Tag Archives: suburbs

Spurning another national trend

New population estimates have revealed a startling trend, as described in this blog post on the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies website: urban cores growing faster than suburban fringes. Nationally, city populations were up 0.91 percent on average in 2010-14, compared to 0.77 for the suburbs.

“This recent trend of city populations growing faster than those of suburbs is a dramatic departure from prior decades, when suburban population growth significantly outpaced that of cities,” writes Rachel Bogardus Drew, a post-doctoral fellow.

Naturally, this set us to wondering about Vermont’s own megalopolis. Not surprisingly, especially in a state that likes to think of itself as idiosyncratic, the trend doesn’t hold here. If anything, it’s operating in reverse: suburbs here are still outgrowing the urban core of Burlington and Winooski.

chittco

Before getting carried away with this, we remind ourselves that the latest estimates are just that, and the Vermont-scale numbers are so small that errors could easily swing some totals the other way.

Still, we can’t help but notice that the populations of Burlington and Winooski are both down, and those of all the other Chittenden County towns, save Westford, are up:

 

       2010 census        2009-13 estimate
Bolton town 1182 1204
Buels gore 30 46
Burlington city 42417 42331
Charlotte town 3754 3776
Colchester town 17067 17167
Essex town 19587 19908
Hinesburg town 4396 4427
Huntington town 1938 1965
Jericho town 5009 5021
Milton town 10352 10429
Richmond town 4081 4086
St. George town 674 728
Shelburne town 7144 7332
South Burlington city 17904 18163
Underhill town 3016 3030
Westford town 2029 1947
Williston town 8698 8820
Winooski city 7267 7257

 

Let’s face it, though, the rises and falls are pretty small, in most cases – further evidence of Vermont’s much-lamented population stagnancy, or graying, as the Millennials flee and the old-timers hang-on. Could it be that some of the Millennials are leaving because they can’t afford to live here?