KCRag Forum

The Midwest Is Booming—Just Not Where You Think

Do the math: The average millennial needs 28 years for a San Francisco down payment, compared to nine years in Minneapolis and less than three in Kansas City.

The Midwest is booming, but not where you might think. Kansas City, Minneapolis, Indianapolis, Columbus, Grand Rapids, and Des Moines are the fastest-growing cities in the Midwest—lapping bigger hubs like Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and even Chicago that are still suffering from stagnant economies and slow or even negative population growth.

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https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-midwe ... k?ref=home

Not so good for urbanism, the article says that affordable single family housing is the key factor.

Son lives in the Des Moines area. The downtown area seems to be doing OK but the suburbs on the west side of that metro are booming.

moderne wrote:Not so good for urbanism, the article says that affordable single family housing is the key factor.

The author suggests that is the factor, but is there any real evidence for that? If housing affordability is the only reason, then why aren't other cities in the Midwest such as Detroit and St Louis, which have just as cheap (if not cheaper) housing, "booming" as well?

Personally, affordability and the desire to own a property were huge factors in why I moved back to KC from Brooklyn. I ended up buying in Hyde Park. Not exactly a Downtown high rise, but still definitely urban. I would think that transplants from larger, more expensive cities might similarly be attracted to urban neighborhoods.

Can see growth and migration stats here, with annual trend for every metro...

KC had 22K growth in 2017 with over 12K net inmigration...
https://www.recenter.tamu.edu/data/popu ... y%2C_MO-KS

Can select other metros to the right of graph.

Really wish there was a way to check the migration data by individual zip codes.

moderne wrote:Not so good for urbanism, the article says that affordable single family housing is the key factor.

The biggest problem with urban housing is that it's expensive. Sometimes ridiculously so compared to what is offered in the burbs. While that's the case in most cities in the US, I am surprised it is the case in KC. I think KC's urban housing expense (and I'm not talking about apartments) stems from the apparent lack of urgency about creating supply so the demand, relatively meager as it is, is always greater than the supply. In cities like Houston where commuting can become untenable after a while to many people, the desire to live closer to work drives demand. I can understand why homes costs so much there. There is no demand driver like that in KC and while there is some demand, any incremental additions to the urban single family/condo stock comes at a very slow pace and no surplus ever develops. There's essentially no new condo's coming onto the market in urban KC and a few SF dwellings get added per year in either the West Side or Beacon Hill. I think the high price differential with the burbs (along with lack of selection) drives a lot would be urbanites that want to own rather than rent back to the burbs.

KCtoBrooklyn wrote:

moderne wrote:Not so good for urbanism, the article says that affordable single family housing is the key factor.

The author suggests that is the factor, but is there any real evidence for that? If housing affordability is the only reason, then why aren't other cities in the Midwest such as Detroit and St Louis, which have just as cheap (if not cheaper) housing, "booming" as well?

Personally, affordability and the desire to own a property were huge factors in why I moved back to KC from Brooklyn. I ended up buying in Hyde Park. Not exactly a Downtown high rise, but still definitely urban. I would think that transplants from larger, more expensive cities might similarly be attracted to urban neighborhoods.

Yeah, cost of living in STL metro is actually a bit cheaper than KC recently. So that doesn't appear to be a factor.

This article legitimately quotes Wendell Cox.

silly. you can't legitimately stand in downtown chicago and think....wow i wish it were booming like des moines. same with the central west end or clayton in st louis...theres cranes and spanking new projects opening everywhere. there's a fucking studio gang skyscraper going up on forest park.

"Washington University’s sprawling medical center in St. Louis could provide linchpins for future growth."

? there's construction all over the place there. i can't even keep track of the new construction! there's a new building breaking ground associated with WU or CORTEX every time i go through there. the article acts like theres NOTHING going on in some places.

warwickland wrote:"Washington University’s sprawling medical center in St. Louis could provide linchpins for future growth."

? there's construction all over the place there. i can't even keep track of the new construction! there's a new building breaking ground associated with WU or CORTEX every time i go through there. the article acts like theres NOTHING going on in some places.

And yet the point of the article is that population growth, and growth of tech, service and other sectors is higher (perhaps unexpectedly so) in some midwestern cities than other 'prestige' cities. The article isn't meant to convey the slow population growth of St Louis or development in some areas of that city.

i uh, now realize why the article annoyed me: joel "houston style growth is the only possible future of america" kotkin. piss on that guy.