Why does the Dallas/Ft. Worth area sprawl so much compared to other metro areas? (Trinity: live, suburbs)

[Bobloblawslawblog]

Originally Posted by DallasTexasBoii96

You guys dont get it. Let's look at it HISTORY wise. LA is a big city, ok we have that. The DFW metroplex is big too. Now let's go to history.
LA was born because of the GOLD RUSH and flourished because of it's location right next to beaches. Plus, half of the people there are illegal immigrants from Mexico, since they are so close. You can tell how all of the big cities in California are made, because they are all on the shore, or shall I say beaches.
The DFW metrolpex was born from COMPLETELY NOTHING. Dallas is by NO beach, ocean, or even any big body of water. Plus, the DFW was started a LONG time after LA and is turning out to be just like it. I bet you that if the DFW metroplex was in LA's place, we would be MUCH bigger and more sprawling than ever before.

Oh, and you say LA is getting bigger and still sprawling, think about who was named the fastest growing metroplex in America. Yes, the DFW! We came from absolutely NOTHING. LA has a famous river too. Man it doesn't get much easier than that for LA to have become one of the biggest cities in the world, but its not and its struggling without that gold to hold it. The DFW has just achieved much more in its history than LA to get where it is. Oh, and did I mention that LA is on the PACIFIC OCEAN!!! Man, La has been spoon fead more than any city out there. No comparison. Just because the DFW is smaller doesnt mean it isnt better.

This discussion was going just fine until this. So many corrections to make here. Wow. Where to begin? OK, first of all, L.A. was definitely NOT "born of the gold rush". Nowhere in Southern California was. All the gold was in the Northern part of California. San Francisco flourished thanks to the gold rush, but NOT L.A. Los Angeles was born from a Spanish mission, and boomed after the advent of the oil and motion picture industries, respectively. So there's that.

Now, let's break this down, line by line:

Originally Posted by DallasTexasBoii96

Half the people there are illegal immigrants.

What??? First of all, that is just plain wrong. You're basically saying that there are something like 8 million illegals living in greater Los Angeles! I doubt there are even that many illegals in the entire state of California. Besides, I would have to imagine there is quite a large number of illegals living in DFW, as there are in every single major U.S. city these days. Especially those in states that border Mexico. You know, like Texas? Besides, who really cares? What does that have to do with the topic here, which is sprawl? Illegals are just as much human beings as documented citizens, unless perhaps there was something else behind your statement.

Originally Posted by DallasTexasBoii96

You can tell how all of the big cities in California are made, because they are all on the shore, or shall I say beaches

Though it is true that California's 3 largest metros are on the coast, in Los Angeles' case the economy, which is what fuels growth, has never been dependent upon that factor. Once again, the motion picture industry has been, and remains the main catalyst in L.A.'s growth, and it has been for about a century now. It was also initially fueled by the oil industry, and that continues to be a major contributor to this day as well. The port of Los Angeles, though a busy port, only makes up a small percentage of the workforce and local economy. There is a certain amount of tourism involving the beaches, but it makes an even smaller dent in growth/economy than the port. There are much cleaner, prettier beaches to the North and South of the city. The coastal metros have flourished mainly due to the fact that the weather along the California coast is much more mild and pleasant than it is further inland. Still, much of greater Los Angeles extends well inland, and the fastest growing metros in California are currently all inland metros, such as Sacramento, Bakersfield, Fresno, and Palm Springs.

Originally Posted by DallasTexasBoii96

The DFW metrolpex was born from COMPLETELY NOTHING.

Umm, all cities are born from completely nothing. I'm not really sure what you even meant by that. The Los Angeles basin was just grassland before the Spanish built their missions there and the first ranchos were established.

Originally Posted by DallasTexasBoii96

Dallas is by NO beach, ocean, or even any big body of water.

I'm looking at a Google maps satellite image of Dallas right now, and I see several lakes, not to mention a decent-sized river running right through the middle of the city. Quite a bit larger than the meager L.A. river, which you claim is a "famous" river, which normally barely even trickles along a concrete channel and often times dries up completely. The Trinity has grassy banks and doesn't look like it's in any danger of drying up anytime in the next, oh, let's say few thousand years?

Originally Posted by DallasTexasBoii96

Plus, the DFW was started a LONG time after LA and is turning out to be just like it. I bet you that if the DFW metroplex was in LA's place, we would be MUCH bigger and more sprawling than ever before.

Los Angeles was pretty much just a small settlement built around a mission, which itself was surrounded by ranches, and didn't really experience any signifigant growth until the railroads reached it in the 1870's. The discovery of oil in the area in the 1890's spurred L.A.'s first boom. By comparison, Dallas was formally incorporated as a city in 1856. It may not have experienced it's first boom until much later, but all things considered, both cities started out at roughly the same time. Also, just because DFW is now a large metro area with lots of freeways, skyskrapers, and suburbs... that doesn't mean that it's turning out to be anything like L.A. The two metros are extremely different from each other, on so many levels.

