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Location: Watching half my country turn into Gilead
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Demographia has just released its 2017 edition of the most built up urban areas in the world.
Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitor sites is not ok
The list, based on stats from 2016, has the following United States, Canada and Mexico urban centers (urban area, population, urban area in sq miles, pop density in sq miles):
The big takeaway from this, I think, is Boston catapulting to the 4th largest urban area in the United States, behind NYC, LA and Chicago, and 5th overall in North America. Obviously, take this with a grain of salt as DC/Baltimore remain separated, but this is significant nonetheless.
How exactly are they getting their density numbers?
For Houston, it has a population of 6,155,000 in 1,969 sq miles and I get 3,293 ppsm yet it says 2800. DFW, I got 3,240 and for Miami, I got 4,927. Am I doing something wrong?
Location: Watching half my country turn into Gilead
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Spade
How exactly are they getting their density numbers?
For Houston, it has a population of 6,155,000 in 1,969 sq miles and I get 3,293 ppsm yet it says 2800. DFW, I got 3,240 and for Miami, I got 4,927. Am I doing something wrong?
They've basically admitted that they can't always reliably calculate population density, unless the national census authority provides up-to-date information for both. So essentially they are "reasonable approximations", which as you've demonstrated, can be off significantly. Nonetheless, they are the only annually published metropolitan area list that disregards political borders and provides consistent data. They also separate distinct labor markets (such as New York and Philadelphia) that would otherwise be one agglomeration. It's as close to a "one-size fits all" standard as we're going to currently get.
Straight from the horse's mouth:
"The tables indicate the method used to estimate both the land area and the base year population of each
built-up urban area. The following codes are used:
Source Codes: Population and Land Area
Code Source of Land Area or Base Year Population Estimate
A National census authority built-up urban area data (land area or population).
B Demographia land area estimate based upon map or satellite photograph analysis.
C Demographia population from lower order jurisdictions, with downward adjustment for rural population.
D Population estimate based upon United Nations agglomeration estimate.
F Other population estimate or other Demographia population estimate..
L Same as category “C”, based on a local government population estimate.
N Combined urban area using national census authority population or land area data
W Africapolis population or land area estimate
Presentation of Source Codes in Tables: The source codes are listed in the “Pop:Area Source” column
following this form: “C:B”, where “C” indicates the source from which the base population was estimated
and “B” indicates the source of the land area estimate. In this example, the population base is estimated by
Demographia and the land area data is estimated by Demographia.
Reliability
The most reliable sources are as follows:
• National census authorities, where representative agglomeration data is available (such as in the
United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Sweden, Norway, India and Australia).
• Africapolis population and land area estimates (Source code W), which replicate the results that
would likely be obtained if census authorities in West Africa reported built-up urban area data.
• Demographia population estimates.
"Urban Density Calculation Demographia World Urban Areas provides average urban population density data. It is not possible to
reliably coordinate the dates of current population estimates with land area estimates, except in cases
where the built-up urban area population and land area are provided by national statistical authorities
(Source Code A:A).
Built-up urban area population densities are expressed in rounded numbers (to the nearest 100 per square
mile or square kilometer). Urban population densities should be considered reasonable approximations.""
Location: That star on your map in the middle of the East Coast, DMV
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Quote:
Originally Posted by qworldorder
Demographia has just released its 2017 edition of the most built up urban areas in the world.
Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitor sites is not ok
The big takeaway from this, I think, is Boston catapulting to the 4th largest urban area in the United States, behind NYC, LA and Chicago, and 5th overall in North America. Obviously, take this with a grain of salt as DC/Baltimore remain separated, but this is significant nonetheless.
The gap is closing, its only a matter of years, by then DC-Baltimore urban area would be over 7.5 million and eventually approach 8mil.
Location: Watching half my country turn into Gilead
3,530 posts, read 4,135,974 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by petroglyphin
We are there 454 threads a day about density?
This isn't just about density; it's about an overall urban area, which many find to be the most accurate measure we have of a metropolitan area. I've added the sq mileage and density numbers for discussion because they're important, but each urban area is contextual, as we all know.
"There are also significant differences in density variation within built-up urban areas. Average urban density does not provide any information on such variations, nor can it be assumed that an urban area with a higher average density will have higher neighborhood densities. For example, the population density of the Phoenix urban area is more than 60 percent higher than in the Boston-Providence urban area. Yet, the highest population densities of Boston Providence are at least five times that of the highest density areas in Phoenix. Moreover, Boston-Providence has a far larger commercial core (“central business district” or “downtown”). The difference is that the Phoenix suburbs are denser than the Boston-Providence suburbs.
Higher density suburbs are also responsible for making Los Angeles the most densely populated large urban area in the United States, despite its much lower urban core densities relative to New York. This creates an irony that the city most associated with urban dispersion (“urban sprawl”) in the United States is, in reality, the most dispersed (least “sprawling”). At the same time, no urban area in the world sprawls over a larger area than New York, as is indicated in Table 2."
Quote:
Originally Posted by the resident09
The gap is closing, its only a matter of years, by then DC-Baltimore urban area would be over 7.5 million and eventually approach 8mil.
While still only being 2000 sq mi.
Oh, I don't disagree. We can only speculate as to when that will be, but it will definitely be soon (just as Boston made a huge leap).
This is every UA estimate over 1 million in the USA, the number of people they are estimated to have been added since 2010 and the rank in absolute numbers of their projected growth.
NYC is both the largest UA and has added the most new residents.
The ten UAs that added the most population are all among the top 13 in total UA population (the big are getting bigger). That said, Chicago and Philadelphia particularly underperformed relative to their peers in the top 10.
The most over-performing cities relative to UA rank in order are Raleigh (36th in rank but 18th in growth), Austin (30th in rank but 13th in growth) and Charlotte (35th in rank but 19th in growth)
Detroit and Cleveland are the only 2 that have been projected to have actually lost population in their UAs.
I tested several of the density metrics on their site but none of them was accurate vis-a-vis the stated land area and population estimate. They seem useless.
Demographia has combined adjacent core UAs in multiple MSAs where there is no UA gap between them (San Francisco/San Jose &, Raleigh/Durham are examples of this)
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