Tag: demographics

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Business Development News

Cincinnati Posts Population Gain for Second Consecutive Year

Cincinnati has added about 1,000 new people since the decennial census in 2010, according to new estimates released by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The modest increase comes from two consecutive years of population gains that followed an immediate downward revision after the 2010 Census. The increase also means that just Cincinnati, Columbus and Dayton were the only big cities (more than 50,000 people) in Ohio to post gains.

Columbus and Cincinnati, meanwhile, were the only big cities to post population gains for the past two years.

The population estimates are derived using the 2010 Census as a baseline and then factoring in new permitted residential construction and mobile homes, and subtracting out the estimated number of homes lost each year. As a result, all of the annual estimates should come with a grain of salt.

Ohio Cities Comparison

With that said, Dayton’s population gains appear to be an anomaly, while the increases in Columbus and Cincinnati appear to be more rooted. In any case, the news for Ohio’s big cities is not good as the rest all lost population, especially those in the northeastern part of the state.

Columbus continues to stand out from the rest of Ohio’s big cities in terms of its population trends. In this latest estimate release, Columbus posted the fifteenth largest numeric population gain of any municipality in America; and it comes on the heels of equally impressive gains in prior years.

Some observers, however, would attribute some of the gains in Columbus to its unusually large municipal boundaries that include what would be far suburbs in other Ohio regions.

While Columbus has been growing by about 1.5% annually over the past several years, Cincinnati has been growing annually by about 0.25%.

When compared with other peer cities, Cincinnati’s gains look even more tepid.

Peer Cities Comparison

Of fifteen other cities competitive with Cincinnati, the city bested only five of them in terms of population growth, while being significantly outperformed by most all others. In this comparison, even Ohio’s best performer – Columbus –fares only reasonably well against the field.

For Cincinnati’s peer cities, national trends appear to hold true. Southern cities continue to grow at the fastest clip, but their growth rates are leveling off. In our comparison, Austin, Atlanta and Tampa have all experienced significant declines in annual population growth since the 2010 Census. Charlotte has also experienced a similar trend, but appears to be holding steady more so than its Sun Belt peers.

Meanwhile, while many Midwestern cities continue to lose population, they are doing so at a slower rate or have stopped the losses entirely.

As we previously examined on UrbanCincy, the Cincinnati region continues to grow by about 0.4% annually. The City of Cincinnati’s 2013 gain represents approximately 12.5% of the total regional population growth, and half of Hamilton County’s increase last year.

In a nutshell, Cincinnati is over performing regionally, but under performing amongst its peers. If Cincinnati were growing as fast as Charlotte or Austin, the city would be adding around 9,000 new people every year.

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Business News

Spanish-Language Workshop Hopes to Foster Immigrant Entrepreneurship in Cincinnati

Hispanic LaunchCincy Event [Provided]

The Cincinnati region struggles with attracting immigrants, even when compared with other nearby metros like Cleveland, Indianapolis or Louisville. X-LINK, an initiative from the Williams College of Business at Xavier University, has launched a program that its organizers hope will be a small step toward fixing that problem.

In partnership with the Cincinnati Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and the Greater Cincinnati Independent Business Alliance, Xavier University is starting LaunchCincy Juntos, a series of entrepreneurship workshops in Spanish (“Juntos” is the Spanish word for “together” or “united”) aimed at helping immigrants foster their ideas for starting a new business.

The group has organized four workshops to-date, with three having already taken place. Two were held in Price Hill and the third was held in Madisonville. The fourth planned workshop will take place in Norwood on June 14, and organizers say that more will follow suit.

Translated from English to Spanish by three undergraduates at Xavier University – Gali Zummar, Ronal Vieira, and Laura Forero – the first of these four workshops lit the flame for certain business ideas, and attendees were given specific assignments to develop their ideas further before their next class.

Noting that immigrants are more than twice as likely to start a business as native-born Americans, and currently lead the nation in terms of business creation, Xavier University and its partners say they want to reach out to the Latino community in Cincinnati to help create a better environment for Spanish-speakers to get their ideas onto paper and, hopefully, into business.

With immigration from Spanish-speaking nations maintaining its steady flow into the United States, Spanish is increasingly important for every aspect of American society, including business.

One example where Cincinnati’s struggles became quite clear was the relocation of Chiquita’s headquarters in November 2011. In addition to poor air service, Chiquita management cited the lack of Spanish-speaking professionals in the region as compared to Charlotte.

“Only 5% of the population speaks another language, which is very low, however 5% of two million is 100,000 people,” Alfonso Cornejo, President of the Cincinnati Hispanic Chamber, exclaimed during Episode 18 of The UrbanCincy Podcast when describing a new initiative focused on addressing this issue called Cincy Bilingual Talent. “If you can capture 3% of those 5% of them, then we’ll have thousands of people in the system who speak a lot of languages.”

