The Rise and Fall of Manhattans Density

In 1951, economist Colin Clark published the seminal paper Urban Population Densities in
which he observed that urban population density tends to decline the further one gets from
city centres. This made sense: land is cheaper outside the city centre, so it doesnt have to be
occupied quite as compactly. In the years since, several more studies have looked at changes in
an urban areas average density over time. But few have looked at changes in density across both
time and space within a particular urban area. So NYU professor Shlomo Angel, a senior
research scholar at NYU Sterns Urbanization Project, set out to do just that for Manhattan
between 1800 and 2010.

It is a story of a century-long intensification of people, jobs, and houses on the island, followed
by an equally long and equally dramatic decongestion. In the second half of the 19th
century, Manhattans population growth far outstripped the rate of new home construction. In
1910, Manhattan reached a peak population of 2.2 million, from which it has never since
rebounded, even after modest growth in the past three decades. Angels research found that
today, Manhattans population density is down a surprising 40% from 1910. Only by 1951 was
the island completely built out, so to account for years when significant swaths of Manhattan was
uninhabited farmland, Angel and his team counted only the portion of Manhattan that was built
up and occupied by residents at each census year. No open space or parkland is ever included in
their averages.

The Port of New York was a primary driver of both population and density growth in the 19th
century. The completion of the Erie Canal in 1825 handed New York a share of all trade into and
out of the Great Lakes region. Philadelphia and Boston would have to wait for train connections
to the region to come 30 years later. By then it was too late; at various times in the second half of
the 19th century, the Port of New York handled between 40% and 70% of all US trade. Trans-
shipment (the transfer of goods from ship to another mode) and manufacturing took advantage of
the dominance of the Port of New York, and businesses proliferated in close proximity. Low-
paid work was abundant, and there was no shortage of foreign migrants arriving to fill the
vacancies.

The demographics of New Yorks settlers had an impact on the citys make-up as well. Skilled
labour, such as farmers coming from northern Europe, began to use New York merely as a
gateway, staying for a few months before moving to homesteads in the Midwest. Unskilled,
often poor immigrants from southern and eastern Europe tended to stay in New York, working
dirty dock or factory jobs and living nearby. And for most of the 1800s, living close to your work
was key as walking was virtually the only mode of transport available to the poor urban class.
Graph showing the rapid increase, then rapid decline in densities in selected Manhattan neighbourhoods from 1910-
2010

Between 1800 and 1910, density in urban Manhattan tripled from 200 to 600 people per hectare.
Neighbourhoods like Chinatown, the Lower East Side, and the East Village were significantly
denser than the average, approaching 1,600 people per hectare. During the same time, floor area
per person declined from 800 square feet per person to 270, with inhabitants of the Lower East
Side averaging just 100 square feet per person.

It was not uncommon for multi-generational families to squeeze into three-room apartments with
no running water and windows only at one end. On top of this, these apartments often doubled as
shops or factory space, with residents making clothes or preparing food to sell. Jacob Riis, a
photographer and author of the ground-breaking How the Other Half Lives, led the charge to
reform housing conditions by exposing the squalor of the Lower East Side. Under legislation
beginning with the Tenement House Act of 1901, New York builders had to give up precious
floor area to make way for vertical light and air shafts and to run water and sewage systems to
every dwelling unit. Rooms and apartments were eventually given minimum size requirements
regulations that are now being re-examined in response to the shifting demands of
contemporary household demographics, dwindling land to build upon, and rising costs.
A map of the elevated (red) and horse-car (blue) lines in Manhattan, 1882

In the second half of the 19th century, elevated trains enabled suburbanization. The middle class
could live farther from the city centre away from its noise and smells and still feasibly
commute back for work. Private rail companies built elevated train lines up several Manhattan
avenues to land previously reserved for farms. But at 10 cents a ride, transportation to these new
developments uptown was prohibitively expensive for the labourers working downtown.

The 1898 consolidation of the five boroughs increased New York Citys administrative area
thirteen-fold, and its increased size justified the building of a subway system. The subways fare
structure meant a larger share of Manhattans workforce could live as far out as the system
would take them. Densities downtown declined drastically over the first few decades of the 20th
century and eventually came to match Manhattans average.

