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Detroit is a weird one. Flint has been consistently declining, Andrian and Monroe (both pretty rural) have had a couple of down decades but generally up, Ann Arbor has had non-stop growth since forever, and Metro Detroit basically has growth in the suburbs and a drain from the city core making the overall MSA growth rate either up or down with the prevailing economic winds. I'm pretty amazed there's only a 658-person difference since 1970. I would have surely thought it would have either been at least a full percentage or more in either direction.
It's a common misconception outside of pop stat geeks that the Detroit area has lost population over the last several decades. In actuality it only lost people from 2004-2011. If trends continue even modestly you will see that red disappear again.
Seriously, whether that was sarcasm or not, only in America could a community 256 miles away from a city center (Needles, CA to Los Angeles) be considered part of that metro. "It's only commuting numbers, it goes by counties, blah, blah, blah..." Save it. CSAs are such a laughable, inflated statistic. Only in America.
Look at Tokyo's metropolitan area and then go look at NYCs. If Tokyo had that amount of land in its metro, it would literally contain more than half of Japan's population. I personally can't wait for the day when Richard Florida's megaregions are the new defaults for metros
Problematic assertion.
Most countries all over the world are experiencing the same urban discussions in regards to the definition of a city and it's respective "area" of influence (meaning city + suburbs + satellite cities + exurbs + close-by rural jurisdictions).
In Brazil, the 20 million persons metropolis known as Sao Paulo actually has an extended area too that spans a larger physical area and encompasses a total population of 27 million people. It achieves this population by adding all the satellite cities surrounding it like Campinas or Sao Jose dos Campos, among the like.
My hometown Singapore is a city-state, meaning it is a city and a country and has to exist in that form to exist (Hong Kong is another example of this -- will get to that in due time). However over the last 60 years, the Singapore "area" has developed a lot outside of Singapore. Johor Bahru, which is across the bridge from Singapore (similar to New Jersey across the Hudson River from New York -- distance wise), is essentially a bedroom community of Singapore's. It's primary selling points are that it has lots of space and golf courses (people from land constrained Singapore have to cross the bridge to Johor Bahru to play golf on bigger and better courses), it has less congestion, it is FAR more affordable, it has the same culture and cuisine, and it has the Singapore area's secondary airport to relieve Changi from immense schedule delays to other Asian markets. Singapore likewise has similar bedroom communities within the Riau Islands of Indonesia. People from both Riau Islands and Johor Bahru commute to Singapore, in immense numbers on a daily basis via bus, cab, or ferry. The area calls itself "SIJORI" for a reason.
Here in London, the area has an expanded definition too, known as the "London Commuter Belt Region" which basically encompasses an area similar to the majority of the American CSAs (8,000 - 12,000 square miles land area) and has a population of 15-19 million. Now you wont be going into Central "where retro-met-the-future" London and expecting people to know or even take you seriously if you refer to London as a "city" of 15-19 million people. However, the inter-connectivity that exists within the Greenbelt, around the Greenbelt, and just outside the Greenbelt (our geographical sprawl containment feature) is pretty undeniable.
In India, Delhi has already experimented extensively with the "extended area" concept. Its official metropolitan area has like 20-24 million people, but its extended area when all the little satellite communities around it that feed off it for nearly everything are factored in is over 45 million people. The region in general refers to itself as the National Capital Region.
Sydney and Toronto both have extended regions as well and they aren't in America. I assume you are already familiar with the term "Greater Golden Horseshoe" by now? Good.
Then there are well documented cases like the Yangtze River Delta (FAR more populous and monstrous than the entirety of the Pearl River Delta combined and put together -- it is 2/3rds the population of the United States altogether) and the Pearl River Delta.
This sort of thing is happening all over the world. Most cities that are relevant and have some sort of significant value have a city proper, an urban area, a metropolitan area, and a larger extended area beyond that. This is not America specific nor unique to America.
If it was then areas like Randstad, the Flemish Diamond, the Rhine-Ruhr Region, so on and so forth wouldn't exist as they do today. Even Tokyo has an extended area that eclipses 40 million people. These extended areas, as has been stated, often go outside of national borders too. For direct examples of that, you have three really big ones in just the United States: San Diego-Tijuana (over 5 million people), Detroit-Windsor (nearly 6 million people), and El Paso-Ciudad Juarez-Las Cruces (3.2 million people). These cities aren't even "far flung" or "distant" from one another.
This is a worldwide phenomena, I personally wouldn't single America out here for this, it is not like it is the only place experimenting with concepts such as "extended areas."
Last edited by Trafalgar Law; 08-27-2015 at 12:01 PM..
Location: Watching half my country turn into Gilead
3,530 posts, read 4,177,862 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Red John
Problematic assertion.
Most countries all over the world are experiencing the same urban discussions in regards to the definition of a city and it's respective "area" of influence (meaning city + suburbs + satellite cities + exurbs + close-by rural jurisdictions).
In Brazil, the 20 million persons metropolis known as Sao Paulo actually has an extended area too that spans a larger physical area and encompasses a total population of 27 million people. It achieves this population by adding all the satellite cities surrounding it like Campinas or Sao Jose dos Campos, among the like.
