Population Growth

[RegalTDP]

7 hours ago, MJLO said:

Ironically, if you look at the bottom of the chart in the link it shows the two cities land areas.  Wyoming covers a smidge less area than Kzoo, so while it has land in the panhandle it is statistically more dense than Kzoo.  I suppose that speaks to how dense the older parts of Wyoming  with all of those bungalows squeezed together really are.

Kalamazoo had 85,000 in its peak so it's got at least some room for growing back again.

In other news, I myself hadn't noticed Kentwood passing Battle Creek back in 2016.

[Pattmost20]

17 minutes ago, GRDadof3 said:

Danngggg!! Nice table, did you make that yourself? lol. 

If I'm still alive and kicking, sure! 

Quit hating on the table now, it was made hastily.

[GRDadof3]

1 hour ago, Pattmost20 said:

Quit hating on the table now, it was made hastily.

No I like it I like it!

[Guest]

For some reason I thought our current MSA was 1.3 million?  I know they made some change, did this effect our MSA pop?

[The ATX]

28 minutes ago, Floyd_Z said:

For some reason I thought our current MSA was 1.3 million?  I know they made some change, did this effect our MSA pop?

That's the Metro population.  The CSA is 1.3+ million.  

[GRDadof3]

11 hours ago, Floyd_Z said:

For some reason I thought our current MSA was 1.3 million?  I know they made some change, did this effect our MSA pop?

What ATX said. Our Grand Rapids - Wyoming MSA contains these 4 counties now, based on commuting patterns:

The Grand Rapids - Muskegon - Holland Combined Statistical Area is 1.37 Million. It includes the four counties in the Grand Rapids-Wyoming Metropolitan Statistical Area plus one metropolitan area, adding Muskegon-Norton Shores in Muskegon County, and three micropolitan areas of Holland in Allegan County, Ionia in Ionia County and Big Rapids in Mecosta County for a total of eight counties.  - from Wiki

 

 

[MJLO]

41 minutes ago, GRDadof3 said:

What ATX said. Our Grand Rapids - Wyoming MSA contains these 4 counties now, based on commuting patterns:

The Grand Rapids - Muskegon - Holland Combined Statistical Area is 1.37 Million. It includes the four counties in the Grand Rapids-Wyoming Metropolitan Statistical Area plus one metropolitan area, adding Muskegon-Norton Shores in Muskegon County, and three micropolitan areas of Holland in Allegan County, Ionia in Ionia County and Big Rapids in Mecosta County for a total of eight counties.  - from Wiki

 

 

So apparently the OMB realligns metro areas every 5 years now, the years ending in 3 and 8.   2018 was a realignment year,  they removed Barry County from both the MSA, and the CSA.  They added Ionia County to the MSA.  So the current MSA configuration is Kent, Ottawa, Montcalm and Ionia.   This is all based on commuting patterns monitored through the ACS.  It blows my mind that Barry county has been removed,  especially with all of the development happening along it's border with Kent County.   It's been included in every alignment since at least 1990.   They only count metropolitan, and micropolitan areas in to these measurements.  I assume Barry must have fallen just shy of the commuting threshold for MSA, and since it's not a designated Micropolitan area it did not get added to the CSA.   That will count as a net loss of about 60k people to the over all CSA region, even with Barry County likely meeting the criteria to be added.   End nerd rant.

(Maybe we should take this discussion over to the population thread?   )

[discgrab21]

1 hour ago, MJLO said:

So apparently the OMB realligns metro areas every 5 years now, the years ending in 3 and 8.   2018 was a realignment year,  they removed Barry County from both the MSA, and the CSA.  They added Ionia County to the MSA.  So the current MSA configuration is Kent, Ottawa, Montcalm and Ionia.   This is all based on commuting patterns monitored through the ACS.  It blows my mind that Barry county has been removed,  especially with all of the development happening along it's border with Kent County.   It's been included in every alignment since at least 1990.   They only count metropolitan, and micropolitan areas in to these measurements.  I assume Barry must have fallen just shy of the commuting threshold for MSA, and since it's not a designated Micropolitan area it did not get added to the CSA.   That will count as a net loss of about 60k people to the over all CSA region, even with Barry County likely meeting the criteria to be added.   End nerd rant.

