To follow up on the city population decline and John’s question about what’s driving it: I don’t have hard data on who is moving away, but I did the next best thing and examined the Census figures of where they’re moving to. You can’t look at percentage of county-by-county population decline, but rather have to compare the ratio of decline relative to Suffolk county’s decline. This is what you get:
Source: US Census Bureau.
The big net losers are Suffolk and Middlesex. The big net gainers are Worcester, Plymouth, Essex and Bristol. Which really means (given the lack of major suburban and exurban development) the cities of Worcester, Brockton, East Boston, Taunton, Fall River and New Bedford. There is a pattern here: these are precisely the cities that have become destination of the state’s immigrant population (first or second generation) and, secondarily of the working poor, even the subproletariat. They used to be housed in Boston itself but are increasingly priced out.
So maybe those middle-class twentysomething singletons matter less than I thought. Immigrants’ and the lower classes’ exodus explain a lot of Sufffolk County’s demographic shift. Needless to say, these are groups that tend to live in higher density than their middle-class counterparts, the ones who are moving into Boston.
From a policy point of view, it suggests that we as a state need a better approach to economic and civic development in these second cities than we currently have (which is status quo neglect). At the very least, I don’t see how anyone can look at the demographic changes and see in-state tuition for immigrants as a cause for Boston’s population loss.
UPDATE: John has more. His post made me remember one other part of the equation: suburban/exubran sprawl. The inner suburbs (Middlesex county) aren’t seeing growth but decline. But I wouldn’t be surprised if the spike in Worcester county was in no small part from development in places like Bolton. I don’t think that’s so much an explanation of Suffolk county’s loss, but it’s the logical recipient of Middlesex county’s.
And forgive my temporary geographic ignorance!
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