1950 cities population

[tolbs17]

For North Carolina and I'll do the top 20 maybe? I added more.

Could be missing some but these are from wikipedia.com

1. Charlotte - 134,042
2. Winston-Salem - 87,881
3. Greensboro - 74,389
4. Durham - 71,311
5. Raleigh - 65,679
6. Asheville - 53,000
7. Wilmington - 45,043
8. Fayetteville - 34,715
9. Rocky Mount - 27,697
10. Burlington - 24,560
11. Gastonia - 23,069
12. Wilson - 23,010
13. Goldsboro - 21,454
14. Salisbury - 20,102   
15. Kinston - 18,336
16. Statesville - 16,901
17. Greenville - 16,724
18. Concord - 16,486   

[hotdogPi]

Interesting that Burlington only barely more than doubled, which is in line with the national average. On the other hand, Raleigh saw an 8× increase. What happened to the trend of growing suburbs?

[tolbs17]

Interesting that Burlington only barely more than doubled, which is in line with the national average. On the other hand, Raleigh saw an 8× increase. What happened to the trend of growing suburbs?

Not sure man. This was definitely before the urban sprawl. Suburbs like Cary, Apex, Mooresville, Indian Trail, were like underpopulated villages.

[Mapmikey]

Interesting that Burlington only barely more than doubled, which is in line with the national average. On the other hand, Raleigh saw an 8× increase. What happened to the trend of growing suburbs?

Not sure man. This was definitely before the urban sprawl. Suburbs like Cary, Apex, Mooresville, Indian Trail, were like underpopulated villages.

Raleigh annexed a lot of the space that would've been the suburbs - their northern city limits are breach by NC 98 outside Wake Forest.  Burlington, less so.

[Max Rockatansky]

Check out the Midwest and see what you think about the 50—66% population declines in some major cities.

[tolbs17]

Check out the Midwest and see what you think about the 50—66% population declines in some major cities.

Yes, cities like Cleveland, Detroit, Minneapolis, etc were way more populated than they are now.

[Max Rockatansky]

Check out the Midwest and see what you think about the 50—66% population declines in some major cities.

Yes, cities like Cleveland, Detroit, Minneapolis, etc were way more populated than they are now.

Compare that to the explosive growth in population world wide since 1950 and it makes it all the more striking.

[tolbs17]

Check out the Midwest and see what you think about the 50—66% population declines in some major cities.

Yes, cities like Cleveland, Detroit, Minneapolis, etc were way more populated than they are now.

Compare that to the explosive growth in population world wide since 1950 and it makes it all the more striking.

Yes, a lot of them moved to the suburbs, and to the south. See Arizona (Phoenix aswell!), Texas, and Florida for instance.

[Max Rockatansky]

Check out the Midwest and see what you think about the 50—66% population declines in some major cities.

Yes, cities like Cleveland, Detroit, Minneapolis, etc were way more populated than they are now.

Compare that to the explosive growth in population world wide since 1950 and it makes it all the more striking.

Yes, a lot of them moved to the suburbs, and to the south. See Arizona (Phoenix aswell!), Texas, and Florida for instance.

That's short sighted though and only part of what makes the decline of the Midwest cities striking. The overall population of the U.S. is more than double what it was in 1950.  By that definition even population stagnation takes numerous driving forces to occur much less a 50-66% drop.  That's kind of amazing considering there has not been things like a major war, famine or disease which would have generally accounted for declines like that through human history.

[SkyPesos]

Want some numbers for cities that aren't in the center of the world for you (aka not NC)?

Detroit - 1,849,568, now 639,111
Baltimore - 949,708, now 585,708
Cleveland - 914,808, now 372,624
St Louis - 856,796, now 301,578
Pittsburgh - 676,806, now 302,971
Cincinnati - 503,998, now 309,317

[tolbs17]

Want some numbers for cities that aren't in the center of the world for you (aka not NC)?

Detroit - 1,849,568, now 639,111
Baltimore - 949,708, now 585,708
Cleveland - 914,808, now 372,624
St Louis - 856,796, now 301,578
Pittsburgh - 676,806, now 302,971
Cincinnati - 503,998, now 309,317

Yes that works too.

Also btw

Philadelphia - 2,071,605, now 1,603,797
Richmond - 230,310, now 226,610. Seen absolutely ZERO growth in the past 7 decades.
Flint - 163,143, now 81,252
Youngstown - 168,330, now 60,068
Gary - 133,911, now 69,093   

[Takumi]

Richmond - 230,310, now 226,610. Seen absolutely ZERO growth in the past 7 decades.

Er, no, that's not quite true.

