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The other thing that surprised me is that Philly stays so close to Chicago over 200 sq miles. Would have thought that Chi would have been significantly further ahead, though if I'm not mistaken, Philly benefits from having some of it's most populous near 'burbs included within the boundaries, while at 200 sq miles (like NYC and LA) you're still well within the boundaries of Chicago proper, let alone Greater Chicagoland. If I'm not mistaken metro Philly/metro Chi have similar relative densities (I think. I could be mistaken), but Chicagoland obviously has a much larger footprint.
Just a couple observations on my lunchbreak. Again, interesting breakdown of the stats. Thanks for posting.
NYC and LA would both include quite a few separate municipalities in their radius, as the cities mainly grew / incorporated in specific directions - directly to the west of Manhattan are separate cities in NJ, and directly to the east of LA are separate cities of the Gateway Cities and San Gabriel Valley.
In fact, LA's radius would include parts of: Glendale, Pasadena, South Pasadena, San Marino, Alhambra, Monterey Park, Montebello, East LA, Commerce, Maywood, Bell, Cudahy, South Gate, Florence-Graham, Huntington Park, Vernon, South Gate, Lynwood, Westmont, Inglewood, Baldwin Hills/Ladera Heights, Culver City, West Hollywood and Beverly Hills.
Just input your city and 8 miles for the radius and its easy to see what's being computed. I became a bit curious about the West Coast results myself versus my internal conception of how they compare.
What was most interesting for me to tease apart was why Portland looked so close to S.F. by this metric despite the differences in relative density. As expected, S.F. 8 miles out from downtown, pulls in mostly water, part of Oakland, the tip of Marin County just a little to the south of the city limits. That's enough to bump things up by 200-300k but spatially the bay area is just not laid out that tightly with usable space. Portland on the other hand is surrounded by land, so despite the west hills it can grab suburbs like Beaverton and Lake Oswego under this metric and actually drop an industrial region up by the Columbia river increasing by 300-400k. 8 miles out for Seattle by coincidence has the nearly the same issue as SF. It adds Puget Sound, Lake Washington and some of Bellevue, Mercer Island and a bit to the south.
Anyway, I agree with the previous posters as long as you understand what the metric is measuring, this makes for an interesting data point. Not the be all, end all but fun nevertheless.
I am with the others that think the radius tool is an interesting measurement, doesn't necessarily mean that list is the definitive "biggest, densest cities list".
Like any statistical lists, it's kind of interesting but this is a bad metric for assessing "large" cities since it privileges a type of geometrical layout over others. As a result, cities like Miami which are built densely on a narrow strip along the atlantic seaboard are hurt.
Large cities like NYC and Los Angeles may or may not be hurt as well (Los Angeles is not exactly built in a radial fashion however it's not as narrowly built as Miami), but they're by far the biggest cities in the USA, they always come on top no matter what metric is being used.
UA is far better, because it doesn't privilege a specific geometry of city layout.
Of course Hartford made the best rate change. Its a center city in a large metropolitan area of around 1,200,000 people. Yet it has only 130,000 people because its only 18 square miles. If Hartford included West Hartford and East Hartford, it'd have a total population of roughly 250,000. Shockingly the suburbs are booming more than the city itself. Well Downtown Hartford is booming...sort of but nothing like the 1980's. Hartford is one of the most underrated cities in America, yet its squeezed between 2 major cities.
Just input your city and 8 miles for the radius and its easy to see what's being computed. I became a bit curious about the West Coast results myself versus my internal conception of how they compare.
What was most interesting for me to tease apart was why Portland looked so close to S.F. by this metric despite the differences in relative density. As expected, S.F. 8 miles out from downtown, pulls in mostly water, part of Oakland, the tip of Marin County just a little to the south of the city limits. That's enough to bump things up by 200-300k but spatially the bay area is just not laid out that tightly with usable space. Portland on the other hand is surrounded by land, so despite the west hills it can grab suburbs like Beaverton and Lake Oswego under this metric and actually drop an industrial region up by the Columbia river increasing by 300-400k. 8 miles out for Seattle by coincedence has the nearly the same issue as SF. It adds Puget Sound, Lake Washington and some of Bellevue, Mercer Island and a bit to the south.
Anyway, I agree with the previous posters as long as you understand what the metric is measuring, this makes for an interesting data point. Not the be all, end all but fun nevertheless.
Yes, as you said, this measuring tool [using a radial measure] doesn't work for cities with oddly shaped geographies (SF/Seattle).
It's interesting that at 200 square miles Chicago is 600,000 people short of it's population at 222 square miles, which is the size of the whole city. On the other hand, a city like Philadelphia only gains 300,000 from its' city proper population by extending out another 70 square miles.That's a steep drop off in density right outside the core.
It's interesting that at 200 square miles Chicago is 600,000 people short of it's population at 222 square miles, which is the size of the whole city. On the other hand, a city like Philadelphia only gains 300,000 from its' city proper population by extending out another 70 square miles.That's a steep drop off in density right outside the core.
yes the radius has about 30-40% in NJ in this and excludes a decent chuck of the city. NJ is not as populated as the PA side
No, I just did basic math to prove how inaccurate the OP's numbers are. I'll use my location, Seattle, as an example of how misleading the numbers are.
OP gives Seattle a population of 835,829. OP states that he calculates these numbers by the following process:
"8 miles from the center is about 201 square miles, and since that's closest to the average city boundary size, that's what I used for the ranking. Here are the top 50 largest cities by population in 2010 at that size, along with the actual ranking."
So all OP is doing is taking a radius of 8 miles from a city center. This OBVIOUSLY leads to misconstrued numbers for linear cities like Seattle which is placed along a narrow isthmus. To CORRECTLY calculate Seattle's population within a 200 square mile boundary, I have simply added Seattle's neighboring cities:
Population numbers:
Seattle: 652,405 [83 square miles of land]
Bellevue: 133,992 [31 square miles of land]
Kirkland: 84,000 [17 square miles of land]
Shoreline: 54,790 [11 square miles of land]
Lynnwood: 46,485 [7 square miles of land]
Montlake Terrace: 20,674 [4 square miles of land]
Renton: 97,003 [23 square miles of land]
So if I were to expand Seattle's city boundaries to incorporate neighboring cities, Seattle would have a total of 176 square miles of land with a population of 1,089,349, putting Seattle at #13 on OP's list.
BUT given that basic math proves that OP's numbers are incorrect or inaccurate, I wouldn't use his list at all for the basis of actual population numbers. Clearly, OP's list doesn't take into account geographic limitations since I simply added Seattle's neighboring cities and arrived at a much higher population count UNDER 200 square miles.
So wait, you use a completely different measurement to find one city's population and use that completely different measurement to declare that the ranking is wrong, especially when the city in question, Seattle, IMPROVED from its real life ranking, which actually does include water and other geographic features.
To all those people who don't like the ranking, feel free to make your own with whatever standards you want. None of them will be exact. None of them will be completely accurate and account for every single quirk of geography or development layout, but good luck trying. But for the love of god, please keep in mind that this is just a single way to measure something that is very difficult to measure. It's not misleading, it's not an attack, it's just an example of a different way to see something. If you can't understand that, or if the ranking gets your underwear in knots, then I don't know what else to say.
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