If you look at data, not hyped-up press releases, a more nuanced picture about the nation's high-tech economic emerges - much of the fastest growth—including in tech—is shifting dramatically not to dense urban centers but to more sprawling regions and the suburban periphery.
That is definitely the case here is distressed Downtown Mesa [nothing nuanced] affectionately named "The Old Donut-Hole by your MesaZona blogger at the same time certain other influencers would have you believe it's vibrant and exciting.
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Please Note: The views and opinions and some insights expressed on this blog definitely reflect the fact that your MesaZona blogger enjoyed living and working in New York City for more than 22 years - there's no other place like it for sure!
Nonetheless and moreover, yours truly lives here now, more outspoken than ever before.
This statement might help to explain to readers my orientation and different perspectives:
The author of one report cited here clearly states that "The uniqueness of New York’s urban core has never been replicated in any of the other major metropolitan areas, despite frequent envious proposals on the part of many officials and others."
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Centrifugal Sprawl - fleeing away from central urban cores -
is a Money-Maker.
Since 1900 here in The Valley of The Sun that explosive growth has been documented using data to produce an easily understood stunning visual that shows the earth-changing shifts in population - the largest Suburban Sprawl in the entire United States. Was Downtown Mesa ever urban?
Before and after World War II, Main Street morphed into a supply center for federal projects, as well as a 1950's-style "boom-town" for about 20 years that expanded well beyond outside the fringes of the original One-Square Mile. Then the recurring cycles of Booms-and-Busts took over
The ACS data indicates that 89.8% of major metropolitan growth since the 2010 Census has occurred in the suburbs and exurbs that include metrics for City Sector Model categories - and the Earlier Suburbs and Later Suburbs and Exurbs.
[Here in Mesa, the usual reference is to "The Outer Loops" and "The Inner Loops" and west-east "Tech Corridors"]
Suburban and Exurban expansion essentially follows the earlier car-driven commuter-culture and pre-existing patterns, which was were detailed in the four previous annual analyses.
The study provides a mid-decade snapshot (2015) of US demography.
Link: SuburbanAlliance.com 17 Dec 2018
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Generally, urban core growth was the exception, as only 16 of the 53 major metropolitan areas had population gains in their urban cores.
The predominant trend continues. At least since World War II, most population growth has been concentrated in the suburbs and exurbs.
Despite all the blather and pronouncement about a “back to the city” wave, things have not changed very much overall several decades.Only 10.2 percent of the major metropolitan growth throughout the United States was in the urban core, which includes the City Sector Model CBD (central business district) and its adjacent Inner Ring.
SEE THIS NOTE AND NOTE 2 BELOW*:
Patterns of residential and commercial development, as well as areas for job creation according to the Master Plan developed by the City Mesa.
You can see where this going . . .
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The only sector to gain in its share of the population was the Later Suburbs (Figure 2), which with 46 percent of the metropolitan area growth was well ahead of its 28 percent share in the 2010 census.
The Exurbs had 16 percent of the growth from 2010 to 2013/2017, equaling their 2010 population share.
The Earlier Suburbs, however fell far short of their population share, adding 27 percent of the new residents, compared to their 2010 share of 41 percent (Figure 6).
If you want to see more of an analysis, go here >
Suburbs & Exurbs Continue to Dominate Metropolitan Growth at Mid-Decade
by Wendell Cox
http://www.newgeography.com/content
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* Note 2: The City Sector Model classifies small areas (ZIP codes, more formally, ZIP Code Tabulation Areas, or ZCTAs) in metropolitan areas in the nation based upon their function as urban cores, suburbs, or exurbs.
The criteria used are generally employment and population densities and the extent of transit use versus car use (Figure 9).
The purpose of the urban core sectors is to replicate, to the best extent possible, the urban form as it existed before World War II, when urban densities were much higher and a far larger percentage of urban travel was on mass transit.
The suburban sectors replicate the automobile-oriented suburbanization that began in the 1920s and escalated strongly following World War II. The suburban areas are largely within the continuous built-up urban areas, while the exurban areas are generally in the metropolitan areas, but outside the built-up urban areas.
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ARE YOU READY TO TACKLE TECH?
Eye on the news from City Journal
The Tech Economy’s Untold Story
Job growth is shifting from media-favored “superstar” cities to more sprawling metro regions and the suburban periphery.
The decisions by Amazon and Google to expand into the New York area have led some pundits to claim that the nation’s high-tech economic future will be shaped in dense urban areas.“Big cities won Amazon and everything else,” proclaimed Neil Irwin of the New York Times. “We’re living in a world where a small number of superstar companies choose to locate in a handful of superstar cities where they have the best chance of recruiting superstar employees.”
Yet the trends in job creation, particularly in technology, are not nearly as favorable to the “superstars” as some urbanists imagine.
If one looks at data, not press releases, a more nuanced picture emerges, with much of the fastest growth—including in tech—shifting dramatically not to the
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That comes with some cautious take-aways however:
SUMMARY:
Increasingly, then, the job market embodies two basic models:
one based on middle-class, middle-income jobs, and another that lives off youthful energy and produces both high-end and lower-end employment.
The media celebrate superstar-city economies but ignore how the vast majority of new employment occurs in lower-cost cities and suburbs, which now generate roughly 80 percent all jobs and most population growth. Suburbs also are seeing a strong influx of the educated, those earning over $75,000, and those between the ages of 30 and 44
About the "Innovation Economy""
Cities may not want to assume the super-high prices, congestion, “woke” politics, and massive inequality that attend the arrival of thousands of temporary, temperamental, young creative types working on the more glamourous—but also more fleeting—side of the innovation economy..
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1 Not all tech jobs are created equal.
"Second wave” tech firms like Amazon tend to be short-term employers, where young workers earn their spurs before heading elsewhere. . . Such practices contrast with those of more traditional tech firms—those involved with semiconductors, computers, network equipment, and aerospace—which rely on long-term employees.
These firms, Modarres suggests, thus have different priorities when it comes to siting and corporate planning.
2 Second-wave workers, particularly coders and those involved in media-centric work, for example at Google, may prefer an urban location. “The new economy, epitomized by Amazon, neither requires nor offers loyalty to its employees,” Modarres notes.
“They need the largely youthful ‘creative class’ to give a few stressful years of their lives to innovate, pad their CVs and leave for the next job, hopefully in less expensive places.
They work hard, live fast, and burn out in a few years, ending up often in more suburban and other less-costly areas.” These urban habitués are usually short-timers. . . The second-wave model is ideal for the young and restless but not for those entering middle age.
3 Different imperatives are at work if you’re looking for engineers as opposed to coders. Engineers tend to be long-term employees who seek to buy houses and raise families; they want to move to affordable locales.
According to data from the EMSI consultancy, this movement away from superstar cities toward more affordable locales like Houston, Dallas, Jacksonville, Orlando, and Nashville is happening in other industries, too, such as finance and business services.
Cost of living is a huge factor.
Simply put, the geography of jobs, even high-paying ones, may be shifting, but not entirely in the ways that the mainstream narrative suggests.
4 “The new information peddling economy,” notes Modarres, “creates nomadic labor pools, who have to embrace placeless-ness to survive. They move where their skills take them.”