Originally Posted by DallasTexasBoii96

The DFW has just achieved much more in its history than LA to get where it is.

How do you figure? How can you even make that claim? Please explain to us all how Dallas' achievements, of which I'm sure are many, just like any big city, outweigh or overshadow the countless achievements of Los Angeles? Los Angeles gave us movies, for one. That's kind of a biggie. It was the first city to produce oil on a mass scale. Yes, even before Texas. It was the first city to build a freeway system, which every city in the nation has modeled their's on ever since. And if we're talking achievements here, the fact that the greater L.A.-Orange County-San Bernardino metro has been able to reach something like 18 million people, considering it lies on the edge of a massive desert where water is in very short supply, speaks volumes. Dallas may not be anywhere near the coast, but it's situated in a region that receives much more rainfall than Southern California. So, what exactly has Dallas achieved that is so much more important? The Cowboys? Please. I'm sure Dallas has reasons to be proud of certain accomplishments, but so does every city. Puffing out your chest and acting like you're more important than everywhere else does nothing to help your argument, and holds no relevance.

And finally, we come to this:

Originally Posted by DallasTexasBoii96

Man, La has been spoon fead more than any city out there. No comparison. Just because the DFW is smaller doesnt mean it isnt better.

I'm assuming that by "spoon fed", you mean that L.A. has had it easy. Why? Because it has a mild, Mediterranean climate, beaches, and palm trees? The Gaza strip has a Mediterranean climate, beaches, and palm trees as well. How easy have they had it? Aside from the water issue, which I already covered, let's see.... there have been countless earthquakes, wildfires, mudslides, a couple of major race-riots, deadly heatwaves, a period of having the most polluted air in the Western world (which they have now seem to have gotten under control). I could go on, but hopefully you get the picture by now. Now, tell me how Dallas has had it so rough? A few tornadoes maybe? A dead president? What? As for one city being "better" than the other, that's not even relevant to the discussion and completely off the topic, which once again, is "sprawl".

Look, I'm going to go easy on you, because you strike me as being very young and a bit inexperienced. I think perhaps as you get older you will understand these things a little better and perhaps feel a little less insecure about where you live. I mean, why else would you get so overly defensive and hijack a thread that has nothing to do with 80% of everything you ranted about, just to ultimately try and make a case that Dallas is somehow better, or more important, than Los Angeles? Also, I think maybe you need to study up a bit more on your U.S. history. The gold rush thing alone demands that.

[rantanamo]

The premise of this thread is incorrect. LA is the most dense metro area in the US. Every metro area in the US is more sprawly. DFW is not the least dense metro area either. Sprawl is not just a measure of space, but a measure of density as well.

[pinipig523]

Cant compare to LA.

[hbdwihdh378y9]

Originally Posted by natterer

If you go to MapFrappe, you can cut out a chunk of area on Google Maps, and superimpose that area on another part of the map. It's an interesting way to compare the relative sizes of cities, metro areas, states, counties, countries, etc.

Well, when you do it with the Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex, you can see just how much the area sprawls.

Now, in the first image, this is an outline of New York City's Manhattan island superimposed against the metroplex:

People can't build houses on the ocean.

Dallas sprawls because there are no coastlines or mountains to hem it in. This should go without saying.

[hbdwihdh378y9]

By the way, here's a surprising fact: Garland is actually more densely populated than Dallas.

[Bobloblawslawblog]

Originally Posted by hbdwihdh378y9

By the way, here's a surprising fact: Garland is actually more densely populated than Dallas.

I've always thought those density stats were a bit misleading. I mean, Garland encompasses a much smaller area than all of Dallas proper, but take a drive through Vickery Meadow, Oak Lawn, or Uptown, and it's obviously more densely populated than anywhere in Garland. Plus, there are large areas of Dallas that are industrial or greenbelt-parkland, which offset the stats, whereas Garland is almost entirely residential. The main difference is that the density is more evenly spread out in Garland, but Dallas has certain neighborhoods that are much more dense than others. This is true of most major "sunbelt" cities that experienced the bulk of their growth after WW2. A great example would be the Gulfton neighborhood in Houston, which has an average density of something like 17,000 per square mile, while Houston proper has an average density of something like 3,700 per sq. mile.

[Nylund]

I think there are two basic reasons:

1. Geography. The densest cities in the US have very constrained geography (Manhattan, San Francisco, etc.) The only direction to build is up. People will build in the cheapest way. In Dallas, that means outwards (rather than up).

2. Cities that saw most of their growth in the post-automobile world sprawl more. Density was much more important before cars.

I'd also argue that industrial history likely matters. Farms, plantations, ranches, etc. are, by nature, spread out. I think cities that grew out of those areas kept that character.

For me, how "big" a city feels has more to do with population density than it does total population. Dallas has always felt more like a suburb to me because of the sprawl.

