Employing an historical perspective, the author mounts a quantitative and theoretical assessment of population loss in the large cities of the United States. Three periods are considered: one prior to 1920 when large city population loss was aberrant; a second which captures the severe decline of the decades after World War II, and a third that encompasses the more recent shrinkage of cities. Population loss is measured in terms of prevalence, severity, and persistence and is also analyzed geographically. The author further identifies factors affecting population loss which are common and unique to each period. Although population loss has diminished, a number of cities are locked into trajectories of chronic loss, suggesting that a new phase of urbanization has yet to materialize.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AltshulerALuberoffD, 2003Mega-projects: The Changing Politics of Urban Public Investment (The Brookings Institution, Washington, DC)
2.
BeauregardR A, 2001, “Federal policy and urban decline: A case of government complicity?”Housing Policy Debate12129–151
3.
BeauregardR A, 2003aVoices of Decline: The Postwar Fate of US Cities2nd edition (Routledge, New York)
4.
BeauregardR A, 2003b, “Aberrant cities: Urban population loss in the United States, 1820–1930”Urban Geography24672–690
5.
BeauregardR A, 2004, “Are cities resurgent?”City8421–427
6.
BeauregardR A, 2006aWhen America Became Suburban (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN)
7.
BeauregardR A, 2006b, “The radical break in late 20th century urbanization”Area38218–220
8.
BeauregardR A, 2007, “Economy of cities”, in Encyclopedia of American Urban History Ed. GoldfieldD (Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA) pp 231–234
9.
BenderT, 2006A Nation Among Nations (Hill and Wang, New York)
10.
BradburyK LDownsASmallK A, 1982Urban Decline and the Future of American Cities (The Brookings Institution, Washington, DC)
11.
CheshireP, 2006, “Resurgent cities, urban myths and policy hubris: What we need to know”Urban Studies431231–1246
12.
CrowtherS J, 1976, “Urban growth in the mid-Atlantic states, 1785–1850”Journal of Economic History36624–644
13.
DownsA, 1997, “The challenge of our declining big cities”Housing Policy Debate8359–408
14.
EbelR D, 1985, “Urban decline in the world's developed economies: An examination of the trends”Research in Urban Economics51–19
15.
FainsteinS SGordonIHarloeM, 1992Divided Cities: New York and London in the Contemporary World (Blackwell, Cambridge, MA)
16.
FloridaR, 2003, “Cities and the creative class”City and Community2(1) 3–26
17.
FreyW H, 1990, “Metropolitan America: Beyond the transition”Population Bulletin452–49
18.
FreyW H, 1993, “The new urban revival in the United States”Urban Studies30741–774
19.
FrugG, 2006, “The legal technology of exclusion in metropolitan America”, in The New Suburban History Eds KrauseK MSurgueT J (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL) pp 205–219
20.
FurdellKWolmanHHillE W, 2005, “Did central cities come back? Which ones? How far and why?”Journal of Urban Affairs27283–305
21.
GoheenP G, 1973, “Industrialization and the growth of cities in nineteenth-century America”American Studies1445–61
22.
HamnettC, 2003Unequal City: London in the Global Age (Routledge, London)
23.
HanniganJ, 2007, “A new neo-Bohemian rhapsody: Cultural vibrancy and controlled edge as urban development tools in the ‘new creative economy’”, in Urban Communication: Production, Text, Context Eds GibsonT ALowersM (Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham, MD) pp 61–81
24.
HillEWomanH LFordCook CIII, 1995, “Can suburbs survive without central cities? Examining the suburban dependence hypothesis”Urban Affairs Review31147–174
25.
JacksonK, 1972, “Metropolitan government versus suburban autonomy”, in Cities in American History Eds JacksonK TSchultzS K (Knopf, New York) pp 442–462
26.
JacksonK, 1985Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States (Oxford University Press, New York)
27.
JuddD RFainsteinS S (Eds), 1999The Tourist City (Yale University Press, New Haven, CT)
28.
KotkinJ, 1999, “The future of the center: The core city in the new economy”, Policy Study 264, Institute for Public Policy, Pepperdine University, Malibu, CA
29.
LampardE E, 1965, “Historical aspects of urbanization”, in The Study of Urbanization Eds HauserP MSchnoreL F (John Wiley, New York) pp 519–554
30.
LampardE E, 1968, “The evolving system of cities in the United States: Urbanization and economic development”, in Issues in Urban Economics Eds PerloffH SWingoLJr (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD) pp 81–139
31.
LarsenL HCottrellB J, 1982The Gate City: A History of Omaha (Pruett, Boulder, CO)
32.
LloydR, 2006Neo-Bohemia: Art and Commerce in the Postindustrial City (Routledge, New York)
33.
LoganS A, 1979Old Saint Jo: Gateway to the West (John Sublett Logan Foundation, St Joseph, MO)
34.
MacekS, 2006Urban Nightmares: The Media, the Right, and the Moral Panic over the City (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN)
35.
MarcusePvan KempenR (Eds), 2000Globalizing Cities: A New Spatial Order? (Blackwell, Oxford)
36.
MasseyD S, 1995, “The new immigration and ethnicity in the United States”Population and Development Review21631–652
37.
MasseyD SDentonN A, 1993American Apartheid (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA)
38.
MontielLNathanR PWrightD J, 2004, “An update on urban hardship”, Rockefeller Institute of Government, Albany, NY
39.
MullerT, 1976, “Urban growth and decline”Challenge1910–13
40.
MyersD, 1999, “Immigration: Fundamental force in the American city”Housing Facts and Findings14
41.
Office of Policy Development and Research, 1999, “The state of cities: 1999”, US Department of Housing and Urban Development,1 Washington, DC
42.
PallagstK, 2007, “Shrinking cities in the United States of America”, in The Future of Shrinking Cities: Problems, Patterns and Strategies of Urban Transformation in a Global Context Eds PallagstK, Institute of Urban and Regional Development, Center for Global Metropolitan Studies, and the Shrinking Cities International Research Monograph Series, University of California, Berkeley, CA
43.
PumainD, 2006, “Alternative explanations of hierarchical differentiation in urban systems”, in Hierarchy in Natural and Social Sciences Ed. PumainD (Springer, New York) pp 169–222
44.
RuskD, 1993Cities Without Suburbs (Woodrow Wilson Center Press, Washington, DC)
45.
SmithN, 1996The New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revanchist City (Routledge, London)
46.
SojaE W, 2000Postmetropolis: Critical Studies of Cities and Regions (Blackwell, Oxford)
47.
TeafordJ, 1990The Rough Road to Renaissance (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD)
48.
TolnayS E, 2003, “The African-American ‘Great Migration’ and beyond”Annual Review of Sociology29209–232
49.
TurokIMykhnenkoV, 2006. “Resurgent European cities?”, GaWC Research Bulletin 216, http://www.1boro.ac.uk
50.
WeberA F, 1899 [1965] The Growth of Cities in the Nineteenth Century (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY)
51.
WilsonW JTaubR P, 2006There Goes the Neighborhood: Race, Ethnic, and Class Tensions in Four Chicago Neighborhoods and Their Meaning for America (Knopf, New York)
