’s land of density – too dense for the auto-oriented infrastructure to function smoothly, but not dense enough to really tap into the critical mass and benefits of walkable urban places.

Parking, Census, & Maps

Some cool map-related items:

San Francisco’s Parking Census – with one of those ideas that’s so obvious that no one ever thought of it before, San Francisco has completed the first known census of all the publicly available parking spaces in an American city. The census found 441,541 spaces in the city, just 280,000 of which are on-street spaces – occupying an area comparable to the city’s Golden Gate Park.

The release of the public parking space census coincides with the redesign of the website for SFPark, an occupancy-based parking management trial funded with a $19.8 million federal congestion mitigation grant, which among many objectives, seeks to manage the supply of parking by adjusting the cost to match demand. To put that in laymen’s terms, if SFPark works well, there should be enough parking at the curb so that drivers don’t have to circle the block endlessly searching for that elusive space. By gradually adjusting the price of parking up or down in the pilot areas, the city expects to create roughly one or two free spaces per block face at any time, the original purpose of parking meters when they were introduced in the 1930s.

Jay Primus, who directs the SFPark trial for the MTA, said the parking census was the first step toward a better understanding of how parking works in San Francisco, filling a void where city planners could only make rough estimates previously. “If you can’t manage what you can’t count, doing a careful survey and documenting all publicly available parking was a critical first step for the MTA for how we manage parking more intelligently,” he said.

The importance of this data, especially to this level of detail, cannot be understated. Applying this type of information to performance pricing systems is just one potential application. The study’s accompanying PDF map shows just how detailed and granular the data is:

Each dot along the streets represents a meter, the larger circles within blocks represent off-street parking. Garages and non-metered street spaces with less than 25 spaces per block aren’t even shown.

The real Census also has some cool maps – the Census Bureau’s Take 10 map allows you to see real time (relatively speaking) response rates by census tract for DC:

Currently, DC’s response rate stands at 44%. Tract 4902, highlighted above, is only at 39%.

Hump-day late-night link-dump

CC image from chethan shankar on flickr

Stuff that’s been piling up in my open tabs…

Jarrett Walker takes a look at Seattle, and how the city’s geography of natural chokepoints and barriers aid the city’s transit usage, despite lacking an extensive rail transit system (though it’s getting bigger as we speak).

Transit planning is frustrating in such a place, but road planning is even more so. Ultimately, Seattle’s chokepoints have the effect of reducing much of the complex problem of mode share to a critical decision about a strategic spot. If you give transit an advantage through a chokepoint, you’ve given it a big advantage over a large area.

A follow-up post on the subject delves deeper into chokepoints.

For DC, there are a whole lot of factors that shape the balance (or lack thereof) of development between the western portion of the metro area and the eastern half – but these kinds of choke points are certainly part of the success in shaping that development around transit for Metro’s Potomac River crossings.

Free parking FAIL. This is out of date now, but the Mayor of Providence’s plan to offer free on-street parking as means of encouraging downtown shopping backfired, big time.

Since there’s free parking all day at metered spaces, employees from the nearby courthouse and some from other government offices are taking parking spots early and are staying all day.

It’s leaving holiday shoppers out of the stores.

Not a good idea to try and offer the same things malls offer when you don’t have the means to do so. Better to use price to encourage turnover and maximize usage, while marketing the advantages that urban shopping districts do have over malls.

Seventy Percent. Previously, I’ve looked at some details of transit plans elsewhere, and Denver’s FasTracks system, centering on a revamped Union Station is as interesting of a case study as any. They’ve now released the 70% design documents for Union Station (large PDF – 15.3 mb).

Denver Union Station - Diagram of transit facilities, with underground bus concourse connecting light rail platforms (left) with commuter rail/inter city rail (right) and the historic station building.

Headquarters? What is it!?! It’s a big building where Generals meet, but that’s not important right now.

Huh? Oh, that. Northrup-Grumman is moving to town. Ruth Samuelson handicaps the race for capturing the actual HQ building, and she’s not betting on DC:

So I guess being right in the thick of Washington D.C. could make a difference. But, realistically, people are betting against the city (this is again from the Sun story):

Washington, which has 1,000 Northrop jobs now, strikes him as out of the running. The potential threat of a terrorist attack is omnipresent in defense contractors’ minds, so he doubts one would choose to locate its leaders there. Maryland and Virginia benefit from being near the nation’s capital but at a potentially safer distance, though “there’s a clear pattern among the recent arrival of defense companies in Washington: They tend to favor Northern Virginia,” [Loren B. Thompson, a military analyst at the Lexington Institute] said.

Now, if we’re all blown into oblivion by a rogue nuclear weapon, is there really that much of a difference between having your HQ in Rosslyn or Crystal City, as opposed to NoMA or the Capitol Riverfront?

The Census is coming. And Maurice Henderson wants you to fill it out. Do it. Doooo it.

US v. Canada. While this particular hockey fan is basking in the glory of a thrilling, 6-5 overtime victory for the US over Canada in the World Junior ice hockey championships (with the game winner scored by John Carlson, a prospect for the Washington Caps), TNR’s Avenue blog looks at the economic and metropolitan implications of re-shaping the NHL into more of a rivalry between countries and between cities. Taking the same passion you see from national team competitions and channeling it into club competitions – perhaps taking a page from soccer’s rivalries and sense of place?

Biosphere. BLDGBLOG takes a look at the abandoned and deteriorating Biosphere 2 project in Arizona.

City Block

a work in progress…