X-Link plans to expand their Spanish-speaking program into Carthage this fall, in partnership with the Catholic Charities of Southwest Ohio and Su Casa Hispanic Ministries.

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Business News Politics

What Does Cincinnati’s Nativity Rating Mean for Its Long-Term Migration Prospects?

Cincinnati has a migration problem that is two-fold. First, it lags behind most major metropolitan regions in North America when it comes to attracting international migrants. Second, and perhaps more significantly, is that the region has a stagnant domestic population.

This is not because domestic migrants are any more or less important than international migrants. But rather, it is because stagnancy is a major problem for cities.

As many demographers and social scientists have pointed out, focusing public policy on retaining existing talent is a bad approach. In fact, large movements of people out of one region can be a very positive thing. That is, of course, if it is balanced out by a large influx of people into that same region. This is the case for North America’s largest cities, and is also evidenced at a larger scale in California.

But beyond that, older Midwestern cities with a large cluster of high-quality universities also seem to export more people than they import. That, in and of itself, is not the problem.

“This notion of the university as a “factory” gets very close to the truth,” Aaron Renn, owner of The Urbanophile, wrote in 2010. “A friend of mine noted that if we treated steel mills like universities, Indiana would be obsessing over “steel drain” and spending hundreds of millions of dollars on programs to try to keep steel from leaving the state.”

Renn went on to say that the notion of doing such a thing would be ludicrous, and that it is important to understand the details of what is really going on when it comes to a region’s migration patterns.

“Migration does matter. Any city that thinks it can be blasé about this is fooling themselves,” wrote Renn in a separate piece. “On the other hand, surface numbers only tell us so much. We need to understand the dynamics going on underneath the hood.”

By most comparative measure, Cincinnati actually does very well compared to many places at retaining its population. The problem is that it does very poorly at bringing in new people from outside the region.

Based on five-year estimates from the American Community Survey, this stagnation can be clearly seen.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the areas of the Cincinnati Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) which have the highest percentage of people living there that were born in another state are near state borders. Since the Cincinnati MSA stretches across three states, you can see that movement of Ohio residents to southeastern Indiana and northern Kentucky has boosted numbers in those locales.

On average, approximately 68% of the 2.2 million person Cincinnati region was born in the state where they currently reside. Meanwhile, Uptown and Cincinnati’s northeast suburbs appear to be the only parts of the region that are actually attracting newcomers to the region.

Another key finding here is the utter lack of movement of people into or out of Cincinnati’s western suburbs, which have a native born population between 80-100%. This number is roughly comparable to most rural areas in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana.

The Cincinnati region, however, is not alone when it comes to a stagnant population.

While Columbus was seen as a leader amongst big cities in terms of its domestic migration rate, it appears that Columbus is merely attracting new residents to its region from elsewhere in Ohio. Almost the entire Columbus MSA has a native born population between 60-80%.

The numbers are even worse for the Cleveland MSA, which, on average, has a percentage of native born population higher than the average for Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana. This is in spite of the Cleveland MSA attracting more international migrants than any other in the three-state region.

Even though Cincinnati continues to post modest annual population growth, it continues to be on the outside looking in when it comes to North America’s most economically successful cities. If Cincinnati wants to just focus on attracting existing Americans to the region, then it should look to Houston, Dallas or Atlanta, which are all hubs for domestic migration.

This scenario, however, seems unlikely since each of those regions is positioned uniquely in terms of their economy or their geographic location. So, if Cincinnati is to really ramp up its population growth, it better look at what other metropolitan regions are doing to make themselves more attractive to international migrants.

Perhaps Mayor John Cranley’s new, yet-to-be-unveiled initiative can help with this. But does he or his administration actually know what is going on underneath the hood?

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News Politics Transportation

APA14: Demographic Preferences Shifting in Favor of Walkable, Urban Communities

Shoppers at Findlay Market [Randy Simes]

One of the focuses coming out of the APA 2014 National Planning Conference in Atlanta is how to plan for the Millennials.

According to research conducted by the Pew Institute and Urban Land Institute, Millennials are driving less than previous generations, are more tuned into emerging technologies and demand living and working in, and experiencing urban settings.

“Millennials prefer amenity rich housing choices. These amenities are within walking distance,” presented Howard Ways of the Redevelopment Authority of Prince George’s County in Washington D.C. “They prefer smaller units with open floor plans and are not interested in yard work at all.”

Even though many recent numbers point to what is perceived as a huge desire for Millennials to return to center cities, data says otherwise.

According to Pew, 43% of Millennials prefer to live in the suburbs while 39% prefer to live in the urban core. This data suggests that there is great opportunity for cities and metropolitan regions to embrace urbanism through revitalizing distressed first ring neighborhoods and creating urban places by retrofitting suburbia.

