Depopulation Projected in Thousands of US Cities

An analysis of population trends in U.S. cities claims that as many as 15,000 urban centers could see dramatic population declines by the end of the century. Rachel Nuwer outlines the study in Scientific American.

The researchers began with a project for the Illinois Department of Transportation to assess “how Illinois’s cities are projected to change over time and what the transportation challenges will be for places that are depopulating,” later realizing that the same type of analysis could be expanded to other cities.

“The authors’ resulting projections indicated that around half of cities in the U.S., including Cleveland, Ohio, Buffalo, N.Y., and Pittsburgh, Pa., are likely to experience depopulation of 12 to 23 percent by 2100. Some of those cities, including Louisville, Ky., New Haven, Conn., and Syracuse, N.Y., are not currently showing declines but are likely to in the future, according to the findings.”

The study can’t account for potential changes in the far future, but depopulation can impact how cities and regions plan and redesign public infrastructure to serve remaining residents. “The authors hope that their paper serves as a wake-up call to policy makers to begin moving away from growth-based planning and to start finding place-specific solutions for cities that are likely to depopulate in the years ahead.”