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Florida has small city limits. The suburbs are "sprawly" but most of the Florida cities have strict cut off points between the burbs and rural areas.
I’m thinking that defining which cities sprawl the most would include suburbs. So I don’t think the OP was asking which cities have the smaller city limits.
To the general question I think that metro commuting distances probably align with the amount of sprawl.
I was deciding between Texas and Florida. But I had to settle on California because the Greater LA area is like twice the size of Houston in sprawl it seems. Even if denser it still eats up a significant amount of miles. The Bay Area is a less sprawls metro but unlike Miami it also isn’t compact (mountains/ water/ farms leads to spaces between development) and thus is still very big, especially if you start to include areas like Stockton as part of the Bay. San Diego is also similar sprawling all the way to Temecula, although their is mountains and the like in the way that distance is almost unmatched in Houston let alone smaller areas like Fort Worth, Austin or San Antonio. NYC and Miami is the only place we’re you can have a 70 mile commute from a suburb besides California.
I was deciding between Texas and Florida. But I had to settle on California because the Greater LA area is like twice the size of Houston in sprawl it seems. Even if denser it still eats up a significant amount of miles. The Bay Area is a less sprawls metro but unlike Miami it also isn’t compact (mountains/ water/ farms leads to spaces between development) and thus is still very big, especially if you start to include areas like Stockton as part of the Bay. San Diego is also similar sprawling all the way to Temecula, although their is mountains and the like in the way that distance is almost unmatched in Houston let alone smaller areas like Fort Worth, Austin or San Antonio. NYC and Miami is the only place we’re you can have a 70 mile commute from a suburb besides California.
Metro DC says "hello"
San Diego is hemmed in by mountains, the Pacific, and the Mexican Border, so while it sprawls, it's sprawl is somewhat linear and limited (the metro area is a lot longer north to south than it is east to west) and a lot of growth is limited due to the mountains, canyons, and arroyos that criss-cross the metro. Temecula/Murietta benefited from an affordable housing boom, but it's pretty isolated from the San Diego Metro due to a mountain range. Technically, it's in LA's metro area due to it being in Riverside County, but is universally seen/accepted as a bedroom community of San Diego.
Greater Houston sprawls all the way from Conroe to Galveston, at least 90 miles, and the DFW area is almost the size of Connecticut...Weatherford is at least 90 miles from McKinney, and Waxahatchie to Denton is at least 67 miles, so I have no idea how you got the idea that the distances in California are unmatched. Texas doesn't have nearly the amount of natural boundaries that hinder growth like Florida and Texas do.
LA's sprawl is pretty dense compared to the Texas and Florida metros, so you have far more people in that sprawl. Also, LA is interrupted by natural features as well, such as the Santa Monica Mountains separating the LA Basin from the San Fernando Valley, the Pomona Valley and the Inland Empire are separated from the LA Basin by the Chino Hills, and so on. I'm not denying that Southern California sprawls (much much more than the Bay Area, which has far more natural boundaries), but it definitely is a different sprawl from Houston. You don't get the leapfrog development in California in general that you do in Texas or Florida tbh...and Florida has even more of that than Texas does.
San Diego is hemmed in by mountains, the Pacific, and the Mexican Border, so while it sprawls, it's sprawl is somewhat linear and limited (the metro area is a lot longer north to south than it is east to west) and a lot of growth is limited due to the mountains, canyons, and arroyos that criss-cross the metro. Temecula/Murietta benefited from an affordable housing boom, but it's pretty isolated from the San Diego Metro due to a mountain range. Technically, it's in LA's metro area due to it being in Riverside County, but is universally seen/accepted as a bedroom community of San Diego.
Greater Houston sprawls all the way from Conroe to Galveston, at least 90 miles, and the DFW area is almost the size of Connecticut...Weatherford is at least 90 miles from McKinney, and Waxahatchie to Denton is at least 67 miles, so I have no idea how you got the idea that the distances in California are unmatched. Texas doesn't have nearly the amount of natural boundaries that hinder growth like Florida and Texas do.
