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Question is, why is the population of some cities relatively low and yet they have HUGE metro populations where on the other hand some cities have fairly large city populations and small metro populations. Here are some examples I've come across.
1. Indianapolis - 827,000 Metro population - 1.7 million
2. Atlanta - 420,000 Metro population - 5.2 million
3. Columbus - 787,000 Metro population - 1.8 million
4. Baltimore - 620,000 Metro population - 2.7 million
5. Louisville - 602,000 Metro population - 1.4 million
6. Seattle - 620,000 Metro population - 3.5 million
Do you see the trend? Most of these cities are about the same size in city population, some smaller, but have MUCH larger metro populations. What causes this?
So why do some cities get land boundaries and such annexed and others don't? It seems a larger city would have more money to put in its coffers, so its in their best interest to grow the city population over the metropopulation.
Atlanta's metro still perplexes me. It's like 200 bagillion square miles. I don't quite understand.
I'm surprised you left Pittsburgh off your list, city pop ~300k, metro pop 2.1m+
Well there are a lot more cities I could have done, I just did a few to show the differences. Cleveland and Cincinatti and St. Louis are some other ones, and then Newark and Boston are others.
But yes, Atlanta's metro is massive, one of the largest in the U.S. but its City population is probably ranked 70th or so.
Well there are a lot more cities I could have done, I just did a few to show the differences. Cleveland and Cincinatti and St. Louis are some other ones, and then Newark and Boston are others.
But yes, Atlanta's metro is massive, one of the largest in the U.S. but its City population is probably ranked 70th or so.
These things are easy to validate. Atlanta proper is 40th.
When they grew into major cities has a lot to do with it. A lot of cities in the Midwest and Northeast had their city populations peak in the 1950 census. Philadelphia (2,071,506 in 1950, 1,526,006 today), Detroit (1,849,568 in 1950, 706,585 today), Baltimore (949,708 in 1950, 619,493 today), Cleveland (914,808 in 1950, 393,806 today) and Pittsburgh (676,806 in 1950, 307,484 today) would be examples. Starting in the 50's their populations expanded into the suburbs, so The metro populations of these cities are just as much a reflection of their past population heights as their current populations. Metros that have developed more recently have more of their population concentrated in their core city, because they didn't experience the flight to the suburbs of the Post WWII years that the older cities did.
Atlanta is only like 149 square miles or so...not sure the exact size. If it were Dallas or Houston size, it would probably have over one million residents too, so city limits is a big factors. This is why most studies, firms, etc use metro sizes vs city proper sizes.
Well there are a lot more cities I could have done, I just did a few to show the differences. Cleveland and Cincinatti and St. Louis are some other ones, and then Newark and Boston are others.
But yes, Atlanta's metro is massive, one of the largest in the U.S. but its City population is probably ranked 70th or so.
In the case of cities like Cleveland and Detroit, flight may have a lot to do with it. Not that suburbs did not exist before the crime wave, but those crime waves did help to boost their populations a bit during the 80s and 90s. These days though the crime is out in the suburbs and the cities are a lot safer than they used to be. Plus, suburban areas are just as urban as their respective cities, particularly out in Texas or Illinois.
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