(Maybe we should take this discussion over to the population thread?   )

It does have the impact of increasing the MSA by about 5K though, right?  What is more important for the City's purposes, the MSA or CSA?

[MJLO]

23 minutes ago, discgrab21 said:

It does have the impact of increasing the MSA by about 5K though, right?  What is more important for the City's purposes, the MSA or CSA?

Yeah it increased the MSA population by a few thousand people.  Though it might cause a slight drop in overall growth rates as Ionia County is only estimated to have grown by about 400 people 2010-2017, where Barry has added 1400.   Barry County also has a decent amount of housing construction happening in the townships that border Kent County.  I'm not aware of Ionia county having any housing developments at all.    The northern part of Barry  sits about 10-15 minutes from major job centers in Kent County.  The closest parts of Ionia are very rural, and about  20-25 mins removed.  Maybe someone on here knows if there's any uptick in activity along the Ionia border.  I assume most of the commuters are feeding from the Belding-Saranac/Clarksville areas. 

In terms of what matters more to the city I believe MSA is the most important from a funding stand point.  I'm not sure what the government uses CSA for.   Grand Rapids is unique from a CSA standpoint in that the CSA may be a more accurate representation of the metro area. There are only a handful of other cities where CSA is a better representation.   I'd be curious to know how far Allegan County is from the threshold needed to to be added back into the GR MSA.  I don't know that Muskegon ever will.  Muskegon County's  inclusion in the CSA is due to people from Muskegon County Commuting into Ottawa County.   The fact that Mecosta County is included in the CSA show's how little value CSA as a metric typically adds to understanding the size of a city. 

[GRDadof3]

1 hour ago, MJLO said:

So apparently the OMB realligns metro areas every 5 years now, the years ending in 3 and 8.   2018 was a realignment year,  they removed Barry County from both the MSA, and the CSA.  They added Ionia County to the MSA.  So the current MSA configuration is Kent, Ottawa, Montcalm and Ionia.   This is all based on commuting patterns monitored through the ACS.  It blows my mind that Barry county has been removed,  especially with all of the development happening along it's border with Kent County.   It's been included in every alignment since at least 1990.   They only count metropolitan, and micropolitan areas in to these measurements.  I assume Barry must have fallen just shy of the commuting threshold for MSA, and since it's not a designated Micropolitan area it did not get added to the CSA.   That will count as a net loss of about 60k people to the over all CSA region, even with Barry County likely meeting the criteria to be added.   End nerd rant.

(Maybe we should take this discussion over to the population thread?   )

I hope I did that right. Haven't done it in a while. 

[MJLO]

36 minutes ago, GRDadof3 said:

I hope I did that right. Haven't done it in a while. 

You did   The news of the realignment came out quietly only a few months ago.  It pretty much went unnoticed by  most people with lives who aren't population obsessed nerds. 

Edit:  Doh you were talking about moving the thread lol.  

[GR8scott]

from a regional marketing perspective it seems that Muskegon and Allegan Counties are more West Michigan and Ionia and Montcalm more Mid Michigan 

[Sparty97]

On 1/18/2019 at 2:50 PM, GR8scott said:

from a regional marketing perspective it seems that Muskegon and Allegan Counties are more West Michigan and Ionia and Montcalm more Mid Michigan 

People in Ionia County are both.   I grew up in Portland (Eastern Ionia County) and many families have people working in both Grand Rapids and Lansing.  My dad is a good example.  He worked in Lansing for around 20 years and then spent the next 25+ working in Grand Rapids.  As a kid, we watched WOOD TV8 and got most of our news from there.   

People who grew up in Western Ionia County (Lowell, Saranac, Ionia, Lake Odessa, etc.) all probably consider themselves West Michigan.  They are closer to GR and the shopping/employment options dwarf that of Lansing.  

[Pattmost20]

Grand Rapids surpassed the 200,000 mark in the latest census numbers.  We are currently sitting at 200,217, added 1135 people between July 2017 and July 2018.