LA's sprawl is pretty dense compared to the Texas and Florida metros, so you have far more people in that sprawl. Also, LA is interrupted by natural features as well, such as the Santa Monica Mountains separating the LA Basin from the San Fernando Valley, the Pomona Valley and the Inland Empire are separated from the LA Basin by the Chino Hills, and so on. I'm not denying that Southern California sprawls (much much more than the Bay Area, which has far more natural boundaries), but it definitely is a different sprawl from Houston. You don't get the leapfrog development in California in general that you do in Texas or Florida tbh...and Florida has even more of that than Texas does.
I’m not talking Denton to Waxahachie or Conroe to Galveston. I’m talking Temecula to Downtown San Diego, hence McKinney to Dallas. Denton to Fort Worth or even Denton to Dallas. I doubt the number of people who live in an Eastern Suburb of Baltimore will even try to go to D.C once a week yet even commute there. I understand that theirs mountains in your way but even in cities like São Paulo or Rio de Janeiro you don’t see half the amount of sprawl you see in an LA or San Diego and San Francisco is working on places like Brisbane and increasing density there seeing as it’s essentially an inner suburb that still manages to avoid density somehow. Temecula for example is 60 miles away from San Diego, only Galveston/Conroe are that far from the main city in the entirety of Texas. The far flung areas of LA are approaching a full 80 miles away from Downtown LA. I understand that development is more linear but even with mountains in the way the broken sprawl just leads to the city covering a much much larger area than necessary. San Diego will fill several times more massive than its peers just because you can go to Temecula and still be in the city, Escondido is almost like an inner suburb, with most of its development in the 80s...and it’s 30 miles away from San Diego and 25 miles away from the edge of suburbia. That to me speaks of massive sprawl even if theirs gaps in between, and it’s denser than Texas being less compact will lead to it feeling sprawlier. I imagine if San Diego continues to grow till its at Houston size how much sprawl will it have? Will it sprawl past Murrieta all the way till Perris is considered a San Diego suburb as much as it is a Riverside suburb?
I’m not talking Denton to Waxahachie or Conroe to Galveston. I’m talking Temecula to Downtown San Diego, hence McKinney to Dallas. Denton to Fort Worth or even Denton to Dallas. I doubt the number of people who live in an Eastern Suburb of Baltimore will even try to go to D.C once a week yet even commute there. I understand that theirs mountains in your way but even in cities like São Paulo or Rio de Janeiro you don’t see half the amount of sprawl you see in an LA or San Diego and San Francisco is working on places like Brisbane and increasing density there seeing as it’s essentially an inner suburb that still manages to avoid density somehow. Temecula for example is 60 miles away from San Diego, only Galveston/Conroe are that far from the main city in the entirety of Texas. The far flung areas of LA are approaching a full 80 miles away from Downtown LA. I understand that development is more linear but even with mountains in the way the broken sprawl just leads to the city covering a much much larger area than necessary. San Diego will fill several times more massive than its peers just because you can go to Temecula and still be in the city, Escondido is almost like an inner suburb, with most of its development in the 80s...and it’s 30 miles away from San Diego and 25 miles away from the edge of suburbia. That to me speaks of massive sprawl even if theirs gaps in between, and it’s denser than Texas being less compact will lead to it feeling sprawlier. I imagine if San Diego continues to grow till its at Houston size how much sprawl will it have? Will it sprawl past Murrieta all the way till Perris is considered a San Diego suburb as much as it is a Riverside suburb?
I was not including Baltimore when it comes to DC commutes since it's still its own metro area (but shares a CSA with DC), although that's a thing with a few people (downtown Bmore to DC). But there are plenty of people who commute from the farther-out parts of Northern VA (Leesburg, Purcellville, Fredericksburg) into DC. As for your scenario about Perris, that's highly unlikely since Perris is far flung and is moreso a suburb of Riverside, and San Diego doesn't have the growth rates of the Texas cities since its far more expensive and doesn't have the economy of the Texas metros. Hypothetical situations that you bring up are just strawmans and distractions.
