Albany’s population - past, present, future

Albany has seen better days, demographically.  What changed over the last 80 years?  Albany post-World War 2 was a government town.  With a 1950 population of nearly 134 thousand, Albany’s labor force was directly and indirectly tied to state government.   

Within three decades Albany’s population declined by 35 thousand.  The development of the Empire Plaza in the 1960s destroyed key neighborhoods.  The construction of 787 (completed in the late 60s) and the Northway (Thaddeus Kosciusko Bridge, completed in 1959) opened up commuting to Albany from other cities and suburbs.  Across the USA there was a pattern of migration to suburban, newly-developed single family housing.  

Why is this important?  Two reasons:

1.  Albany is a city that has seen a significantly larger population where our institutions have supported and thrived on this higher population.  It is reasonable for us to aspire to get to that same population again, even if the demographic breakdown will look different than in the past. We aren’t targeting population growth to feed a state government workforce, rather if we grow to 110 thousand inhabitants we may find that “blue collar and middle class retirees who enjoy affordable, walkable cities”, or “young professional immigrants who like to live among communities from their countries of origin” could take the lead on this growth. 

2.  “Population and Income move together” - as noted by researcher Edward Glaeser.  As population grows this opens up economic opportunities - more small businesses (restaurants, services, professionals), more students more teachers, specialty enterprises flourish with a larger customer base, more and broader entertainment and tourism potential, and on and on. 

There aren’t a lot of great tools to compare cities and identify their similarity (or lack thereof).  One tool that we like is the Federal Bank of Chicago’s Peer City Identification Tool.  We encourage everyone to play around with the tool, however this tool doesn’t do an overall comparison of cities and their similarity.  This means that we are left with eyeballing the basic demographics of several cities to see how much they look alike.

Let’s start with a test.  In the image above are key demographics for 3 cities - Albany, Schenectady and Troy.  We will focus on 3 variable categories - the racial mix of population (White, Black, Asian, 2 or more Races and Hispanic population percentage), age and household income.  Can you determine which of Cities X, Y and Z are Troy, Schenectady and Albany?

The three cities above are, left to right, Albany, Schenectady and Troy.  There are significant differences between the cities - Troy is the most White, Schenectady has the largest youth population, and Albany has a meaningfully higher median household income.  In aggregate, though, these cities are very similar demographically using an eyeball test of the demographics.

We bring this up as an important demographic point for two reasons - competition and cooperation.   Entities that look alike are automatically in competition for attractiveness.  Imagine three situations where someone is looking for the "best" location - a real estate developer doing site development, a recently retired couple exploring walkable housing, and a new independent retail shop finding a great location.  If any of these people are contemplating one of the three cities as a target location they could reasonably consider all three cities as a target location.  The decisions that each city makes can provide a magnetic attraction or repellent to any of these enterprises or families.

Cooperation can be an outcome as well.  Albany, Schenectady and Troy are generally in the same boat in terms of their current situation and potential opportunities.  Cooperation between the cities means that all can share and leverage proven approaches, experiments, investments and advocacy among the cities.  

The third important point is what has happened to the right of the “Albany Population - 1940 - 2020 Decennial Census” graphic at the beginning of the article.  What has happened to Albany’s population since 2020?  Let's look at the graphic above.

The US Census Bureau’s 2023 American Community Survey (ACS) provides updates to the 2020 Decennial Census.  Let’s look at Albany’s population using ACS data and compare Albany relative to peers, New York State, and two affluent neighbors (Saratoga Springs and the Village of Colonie).  

The 2023 ACS estimates the City of Albany’s population at 101,228 which is a 2% growth rate.  While New York State’s population has been battered due to emigration (COVID, state taxes and retirement age trends), the City of Albany is the inverse story.

Why is this important?  For this to be important you have to believe two things - 1) this data demonstrates a certain attractiveness that is driving Albany’s growth and 2) population growth is aligned with economic development.  More people, more customers, more small business growth, and more students of local institutions.

However there are two cautionary tales.  Firstly, ACS estimates have a margin of error and will not represent Albany’s population as well as a full Census (ACS methodology and sampling information here).  The second caution is that if the data are materially correct we do not understand what we did (if anything) to catalyze this growth and we don’t understand much about the characteristics of this growth.  

We can pose a few questions:

• What neighborhoods are seeing the most growth?
• Is the growth driven by recent multifamily housing development such as Low Income Housing Tax Credit program housing or other commercial development?
• What portion of the growth is non-citizen, immigrant local communities that are developing?
• Is Albany’s higher education student population driving some amount of the change?
• Is it possible that the ACS is correcting underreporting from Census 2020?
• Have we seen a commensurate increase in other datasets that suggest growth which could include voter registration, taxpayer rolls, and similar public datasets?
• Were there any negative headwinds that we overcame?  i.e. did we see a decline in a particular type of population which was overcome by other growth factors 

Boil down the 2023 ACS estimates that show growth and we want to understand a big question - given our growth from 2020 to 2023, what drove this success and how can we wash, rinse and repeat the strategy to drive more growth?  When the City of Albany understands the details of our growth and its drivers, we can expand and enact policy and incentives that support this ongoing growth.

Questions or comments?  email us at AlbanyDataStories@gmail.com