[GRDadof3]

54 minutes ago, Pattmost20 said:

Grand Rapids surpassed the 200,000 mark in the latest census numbers.  We are currently sitting at 200,217, added 1135 people between July 2017 and July 2018.

Nice!! 

[GRLaker]

6 hours ago, Pattmost20 said:

Grand Rapids surpassed the 200,000 mark in the latest census numbers.  We are currently sitting at 200,217, added 1135 people between July 2017 and July 2018.

We all knew this day was coming, but it is crazy to see us in the 200,000s for the first time in the city's history. I would imagine that if the current pace is maintained, our 2020 census number would be close to 204,000.

Edited May 23, 2019 by GRLaker

[Pattmost20]

1 minute ago, GRLaker said:

We all knew this day was coming, but it is crazy to see us in the 200,000s for the first time in the city's history. I would imagine that if the current pace is maintained, our 2020 census number would be close to 204,000.

I know, I feel like my whole life I've been saying it is "about 200k" or "just under 200k." It is minor, but I love seeing the 2 as the first number.

[Pattmost20]

We moved from #119 to #115 in population rank. Overtook Montgomery AL, Amarillo TX, Yonkers NY, and Aurora IL. 

 

Also interesting, we started the decade above Salt Lake City, they passed us in 2017, but we may trade spots again after they had a really slow year of growth. They grew 6388 between 2016-2017 and only 21 between 2017-2018.

[RegalTDP]

Kalamazoo (76,545) came back and overtook Wyoming (75,820).  Wyoming had briefly pulled ahead last year.

[walker]

10 hours ago, Pattmost20 said:

We moved from #119 to #115 in population rank. Overtook Montgomery AL, Amarillo TX, Yonkers NY, and Aurora IL. 

 

Also interesting, we started the decade above Salt Lake City, they passed us in 2017, but we may trade spots again after they had a really slow year of growth. They grew 6388 between 2016-2017 and only 21 between 2017-2018.

Grand Rapids was #44 back in 1900 and then again in 1910 but its ranking has been more or less down hill since then.  Of course the ranking is only within the city itself and not the MSA.

Here's the city rankings by census since 1840, choose the year you want to see at the bottom of the link:

City rankings by census year

NOTE: back in 1960 Flint had a larger population than GR.

[MJLO]

5 hours ago, walker said:

Grand Rapids was #44 back in 1900 and then again in 1910 but its ranking has been more or less down hill since then.  Of course the ranking is only within the city itself and not the MSA.

Yeah  pre-1950 core cities were appropriately ranked by city population.  Since the the rise of the super suburb has diluted city population stats, with suburbs in places like Phoenix, Dallas, LA and the Bay Area taking up more than 1/3rd of the top spots.  I'd love to see some of the redundant suburban governments across the country go away in favor a more uniform way of measuring cities and urban areas.  I'm going to try and post some of my population nerd stats tonight as time permits.

[GRLaker]

9 hours ago, walker said:

Grand Rapids was #44 back in 1900 and then again in 1910 but its ranking has been more or less down hill since then.  Of course the ranking is only within the city itself and not the MSA.

Here's the city rankings by census since 1840, choose the year you want to see at the bottom of the link:

City rankings by census year

NOTE: back in 1960 Flint had a larger population than GR.

It is truly crazy to see just how large Flint and Detroit had gotten at the height of the auto industry in this country. Since 1960, Flint has lost 100,000 and Detroit has lost 1 million.

[walker]

It would be interesting to see similar over time rankings based on current MSA boundaries or some reasonable proxies (like for Grand Rapids maybe the combined populations of Kent and Ottawa counties.)  I suggest using proxies because it would be extremely difficult to calculate the population of a current MSA back to 1840.   Even using likely county populations as proxies would be a lot of work.  I’m old and don’t work that hard anymore at anything and besides I don’t care that much so I’m not going to do it.  But just an idea for someone looking for something to do as a PhD thesis in demographics or maybe something for a population nerd to do.   

