Metropolitan USA: Evidence from the 2010 Census

I will review the major changes in the distribution of the metropolitan population of the United States (US), as revealed by the 2010 data recently released by the US Census. These data allow us to track recent changes and provide the basis for a discussion of longer-term trends identified in previous studies of US cities (Short 2006, 2007) and the city suburban nexus (Hanlon et al. 2010). In brief summary, the paper will show the continuing metropolitanization and suburbanization of the US population. A more nuanced picture will reveal evidence of stress in suburban areas and population resurgence in selected central city areas. Overall, the story is one of a profound revalorization and a major respatialization of the US metropolis. 1. The Broad Picture The mean center of the US mainland population is plotted for each Census decade since 1790. The point marks the central fulcrum of the national population. In 1790 the mean center was located in Maryland and over the years has steadily moved westward in line with the westward shift of population. Between 1970 and 1980, the mean center crossed the Mississippi River, and by 2000 it was located in Phelps County Missouri. By 2010, it shifted further westwards and southward to Texas County in Missouri. The slow, steady shift of the mean center marks the redistribution of the US population to the expanding metro areas of the South and West. Its slow progress, however, reminds us of the continuing population weight of the Northeast. The mean population center now passes through the interior of the country, the so-called heartland. Yet it is a heart with an anemic demographic beat. The population of six counties in this region—Fayette, Marion, Randolph, and Shelby in Illinois and Montgomery and Dent in Missouri—was 144,880 in 1950, rising to only 145,309 in 2010. In much of the rural interior of the US, the story is one of continuing relative population decline as the people move to the city regions. The county that hosted the mean center of population in 2010—Texas County, Missouri—saw only slight population increase from 18,992 in 1950 to 26,008 in 2010. The percentage of persons in the county living below the poverty rate was 24.4 percent in 2010—almost double the national average—and the median household income was only three-fifths of the national average. The rural heartland is losing population and experiencing economic stress. 2. Continuing Metropolitanization The drift of population to large cities continues. The US census employs the term metropolitan statistical area (MSA) to refer to urban areas