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This is a really interesting link. It lists the top 1000 cities/towns in America, their latest Census population estimates and their total growth rate since 2000.
Pursuant to a previous thread about largest Town in America (and comparing towns as singular municipalities and not a collection of them like in NY), it appears that the three largest ones are:
Interesting since Cary mostly feels like a large suburb, but in downtown by the Amtrak station it feels like a small town.
I'd suspect that most of the "towns" on the list are suburbs or other cities. In fact, that's why I put the core city in parenthesis next to each of the top three.
As for Cary, you are correct. Its DT feels like the DT of a small town under 10,000 people because, frankly, that's what it was before it expanded its footprint and became a giant suburb serving Raleigh and Research Triangle Park.
But city limits don't really tell you anything. Metro-wide figures are more useful.
They don't really tell you anything??? ...not anything at all???
Among these 1000 cities are cities within the metros themselves. Looking at this sort of data can tell you where in those metros that the growth is occurring. If you look at central cities that are shrinking but know that the metro isn't, then this data tells you that the population is dispersing from the central city to the burbs. If you look at the data for a collection of cities in a single metros and they are all growing, it can tell you that growth is robust or it can lead you to seek how how that growth is happening (annexation, densification, etc.) when compared to other metrics of the city and its metro.
I'll use the Raleigh metro as an example of how this data tells me something. Here are all the cities on the list within the Raleigh metro, their populations and growth rates since 2000:
Raleigh: 423,179 (+45.8%)
Cary: 145,693 (+49.5%)
Apex: 40,420 (+90.3%) The next 1000
Wake Forest: 32,936 (+151.8%)
Holly Springs: 26,865 (+165.3%)
Garner: 26,732 (+41.9%)
Morrisville: 20,591 (+269.8%)
Fuquay-Varina: 19,429 (+143%)
So, this data tells me that growth is happening all over the place around Raleigh and that the majority of it is occurring in Wake County (all cities on the list above are in Wake). I know from this data and other data that Raleigh both grew in land area and in density since 2000. I also know that several suburbs of Raleigh came out of seemingly nowhere in just 12 years, turning small communities into rapidly growing suburbs. This data also tells me that growth in Wake Co. is primarily happening within the city of Raleigh and to its West, North and South.
It's good to hear that Newark actually saw a population increase. OTOH, I'm surprised that St. Pete and Fort Lauderdale has actually declined in population.
But city limits don't really tell you anything. Metro-wide figures are more useful.
I am with you on this because cities like Jacksonville, although they rank high, do not "feel" like big cities and do not have the same amenities as some other cities that are smaller but are situated within a bigger metro area. A hybrid score would be more useful
Suburbs support city amenities and population, without them, your city population wouldn't be. You may not like to look at them, but you should.
Also, a lot of cities gain population but annexing the surrounding communities/suburbs. So it's not so much growth as it is moving boarders. Another reason metros give a clearer picture.
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Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
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