The State of Metropolitan America
The State of Metropolitan America is an effort of the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program that portrays the demographic and social trends shaping the nation’s essential economic and societal units—its large metropolitan areas—and discusses what they imply for public policies to secure prosperity for these places and their populations. This report focuses on the major demographic forces transforming the United States and large metropolitan areas in the 2000s (2000-2009). In this sense, it previews what the American population will learn from the results of the 2010 Census. It includes chapters that correspond to nine of the most important subjects tracked by the Census Bureau in its annual American Community Survey, along with the policy implications of the findings. The State of Metropolitan America uses data from these subject areas to show that The United States faces five 'new realities', currently redefining the country. In each of these five areas, America reached critical milestones in the 2000s that make those underlying realities too large to ignore any longer. And large metropolitan areas—the collections of cities, suburbs, and rural areas that house two-thirds of America’s population—lay squarely on the front lines of those trends. The report also introduces an emerging metropolitan typology, containing seven distinct categories. These new classifications are based upon metrics of population growth, diversity, and educational attainment as compared to national averages.
Description
The 2000s were less a coherent era than a series of dramatically different economic epochs. Moreover, it is difficult to know whether, or how long, several of the recession-induced trends identify in this report—slowed migration, increased enrolment in higher education, declining median wages and incomes, rising levels of poverty—might persist into the coming decade. This report shows The United States of America now faces a series of ' new realities' about who they are, where and with whom they live, and how they provide for their own welfare, as well as that of their families and communities:
- Growth and Outward Expansion;
- Population Diversification;
- Ageing of the Population;
- Uneven Higher Educational Attainment;
- Income Polarization.
In addition, the report identifies distinct types of
metropolitan areas. What differentiates them are simple metrics of
population growth, population diversity, and educational
attainment, as compared to national averages. Grouped
into seven categories, the particular issues facing the nation’s
100 largest metro areas become clearer, as do the places to which
individual metro areas might look for common solutions:
- Diverse Giant;
- Skilled Anchor;
- Next Frontier;
- New Heartland;
- Industrial Core;
- Border Growth;
- Mid-Sized Magnet.
These population distinctions dictate different priorities for
metropolitan leaders seeking to forge a prosperous future for their
communities.
Methodology
The State of Metropolitan America report is arranged topically,
with nine chapters that correspond to nine of the most important
subjects tracked by the Census Bureau in its annual American
Community Survey. Each chapter is authored by Brookings experts,
each of whom has written widely on the topic at hand. The chapters
include the authors’ own analysis of the most important and
compelling trends over the 2000s, accompanied by their thoughts on
what these trends mean for the future of people, places, and public
policy.
Conclusion
The 2000s found large metropolitan areas on the front
lines of America’s demographic transformation. Together, they
confront a series of new realities more intense than those
buffeting the rest of the nation, on measures of growth and
diversification, aging, and increasingly uneven outcomes in
educational attainment and income. Those realities—and the
challenges they imply—are shared more than ever across city and
suburban lines. Nevertheless, the diverse economic and social
histories of metropolitan areas persist in their contemporary
demographic profiles. For each of seven types of large metro areas,
a distinct set of issues comes to the fore, some within metro
areas’ own capacities to tackle, but others fundamentally beyond
their reach. Chronicling the unprecedented demographic changes
afoot in America generally, and their specific metropolitan
manifestations. The State of Metropolitan America brings these new
realities into sharp focus, as the nation enters a new and
undoubtedly challenging decade.
Researcher
All report authors are staff members at the brookings
Metropolitan policy program. For biographies read
page 5 on the report State of Metropolitan America in the Reference
Material section.
Contact info
1775 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, Dc 20036-2188
telephone 202.797.6000
web site www.brookings.edu
Metropolitan Policy program at BRROOKINGS
1775 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, Dc 20036-2188
telephone 202.797.6000
Publication date
05/2010
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