Most Cities’ Vital Signs Strong, Study Says

In a report to be released today, the Clinton administration says that most U.S. cities are “experiencing a strong fiscal and economic recovery” but warns that many mid-sized urban areas remain left behind and that problems of poverty and population loss are spreading to older suburbs.

The report touts strong signs of vitality for the nation’s cities, such as declining unemployment, rising population and increasing homeownership. But the document notes that about one-fifth of the nation’s central cities are still suffering significant population losses and about one-sixth of cities continue to experience high unemployment, according to an advance copy provided to The Times.

“In some ways the good news has gotten better and the bad news has gotten worse,” said Andrew Cuomo, secretary of Housing and Urban Development. “The cities that are doing well in the new economy, which tend to be the big cities . . . are doing even better. The bad news is the cities that were struggling--which tend to be smaller cities, one-industry cities--are being left further behind.”

More than in the past, this year’s annual State of the Cities Report focuses on the problems of older suburbs, urging more cooperation between urban and suburban areas to control growth and channel development. That tracks with Vice President Al Gore’s emphasis on suburban sprawl as a presidential issue for 2000 and subtly reflects the administration’s increasing focus on pushing Gore into the spotlight as the campaign approaches.

The report tracks a series of related positive trends helping cities that once had seemed in permanent decline. But in virtually every case, the study finds that cities continue to lag behind their surrounding suburbs.

This pattern runs through a long list of economic and social indicators of community well-being. Key among them:

* The population losses that afflicted many cities during the 1970s have been reduced or reversed. Two-thirds of central cities gained population between 1980 and 1996, the study reports. In several cities, the key factor has been burgeoning immigration.

Overall population gains have been greatest in such Sun Belt outposts as Phoenix and Charlotte, N.C., but older cities such as New York, Miami and Indianapolis have also gained population since 1980. Los Angeles was found to be largely treading water, with its population growing from 1990-96 by 2% after exploding by 17.5% during the 1980s.

Almost half of the nation’s 30 largest cities--most of them in the Northeast or industrial Midwest--have lost population in the 1990s, although the rate of decline is much lower than in the past.

Suburbs are still adding population far faster than cities but the gap is somewhat narrowing. During the 1970s, suburbs accounted for more than 95% of all metropolitan area growth. Since 1980, they have accounted for about three-fourths.

* Unemployment is now falling faster in central cities than in the suburbs. From 1992 through 1998, unemployment fell by 3.3 percentage points in the 50 largest cities--compared to 2.8 percentage points in their suburbs. In the largest cities, wages are also now growing faster than in surrounding suburbs.

In Los Angeles, for instance, wages grew 2.5% from 1991 to 1996, compared to less than 1% in the suburbs over the same period.

But overall urban unemployment rates remain nearly double that in the suburbs. And though most major cities are again enjoying job growth, the suburbs are still adding jobs twice as fast as the cities.

One measure of that trend: While Los Angeles actually lost jobs from 1991 through 1996, according to the report, the number of Los Angeles residents who are employed has increased 6.1% through this decade. That means many city residents are finding work in surrounding communities. Since 1996, however, most economic analysts estimate that the city itself has gained jobs.

* Urban homeownership has reached an all-time high. In 1998, for the first time, half of all city residents reported owning their own homes.

But in the Los Angeles metropolitan area--which includes some neighboring communities--homeownership has dipped slightly, from 49% in 1994 to 48% in 1998.

Outside the largest cities, the study found that a substantial minority of cities--as Cuomo noted, most of them mid-sized such as Gary, Ind., and Youngstown, Ohio--continue to suffer substantial population losses and high unemployment.