The further flung areas of Los Angeles that you must be thinking of, most of those people don't commute all the way to DTLA as you seem to mistakenly think. Like DFW and Houston, Southern California has multiple employment centers. I'm talking about the metro areas as a whole, not cherry picking certain distances as you seem to be doing. Someone commuting from Victorville or Redlands is more than likely commuting to a job in Ontario or to San Bernardino.
Technically, Metro LA (LA and Orange Counties) is separate from the San Bernardino/Riverside MSA (Inland Empire), which is considered its own thing as the Inland Empire. While it definitely has its ties to Los Angeles and the super commuters, the IE has enough of its own employment base to avoid being a part of the LA MSA (but it is in its CSA) to avoid the commuting threshold that the Census Bureau has to classify it. It's a lot more complicated than you're making it out to be. Also the distinction between the urban areas and the areas that are not are a lot more stark than what you have in Texas and Florida.
And your notion that Los Angeles is the "most sprawling" really isn't true since there are multiple jurisdictions in SoCal that technically are not a part of the Los Angeles Metropolitan area. Los Angeles has been considered the densest metro area since the 1980s:
If you notice, the counties that are in the CSA are sprawlier than LA-Orange, but are on par with the Texas metros. The map shows that the Florida metros are far sprawlier than anything in California, but are on par with Austin, San Antonio, and Killeen-Temple. I'll say that some parts of California are about tit-for-tat with Texas, but neither are as sprawling as the Florida metros. But LA/Orange are far more uniform in their density than anywhere in Texas or Florida.
I’m thinking that defining which cities sprawl the most would include suburbs. So I don’t think the OP was asking which cities have the smaller city limits.
To the general question I think that metro commuting distances probably align with the amount of sprawl.
I was thinking the same also.
It's not like developments change at the city limits.
In a lot of cities the developments sprawl clear past the city limits. I think what the op is asking is which cities do this the most.
If you are going the density route then at least go the UA route. If so then the west coast cities do well in this metric.
UA density in ppsm:
Los Angeles 2,702
San Francisco 2,419
Miami 1,715
San Diego 1,558
El Paso 1,237
Houston 1,150
San Antonio 1,136
DFW 1,111
Austin 1,005
Tampa 985
Orlando 975
Jacksonville 775
Looks like California has the most dense UAs and Florida has the least while Texas is the middle of the road.
I don't know why people keep using Houston as an example of the most sprawly in Texas yet among the big cities it's the most dense. Granted it's not that higher than the others but people seem to think it's the worst offender. Despite the large city limits the density is on par with the others.
It's gotta be Texas. Miami and CA big cities are on coasts, which geographically limit sprawl. Texas' coastal cities are small... and the big cities are inland (including Houston) with plenty of room to sprawl in every direction.
Although an argument could be made that the LA metro is so huge AND sprawled, plus being connected to the Riverside and practically SD metros, that CA pretty much trumps every other state in sprawl just with that 1 area.
But a better comparison might be Texas cities vs. Georgia, NC, and Arizona cities in terms of sprawl.
Well, yes, Los Angeles and San Francisco are in fact two of the most dense metropolitan areas in the nation, along with NYC.
But Inland California is a far different story. Looking at Sacramento, Fresno, Bakersfield, Riverside/San Bernardino, and sprawl really goes out of control. Say, even Escondido and Poway in San Diego county have tons of McMansions on ranches and vineyards sprawling several acres that would put anything in Plano/Frisco or The Woodlands to shame.
Easily California. Plano borders Dallas and from Plano you can get to ranch land and open spaces in about 15 minutes. Measuring Waxahachie to Anna is about 70 miles and White Settlement to Terrell is also about 70.
In California it is 85 miles from Pacific Palisades to Yucaipa, On a straight North-South line it is only 50 miles between San Antonio Heights and San Clemente, but if you drew that line to the northwest it would be 94 miles from San Clemente to Castaic. This leaves out the interconnection between the Antelope Valley and Los Angeles, the Victor Valley (high desert) and San Bernardino, the Coachella Valley to the Inland Empire, and Temecula to the Riverside/San Bernardino area, and the San Diego metro. In Southern California you can easily wind up working with someone who lives 80 miles from you.
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