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The grouping is made by metro areas. LA is much closer to Chicago than it is to NYC when we look at metro populations. Also, the lower you go, the more cities would fit the next tier definition, aka the 50,000 population tier probably would have like hundreds of cities.
I understand what you're saying but looking at it from an area standpoint the LA MSA is only 4k sq miles compared to New York's 13k sq miles, given only about 7k LA reaches a very continuous 18 million to NYC's 23million. Still a large gap of 5 million but closer to NY's population compared to Chicago's 9.7 million.
I understand what you're saying but looking at it from an area standpoint the LA MSA is only 4k sq miles compared to New York's 13k sq miles, given only about 7k LA reaches a very continuous 18 million to NYC's 23million. Still a large gap of 5 million but closer to NY's population compared to Chicago's 9.7 million.
Agreed, the Riverside area would be mostly desert without LA. LA is just too sprawled out for the commuting patterns to connect (the mountains doesn't help either). But it's all one huge continuous area.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Calisonn
I understand what you're saying but looking at it from an area standpoint the LA MSA is only 4k sq miles compared to New York's 13k sq miles, given only about 7k LA reaches a very continuous 18 million to NYC's 23million. Still a large gap of 5 million but closer to NY's population compared to Chicago's 9.7 million.
NYs MSA area is 6,720 sq miles, not 13,000. LAs MSA is 4,850, so smaller, but its CSA is a ridiculous 33,954 sq miles.
NYs MSA area is 6,720 sq miles, not 13,000. LAs MSA is 4,850, so smaller, but its CSA is a ridiculous 33,954 sq miles.
Of that 33k only 7k is inhabited in case you didn't know. Also in that 6.7k New York only holds 20 million vs 18 million from LA, so strictly from a population standpoint LA is a whole lot closer to New York than it is to Chicago.
Nice job on this! It is cool seeing the cities by tier on a map. Really drives home how closely placed some of the cities are (northeast and great lakes) and how much wide open space is in other areas (looking at you Dakotas, Wyo, Montana, etc).
I considered Wichita and Des Moines for a while because they looked impressive on satellite, but eventually decided against including them.
I never considered Little Rock - it's too small for me to consider it a major city.
I considered placing New Orleans a tier higher, but it's smaller than it seems.
The problem with combining anchors in multi-anchor metros is that the co-anchors get overlooked.
1) Little Rock is a considerably larger city than either Des Moines or Wichita. Definitely similar in size/scope to Tulsa, OK or Omaha, NE. It's also a state capital and can be considered somewhat of a regional commercial center.
2) It's not so much a "who cares" about St. Petersburg, FL or Tacoma, WA (or other satellite cities of fairly small size/nature), but rather that these cities are much moreso population centers with somewhat small satellite economies that just aren't on the same level as smaller metros that anchor geographic regions (or smaller lone metros at all). For instance, St. Petersburg is not on the same level as Jacksonville, FL. Sure it's downtown is cuter, but it's a county filled with old retirees, most of whom aren't even wealthy. Jacksonville, meanwhile, has a $60-70 Billion GDP and anchors 2-2.5 million people between NE FL and SE GA, like Tampa anchors the 1 million people in St. Pete and at least 3 million more people in other surrounds.
3) New Orleans is certainly in the same tier as Nashville and Charlotte (so that means you must raise Nashville a tier, too). New Orleans punches above its size weight in many respects.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ant131531
I didn't realize Seattle was so far from SF. Thought they were closer.
~14 hr drive if I recall.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MS313
On the map it says mostly based on populations but I would make a few changes.
I would elevate L.A. to tier 1. LA is twice the size of Chicago and the only other mega city in the country. I consider Riverside apart of the LA area.
Chicago is alone in tier 2. The gap is too big between Chicago and Dallas (the largest out of tier 3)
I wouldn't put Seattle in Tier 3 population wise. The gap is too big from any other tier 3 city and much closer to the largest tier 4 city (Minneapolis). Without Seattle, tier 3 has a clear size difference from tier 2 and tier 4. But going by a few other factors than population, Seattle and maybe Minneapolis could both be tier 3.
I would make a couple of changes between tier 4 and tier 5.