1950   230,310   19.3% growth over 1940
1960   219,958   −4.5%
1970   249,621   13.5%
1980   219,214   −12.2%
1990   203,056   −7.4%
2000   197,790   −2.6%
2010   204,214   3.2%
2020   226,610   11.0%

The growths in the 1940s and 1960s can be contributed to annexations of parts of Chesterfield County (one during WWII, one in 1969), but after bottoming out in the early 2000s the city's population has been steadily growing.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

Yes, cities like Cleveland, Detroit, Minneapolis, etc were way more populated than they are now.

Minneapolis proper did not see anything remotely close to Detroit, St. Louis, or Cleveland's declines and has steadily been gaining population for the last three census cycles (including 12.4% growth 2010-2020).

[Flint1979]

Check out the Midwest and see what you think about the 50—66% population declines in some major cities.

Yes, cities like Cleveland, Detroit, Minneapolis, etc were way more populated than they are now.

Detroit's city proper declined but the metro area has about a million more people than it did in 1950 and the CSA has about two million more.

[Flint1979]

Want some numbers for cities that aren't in the center of the world for you (aka not NC)?

Detroit - 1,849,568, now 639,111
Baltimore - 949,708, now 585,708
Cleveland - 914,808, now 372,624
St Louis - 856,796, now 301,578
Pittsburgh - 676,806, now 302,971
Cincinnati - 503,998, now 309,317

Yes that works too.

Also btw

Philadelphia - 2,071,605, now 1,603,797
Richmond - 230,310, now 226,610. Seen absolutely ZERO growth in the past 7 decades.
Flint - 163,143, now 81,252
Youngstown - 168,330, now 60,068
Gary - 133,911, now 69,093

Flint was still growing in 1950, it peaked in 1960 and has been in decline ever since.

[mgk920]

A lot of those cities, expecially in the midwest, have been unable to annex anything since at least the 1950s, too. They've been surrounded by incorporated suburbs.

Mike

[skluth]

A few growing Rust Belt cities

City		1950		2020
Green Bay		52,735		107,395
Appleton		34,010		75,644
Madison		96,056		269,840
Columbus		375,901		905,748
New York		7,891,957		8,804,190

[TheHighwayMan3561]

A few growing Rust Belt cities

Yep, totally plays into the coastal narrative that the Midwest is just a dying, worthless hellhole where only old conservative curmudgeons still live.

[Rothman]

A few growing Rust Belt cities

Yep, totally plays into the coastal narrative that the Midwest is just a dying, worthless hellhole where only old conservative curmudgeons still live.

Out of those, Green Bay is the only one that gets my notice.  The other cities are barely Rust Belt, and NYC just ain't.

[oscar]

Anchorage, Alaska:

1950   30,060
current  280,437 (est.)

Before World War II, Anchorage had a population of only 4,229 in 1939. And it isn't shown at all in the 1900 Census summary for Alaska.

[kevinb1994]

Jacksonville's population in 1950 was slightly over 200,000. Compare this to now where, as a consolidated city-county, Duval County (at just under 1 million people) has more population than Pinellas County (which has slightly over 950,000 people).

[MATraveler128]

Back in 1950, Boston had a population of 801K, then it slowly started declining until 1990, when it started increasing in population up until today. Now in February 2022, the city has a population of 675,647.

[tolbs17]

Nashville TN - For 1970, I'm sure it had the fact that it had to do with the annexation of Davidson County. In reality, population would be closer to 250,000-300,000ish. Same thing with Louisville.

1950: 174,307   
1960: 170,874   
1970: 448,003
1980: 455,651
1990: 488,374
2000: 545,524
2010: 601,222
2020: 689,447

Louisville KY - Merged with Jefferson County in 2003. If the merge never happened, population would have been closer to 275,000.

1950: 369,129   
1960: 390,639
1970: 361,706
1980: 298,694
1990: 269,063
2000: 256,231
2010: 597,337
2020: 633,045

[triplemultiplex]

A few growing Rust Belt cities

City		1950		2020
Green Bay		52,735		107,395
Appleton		34,010		75,644
Madison		96,056		269,840
Columbus		375,901		905,748

The commonality all of these have is none were completely hemmed in by incorporated suburbs 50 years ago.

I think this discussion is more interesting if we see how the physical size of cities has changed alongside population.  As an example, when Milwaukee peaked in population c.1960, that was right after the city had annexed the township of Granville in northwestern Milwaukee County, the last substantial boundary expansion the city would have.
Meanwhile over here in Madison, the city is continuing to expand east and west adding substantial area to the city over the same time period Milwaukee has been completely enclosed.  This fall, most of the remaining township of Madison will be attached to the city adding most of its 6,000 residents all at once.  So the city continues to grow by annexation and doesn't have to solely rely on infill development.

[andrepoiy]

Toronto proper (using present-day boundaries):

1950: 1,176,622

2016: 2,731,571

Mississauga (Toronto's biggest suburb even though Mississauga doesn't want to be called a suburb)

1970: 172k

2021: 717k