There
are some bragging rights you’d just as soon avoid, some things you wish you
were wrong about.
Rolf
Pendall has as much right to say “I told you so” as anyone, except maybe Buffalo
Bills naysayers. But like a prescient Bills fan, he’s not in an enviable
position. Pendall, who’s a city and regional planning professor at Cornell
University, had his research cited in a report released last week by the Office
of State Comptroller Alan Hevesi (you can find our coverage of some of
Pendall’s work in “Ailing in upstate,” www.rochester-citynews.com/gbase/Gyrosite/Content?oid=oid%3A3047).
The
comptroller’s report — Population
Trends in New York State’s Cities — echoes many of Pendall’s grim
findings.
As
usual, Rochester can take meager consolation in the fact that, hey, at least
it’s not as badly off as Buffalo. The state’s second largest city lost about
half of its residents in the second half of the 20th century. That ranks it
fourth highest in the nation in population loss, behind only St. Louis,
Youngstown, Ohio, and Pittsburgh. Out of large cities nationwide, Rochester was
12th with a 34 percent decline, followed closely by Syracuse (14th) with losses
of 33 percent. Each underwent five straight decades of decline the report
notes. Meanwhile, suburban towns statewide swelled by more than double from
1950 to 2000.
But
the report didn’t simply chronicle in greater detail a trend we all already
knew about. It also crunched another set of numbers. Looking at four factors
— residents below poverty, single-mother families, vacant housing, and
high-school degrees — it linked population decline to social and economic
ills. Predictably, Rochester, Buffalo, and Syracuse were three of only five
cities that earned the worst designation: a “far above average” social-stress
index. In a chicken-and-egg scenario, the report asks — but does not answer
— the question of whether population loss creates socio-economic problems or
vice versa.
So what does
it all mean? This is where the comptroller’s report’s usefulness starts
to break down. Early on it offers a simple, cryptic conclusion: As city
population and economic activity drops, “the stability of an entire region’s
economy can be threatened.”
This
is an idea that’s quickly gaining currency with scholars like Pendall.
“There’s
actually a growing body of research that suggests economic performance at the
regional level is higher in regions that are anchored by central cities that
are economically vital,” he says. “Conversely, regions that have threatened or
distressed central cities don’t do as well in international and national
economic competitiveness.”
But
Kent Gardner, a policy analyst for Rochester’s Center for Governmental Research,
disparages that as “the donut theory.”
“You
can find cities where the central city is not very prosperous and yet the
suburban communities are prosperous,” he says. “Unfortunately, I believe it’s
possible for Mendon to be just fine and for Rochester to continue to decline
because I think that the tie between the city and the suburbs is growing weaker
and weaker as time goes on.”
The
main lesson Gardner says he’s taking from the study is the absurdity of using
outdated notions (like the “city”) as a basis for research: “It just reminded
me how irrational the collection of municipal classifications [towns, cities,
villages] is in the State of New York,” he says.
The
comptroller’s report itself seems to support that claim. It notes that the
cities range from New York City, and other large cities like Buffalo and
Rochester, to the tiny Sherrill, with less than 3,200 residents in 2000.
Excluding New York City, the median city is Plattsburgh with a mere 18,816
residents.
Meanwhile,
four Long Island towns each have populations larger than the city of Buffalo,
and three other towns top the 125,000 mark.
In New York, the notion of
“home rule” is so strong, it’s virtually impossible for cities to annex their
suburbs. And that weakens the ties between city and suburb, Gardner says. He
points to work he’s done recently comparing Rochester to Columbus, Ohio.
“Columbus
has been able to annex its suburbs, so if you took a look at Rochester and
Columbus cities, you’d see that
Rochester lost 34 percent of its population over whatever period of time the
comptroller’s office is using; Columbus has doubled its population in that same
time,” he says. “But now Columbus is a good chunk of Franklin County.”
And
Gardner found that, in most cases, Columbus had a competitive edge on Rochester
when it came to attracting and keeping businesses. So isn’t that an argument
for more regional cooperation?
“Sure.
I think our communities would be much more rationally governed if we had more
liberal annexation rules,” Gardner says. “There are a lot of benefits that I
think would be achieved from creating a Monroe County-wide city of Rochester. I
think a lot of people agree in theory so long as it’s not their town that gets
merged with the city.”
This
is where the divergent theories of Gardner and Pendall converge on a similar
set of solutions. Both advocate changing state policies to give some clout back
to cities.
For
Pendall, changing the rules around business subsidies is an important first
step.
“If
New York State made it less expensive to operate in cities or to live in cities
as a matter of policy, then that would reduce the disincentive that’s placed on
people when they’re considering a city house or a city business location versus
a town one,” he says. “I think if you could make the argument that the region
will experience greater overall economic growth and therefore increase its tax
base, there might be some economic justification for doing that, because it
helps save the city and in turn that will promote regional growth.”
And
if there’s one silver lining to the generally ominous tone of the comptroller’s
report, maybe it’s the fact that it was issued by a state entity, rather than
by a professor or a think tank. Could that give it more credibility? “I hope
so. I would certainly think so,” Pendall says. “That puts this report in a
really good position to help important policy.”
To download
the comptroller’s report, go to: www.osc.state.ny.us/localgov/muni/pop_trends.pdf
This article appears in Jan 5-11, 2005.
