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Center For Population Dynamics Quarterly Brief July 2016: Population Loss And Development Trends In Cleveland, Richey Piiparinen, Jim Russell, Charlie Post, Kyle Fee

Richey Piiparinen

When a place loses population, it’s assumed that’s because people leave. But it’s not that simple. What’s lost in translation is today’s households have fewer people living in them than they did years prior. For instance, 40% of mothers aged 40 to 44 had four or more children in 1976. Today, it’s 14%. Overall, the average American household contracted from 3.14 people in 1970 to 2.54 today. This can explain the apparent paradox of population loss in “shrinking” communities while the number of occupied households grows. Such was the case in Cuyahoga County. There were 1.72 million residents in the …