Overall, pretty good list. I like how you showed love to some of the overshadowed cities.
Literally any or all things considered, Chicago is not alone in Tier II while NYC and LA share Tier I and a whole host of cities from Atlanta to San Francisco share Tier III. But supposing we go with your thought process, Dallas sure as heck doesn't lead Tier III. The OP separated out Fort Worth. That means Dallas is without Tarrant County, leaving Dallas with ~5 million people or less. Houston, in the same state, already has a higher GDP than all of DFW and is a single-city metro, so it remains at 6.5 million people, a substantial difference. Heck, Philly, DC, Miami, and Atlanta are all also larger than Dallas without Fort Worth.
Which goes back to my original comment up above. Fort Worth is certainly on its own a much larger/more important city than Tacoma, WA or St. Pete, FL (or several other satellites), but being next to Dallas means that Dallas still steals some of the fuel that would normally fuel Fort Worth's fire had it been on its own (people, jobs, etc).
Then going back some more, pulling Oakland (E Bay) and San Jose (S Bay) out of the mix as separate entities, San Francisco would have only 1.85 million people. So if you're basing it on population alone, then that puts SF and Nashville (and San Jose) in the same category (and Oakland would be one tier above, with St. Louis and Baltimore). Even if you were to include all 4.5 million people in SF's MSA, anyone who's been around multiple US cities and been to SF would conclude that SF's sphere of influence is more than 4.5 million people. In fact, while not everyone commutes into the city (and it has large/powerful satellites like San Jose and Oakland), the city does anchor in more ways than one a region of 8+ million people, and it shows.
I do see the OP "dinged" Minneapolis by subtracting out "St. Paul's share of the population" but failed to do the same for other metros, like San Francisco (or maybe he honestly though Minneapolis was the same level of size/importance as Kansas City, Indy, and Las Vegas).
If you want to include more tiers AND base it off of population, you can't separate out satellite cities, and NYC, LA, and Chicago would all be in separate tiers 1-3. Percentage wise, the difference between LA's 13.3 million people and Chicago's 9.6 million would be less than the percentage change between DFW's 7.0 million and Phoenix or SF's 4.5 million. So then do you put Phoenix and SF and Boston in a separate tier below Dallas, Houston, Philly, DC, Miami, and Atlanta?
If you separate out major satellite cities, you have to be prepared for answering to putting Miami and SF into the same tier as Charlotte or Nashville or Austin or San Jose.
And why is Sacramento, a metro of 2.25 million people and the capital of the largest/most important state in the union, in the same tier as Albuquerque, Tulsa, Buffalo, Rochester, and El Paso?
I digress...there's a bit of disagreement and/or a few errors bound to happen with this stuff. But this chart doesn't seem to follow any methodology and there are too many glaring errors for me to say nice job and thanks for pondering over this for a few days!
I tend to favor this map, not only does it obviously show what each cultural regions hub city (or cities) is (hint: look at the size of the bubble in each cultural/geographic zone) but it also delineates most of the different corridors and cultural zones in the United States well.
This is also how I view "cultural regions" too. As in, the cities that share the same color and geographic vicinity to others in the same color or around it, are one cultural region. Everything outside of there is a different region.
Of that 33k only 7k is inhabited in case you didn't know. Also in that 6.7k New York only holds 20 million vs 18 million from LA, so strictly from a population standpoint LA is a whole lot closer to New York than it is to Chicago.
The OPs list is about metropolitan areas, not CSAs. You seem to be comparing New York MSA with LA CSA, even though these are two different metrics. The list is talking about MSAs. If we look at MSAs, LA MSA is much closer to Chicago MSA in population, than it is to NYC MSA.
The OPs list is about metropolitan areas, not CSAs. You seem to be comparing New York MSA with LA CSA, even though these are two different metrics. The list is talking about MSAs. If we look at MSAs, LA MSA is much closer to Chicago MSA in population, than it is to NYC MSA.
I understood that completely and I was actually comparing both cities per CSA, my point still stands that given the same area as is given to New York's MSA (6.7k=20mil), LA would reach a contiguous 18 million in that same area, much closer to NY than Chicago population wise.
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