Comeback Cities, Have The Big Cities Come Back?

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Comeback Cities, Have The Big Cities Come Back?

• Edward W. (Ned) Hill
• Harold Wolman
• Kimberly Furdell
• Funding from
• The Brookings Institution, Center on Urban and
  Metropolitan Policy and the Fannie Mae Foundation

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Purpose

• What is the economic well-being of city
  residents?
• Economic well-being getting better or worse?
• How did Ohios central cities perform?

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Universe

• Central cities with 1980 populations of at least
  125,000 in metropolitan areas with at least
  250,000 people
• 98 cities

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Two Measures for Two Stories

• Levels of resident distress
• How well are we doing?
• Improvement from 1990 to 2000
• How much are we improving?

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Index of City Resident Economic Distress

• Poverty rate
• Unemployment rate
• Median household income
• Missing is a measure of cost of living

Calculated as n-scores Ni (Xi Median) /
PSD ni Normal (Median, PSD) PSD
(Interquartile range)/1.35 PSD Pseudo Standard
Deviation
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Index Change in Resident Economic Wellbeing
1990 to 2000

• Percent change from 1990 to 2000
• Per capita income
• Median household income
• Percentage point change from 1990 to 2000
• Poverty rate
• Unemployment rate
• Labor force participation rate

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How Big is Big?
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Levels of Distress
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The Relationship Has Been Stable for 20 years
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Does Region Matter?
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The Eastern Midwest
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The Top 25 in 2000
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The Top 25 in 1980
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The Bottom 25
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Change in the Economic Wellbeing of City
Residents 1990 to 2000
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How Well Did Most Distressed in 1990 Do? The Low
Lower 48

• The lower 1/3 of all cities with 125,000
  population in 1990 on municipal distress index
• Calculated improvement in economic well being of
  residents from 1990 to 2000

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Change in Economic Wellbeing of City Residents
1990 to 2000

• Percent change from 1990 to 2000
• Per capita income
• Median household income
• Percentage point change from 1990 to 2000
• Poverty rate
• Unemployment rate
• Labor force participation rate

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The ResultsMost Improved
Mean index of wellbeing improvement -0.002,
standard deviation 4.017.
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The ResultsThe Fallen
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What Is To Be Learned?

• Difference between perception realitybe wary
  of best practices and copy-cat strategy
• It is not regression to the mean
• Industrial composition matters
• Manufacturing coupled with low immigration
• Pay attention to fundamentals