State could take a lesson from cities’ growth

It’s only a matter of time before Stamford takes the title of Connecticut’s most populated city. Bridgeport has been No. 1 since the 1970s, when it passed Hartford, but Stamford continues to climb, as recently released census figures show it passing New Haven to take the No. 2 position in the state. If current trends continue, it could be in first place by the 2030 census.

The reasons are straightforward. One, people want to live there. And two, the city is building a lot of housing to accommodate them. There’s not much more to it than that.

What may have been more surprising, at least to those not paying attention, was that nearly all Connecticut cities recorded some growth. That’s especially noteworthy given that the state as a whole is treading water, adding only about 30,000 people over 10 years in a population of more than 3.5 million.

It’s no coincidence that our economic growth has followed a similar pattern — it’s been slow for years. A growing economy requires a growing population. Dynamism and stagnation don’t go together and never have. We could learn some lessons from places that are growing.

And one of those places is Bridgeport.

It’s not growing as fast as Stamford, whose population increased 10 percent in the past decade, but there are new housing developments around the city, along with a downtown constituency that basically didn’t exist a generation ago. Since all those new apartments are occupied soon after construction, it would make sense that the population would go up, and that’s what’s happened.

Bridgeport’s population climbed to 148,654, a rise of about 3.1 percent, far higher than the statewide gain. New Haven rose by a similar percentage.

It doesn’t take much convincing for people to believe Stamford is in high demand. But the numbers show Bridgeport is, too, and there’s reason to believe that can continue. The numbers show that, suburban misconceptions aside, people want to live in Connecticut cities (with the notable exception of Hartford, the only top 10 municipality to lose people in the past decade; the state capital has lost more than 55,000 people since its 1950 peak).

But there’s a lesson here. Our state is only growing in municipalities that allow multifamily housing to be built. The vast majority of towns, where suburban development dominates, have plateaued or are shrinking.

The map of Connecticut census results for 2020 shows Fairfield County and the Hartford suburbs growing, but vast swaths of the eastern half of the state and Litchfield County shrinking fast. These trends have a way of becoming self-reinforcing, and unless action is taken, rural and farflung towns will continue to fall.

Left up to local control, the forces of stasis nearly always win. That’s why the push for statewide zoning reform was so strong this past legislative session — if action doesn’t happen from on high, it’s difficult to make anything change.

And while the final version of zoning reform was not what most proponents would have wanted, it at least laid some groundwork and got people talking about the issue. The biggest change that did pass — the statewide legalization of accessory dwelling units — will increase density and give young people a better chance at starting out in an expensive state.

This is a gain for the climate, too, which we know by now should be our top priority in any public policy undertaking.

Still, there’s a lot more to be done, and the first step should be a proposal included in early versions of zoning reform but later scrapped that would allow multifamily housing around any main street or transit stop. This is about the least we should ask of local planning, but even in Stamford we see the busiest train station in the state with acres of parking and vacant lots nearby. There’s no excuse for that.

None of this means there wouldn’t be plenty of single-family homes in Connecticut. We’re not going to retrofit the whole state to look like New Haven. We could, though, offer more options. There ought to be a variety of types of housing for people to choose from, which would welcome more people into the state and help the economy grow.

People might even like it.