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Compare core metro county to core metro county. Dane County outpaced Polk County over 13% bewteen 2000-2010 in job growth. The core counties contain the vast majority of the jobs. Dane County is the fastest growing county in Wisconsin in percentage terms so far this decade and grew at least 10-15% the prior decade. Slow and steady growth that is well planned, not haphazard growth common in the Sunbelt without the ancillary investement in community infrastructure, schools, roads, and services, etc.
This wouldn't be a fair comparison however. Madsion and its entire contiguous suburban areas are contained within Dane County. Even all of Madisons exurban areas are easily all within Dane County.
A portion of the City of Des Moines is in Warren County and a sizeable portion of the contiguous suburban area is in Dallas County and exurban areas of Des Moines are clearly in Madison County.
Cherry picking the Polk County, IA to Dane County, WI comparison is intentionally skewing the data since the bulk of growth in any city is largely in the suburban and exurban areas...
Granite
I would submit that a major reason that Polk perhaps did not perform as well during that decade in the jobs figures you cited as compared to Dane County, Wi. (Madison) is because the city of Des Moines is not at all centered in the middle of Polk County. It & much of it's major suburban development & population are in fact well over to the western & southern sections of Polk County. A look at a map will confirm this. The population in Polk County is extremely out of balance on the west & southern sides of Polk as compared to the north & east sides of the county.
The major directional thrust in development in metro Des Moines in the post WW2 era has primarily been to the west, Ankeny to the north now contains around 49,000 residents & is a major exception.
As a result, the growth spillover effect of jobs & population has now sprawled west across the Polk County line on into Dallas County which helps explain why that county is a regular member of the list of the fastest growing counties in the country. Primarily it's a matter of that old real estate adage, "Location, location, location.." Dallas county is situated smack dab in the middle of the biggest directional push of growth in metro Des Moines.
Conversely, a look at a map of Wisconsin will confirm that Madison sits squarely in the middle of Dane County & it's county margins are far from the Madison city limits. Thus the population & jobs spillover effect out of Dane into the edge counties near it is not as pronounced as that spillover into Dallas County in Iowa.
Getting back again to the annexation issue, imagine what the size of Ds Moines proper could be if it's square mileage had been aggressively increased in the decades after 1950. It would perhaps contain over 300,000 residents given that in Ankeny at 49,000, West Des Moines at 58,000 & Urbandale at 42,000 alone there is a huge suburban population in Polk County & nearby peripheral areas in Dallas & Warren Counties.
By the way, Madison has no suburbs that come anywhere close to the size of the three largest suburbs of Des Moines I just mentioned.
There's a million more articles out there where you can read King's anti-Hispanic comments. If you weren't aware of that, you aren't aware of much at all.
Branstad is & has been against children of undocumented immigrants receiving public education in Iowa. Those kids didn't choose to come to the US.
Then again, his state is only growing in population because of these people. Like I said, the state isn't sure how to deal with it yet.
I'm not going to get pulled into a debate in immigration policy, that is for another forum but it is hard to take you seriously when you link to a story that was taken out of context to try and thrust an unprepared Christie Vilsack into victory against King and then also quotiing an article from a far left organization. How did you think these would be credible in making your point? It just demonstrates you are far enough to the left on issues that you wouldn't recognize these two examples as not being credible sources to make your point. It is akind to me going to Rush Limbaugh's website to link to a story to prove a point on the other side. Worthless.
Just for good measure:
“The first consideration in immigration is the welfare of the receiving nation. In a new government based on principles unfamiliar to the rest of the world and resting on the sentiments of the people themselves, the influx of a large number of new immigrants unaccustomed to the government of a free society could be detrimental to that society. Immigration, therefore, must be approached carefully and cautiously.”
By the way, Madison has no suburbs that come anywhere close to the size of the three largest suburbs of Des Moines I just mentioned.
Which is why you need to take care in making comparisons. I'm not an expert on this topic, but this is my understanding.
Iowa has very restrictive laws on annexation that do not favor a city like Des Moines. In comparison, Nebraska's are much more lax. Omaha doesn't have the larger, growing suburbs because their annexation laws allow Omaha to aborb small neighboring cities. If Madison doesn't have fast growing suburbs, my guess is WI laws are similar to NE's.
I'm still trying to figure out why we care about Madison, WI. I thought we were in the Des Moines forum. Who is this person and why do we care what his opinions are from up north? The forum for Madison must be slower than a slug if he needs to come here to prove their city's worth something.
Granite
I would submit that a major reason that Polk perhaps did not perform as well during that decade in the jobs figures you cited as compared to Dane County, Wi. (Madison) is because the city of Des Moines is not at all centered in the middle of Polk County. It & much of it's major suburban development & population are in fact well over to the western & southern sections of Polk County. A look at a map will confirm this. The population in Polk County is extremely out of balance on the west & southern sides of Polk as compared to the north & east sides of the county.