Dallas has a pretty low population density for it's size. As a reference, Manhattan has over 70,000 per square mile. NYC, as a whole, has about 26,000 people per square mile. San Francisco has about 17,000 per square mile. Boston has 13,000. Chicago: 12,000. Dallas has 3,500 people per square mile. That puts Dallas on par with Eugene, Oregon.

To put that into perspective, for Dallas to have the population density of Manhattan, every single Texan in the entire state would have to move to Dallas proper (not the Metroplex, but just within the Dallas city limits).

There are a lot of people on these forums who move to Dallas from NYC. Many have this notion that Dallas is a "big city," but in their minds, their notion of a "big city" is based around NYC when, in terms of city-denseness, it's much more like Eugene, OR.

Interesting bit of trivia: There is only one city in Texas with a population density higher than 10,000. That city is "Mobile City," a small incorporated trailer park that's home to ~200 people in Rockwall county.

[Bobloblawslawblog]

Originally Posted by Nylund

2. Cities that saw most of their growth in the post-automobile world sprawl more. Density was much more important before cars.

There are a lot of people on these forums who move to Dallas from NYC. Many have this notion that Dallas is a "big city," but in their minds, their notion of a "big city" is based around NYC when, in terms of city-denseness, it's much more like Eugene, OR.

Interesting bit of trivia: There is only one city in Texas with a population density higher than 10,000. That city is "Mobile City," a small incorporated trailer park that's home to ~200 people in Rockwall county.

Hence my earlier comment regarding the misleading density stats. Also, the sunbelt cities saw most of their growth not so much in a "post-automobile" world, but in a post-WW2 baby-boom world where suburban tract-style growth became the norm; single-family, single-level ranch-style homes which could spread out much further and more affordably on cheaper land, without the need to build up instead of out. Sunbelt cities typically sit on cheap land surrounded by endless farmland which can easily be bought out at rock-bottom prices. This was definitely the case in Texas, and it still is. All the major cities there can lay claim to this factor. Cities like L.A. and San Francisco are limited by mountains and ocean. Cities like Dallas, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio have unlimited, affordable room to expand.

As for New Yorkers moving to (anywhere in) Texas and expecting what they're used to as being a "big city" vibe, well... that can easily be chalked up to naivety, or maybe even delusion. There's a steep cliff to fall from for the level of urban density that East Coasters are accustomed to, versus the paltry level of new-found urban density that Texans are accustomed to. I'm sure that to people who grew up in places like Abilene or Beaumont, cities like Dallas and Houston must seem like (their idea of) Manhattan, but to people who actually grew up in Manhattan (or even the outer boroughs), these cities probably seem more like (their idea of) Mayberry R.F.D.

[TheOverdog]

I've always thought those density stats were a bit misleading. I mean, Garland encompasses a much smaller area than all of Dallas proper, but take a drive through Vickery Meadow, Oak Lawn, or Uptown, and it's obviously more densely populated than anywhere in Garland. Plus, there are large areas of Dallas that are industrial or greenbelt-parkland,

IMO, Dallas doesn't have enough greenbelts to make a difference. I think those distinctions are important when there is a mountain or large lake, or ocean taking up half the city, but Dallas doesn't have that. Nor does it have an imposed-growth boundary taking half the county and all the population is jammed in towers, which would give an overall low density for a large area. Dallas and Garland and Plano (both more dense) are all pretty much the same featureless land overall, and in my opinion completely comparable.

Of course Dallas has small areas that are much more dense than anything in Garland or Plano, but in my opinion those small pockets don't make up for Dallas' overall sprawl. Also if Dallas had a large contingent of people living in a dense area, then I'd also concede. But very few people live in downtown Dallas overall, something like only 20k. In 5 years, we can check again.

Also Garland and Plano were also built after that same WWII period you refer to (I completely agree that the build-out of the cities is based on that plus white flight) but they also had a lot of build-out in the '70s when the concept of cheap-gas was somewhat waning, so yards got a bit smaller and things got a bit tighter. The majority of lots in Plano are smaller than .25 an acre. The average Frisco home lots are even smaller as utility costs and fuel prices bankrupt municipal governments with larger lots.

Also the giant parking lots, wide freeways, and distributed growth is very much a choice city governments make, so again, I consider Dallas' low density a choice they made. I think that's why the tear-out I345 thing is gaining more popularity. It seems insane today to bulldoze downtown for far-flung development, but that's what they did in the '50s. They built Preston & SpringCreek wide enoughto have room for overpasses. They are narrowing them in Plano today.

I also think it has to do with age as an apples to apples comparison. Dallas had 250k people in 1940, LA had 1.5m. NY and Chicago were even bigger. Dallas didn't even pass 1m residents until the late '80s. Give it another 100 years, and it'll be more dense.

[Cranfords]

Originally Posted by TheOverdog

IMO, Dallas doesn't have enough greenbelts to make a difference........Dallas and Garland and Plano (both more dense) are all pretty much the same featureless land overall, and in my opinion completely comparable.

Not so fast. There are actually large areas of Dallas that are in flood plains and cannot be developed. Much of southeast Dallas is in this category.