My hometown Singapore is a city-state, meaning it is a city and a country and has to exist in that form to exist (Hong Kong is another example of this -- will get to that in due time). However over the last 60 years, the Singapore "area" has developed a lot outside of Singapore. Johor Bahru, which is across the bridge from Singapore (similar to New Jersey across the Hudson River from New York -- distance wise), is essentially a bedroom community of Singapore's. It's primary selling points are that it has lots of space and golf courses (people from land constrained Singapore have to cross the bridge to Johor Bahru to play golf on bigger and better courses), it has less congestion, it is FAR more affordable, it has the same culture and cuisine, and it has the Singapore area's secondary airport to relieve Changi from immense schedule delays to other Asian markets. Singapore likewise has similar bedroom communities within the Riau Islands of Indonesia. People from both Riau Islands and Johor Bahru commute to Singapore, in immense numbers on a daily basis via bus, cab, or ferry. The area calls itself "SIJORI" for a reason.
Here in London, the area has an expanded definition too, known as the "London Commuter Belt Region" which basically encompasses an area similar to the majority of the American CSAs (8,000 - 12,000 square miles land area) and has a population of 15-19 million. Now you wont be going into Central "where retro-met-the-future" London and expecting people to know or even take you seriously if you refer to London as a "city" of 15-19 million people. However, the inter-connectivity that exists within the Greenbelt, around the Greenbelt, and just outside the Greenbelt (our geographical sprawl containment feature) is pretty undeniable.
In India, Delhi has already experimented extensively with the "extended area" concept. Its official metropolitan area has like 20-24 million people, but its extended area when all the little satellite communities around it that feed off it for nearly everything are factored in is over 45 million people. The region in general refers to itself as the National Capital Region.
Sydney and Toronto both have extended regions as well and they aren't in America. I assume you are already familiar with the term "Greater Golden Horseshoe" by now? Good.
Then there are well documented cases like the Yangtze River Delta (FAR more populous and monstrous than the entirety of the Pearl River Delta combined and put together -- it is 2/3rds the population of the United States altogether) and the Pearl River Delta.
This sort of thing is happening all over the world. Most cities that are relevant and have some sort of significant value have a city proper, an urban area, a metropolitan area, and a larger extended area beyond that. This is not America specific nor unique to America.
If it was then areas like Randstad, the Flemish Diamond, the Rhine-Ruhr Region, so on and so forth wouldn't exist as they do today. Even Tokyo has an extended area that eclipses 40 million people. These extended areas, as has been stated, often go outside of national borders too. For direct examples of that, you have three really big ones in just the United States: San Diego-Tijuana (over 5 million people), Detroit-Windsor (nearly 6 million people), and El Paso-Ciudad Juarez-Las Cruces (3.2 million people). These cities aren't even "far flung" or "distant" from one another.
This is a worldwide phenomena, I personally wouldn't single America out here for this, it is not like it is the only place experimenting with concepts such as "extended areas."
This is all true, and I mispoke when I said only in America. Extended areas are truly global these days, as "cities" become more spread out, even in developing nations.
That said, America's extended areas are generally still far larger in area than any other nation's. Cities and metro areas here contain far less a share of extended area total population than overseas. The majority of, if not all, of the examples you've mentioned above are denser than our CSAs and more physically connected. That's my main gripe, really--our CSA definitons are TOO extended.
This is all true, and I mispoke when I said only in America. Extended areas are truly global these days, as "cities" become more spread out, even in developing nations.
That said, America's extended areas are generally still far larger in area than any other nation's. Cities and metro areas here contain far less a share of extended area total population than overseas. The majority of, if not all, of the examples you've mentioned above are denser than our CSAs and more physically connected. That's my main gripe, really--our CSA definitons are TOO extended.
The real issue and the reason it wont ever stop is because the core areas of every city is extremely expensive. Even sprawled out cities, in the core areas the average apartment rent and the average price to purchase either a condominium or house is skyrocketing in addition to already have been twice or thrice the average of the rest of the metropolitan area. In some cases, four times, five times, or several folds more expensive in the core than the outskirts.
This is the problem with London. This is the problem with New York. This is the problem with Paris. This is the problem with Moscow. This is even the problem with Delhi, the core area, where the few nice places are becoming extremely expensive compared to the metropolitan area average as a whole. It leads people to move further and further out, as that becomes the basis for what they can or cannot afford.
As for the density of our CSAs, I agree with you, I personally don't like America nor most things about it -- including the density levels but one thing I think we should all realize is that while our American cities sprawl excessively in low-density manner they are better alternatives to the commie-block, high-density, generic, institutional/correctional facility looking trash you see in the dense urban sprawl of Beijing, Moscow, Delhi, Jakarta, several Eastern European countries.
As generic and space wasting as a detached single family home is, at least you can customize a yard, have some colors in your life, have personal space, a nice yard with lots of vegetation, instead of living like a prisoner in some correctional facility looking hellhole like this sea of "high-density" commie-blocks in suburban Beijing.
I would rather have a yard to customize my personality with certain trees, flowers, and decorations than live in a institutional disgrace where the only thing customizable that anyone can ever see if the floor-mat you lay out infront of your units door. For what it is worth, I used to live in a commie-block sort of neighborhoods when I lived overseas in Mumbai in the 1990s. It is indeed hellholish, if you want to see what the lighting and environment looks like in a screwed up hospital or some correctional institution, then live in a commie-block "high-density" urban sprawl environment.
There are better ways to build out than commie-blocks or single family homes though, America hasn't implemented that on a wider scale yet though (my guess is it probably wont either).
It's a common misconception outside of pop stat geeks that the Detroit area has lost population over the last several decades. In actuality it only lost people from 2004-2011. If trends continue even modestly you will see that red disappear again.
It actually grew like a weed until 1970.....from 850,000 to 5,300,000 only 60 years later. One adult lifespan.
The 1990's made up for 35 years of losses on either side all in itself.
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