Capital District - History - Urban Decline and Rise of The Suburbs

Urban Decline and Rise of The Suburbs

Starting with the 1960 US Census, Albany, Schenectady, and Troy have posted declines in population in every census until the 2010 US Census. Meanwhile the suburbs, and in particular Saratoga County, saw an influx in population. Saratoga County grew at the expense of Albany, Rensselaer, and Schenectady counties. There were many causes to this, including the building of interstates and other highways allowing for more commuting, lack of available suitable land within the urban centers, and the subsequent location of shopping centers following the people to the suburbs.

The decline of manufacturing from the northeastern United States contributed to a general decline as well. Watervliet, Cohoes, and especially Troy lost the competitive edge that came with being at the confluence of the Hudson and Mohawk rivers: the location no longer meant better access to markets, waterfalls no longer made the cheapest power, and cheap labor in the southern and western parts of the nation became important to companies. General Electric moved their headquarters to Connecticut from Schenectady in the mid-70s. Within the Capital District manufacturing shifted to the suburbs as well since the suburbs had large open spaces for larger warehouses, factories, and office parks, while the cities were constrained in available land. Albany International, with their headquarters and factory straddling the Menands and Albany border, built a new factory in 1987 in rural East Greenbush, as did Garden Way, headquartered in Troy. The region's first technology park was built in the 1980s in rural North Greenbush by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI).

Not only was there a shift in population and manufacturing to the suburbs, there was also a shift in retail shopping as well; retail sales in the cities declined 1 percent between 1972 and 1987, having increased 63 percent in the suburbs. In 1957 Westgate Plaza became the first "suburban"-style shopping center in the area; it was and still is within the city limits of Albany however, but then two years later in 1959 Stuyvesant Plaza was built outside Albany in the neighboring town of Guilderland. 1966 saw the opening of Colonie Center, the area's first enclosed shopping mall. When built it drew shoppers from hundreds of miles from Albany. Macy's and Sears originally wanted to build in downtown Albany, but interference from Mayor Erastus Corning 2nd led to those stores choosing to move into Colonie Center instead. Problems with Mayor Corning would also force the Albany Times Union newspaper to move from Albany to Colonie in the 1970s.

Five more enclosed malls were built in the next ten years, all outside of city limits: Mohawk Mall outside Schenectady, Northway Mall across from Colonie Center, Pyramid Mall outside Saratoga Springs, Aviation Mall outside Glens Falls, and Clifton Country Mall in Clifton Park. In 1977 the first mall built within a city was completed: the Amsterdam Mall in Amsterdam. This destroyed much of Amsterdam's downtown. The next year, Troy opened the Uncle Sam Atrium, and in 1986 Cohoes attempted an Cohoes Commons. All three failed and ended up as office space.