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Outside its tiny city limits, Miami is pretty densely populated as its urbanized area is sandwiched between the Everglades and the Atlantic. In fact, some of Miami's "burbs" are more densely populated than the city itself. For instance, Miami Beach is over 12,500 ppl/sq mile while the city of Miami is 12,100 ppl/sq mile.
Location: The Greatest city on Earth: City of Atlanta Proper
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Originally Posted by Akhenaton06
Typically traditional town centers in the once independent suburbs that have since been swallowed up in the metro area's sprawl, which are pretty small relative to the primary city. In metro Atlanta, that includes suburbs like Decatur and Marietta.
Yeah, it's funny how people on these boards never think of how small the city of Atlanta itself is. They look at a map and think of everything in side of I-285 is just the city of Atlanta. In reality, there are nine incorporated cities:
Atlanta proper
East Point
College Park
Hapeville
Decatur
Chamblee
Doraville
Avondale Estates
Half of Sandy Springs
Half of Dunwoody
And 13 CDPs:
Brookhaven
North Atlanta
North Decatur
South Decatur
Druid Hills
Panthersville
Gresham Park
Candle-Mcafee
Redan
Scottsdale
Tucker
Belvedere Park
Vinings
All of that is before you get OTP and hit the sprawl everyone always goes on about in the suburban counties.
As you pointed out though, there are several other cities outside I-285 that have been around before the Metro hit it's big population gains like Marietta or Norcross.
By subtracting city population from MSA population (2009) I get these figures for each city's suburbs outside the city limits (Ft Worth is included with Dallas suburbs).
NYC 10,677,119
LA 9,042,132
Chi 6,728,732
Dallas 5,147,458
Miami 5,113,864
Atlanta 4,934,078
DC 4,876,343
Phila 4,421,000
Boston 3,942,831
Houston 3,609,074
SF 3,501,642
Detroit 3,492,079
Phoenix 2,770,400
I would say Atlanta is not in the top 5. The metro seems very large from the highways, even in the suburbs, because there are tall office buildings everywhere, heavy traffic, and 20 lane highways. Once you step off the highway, though, Atlanta is very low density single family and medium density multifamily with huge buffers. Even within the perimeter there are spots that look almost country.
Atlanta certainly builds "up" in office space, but fails to plan residential very well or build up at all. Atlanta's residential is some of the lowest density residential I have ever seen (Charlotte, Raleigh, Birmingham, and Nashville too).
I would guess that Houston seems more urban overall. Houston certainly sprawls, but I have studies spatial relations between Houston and Atlanta, and Atlanta covers twice the area with the same amount of people (relatively). Houston has 2 "perimeters", but even the further out one is hardly further out than Atlanta's Perimeter. There is a decent grid patter and yards don't have an acre on average with a buffer between every development.
The following two graphics might be interesting to note.
The above slides prepared by Douglas Allen, Senior Associate Dean, College of Architecture, Georgia Institute of Technology. All credits go to him for research and preparation.
By subtracting city population from MSA population (2009) I get these figures for each city's suburbs outside the city limits (Ft Worth is included with Dallas suburbs).
Why am I not surprised....?
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