The common perception of everyday America as a land of small towns and white faces doesn't reflect the current reality. Demographic analysis reveals "normal America" in cities like New Haven and Tampa.
According to analysis conducted by Jed Kolko, the idea many of us hold about "normal America" is outdated by over half a century. By the numbers, the American average is something like a mid-sized city on the East Coast.
On his methods, Kolko writes, "I calculated how demographically similar each U.S. metropolitan area is to the U.S. overall, based on age, educational attainment, and race and ethnicity [...] By this measure, the metropolitan area that looks most like the U.S. is New Haven, Connecticut, followed by Tampa, Florida, and Hartford, Connecticut."
The largest cities, like New York and Los Angeles, are outliers, but so are small towns. "Looking across metros of all sizes, the places that look most like America tend to be larger metros, though not the largest ones. The similarity index is highest, on average, for metros with between 1 million and 2 million people."
Running the numbers for America in the 1950s, the picture changes. "The large metros that today come closest to looking like 1950 America are Lancaster, Pennsylvania; Ogden and Provo, in Utah; and several in the Midwest and South [...] But the places that look today most like 1950 America are not large metros but rather smaller metros and rural areas."
FULL STORY: ‘Normal America’ Is Not A Small Town Of White People
Oregon Passes Exemption to Urban Growth Boundary
Cities have a one-time chance to acquire new land for development in a bid to increase housing supply and affordability.
Where Urban Design Is Headed in 2024
A forecast of likely trends in urban design and architecture.
Savannah: A City of Planning Contrasts
From a human-scales, plaza-anchored grid to suburban sprawl, the oldest planned city in the United States has seen wildly different development patterns.
Orlando Pledges to Improve Walkability
A city report highlights successes and failures in building safer transportation infrastructure and reducing VMT in 2023.
New York Transit Agency Launches Performance Dashboard
The tool increases transparency about the agency’s performance on a variety of metrics.
Washington Tribes Receive Resilience Funding
The 28 grants support projects including relocation efforts as coastal communities face the growing impacts of climate change.
City of Rochester
Boston Harbor Now
City of Bellevue
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
Mpact Transit + Community
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
City of Birmingham, Alabama
City of Laramie, Wyoming
Colorado Department of Local Affairs
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.