Central cities and housing supply: Growth and decline in US cities

Many older American cities lost population during the last three decades of the twentieth century, but while cities such as Boston or New York saw numbers of dwelling units remain stable or even increase, others such as Buffalo, St. Louis, Cleveland, Detroit, and Pittsburgh lost large fractions of their dwelling units. This study decomposes decadal population changes from 1970 through 2000 for 351 US cities into household size, housing unit, and occupancy rate effects and finds substantial stock declines (as high as 50%) in many cities. It then develops a supply and demand model to model central city housing unit supply elasticities, with special emphasis on ‘‘kinked supply’’—inelastic in the negative direction and elastic in the positive directions. Supply elasticities for housing unit decreases were between +0.03 and +0.13. For housing unit increases the elasticities were between +1.05 and +1.08. 2005 Published by Elsevier Inc. R C O R In this first decade of the 21st century residents of American cities may drive past blocks, if not miles, of empty lots or demolished dwellings that once contributed to high densities. Cities such as Buffalo, St. Louis, Cleveland, Detroit, and Pittsburgh lost at least half of their populations between 1950 and 2000. Urban analysts have concentrated on demand factors to explain decentralization, but housing supply has had a major impact on this depopulation. This article begins by separating decadal changes in central city population into household size, housing unit, and occupancy rate effects. It shows how population size