The key component to attracting Millennials, however, seems to be the availability and quality of transportation options. According to those surveyed, 55% of Millennials have a preference to live close to transit.

Ways says that the transformation is not just limited to Millennials, as Baby Boomers are increasingly looking to take advantage of urban amenities.

According to AARP, 50% of seniors now want to live close to a bus stop and 47% want to live within a mile of a grocery store. Additionally, it is increasingly being seen that efforts by Millennials to influence policy such as complete streets, pedestrian enhancements and bicycle infrastructure are also helping Baby Boomers by improving the safety on our roadways.

With Cincinnati now offering more transportation choices, such as the Cincinnati Streetcar, Metro*Plus, Cincy Bike Share and private options such as Zipcar, Uber and Lyft, it seems that the city might be positioned just as well as any other city to appeal to these changing demographics. But what comes next?

With the recent controversy over the in road bicycle infrastructure and the lack of progress on the next phase of the Cincinnati Streetcar, will Cincinnati begin to fall behind in providing the necessary ingredients to continue to attract Millennials to the region?

One example offered at the conference is the success of Washington D.C.’s bike share program. With over 42,000 annual members and 410,000 causal riders, Harriet Tregoning, Director of HUD’s Office of Economic Resiliency, has found that 80% of Capital Bikeshare users bike more and 40% drive less due to the availability the system. For those users, this results in an annual cost savings of $819 over driving.

With the imminent launch of Cincy Bike Share this summer, access to bicycles will increase. However, with the lack of protected bike lanes and proper bicycle lane markings, the system may be negatively impacted.

Cincinnati city leaders should take note of shifting desires of Millennials and Baby Boomers, and continue to move forward with planning and developing new transportation choices such as an expanded streetcar system and more robust bicycle network.

John Yung is currently in Atlanta covering the APA 2014 National Planning Conference for UrbanCincy. You can follow along with additional live reporting on Twitter @UrbanCincy or on Instagram. All conference updates can be tracked by following the #APA14 hashtag.

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Business News Politics

Comprehensive Study Needed to Examine Cincinnati’s Migration Problem

Cincinnati has a problem with attracting immigrants.

While it is the largest metropolitan region in Ohio, Cincinnati lags behind both Cleveland and Columbus in attracting foreign migrants. Even as Cleveland continues to lose population and struggles with a weak economy, Cincinnati, with its much stronger economy and national recognition, attracts fewer of America’s newest residents.

More alarmingly, at 4.6%, Cincinnati ranks behind all of its regional competitors (Columbus, Indianapolis, Louisville, Pittsburgh, St. Louis) in percentage of foreign-born population. Columbus (10.5%) and Indianapolis (8.4%) have double or nearly-double the percentage of foreign born population. Cincinnati only bests Pittsburgh and Louisville in terms of attracting immigrants over the past three years.

International Migration 2010-2013

The United States as a whole continues to attract millions of new immigrants. They’re just not coming to Cincinnati at the same rate as elsewhere.

Mayor John Cranley’s (D) recent announcement to start an initiative to grow the immigrant population in Cincinnati is a welcome one. With statistics showing that immigrants are more likely than non-immigrant Americans to start a business, a flux of foreign residents would be good for Cincinnati’s economy in more than one way.

Cranley is not unique among mayors in cities across the nation that have suffered massive population losses since the 1950s. From Baltimore and Philadelphia, to Detroit and Dayton, cities across the country are now targeting immigrant communities in order to help bolster populations and foster economic growth.

Preferably, Cincinnati’s quest to attract new immigrants will be part of a larger plan to attract new residents, period. While lagging behind in attracting immigrants, the region also continues to shed existing residents to other parts of the country.

International - Domestic Migration in 2013

Local leaders should authorize a comprehensive study to find out why Cincinnati struggles so greatly with attracting domestic and international migrants. With a growing economy and incredible regional assets, there is no reason why Cincinnati should fail so miserably at attracting new people.

It may prove wise to set city funds aside to create some sort of media blitz that touts the benefits of the city and the surrounding region. With a recent Gallup poll showing that 138 million people around the world would choose to move to the United States if given the opportunity, the market for new immigrants is surely present. Some sort of economic incentive would help as well. Tax breaks for immigrant businesses and incentives to live within city limits will help attract immigrants of all economic levels.

It is not a stretch to imagine that Columbus’ ability to attract and retain so many more immigrants than Cincinnati is due to the presence of Ohio State University, one of the nation’s most prominent public universities. As a result, Cranley should take heed and foster greater cooperation between the City of Cincinnati and the University of Cincinnati and Xavier University, using those nationally-recognized institutions to attract even more newcomers.

At the end of the day, however, immigration is a national issue. For that reason, regional leadership should be in active dialogue with Cincinnati’s Congressional delegation and lobby them to support immigration reform and initiatives that will help attract immigrants not just to the U.S. in general, but to the Cincinnati region specifically.