The major directional thrust in development in metro Des Moines in the post WW2 era has primarily been to the west, Ankeny to the north now contains around 49,000 residents & is a major exception.
As a result, the growth spillover effect of jobs & population has now sprawled west across the Polk County line on into Dallas County which helps explain why that county is a regular member of the list of the fastest growing counties in the country. Primarily it's a matter of that old real estate adage, "Location, location, location.." Dallas county is situated smack dab in the middle of the biggest directional push of growth in metro Des Moines.
Conversely, a look at a map of Wisconsin will confirm that Madison sits squarely in the middle of Dane County & it's county margins are far from the Madison city limits. Thus the population & jobs spillover effect out of Dane into the edge counties near it is not as pronounced as that spillover into Dallas County in Iowa.
Getting back again to the annexation issue, imagine what the size of Ds Moines proper could be if it's square mileage had been aggressively increased in the decades after 1950. It would perhaps contain over 300,000 residents given that in Ankeny at 49,000, West Des Moines at 58,000 & Urbandale at 42,000 alone there is a huge suburban population in Polk County & nearby peripheral areas in Dallas & Warren Counties.
By the way, Madison has no suburbs that come anywhere close to the size of the three largest suburbs of Des Moines I just mentioned.
I understand your point regarding annexation and the fast growth of Dallas County. I have been through much of the new development in the area a few years ago. Jordan Creek, finance, and insurance towers constitute a good deal of the growth. So, you factor in a 200% increase in jobs since 2000 and the county has gained about 20,000 new jobs. This is the bulk of the job growth for the entire metropolitan area for Des Moines. Madison metropolitan area comes in about 5-10K jobs ahead with roughly the same starting base figure of total employment compared to Des Moines. So, Madison still outranks Des Moines in total employment in raw numbers, has a greater educational attainment, and higher median household income.
Good points there capital but do I understand the frailty of making such comparisons.
It seems lmost like pulling teeth in Iowa for a city to annex land due to the existing laws & methodology that has to be followed. I have watched Omaha swallow suburbs almost willy nilly over the years. And over in eastern Iowa, Dubuque had to fight to annex land to it's west & became embrolied in long battle with Asbury that I believe was resolved in the courts in Dubuque's favor. If anyone is in the know to the contrary on that, please let me know.
My point in mentioning earlier the difference in the size of Madison suburbs vs. those of Des Moines was that much of the population dynamism of the Des Mones metro growth has drained away from the city while much of the population dynamism of the Madison area has by comparison remained in the actual city of Madison, whatever the annexation laws there may be. At the time of WW2 Madison had approximately 65,000 residents & Des moines had 142,000.
By the way, they do have a stronger township layer of government in Wisconsin that can pose strong obstacles to annexation. Whatever they are though, Madison has grown tremendouly in area & in population in the post WW2 era & I wish that Des Moines could have performed similarly.
Which is why you need to take care in making comparisons. I'm not an expert on this topic, but this is my understanding.
Iowa has very restrictive laws on annexation that do not favor a city like Des Moines. In comparison, Nebraska's are much more lax. Omaha doesn't have the larger, growing suburbs because their annexation laws allow Omaha to aborb small neighboring cities. If Madison doesn't have fast growing suburbs, my guess is WI laws are similar to NE's.
Wisconsin does not have very strict laws regarding zoning. Madison actually has annexed lands with little in the way of development. The suburban cities near Madison are very fast growing with the largest, Sun Prairie, having around 35,000 people. The growth rate there is about 25-30% per decade, though. Fitchburg and Verona also have very fast growth rates in percentage terms.
I would submit that the educational attainment stats advantage held by Dane County over Polk County can largely be explained by the presence of the huge University of Wisconsin campus & it's staff. Polk County has no similar, huge institution of higher learning. As a result, the Dane County educational attainment stats advantage will wallop almost any place by comparison.
As for job growth in the period you cited, Polk County lost 5,000 more jobs during the recession from it's employment peak than did Dane County. This steeper loss was during the 2008-2011 period. That alone pretty much is the factor that gives Dane an advantage in the job growth numbers during that previous decade.
I'll be a little blunt here. I'm not sure why you are on here posting the info that you are giving us given what the thread topic was originally. Is it to belittle Des Moines? I am extremely familiar with Madison from my family connections & love it as one of my favorite American cities. I similarly love Des Moines & wish that I still lived there. So, I do not understand why your intent here sems to be to denigrate the great revival in economic opportunity that the metro Des Moines area has had since it cast aside it's decades of slow growth doldriums.
I do however understand that there are & always will be places of greater opportunity & faster growth but I can live with what greater Des moines has achieved.
And I am particularly pleased that, though it's a slow growth for a number of reasons, the city proper of Des Moines is once again climbing slowly & probably on the verge of surpasing it's previous peak population of 1960.
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