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It would be hard just for the water part. LA is thirsty enough as it is. Where would the city get the water to support another 5 million people? And that's presuming they could find enough empty land in LA to house them.
I would say probably no. Anything's possible, but, even going by CSA (the most favorable measure for LA), NYC has like 6 million more residents, and tons of room to annex other nearby MSAs, while LA is mostly surrounded by desert.
City proper, almost certainly no. Can you imagine the city proper of LA tripling in size? Doesn't sound feasible in our lifetimes.
In terms of being America's city I really dont see LA displacing NYC in this regard. NYC as a "city" is massive on a scale no other place in the US even comes close to - LA included.
Could LA add more people 70 miles away from the core of LA the Inland Empire, be considered the same CSA as Sand Diego (100 miles away) becasue people commute from Orange county etc. I suppose. But really it just becomes a statitical mass of people. Not sure even then would compare to the city of NY - no slight to LA which I love but just dont see the "city" displacing NYC
Los Angeles the city is almost entirely built out with no hard core plans for any annexation - so no, very very very unlikely it will grow past NYC. Most cities see extreme growth by building on vacant land like Houston and Phoenix. Some cities bounce back after they've lost residents and then pile on the density like San Fran or New York City....but its very unlikely Los Angeles would ever DOUBLE in populaion by infill. Let alone the water needs.
The metro.....who knows, although not anytime soon. Hispanic growth has been the vast majority of the growth the past 20 years or so along with Asians, with the white populaton dropping 360,000 last decade. So I suppose the hispanic immigration and birth rates will really drive where the LA region is going. As it is whites are less than 1/3 of the LA area.
I would say no because of the way Los Angeles was built with a lot of single family homes packed tightly together. Also, if you consider the fact that LA doesn't have much more room to build on and their already crowded freeways it would be chaos for 5-6 million more people living in the area. LA needs to get more water, more jobs, and an extensive public transit system. I don't see those things happening to create enough of a demand to have the city over take NYC in population.
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