Countywide Results

Land Cover
First, here is a side-by-side comparison of urban land cover in 1991 and in 2002. There is obvious growth to the west/southwest.

Land Cover Comparison

When we combine the two years, we get a clearer picture of what changed. Urban areas continue to expand outward from the Detroit area, the majority of it in the upper-west.

Let's break it down statistically. The total proportion of land utilized for urban purposes has increased  14.4%, whereas non-urban land cover classes have been reduced by 18.57%.

Land cover

1991 count

2002 count

1991 %

2002 %

% change

Urban

707316

809200

57.22%

65.27%

+14.40%

Non-Urban

528746

430542

42.78%

34.73%

-18.57%

New urban increased at a rate greater than 2x that of new non-urban, as seen below.

Land cover

Count

% of total

Unchanged Urban

619867

50.15%

Unchanged Non-Urban

342221

27.69%

New Urban

186525

15.09%

New Non-Urban

87449

7.07%

Total

1236062

 

 

Population Density
Next we see the change in population density which has occurred from 1990 to 2000. The city of Detroit has seen a significant decrease, and the surrounding metro area slightly less so. The greatest increases, again, occur in the western part of the county.

*Note: Due to the census tract problem, areas along the eastern shoreline cannot be relied upon. We feel this does not interfere with the overall picture however.

What do the numbers say?

Year

Total Population

Density (Per sq. mi.)

1991

2111687

3286.7

2002

2061162

3208.06

change (actual)

-50525

-78.64

change (in %)

-2.39%

-2.39%

Actually, the county as a whole lost population between 1990 and 2000. However, as you will see in the next section, there were significant shifts in population within the county borders.

 

Further Breakdown

Here, we break up the county into three sections: Detroit, Metro area, and Outer Metro area. This was done by extracting tracts from within Detroit's border, within the surrounding cities' borders, and then those without, respectively. We could then properly analyze total population counts as these encompassing areas remained the same in both census years.

The trend is quite clear. Population has increased along the edge of the Metropolitan Detroit area, and decreased within. The Outer area is well above the average population change for the county. The Metro area, while losing population, remains above the average as well. This leaves Detroit as the main source for the counties population loss.

Let's see how this correlates to urban areas. Once again we divide up the county, this time extracting the "new urban areas" within each division:

Much like population, there is significant urban growth in the Outer area. This is what we expected to see. Interesting to note is that although the Detroit and Metro areas lost population, there remains some urban growth. This highlights one of the major problems with urban sprawl. With less people occupying those urban areas, buildings, homes, and businesses are left in the dust. Unfortunately, these things rarely get un-built.

Objective     

Methods      

Results   

Problems      

Discussion      

 

Project Team:
Matt Greene
Matt Rose
Richard Burton