Edited May 24, 2019 by walker
fix typo

[GRDadof3]

10 minutes ago, walker said:

It would be interesting to see similar over time rankings based on current MSA boundaries or some reasonable proxies (like for Grand Rapids maybe the combined populations of Kent and Ottawa counties.)  I suggest using proxies because it would likely be extremely difficult to calculate the population of a current MSA back to 1840.   Even using likely county populations as proxies would be a lot of work.  I’m old and don’t work that hard anymore at anything and besides I don’t care that much so I’m not going to do it.  But just an idea for someone looking for something to do as a PhD thesis in demographics or maybe something for a population nerd to do.   

I believe even census tracts (invented in 1910) change over time, so it would be pretty difficult to do if you wanted to go back that far.  Counties are probably the only thing that has stayed constant for more than a century in Michigan. 

[MJLO]

Sorry it took me so long to get through these numbers.  I get so lost in the weeds and details when I start analyzing this stuff I become my own worst enemy.  Only going to focus on growth since the census.  Focusing on year over year trends for estimates is meaningless since they are going several years back and making adjustments anyway.  Whatever we analyze between 2017-2018 is going to change by the next release.  I think this years are a correction and not a reflection of actual trends, numbers are different pretty much across the board everywhere.   Coming into 2010 the estimates at the city/township level were wildly inaccurate from the 2010 census.  It appears in order to curb this they are becoming conservative.  My concern is that the economic conditions going into 2020 are completely opposite of what they were going into 2010.  2010 trends changed far more rapidly than their formulas could account for.  Without factoring that in they could do the same, but in reverse.  I will be interesting to see.

Ok here we go. Starting with Grand Rapids inner ring based on the highlighted portions of this map.  I always like to look at the inner ring, because when added up, that square of combined areas becomes a city of almost 400k and represents GR's true core(Next time anyone tries to tell you that Fort Wayne has more people than GR)I added Plainfield township to this as well.  A good chunk of Plainfield is part of the "Rockford region", but the bulk of its development is heaviest where it borders GR. 

Grand Rapids Township, East Grand Rapids, and Plainfield are posting the largest growth rates.  Year over year trends are showing slowing in Kentwood, Wyoming, and Grandville.  They actually show a decline in Wyoming which has never happened.  It's possible, but again it's hard to tell how much of this is the CB being conservative.  It's also possible current political conditions could be affecting these trends. Kentwood and Wyoming(especially Wyoming) are home to large latino immigrant populations.  If those of Latino ancestry are taking a lower profile, or leaving it should reflect in these trends. They have been the strongest growing population segment for these two cities.  Grand Rapids is also home to the largest Latino immigrant population but it has been steadily shifting to WYO/KTD.  When you drive deeper into GR's growth, the bulk is coming from educated white/Asian millenials and Gen Xers.  Grandville has always yo-yo'd around that 16,000 mark so it's really not surprising.  I do expect to see that number surge a bit as the castle starts to fill.  500 units opening in a city that size will have a noticeable impact on pop. trends.  As of these numbers to castle was not open to residents.  

Next I am adding the outer ring and  "Rockford area" into the data .  The three townships around Rockford(Plainfield would be the 4th) are growing at a rate more than double the area as a whole.   Byron TWP, and Algoma TWP are growing the fastest in the metro area.  All of these municipalities are out performing the inner ring.  This makes sense since they have the most room to grow. 

 

The townships in Ottawa County bordering Kent should be included in the outer ring.  Georgetown Twp(Jenison) is the 3rd largest municipality in the area after Grand Rapids, and Wyoming.  It is also still growing impressively .  Allendale is the fastest growing municipality in Michigan up some 28% in last the 8 years.  Since Allendale is more connected to Grand Rapids than the rest of Ottawa county I have included the second layer of eastern Ottawa townships here. 

I chose these area's because they represent the most developed portions of the GR Metro and include more than 70% of the MSA's  population.  This area (roughly 20 mile radius from downtown GR) has gained an estimated 62,700 residents in 8 years, or about 60% of the states total population gain.  I debated on included Jamestown and Blendon TWP's but their growth rates are clearly being directly influenced by what is happening in the GR urban area, so it made sense to include them. I have stats that go out county wide and for townships bordering Kent County, but will have to get into that later since I'm out of time.   Below is the data for the Holland and Grand Haven areas if you're curious how they stack up.  

Have a great weekend!