Depressed Cities that might be "Turning Around" & "Hot" Cities that might be Peaking

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by JManc

This all occurred (and still is) in the least effected parts of New Orleans and by far the most visible and prosperous; downtown, the Quarter, Garden District, etc. The hardest hit areas like the Lower 9th, Algiers and St Bernard Parish are still bombed out.

Yes . . . and like the "hardest hit" parts of Houston should probably stay "bombed out" until converted to a park. They are "hardest hit" for a reason and their present condition is an opportunity to prevent the same sort of disaster from happening again.

But it doesn't change the fact New Orleans as a city boomed after Katrina nor is it true that the CBD and other areas had no damage. I was there 6 months after the storm and saw the blown-out windows. And I've been there just about every year since and seen the boom.

[dubu]

Originally Posted by Black Box

How far from Hanford would that have to be? Oregon, east of the Cascades would be safer.

There's more sun east of the cascades so you could have solar panels and there's windmills in eastern Oregon next to the Columbia River Gorge.

You mean Oregon would be safer then Washington? The fault line is further east the more north you go I think.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

Yes . . . and like the "hardest hit" parts of Houston should probably stay "bombed out" until converted to a park. They are "hardest hit" for a reason and their present condition is an opportunity to prevent the same sort of disaster from happening again.

But it doesn't change the fact New Orleans as a city boomed after Katrina nor is it true that the CBD and other areas had no damage. I was there 6 months after the storm and saw the blown-out windows. And I've been there just about every year since and seen the boom.

Downtown, the French Quarter, the Garden District, Metairie were always doing pretty well so it's no surprised they rebuilt quickly and continue to have growth...you should see the massive houses being built in the Garden District. But their poor areas are downright 3rd world and look pretty much as they did in 2005 with the 'X's" spray painted on the houses. This phenomenon (our version of the Lower 9th or Algiers) just does not exist here even though there are some really impoverished areas on the east side of town.

[Pedestrian]

Cities that probably are NOT "peaking":


https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-ama...zon-1505922101

[ThePhun1]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

Yes . . . and like the "hardest hit" parts of Houston should probably stay "bombed out" until converted to a park. They are "hardest hit" for a reason and their present condition is an opportunity to prevent the same sort of disaster from happening again.

But it doesn't change the fact New Orleans as a city boomed after Katrina nor is it true that the CBD and other areas had no damage. I was there 6 months after the storm and saw the blown-out windows. And I've been there just about every year since and seen the boom.

New Orleans was bombed out long before Katrina. Katrina just enhanced it and brought more attention to the fact that the less glamorous side of the city was highly impoverished.

New Orleans has long been the Rust Belt city of the Sun Belt along with Birmingham.

[LouisVanDerWright]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

Even smaller cities see this effect:


https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-a-m...vey-1505736000

I was just in Cedar Rapids and this is so true. It's actually amazing for a city of what? 100,000 residents? Then again it's amazing what a Renaissance is happening in all smaller Midwestern cities. No one here wants to recognize it, but cities of all sizes in the Midwest are booming right now. Cedar Rapids, Madison, Des Moines, Milwaukee, all the way up to Chicago. These cities have all built entire downtown districts from scratch in the last 10 years. The East side of Des Moines, literally all of Madison is now high-rises, the Park East and Third Ward in Milwaukee. Anyone who doesn't view these cities as "hot" simply doesn't know what is going on.

This effect will only intensify as people get squeezed out of coastal cities by extreme price increases. Midwest cities aren't cheap because they are undesirable, they are cheap because there is room to build. Madison is probably the most expensive city I just listed despite being the second smallest. Why is that? Because you have the state capital and University of Wisconsin crammed onto a tiny isthmus with all the other necessary functions of a small city. Geographic restrictions result in high prices. Des Moines is the fastest growing city in the Midwest since 2000. It's putting up eye popping numbers. The metro area has gone from 480k residents in 2000 to around 700k today. In another 15 year will it be over 1 million? Yet the prices in Des Moines don't rise. Why? Because there is unlimited space to grow.

[mhays]

I think we all know that Midwest downtowns have been adding a lot of residents across the board, and are generally on upswings including other uses such as hotels. And we're aware that nearly all metros have been growing.

[Eightball]

Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright

I was just in Cedar Rapids and this is so true. It's actually amazing for a city of what? 100,000 residents? Then again it's amazing what a Renaissance is happening in all smaller Midwestern cities. No one here wants to recognize it, but cities of all sizes in the Midwest are booming right now. Cedar Rapids, Madison, Des Moines, Milwaukee, all the way up to Chicago. These cities have all built entire downtown districts from scratch in the last 10 years. The East side of Des Moines, literally all of Madison is now high-rises, the Park East and Third Ward in Milwaukee. Anyone who doesn't view these cities as "hot" simply doesn't know what is going on.

This effect will only intensify as people get squeezed out of coastal cities by extreme price increases. Midwest cities aren't cheap because they are undesirable, they are cheap because there is room to build. Madison is probably the most expensive city I just listed despite being the second smallest. Why is that? Because you have the state capital and University of Wisconsin crammed onto a tiny isthmus with all the other necessary functions of a small city. Geographic restrictions result in high prices. Des Moines is the fastest growing city in the Midwest since 2000. It's putting up eye popping numbers. The metro area has gone from 480k residents in 2000 to around 700k today. In another 15 year will it be over 1 million? Yet the prices in Des Moines don't rise. Why? Because there is unlimited space to grow.

That's cool and all, but for example the population #s in your Des Moines are so small as to be negligible. And Chicago, while booming in the wealthy areas, is losing population overall. Which is fine. Point being, some people with options will choose the MidWest, sure, but they won't be overtaking the Coasts (or the South) anytime soon

[Spocket]

Winnipeg was in an economic slump for decades that bottomed out in the '90s. Since then it's turned around completely and now the province leads in population growth (percentage wise) but in total numbers is far behind provinces such as Alberta. In any case, there's definitely healthy growth at around 10,000 a year in Winnipeg and surrounding areas. Not a boom but considering the city actually shrunk slightly in the mid '90s, it's big difference.

I can't think of any Canadian city that has seen its fortunes change for the better so dramatically and so quickly although none of it is necessarily going to continue indefinitely.

As for cities at their peak, in Canada, Calgary's long term future is debatable. It's a city that very much relies on oil (although, naturally, people in Calgary will argue to the death that it's not really an oil town anymore, which is true to some extent) and really only exists today as it does because of oil. Now that oil is at such a low point in cost and also being slowly phased out of the global transportation economy, it's difficult to say what kind of effect this will have on Calgary. The city won't disappear or anything, obviously, but the boom days may well be over and it's tough to say what could bring them back. Edmonton has some insulation because it's also the seat of government and has traditionally been far more of a blue collar place.

[mhays]

People constantly misunderstand the impact of a city's primary industries. Most jobs are about shuffling money that's already in the local pot. That matters, but what matters more is the money being added to the local pot. Oil money, software money, military money, whatever.

When you lose a retail job, no matter, another will take its place. But when you lose an oil job (or a lease, whatever), that's money no longer coming in. It has a multiplier that ripples through the economy, probably as a net reduction to the local economy. Maybe losing one job means losing three total. Then there's the family multiplier...maybe it's actually six people no longer supported by that single job.