Muskegon Sun

The Mackinac Center for Public Policy reported that cities and suburban areas are both attractive for differing reasons, making both desirable. 

“All told, neither cities nor suburbs came out ahead. Instead, they both grow together,” James Hohman, director of fiscal policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, said in his blog.

The average metropolitan area’s city center has maintained roughly 25% of the population over the last 10 years. 

Austin, Texas, on one extreme, experienced an explosive population growth from 2000 to 2019 with a 76.1% increase. The city’s population increased by 44%, and the suburban population more than doubled. 

On the other hand, the metro areas of Cleveland experienced a 19.9% decline in their city population, and their suburban areas decreased by 0.3%. 

Within Michigan, Detroit has experienced both a loss in the city and a growth in the suburbs, with a 29.2% decrease in the city population from 2000 to 2019 and a 4% increase in the suburbs over the same period of time. 

“Even though one grew and the other did not, both lagged the average growth for cities and suburbs. Its city growth was the worst among the central cities of the largest metropolitan areas, and its suburban growth was 6th worst,” Hohman said in his blog. “So it still fits the trend: The places that do well have both growing cities and growing suburbs.”

Hohman theorized that perhaps the reason behind these trends is that both suburbs and cities offer the things that people want to move to those areas for. Rather than the cities growing and suburbs decreasing in population as a sign of health, it seems safe to say that the areas that are doing well will experience growth across cities and suburbs alike. 

“The bigger question for policymakers is about how to best grow the economy for both, rather than whether central cities or suburbs will grow more than the other,” Hohman said in his blog on the Mackinac Center's website.