In this recorded interview, Eric Belsky,
of the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University,
discusses a report on population growth in New England cities
titled “Comeback
Cities or the New Melting Pots: Explorations into the Changing
Cities in New England.” Mr. Belsky also spoke about the
report at the Bank-sponsored Comeback Cities New England Smart
Growth Leadership Forum in Worcester.
The intention of the study was to look at the population growth of the
50 largest New England cities and to see which had turned around after a period
of population declines. We placed the cities we studied in five categories:
Sustained Comeback Cities (15 cities, including Boston, Worcester,
Lowell, Lawrence, Revere, and Quincy, Massachusetts; Providence, Rhode Island;
and Stamford, Connecticut) lost population in the 1960s and 1970s but had increases
in the 1980s and 1990s.
Recent Comeback Cities (seven cities, including Somerville, Salem, and Brockton,
Massachusetts; Warwick, Rhode Island; and Milford, Connecticut) saw population
losses in the 1970s and 1980s but bounced back in the 1990s.
Failed Comeback Cities (10 cities, including Springfield, New Bedford, and Fall
River, Massachusetts; New Haven, Hartford, Waterbury, and New Britain, Connecticut;
Burlington, Vermont; and Portland, Maine) bounced back in the 1980s but lost
population in the 1990s.
Cities in Decline (10 cities, including Bridgeport, Connecticut; Pittsfield,
Massachusetts; Woonsocket, Rhode Island; and Rutland, Vermont) lost population
from the 1970s through the 1990s.
Consistent Growth Cities (11 cities, including Haverhill, Taunton, and Leominster,
Massachusetts; Manchester, Nashua, and Concord, New Hampshire; and Danbury and
Middletown, Connecticut) gained population in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.
We thought, however, that these classifications didn’t tell the whole story.
Portland, Maine, for example, had a modest (barely a percent) decline in the
1990s. We wanted to get beyond population as the sole indicator to the income
growth, appreciation in property values, and poverty rates of these cities relative
to their states.
For many people a comeback doesn’t
just suggest a comeback in population but
a return to economic vitality and the ability to attract higher-income residents
to the city. Those are the kinds of things that people associate with a turnaround
after a period of economic and population decline. It’s probably an intersection
of population gain and significant growth in income relative to statewide performance
that signals
a comeback.
From that perspective, only four of the
15 sustained comeback places (in terms of population) had income growth that
was faster than the rate of growth in their states. We found that the rebound
in population had less to do with improvement in the economic environment and
the ability to generate income growth than with an increase in foreign-born residents.
The only places in the sustained comeback category that had lower poverty rates,
income growth that outstripped the state rate, and higher house values relative
to the state were Boston and Cambridge. The only other places that hit on two
of three cylinders were Norwalk and Stamford, Connecticut, and Quincy, Massachusetts.
Also, places that saw the greatest strength tended to be close to the Boston
or New York metropolitan economies. Growth in the metropolitan areas spilled
into the lower cost areas nearby.
While working on the study, we started to realize that a more interesting question
was, how are New England cities changing? And the most pronounced thing you see
when you look at these cities is that the changes and the increases in population
reflect an increase in foreign-born residents in those cities. If not for a significant
increase in immigrants in New England cities (and in cities nationally as well)
beginning in the 1980s and accelerating through the 1990s, most of these cities
would arguably not have seen growth and would have continued to decline.
The ability of these cities to attract foreign-born residents was critical to
whether they saw population gains. A related aspect is that some of these immigrants
were able to earn solid wages quickly because they were highly educated when
they arrived in the U.S. or came here specifically for education. Many, however,
were young people — some with a college education in their home countries — who
couldn’t translate their education into good jobs here.
We found that a lot of the cities that saw increases in population also saw increases
in poverty rates or lagged their states in income growth and property value appreciation.
The failed comeback cities had a very different dynamic. In the 1980s, these
cities eked out small gains in native-born residents but couldn’t sustain
that growth through the recession of the 1990s, when populations began to decline
again.
Cities in decline were losing native-born residents and not attracting foreign-born
residents, while cities that grew consistently were able to grow the native-born
population without necessarily becoming magnet cities for immigrants.
Other Factors
Another finding was that education appears to be a reasonable predictor of what
places saw growth in population and did better in terms of income growth and
property-value appreciation.
We also looked at the question of whether renewed construction is an indicator
of a turnaround. We found that it is not because it typically reflects only investment
in new construction and leaves out rehabilitations of older properties. There
was also an unusual period between 1981 and 1986 that was extremely favorable
to the construction of rental housing. A huge amount of building occurred in
the suburbs and especially in cities during the 1980s. This led to oversupplies
in the market and a huge pullback in production in the 1990s.
How immigration plays out in a city depends on the national origin of the people
as well as the category of immigrant that comes to that city. It’s difficult
to rely on official statistics to capture accurately the amount of income foreign-born
residents make because there is evidence that not all of the income gets reported.
What is important is that cities in New England, by and large, owe their population
turnarounds to foreign-born residents. It clearly means there have been dramatic
shifts within cities in the types of residents that make them up. There is a
dramatic increase in the diversity of residents and an increase in the share
under the age of 40. All of these things have significant implications for how
you think about the population you are serving and its needs.
The vitality of cities with large foreign-born populations with low levels of
education and training is going to be linked to
the ability of these cities to improve the skill sets of its residents and think
through the challenges facing people who come from different cultures and speak
different languages.
Also critical is the need to retain those immigrants who
are increasing their skill levels and wages. Historically cities have been gateways
to new immigrants who come initially to areas that have relatively
low-cost housing and try to improve their economic situation. A significant
number of them do, and the tradition has been for them to fan out
from the cities to the suburbs. A challenge for cities is to improve
the taxpaying ability and the overall income levels of immigrants through job-training
programs.
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