Boston population rises to 645K

The urbanist kool-aid has certainly been flowing. Joel Kotkin and Wendell Cox are having a field day over at newgeography.
On the other hand, I think this census is indicating an interesting trend: in many cities (Chicago, Oakland, Atlanta among them) the declines/meager growth is due mostly to African-Americans leaving for the suburbs - a long overdue trend. USA Today picked up on this:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/census/2011-03-22-1Ablacks22_ST_N.htm

Check out this map of Chicago - if you're familiar with the demographics of the city, you'll see that the "black belts" of the South and West sides are emptying out ... while the center is growing thanks to the influx of wealthy, mostly white, professionals - the South Loop has exploded for example. So the city is smaller, but also richer, and whiter, and this is most definitly a significant change, for better or for worse.

http://media.apps.chicagotribune.com/census-2010/population-change/index.html

I know that the black population of DC has been declining for at least 2 decades now - while the white population has been growing.
In any case, there's much more to the census than just saying "suburbs are winning" or "cities are losing" - we have to look at who is moving to cities, and who is moving out of them, and how this varies (immensely) depending on the city. Kotkin and Cox could use some nuance in their analysis.
 
As gentrification sets in in the urban core, the poor population that once occupied it is forced further out to the inner ring suburbs with the older housing stocks, while the wealthy move back to the core or further out in the suburbs. That Chicago Tribune map is cool, too bad Boston's isn't that comprehensive.
 
When I moved to my street in Dorchester 18 yrs ago,there was just a handful of whites(me included) now there r more white folks than blacks,when I asked where they(black folks) were going? Brockton/ Randolph/Milton/Canton was the responce with other's move-n back south
 
NYT census mapper thing way better than anything on that gummit website:

http://projects.nytimes.com/census/2010/map

Gets down to the tract. Back Bay lost population (mansionization?) and there's a whole tract just for the Charles - 12 people live there.

Oh, and I was right about the screwiness of the census. Queens supposedly gained only 1,300 people in the last 10 years, and large swathes of dense immigrant housing are supposedly "vacant"? Bloomberg is right to be furious: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/nyregion/25census.html?ref=nyregion
 
Homeless people Ron. Year round mooring isn't allowed on the Charles.
 
Hot damn, population at Logan is up almost 600%. I wonder how long it will be until those people start complaining about the noise.
 
Wow, so apparently Southie is what they say it is. The white pop in tracts not dominated by housing projects...90%, 94%, 94%, 97% 97%, 98%...

I wonder if there are any neighborhoods in any other major cities with numbers like that.
 
For other dense ethnic enclaves highly likely. There's neighborhoods of Blacks, Latinos, and Asians all in the 90s.


Edit: Some very large Native American areas are in the upper 90s.
 
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Of course, e.g., much of east LA is nearly 100% Hispanic. But I was talking about white neighborhoods. The reason I'm so surprised at these numbers is that I assumed large-scale Irish immigration had stopped decades ago. I would have expected more out migration to the suburbs, and replenishment by new, non-white immigrants. Compare with East Boston. So, an interesting question is whether Southie's reputation has anything to do with this.
 
Irish immigration really only stopped in the 90s, with the "Celtic Tiger" phenomenon. And now that their bubble has burst, more Irish will be headed straight to Southie in no time.

PS: Depressing-

Baltimore, Boston, Memphis and Milwaukee out of the top 20 largest US cities. in: El Paso, Charlotte and Ft. Worth
Click to expand...

El Paso? Fort Worth!?
 
Ron Newman said:
People live on boats in the Charles?
Click to expand...

Apparently the census counts people based on whatever address they put on their form, and lists homeless people living wherever they find them on fact finding missions.

In New York, 25 people listed "Central Park" as their address, presumably homeless. I wonder if people did the same for the Arboretum/Charles?
 
czsz said:
Irish immigration really only stopped in the 90s, with the "Celtic Tiger" phenomenon. And now that their bubble has burst, more Irish will be headed straight to Southie in no time.

PS: Depressing-



El Paso? Fort Worth!?
Click to expand...


Well in light that we kept growing and returned to 1970's level of population and punch of as "world class" city despite being only 22nd in population is impressive. We really do punch above our weight. Also, I'm sure if Boston is able to annex some cities around it, Boston population would be a lot of higher. Looking up in Wikipedia, our density per mile is 12,000. Fort Worth is 2,000.
 
There are all kinds of ways that Boston is more important and impressive than Fort Worth. I know it, you know it, but the kid who goes and looks up population figures and concludes that El Paso and Fort Worth are "big" "important" cities compared to Boston will not.
 
Interested in the racial and Hispanic/Latino-origin history of Boston for the past 110 years? My charts of Boston and the South End neighborhood from 1900-2010.

http://bit.ly/ghskSK
 
The main thing to know about Fort Worth is that, like St. Paul, Oakland, and Cambridge, it's the 'second' city in a metropolitan area with two large centers.
 
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