A childless urban renaissance? Age-selective patterns of population change in North American and German Metropolitan areas

Abstract

INTRODUCTION 'Do cities need kids?'-in the February 2015 issue of Governing Magazine, Alan Greenblatt used this provocative title for his article on gentrification in Seattle, Washington. According to him, Seattle is 'not necessarily a place that is welcoming to families' (Greenblatt, 2015, p. 1). The population of downtown Seattle has grown significantly in recent years, and families have indeed taken ABSTRACT Since the 1980s and 1990s, many metropolitan areas in north america and europe have registered population growth within the urban core, driven primarily by younger, better-educated and higher-income people-a phenomenon often referred to as 'urban renaissance' or 're-urbanization'. to date, the research on this topic has primarily focused on the socio-spatial implications, especially with the type and intensity of displacement pressures affecting low-income households. demographic manifestations of this have rarely been explicitly targeted by empirical studies. this paper addresses the change of intra-regional age structures in metro areas that have witnessed a demographic revival of their core areas. it hypothesizes that an increasing segregation by age is a universal pattern of urban demographic change in advanced Western countries. With data for six german and uS metro areas over a period of 20 years (1990-2010), strong evidence for this proposition was found: in all regions, the urban core became 'younger' over time, whereas the ageing of the population was more dynamic in suburban areas. However, the analysis also revealed transatlantic differences: whereas a kind of 'childless' urban renaissance can be posited for the american cities, families in germany were at least partially involved in the process of densification of inner-city areas. the analysis provides evidence for a general trend towards re-urbanization and age segregation in regions of both countries. at the same time, re-urbanization is assessed as a strongly context-dependent development with distinctly varying socio-spatial characteristics.

Reurbanisation: A long‐term process or a short‐term stage?

“…These areas are very likely to be in the focus of current and next year's reurbanisation as they may become attractive for families. This issue is, however, contradictorily discussed in the current reurbanisation debate (Lilius, 2014;Siedentop, Zakrzewski, & Stroms, 2018).…”

What drives urban population growth and shrinkage in postsocialist East Germany?

“…As has been shown above, the demographic change plays a major role in East Germany's shrinking cities and the patterns of population development vary strongly with regard to different demographic groups. In addition, Siedentop, Zakrzewski, and Stroms (2018) have shown that recent tendencies of reurbanization in Germany are largely driven by the inflow of young adults. The factors steering the migration behavior and urban population development may, therefore, strongly vary across different personal lifecycle stages (see e.g., Chen & Rosenthal, 2008;Ferguson et al, 2007;Graves, 1979).…”

Housing today

“…Within these metropolitan areas, housing is being added in the centers through infill and at the suburban fringes. Particularly in the global North, demographic changes have contributed to a growth in smaller households, which has fueled the redevelopment of the urban cores of cities, often in the form of high-rises (Siedentop, Zakrzewski & Stroms, 2018). However, most new housing, whatever form it takes in different contexts, such as single-detached or high-rises, is indeed suburban (Keil, 2017).…”