Aging industrial cities' Population falls, but residents' income rising

USA Today reports:

Onetime industrial strongholds such as Cleveland, Buffalo, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh and St. Louis are often labeled struggling cities because their populations keep shrinking. But researchers at the University of Virginia say that reports of their demise are greatly exaggerated.

In seven of 22 cities studied by planning professors William Lucy and David Phillips, population declined from 2000 to 2004 but the per-capita income of residents went up compared with those in the suburbs — a sign that smaller populations don't necessarily mean cities are dying. Only two cities lost people and showed no improvement in income: Detroit and Philadelphia.

“It's particularly striking that most of these are northern cities and industrial cities that are losing population and going up in income,” Lucy says. “It does not comport with any of our images of what was going on in cities.”

This shift is fueled largely by demographic changes. For example, a family of six with an annual household income of $65,000 moves from the city to the suburbs and a single, young professional who earns $80,000 moves in. The city ends up with five fewer people who need government services while the per-capita income of that household soars.

Great moments in middle class exodus.