Comment by ars | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ars | Hacker News Reader

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_center_of_the_United_Stat...

People are leaving the dense NE cities and going to the less dense south and west ones.

To pick the largest city in the US, the population density of Manhattan went from 21 in 1910 to 12 today. And Lower East Side went from 70 to 16.[1]

Also look at construction statistics, new home construction outpaces population growth, people are moving into less dense areas and need new housing.

They build a bit less than 1 million homes every year, and most of those are single family homes.[2] Population growth is about 2.8 million each year, but that's people not families.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/03/01/realestate/man...

[2]http://www.economicpopulist.org/content/new-residential-cons...

That's fair, but that also doesn't necessarily mean that people are moving out of urban areas. Also, if you haven't noticed, NYC is still VERY dense (I used to live there). You could also make the argument that the mean center of the US has moved because there are a lot more people in the US now than there were in 1910 (I dont think anyone would argue against that) and more people have moved West as cars have become more prevalent and air travel is much easier. Therefore I don't think your argument stands.

I'll also present you with this about apartment construction now driving the economic recovery, not single family homes (disclosure: I work for rentals site hotpads.com, owned by Zillow) - http://time.com/102822/housing-apartments/

That doesn't have to be true. The NY examples can hold true, and the center of mass for population can move west, while overall population density still climbs. For example, the east coast cities could change in no way, while midwesterners moved to more dense western and southern cities (even if they are less dense than the East coast, it's still an improvment). This would result in the population shift you identified, while still restulting in an increased overall population density.

WRT NY's density falling, it could be an outlier or the norm. Still, from what I understand overall population densities are increaing in the US. [1]

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/17/nyregion/suburbs-try-to-ho...

edit: Clarification and spelling.

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