Urban Grand Rapids

Two years ago we published "How We Commute" based on what was then the latest community survey data from 2021. We now have data up through 2023. Given the significant decline in traffic will we see any changes in commute times and mode share?

In summary:

One of the most difficult messages to convey in the housing conversation is that the largest share of people moving to the city are high-income households earning more than 120% AMI; those are households with six figure incomes. The trend impacts everything; it does potentially drive displacement of existing residents as newer households can out-compete existing lower income households, additionally higher income households consume more housing (sq/ft) than lower income households.

This trend of urbanization of higher income households is often invisible to existing residents. And it can seem counter-intuitive to many. The cultural expectation that when people succeed they move "out" is still commonly held even though it has not been true in a general sense for ~20 years.

“A 2023 survey from the National Association of Realtors found that 77 percent of respondents would pay a premium to live in a walkable neighborhood, and for Gen Z, that figure shot up to 92 percent." - NAR research, 2023

To help understand this phenomenon of household shift let's look at a highly correlating factor: educational attainment.

The municipal agenda for the Planning Commission meeting on 2025-09-11 is 👉here👈

2014, 2020, 2046, & 2070 Dean Lake Ave NE

This Special Land Use is for a townhouse development of eight four-unit buildings and one six-unit buildings; totally 38 units. For multi-family development the MON-LDR zone requires 2,750sq/ft per unit. Given the area of this site is 365,716sq/ft (the 274,381sq/ft of the parcel + the 91,335sq/ft of the adjacent right-of-way) a whopping 132 units are allowed. So the proposed development is a scant 29% of the potential density. In the same vein the proposal provides 68 parking spaces, 1.79 parking spaces per unit in contrast to the required 1.5 parking spaces per unit. Abundant compliance.

After the recent post about the declining growth projections for the city (Grand Rapids, MI) the topic of population growth has been on my mind. You notice things more when they are on your mind. Making regular appearance has been the common general-purpose theories which are used to short-circuit the population discussion; people love their grand theories. The most common of which is The Weather Theory. The Weather Theory posits that people move to “nice weather”; that weather is the principle explanation of why the rust-belt is hollowed out, why the mid-west does not grow, etc… This theory manifests itself everywhere. From conversations at the bar to the kind of top-ten lists shared on Linked In. On social media forums such as Reddit’s r/relocating a suggestion that a midwest city is somewhere someone should consider as a home is akin to tossing a pork chop into pool of piranha – it is a completely absurd notion that someone would want to live in a place which is frozen solid for six months of the year. The picture many people seem to hold in their mind of a Grand Rapids winter is:

The winter of 1978, 47 years ago (assuming you are reading this in 2025)

The post is a follow-up to the 2020 post concerning the construction and financing of the ADU at 535 Shirley St NE answering questions which came up at Grand Rapids' first ADU bootcamp which occurred on August 22nd, 2025. The 2020 post ended the story of the ADU at its physical completion and occupancy permit. Of course, the financial status of the ADU took a bit longer to finalize.

The municipal agenda for the Planning Commission meeting on 2025-08-28 is 👉here👈

As of 2025-08-26 no agenda items have been posted for the 2025-08-28 meeting.

Population. It is the most basic measurement of a city, without population you cannot calculate density. Some threshold of density is what creates a city. Thus trends and shifts of a city's population are the background music which plays through the entire story of a city.

We all know the story of cities like Detroit, once in the league of present day Chicago, which then collapsed to just over a third of its once-upon-a-time glory. The same story can be told of many smaller cities across the midwest; such as Gary, IN falling from ~180,000 citizens - roughly the size of Grand Rapids in 1980s - to barely 70,000 citizens in 2020 - roughly the size of Grand Rapids in the late 1890s. As it is citizens - and the resulting density - which creates a city, decline is painful; a city which looses population, whose density declines, is a lesser place.