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It's definitely a factor, but even in the Sunbelt, annexation laws vary wildly from state to state - in Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia they are nearly impossible, which is (for example) how Greenville SC has ended up with a city population of around 60,000, but an unincorporated urban area immediately surrounding the city which has a population of around 350,000, which is more reflective of the "actual" size of the city.
Great point. I was going to point out that it's not as cut and dry as it may seem mostly for cities in this list in States east of the Mississippi where city annexation laws are much stricter in general than they are West of the Mississippi. Atlanta for example, while indeed 98% physically larger than it was in 1950, had a single massive annexation of 100 square miles in 1952 and that's about it. It hasn't really grown much physically since and it likely won't due to the strict nature of annexation laws in Georgia.
Thanx very much man. This is pretty damn cool. Obviously this doesn't tell us how much population was gained between censuses due to annexation rather than migration or births-deaths. It's still incredibly interesting, so thanx a lot. Table 1 is especially brilliant.
Great point. I was going to point out that it's not as cut and dry as it may seem mostly for cities in this list in States east of the Mississippi where city annexation laws are much stricter in general than they are West of the Mississippi. Atlanta for example, while indeed 98% physically larger than it was in 1950, had a single massive annexation of 100 square miles in 1952 and that's about it. It hasn't really grown much physically since and it likely won't due to the strict nature of annexation laws in Georgia.
Interesting that 13 of th 15 largest all were over 10K ppsm
LA was not and Houston. Difference is Houston is only marginally more dense today while LA is now among thr moe more dense of the top 15. Interesting data Thanks War
Interesting that 13 of th 15 largest all were over 10K ppsm
LA was not and Houston. Difference is Houston is only marginally more dense today while LA is now among thr moe more dense of the top 15. Interesting data Thanks War
Also Detroit was more dense than DC at this point
The difference between LA and Houston is geography. Houston can expand and does expand on generally flat land. This keeps densities from rising much. LA has only so much flat, buildable land, so there's more infill that promotes density.
Nobody's saying that the Northeast didn't do this as well just earlier. The point is that there's been lots of growth in Southern and Western cities in the last 50 years and that annexation is played just as big a part in that as migration, if not bigger.
Yes, but it does depend on where in the Sunbelt we're talking about. There are entire states where this doesn't apply, not much at least. Looking at the numbers just between VA, NC, SC and GA would reveal some very different patterns, from state to state, and the percentages would be very different. Someone else mentioned Atlanta - involuntary annexations in Georgia came to a dead stop after about 1952; since then, Columbus, Augusta, Athens and 3 or 4 rural counties have done consolidations to get around this. In Atlanta it's not a possibility as the city is now surrounded by (recently) incorporated municipalities.
In Virginia, the last big annexation was undertaken by Richmond in the early 1970s; the state of Virginia responded to the backlash by placing a 'moratorium' on annexations of any kind that was to be in place for 5 years, but has been extended just before the expiration of the extensions to the present day. There are several large independent cities in VA - Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Suffolk, Hampton, Newport News - that were all created from town-county consolidations, and then they were reconstituted as 'independent cities', but all efforts to do this elsewhere in VA since the mid-1970s have failed as well. Thus - with the exception of those cities - any city in Virginia that grew, any, between 1980 and now did so through in-migration.
That would be the polar opposite of places like Texas, Arizona or North Carolina, where the rule you state IS true. But a close examination of those states would reveal some wildly differing policies from one city-to-the next - my previous post outlined the differences in NC - of the NC cities that grew, some gained 100% of their population through involuntary annexations, some got it through voluntary annexations, and some (Raleigh and Cary) have always annexed, but gained higher percentages through in-migration than through annexation.
And I would point out the Oklahoma City/Tulsa divergence (something of a similar difference between Phoenix and Tucson): OKC annexed hundreds of square miles of territory between 1955 and 1965 (very little before or since) in anticipation of growing into a city with a population of 1 to 1.5 million people. This obviously did not happen. Tulsa's reaction at the time, and in the time since, has been MUCH more conservative - there was a sense in Tulsa that - while growth would likely happen, it would not happen at that rate or in those numbers, so what would be the point in annexing 300 square miles of prairie? Of course OKC's growth has been by annexations - all of which were undertaken during a 10 year span - because the city limits extended out 10 or 20 miles into undeveloped, rural territory.
Something similar happened with Phoenix, though in Phoenix there was much more population growth. Tucson held back however, and hasn't annexed much of anything, comparatively, since at least the 1980s, though it has continued to show strong, steady growth. The pattern between the two cities is very different, in their approach to annexing territory.
So if the point is that (a) Northern cities grew a lot via annexation until they were prevented from doing so, and then (b) cities elsewhere in the US followed suit, until they began to be curtailed from doing so, then I really don't see what the difference is. The older cities are more dense - as they were annexing, they were doing so before cities became so autocentric, but the effect of the size of the city upon the people living within would be the same - a long walk in one city turned into a long drive in another younger one, basically. And it should be noted that there are MSAs and CSAs in the Northeast and Midwest that have vast areas of low density sprawl around a dense core city as well, so the density argument is a bit of a red herring in a 2012 where L.A. has a greater population density than Detroit, due to L.A.'s infill and geographical constraints and Detroit's city and metro population losses.
The real test will be in the future - as Sunbelt cities lose the ability to annex, how will their growth curve look in comparison with older Northeastern or Great Lakes cities? There are Sunbelt cities with very diverse economies that are deeply rooted, and there are Sunbelt cities that aren't - so it stands to reason that there will be Sunbelt cities that will sustain themselves as Boston, the Twin Cities or Chicago have done, and there will be other Sunbelt cities that that won't, in the fashion of Detroit or Flint. A comparative look at Memphis, Birmingham, Mobile and New Orleans (NOLA's 50-year trend, not just the post-Katrina aftermath), versus Atlanta, Houston, Raleigh, Charlotte or Austin would reveal some stark differences in economic structure, educational environment and a host of other factors, and those are the factors that will (or won't) drive growth. Atlanta has run out of anything to annex, and Charlotte will be in the same boat within 10 years, so a look at MSA or CSA populations will really reveal the truth in how it all plays out.
Exactly and this is a factor that gets overlooked. Actually, I don't think there was a Northeastern city on either list.
For most Sunbelt cities, annexation was the only way to grow since many of their current cities' limits were woods/fields/marsh etc. back in 1950.
I don't know if this is the case but to even suggest that annexation is the only reason that these places have grown is ignoring the truth. Perhaps one should compare county populations instead? County lines don't change and arguably provides the most comparable data.
For my two counties in the Sunbelt, it looks like this:
Wake County (Raleigh)
1950: 136,450
2011: 929,780 (+~580%)
Yep...that's real significant growth over the last 60+ years despite municipal annexation. I suspect it's typical for other Sunbelt core counties as well.
While at it, let's look at Syracuse's county (Onondaga)
1950: 341,719
2010: 467,026 (+~37%)
And...let's also look at the US growth rate for the same period.
1950: 150,697,361
2010: 308,745,538 (+~104%)
Source for all data: Wikipedia (per latest updates)
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