All of this improved building standards, the flight of the middle class, and the subway
contributed to reduced density. The mass production of the automobile further accelerated
decentralization in the city, this time helping city dwellers decamp even farther afield and
thereby delimiting a metropolitan region that now stretches across some 13,000 square miles,
from Pennsylvania to Connecticut.
Graph showing the decline of the population and the density of Manhattan from 1910-2010

Angel says his findings have implications both for New York City and for cities in developing
countries on the verge of explosive growth. In February, Mayor de Blasio said densification and
height are integral to his plan to build or preserve 200,000 units of affordable housing over the
next ten years. Prevailing trends complicate that goal. Land is scarce and expensive.

Steel frame construction and the elevator allowed average Floor Area Ratio (FAR) the ratio of
a buildings total floor area to the size of the piece of land upon which it is built in Manhattan
to double between 1910 and 2010. The economics of redevelopment often promote the
demolition of squat dwellings and construction of higher ones. But even though new buildings
today are taller and bulkier, half of Manhattans existing building stock was built in the early
20th century, when average FAR was just 4.4. And tall buildings do not necessarily translate to
higher densities. As we saw around the turn of the century, a big contributor to lower
Manhattans density was the overcrowding of large families in small apartments. As Manhattan
has gotten richer, its residents have demanded more space.
Graph showing the rapid increase in floor area per person in selected Manhattan neighbourhoods from 1910-2010

Of course, as any house-hunter from Beverly Hills or Beijing will quickly discover, even
Manhattans rich occupy far less space than in other cities. That is in part a legacy of late-19th
century builders like Rutherford Stuyvesant and Edward Clark, whose apartment buildings
such as the Stuyvesant Flats (1870) and the Dakota (1884) helped to convince the well-off
that luxury living neednt be exclusive to single-family town-homes. But for most of the 20th
century, Manhattans truly rich were confined to a few pockets around Midtown, and the
dramatic, broad-based increases in living area for the poor had a greater impact on overall
average densities. Meanwhile, readily available contraception, greater access to education, and a
crackdown on child labour meant that by the end of the 20th century everyone rich and poor,
urban and rural was having fewer children.

A close look at the data reveals that density in Manhattan actually stopped declining in 1980, and
has since returned to growth, albeit at a modest rate. Since 1980, Manhattans population has
grown 14%, and since occupiable land area is relatively fixed, density can go in only one
direction as long as population growth continues. (The construction of several residential towers
on landfill forming Battery Park City is an exception, but also a comparatively small addition to
the boroughs buildable land.) Following its fiscal nadir in the 1970s, and with crime rates
declining in the 1980s and 90s, Manhattans desirability has since famously rebounded. Greater
demand brings higher prices, and with higher prices, tenants also sometimes craft clever ways to
stretch their rent dollar: by carving an additional bedroom out of the living room or by moving in
with a significant other.

One urban housing phenomenon Angels analysis doesnt address is the nationwide trend toward
living alone, magnified in Manhattan by throngs of young professionals and relatively well-off
seniors. According to NYU sociologist Eric Klinenbergs 2012 book on the subject, Going Solo,
the share of residential units in Manhattan housing just one person grew from 35% in 1960 to
46% in 1980 and is still higher today. This could help explain part of Manhattans de-
densification, as studio and one-bedroom apartments once occupied by a family or a couple are
rented by a single person. But it could also presage a re-densification. In 2012, the Bloomberg
administration voted to reconsider New Yorks minimum apartment size requirement. A team of
developers was awarded a contract to build a tower of micro-apartments on Manhattans East
Side. The units are to average around 300 square feet, with shared gathering space distributed
throughout the building. The urban lifestyle this set-up purports to indulge is being trumpeted
as a generational shift: millennials want to live close to transit and do their socializing out of the
home, which, as the narrative goes, requires less personal floor area and benefits from more
individuals living in close proximity.

The entire world faces questions of how to manage density in growing cities. Angels research
found a worldwide decline in metropolitan area density over the course of the 20th century,
regardless of level of development. If this means fewer people are living in crammed, unsanitary
slums, thats not a bad thing. But the explosion of informal settlements in and around cities in
developing countries point to the cities expected growth in population as well as area to as
much as four- or five-fold their current size in coming decades. And with such rapid growth
underway, models for planning for this expansion are needed. Angel thinks the 1811
Commissioners Plan, that mapped out a future grid for Manhattan that was seven times larger
than the then-occupied area, is a good example. Indeed, one of those 19th century commissioners
foresaw a city more populous than any other this side of China. China may now take notice.