Why is Atlanta's population only 500k? (Dallas, Manchester: statistics, estimates, suburbs)

[RainyRainyDay]

Originally Posted by Saintmarks

This much smaller county size for Georgia led the suburban counties around Atlanta to grow as municipalities themselves. Take Cobb County as has been mentioned. Someone in suburban Cobb County has water, sewer, police, fire, libraries, schools, etc, etc. What does one get as a benefit if he is petitioned to come into one of the cities? Trash service? More sidewalks? That is all I see as a benefit.

Exactly. And you can strike "more sidewalks" from the benefits list, as the county has recently been adding sidewalks in my area. (They sidewalked the full length of Mabry Road). That just leaves trash service. I personally think it wasteful that we have garbage trucks trundling about the area daily, because a large number of disposal companies compete for our business. On the other hand, some people probably like having choice. Anyway, nobody would be so crazy as to want to join a city just for unified trash service! Since Cobb county seems to be better run than most of the municipalities hereabouts, it's hard to imagine suburban Cobb residents having the slightest interest in another layer of government that would likely just cost us a lot of extra taxes for little or no extra benefit.

[10scoachrick]

Originally Posted by JPD

I've lived in Tucker for 30 years and I've never met anyone who thinks they live in the "City of Tucker".

I can't find the link just now, but the 'answer' I quoted re:Tucker City Hall was in response to a question posed by a resident who went to Gwinnett Co. to inquire about a building permit. They were instructed to take their request to 'Tucker City Hall' for a permit. (Sub)Urban legend?

[JoeP]

I don't think it should be considered a bad thing that Atlanta's population is "only" 540,000. 20 years ago, the city had a population of 394,000 and people were moving out left and right. Skip forward to today and the resident population of the city proper is up 137% and still climbing.

The numbers are correct, but that is nowhere near 137%.

If anyone wants perspective look at a city's WW2 era population and city limits and compare today. You'll see that some cities had some increases in land (Atlanta took Buckhead in the 50s) but also had existing communities around them that they could not annex.

Go to "larger" cities like Jacksonville or Charlotte and they are were much smaller in population and land area.

However as people moved in cities were also able to grab more land.

So small cities in the 40s with smallish square miles now have hundreds of square miles.

They are not densely populated as a city should be and city population is NEVER representative of how big a city is.

That's why government, media, business look at metro numbers or broader market level data.

City population is completely useless other than when speaking about city services etc.

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by tdatl

check out a detailed map of metro St Louis. I lived there & was stunned at how many incorporated cities there are around it. The city itself is very small, I think just over 20 square miles. It's not part of St Louis County, which surrounds it and has many dozens of towns and cities. I think there were 80-some towns/cities in a relatively small area in the metro area. You could drive a mile down a road and cross thru 3, 4, 5 distinct places. I remember reading that only Pittsburgh comes close to matching the numbers...

The Twin Cities are somewhat similar in that there are dozens of small incorporated cities surrounding the central two cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, though maybe not as many small cities packed in one place as St. Louis. Here's an overview map of the 7-county area considered to be the core metro ... the shapes on the main map are either cities or townships. Move the mouse to view city and township names.

Maps - Metropolitan Council

[neil0311]

Hate to go back to Boston again, but it's what I'm very familiar with and I can comment on authoritatively.

The City of Boston has a population roughly the same as the City of Atlanta, 600K people. The Boston metro area, which officially includes parts of NH and RI, is almost 7 million people and covers about a 50 to 75 mile radius. A very small percentage of that population lives in the actual City of Boston, and the majority lives in individual cities and towns that surround the city as suburbs. Officially, even towns closer to Manchester, NH are part of the Boston MSA. Atlanta is not unique and in fact, and really quite normal as far as that goes.

For whatever reason, some people here in Atlanta feel somehow slighted that the actual city limits are only 10% of the metro population. I just don't get the whole thing.

[DeaconJ]

Originally Posted by neil0311

Hate to go back to Boston again, but it's what I'm very familiar with and I can comment on authoritatively.

The City of Boston has a population roughly the same as the City of Atlanta, 600K people. The Boston metro area, which officially includes parts of NH and RI, is almost 7 million people and covers about a 50 to 75 mile radius. A very small percentage of that population lives in the actual City of Boston, and the majority lives in individual cities and towns that surround the city as suburbs. Officially, even towns closer to Manchester, NH are part of the Boston MSA. Atlanta is not unique and in fact, and really quite normal as far as that goes.

For whatever reason, some people here in Atlanta feel somehow slighted that the actual city limits are only 10% of the metro population. I just don't get the whole thing.

In addition to Boston and Atlanta, there are many examples of cities with huge metro populations and comparatively small city populations...it's actually pretty common.

San Francisco - 809,000 city; 7.4 million metro
Washington D.C. - 592,000 city; 8.3 million metro
Seattle - 598,000 city; 4.1 million metro
Minneapolis - 382,000 city; 3.6 million metro
Orlando - 231,000 city; 2.7 million metro

[RainyRainyDay]

Originally Posted by DeaconJ

In addition to Boston and Atlanta, there are many examples of cities with huge metro populations and comparatively small city populations...it's actually pretty common.

Up in Canada too.

Vancouver - 611,000 city, 2.25 million metro
Toronto - 2.5 million city; 5.5 million metro

Toronto is interesting because its relatively large (by the standards of our list) city population is due to a contentious 1998 amalgamation of six municipalities - the former East York, Etobicoke, North York, Scarborough, York, City of Toronto and the regional municipality of Metro Toronto - into the current City of Toronto. The amalgamation was not popular, but was pushed through as a cost savings measure by the conservative provincial government of the day.

The pattern of a large metropolis consisting of a moderately sized "city proper" surrounded by a patchwork of independent municipalities seems very typical all over this continent.

[aries4118]

Originally Posted by RainyRainyDay

The pattern of a large metropolis consisting of a moderately sized "city proper" surrounded by a patchwork of independent municipalities seems very typical all over this continent.

Yes...

Cities with "mega-city propers" are only so large because of liberal annexation laws...

Think Phoenix, San Antonio, Dallas, Houston, San Diego...

So much of the respective cities' metro areas are within the city proper limits.

[neil0311]

Originally Posted by aries4118

Yes...

Cities with "mega-city propers" are only so large because of liberal annexation laws...

Think Phoenix, San Antonio, Dallas, Houston, San Diego...

So much of the respective cities' metro areas are within the city proper limits.

If you look at the way those cities are laid out, they look much more like Atlanta than NYC (used as the example of a compact city with a large population...aka high density)

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by DeaconJ

In addition to Boston and Atlanta, there are many examples of cities with huge metro populations and comparatively small city populations...it's actually pretty common.

San Francisco - 809,000 city; 7.4 million metro
Washington D.C. - 592,000 city; 8.3 million metro
Seattle - 598,000 city; 4.1 million metro
Minneapolis - 382,000 city; 3.6 million metro
Orlando - 231,000 city; 2.7 million metro

Don't forget that St. Paul (287,000 city) directly borders Minneapolis and really isn't a suburb, so the combined central cities in the Twin Cities metro are almost 670,000. Still small compared to the 3.6 million metro population, tho.