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Location: That star on your map in the middle of the East Coast, DMV
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Somewhere between MSA and Global Agglomeration I think we get the most accurate answers. CSA may be too broad, but Urban Area seems to be consistent in under counting various areas across the country and is flawed and unspecified.
Urban Agglomerations (United States), 2016
01. New York: 22,000,000
02. Los Angeles: 17,600,000
03. Chicago: 9,800,000
04. Washington D.C.: 8,350,000
05. San Francisco: 7,600,000
06. Boston: 7,350,000
07. Philadelphia: 7,300,000
08. Dallas: 6,550,000
09. Houston: 6,200,000
10. Miami: 6,100,000
City proper is only irrelevant if you care about population, which I do not. There are a handful of cities in the country where you shouldn't separate city form suburbs (Boston), but in many, there is a clear difference, and city dwellers tend to live their lives entirely within city limits. I don't care that Atlanta has a smaller population than Columbus OH. I tend to discuss cities based on amenities and livability. Sometimes, using MSA or US Urban area, makes a town look more impressive than the actual ground-feel by stringing together a series of mediocre cities that happen to be in close proximity; e.g. Norfolk-VA Beach or the Research Triangle.
CSA, while a consistent metric, does not represent a city or even a cohesive metro, and as such, is my least favorite metric.
The whole thread is based around population though. We aren't talking about population density or urbanity. Are you really confidant that these cities below have the most amenities and livability out of all the population centers? You seem to imply that a high city proper population equals more of these things.
City Proper, 2015:
01. New York: 8,550,405
02. Los Angeles: 3,971,883
03. Chicago: 2,720,546
04. Houston: 2,296,224
05. Philadelphia: 1,567,442
06. Phoenix: 1,563,025
07. San Antonio: 1,469,845
08. San Diego: 1,394,928
09. Dallas: 1,300,092
10. San Jose: 1,026,908
Last edited by pointer212; 09-07-2016 at 09:02 PM..
is there a listing for metros-ppsm (people per square mile) ?
This is going by UA Urban Area which i think is a good metric for population density. It doesn't include large areas of low density land like some other metrics so people won't say that density numbers are lower than they should be.
----------------------- Population -------- Land Area -------- Density
--------------------------------------------- (sq. mi.) --- (Population / sq. mi.)
1 New York -------- 18,351,295 ---------- 3,450.2 ---------- 5,318.9
2 Los Angeles ------ 12,150,996 ---------- 1,736.0 --------- 6,999.3
3 Chicago ----------- 8,608,208 ---------- 2,442.8 ---------- 3,524.0
4 Miami ------------- 5,502,379 ---------- 1,238.6 ---------- 4,442.4
5 Philadelphia ------- 5,441,567 ---------- 1,981.4 ---------- 2,746.4
6 Dallas ------------- 5,121,892 ---------- 1,779.1 ---------- 2,878.9
7 Houston ----------- 4,944,332 ---------- 1,660.0 ---------- 2,978.5
8 Washington ------- 4,586,770 ---------- 1,321.7 ---------- 3,470.3
9 Atlanta ------------ 4,515,419 ---------- 2,645.4 ---------- 1,706.9
10 Boston ----------- 4,181,019 ---------- 1,873.5 ---------- 2,231.7
11 Detroit ----------- 3,734,090 ---------- 1,337.2 ---------- 2,792.5
12 Phoenix ---------- 3,629,114 ---------- 1,146.6 ---------- 3,165.2
13 San Francisco --- 3,281,212 ---------- 523.6 ------------- 6,266.4
14 Seattle ----------- 3,059,393 ---------- 1,010.3 ---------- 3,028.2
15 San Diego -------- 2,956,746 ---------- 732.4 ------------ 4,037.0
16 Minneapolis ------ 2,650,890 ---------- 1,021.8 ---------- 2,594.3
17 Tampa ------------ 2,441,770 ---------- 957.0 ------------ 2,551.5
18 Denver ----------- 2,374,203 ---------- 668.0 ------------ 3,554.4
19 Baltimore -------- 2,203,663 ---------- 717.0 ------------ 3,073.3
20 St. Louis --------- 2,150,706 ---------- 923.6 ------------ 2,328.5
is there a listing for metros-ppsm (people per square mile) ?
I don't think metro's per PPSM is going to be a good measurement tool. Since they are county based they skew Western metros (with huge counties) to ridiculously low numbers. For instance Phoenix MSA (two counties) cover a land area of 14k sq mi, but it's only 11% developed, with almost 90% person free desert. If you were to just look at the ppsm for it's metro you'd have an impression that it was very very low density. In reality Phoenician suburbs are uniform in density at around 3-4k ppsm.
I don't think metro's per PPSM is going to be a good measurement tool. Since they are county based they skew Western metros (with huge counties) to ridiculously low numbers. For instance Phoenix MSA (two counties) cover a land area of 14k sq mi, but it's only 11% developed, with almost 90% person free desert. If you were to just look at the ppsm for it's metro you'd have an impression that it was very very low density. In reality Phoenician suburbs are uniform in density at around 3-4k ppsm.
That's why i listed UA Urban Areas. They are not county based. It doesn't include the undeveloped low density areas like you were saying about the MSA metric. As you can see Phoenix's density is 3,165.2 / sq. mi., just like you estimated.
Last edited by pointer212; 09-09-2016 at 10:34 AM..
Location: That star on your map in the middle of the East Coast, DMV
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pointer212
This is going by UA Urban Area which i think is a good metric for population density. It doesn't include large areas of low density land like some other metrics so people won't say that density numbers are lower than they should be.
----------------------- Population -------- Land Area -------- Density
--------------------------------------------- (sq. mi.) --- (Population / sq. mi.)
1 New York -------- 18,351,295 ---------- 3,450.2 ---------- 5,318.9
2 Los Angeles ------ 12,150,996 ---------- 1,736.0 --------- 6,999.3
3 Chicago ----------- 8,608,208 ---------- 2,442.8 ---------- 3,524.0
4 Miami ------------- 5,502,379 ---------- 1,238.6 ---------- 4,442.4
5 Philadelphia ------- 5,441,567 ---------- 1,981.4 ---------- 2,746.4
6 Dallas ------------- 5,121,892 ---------- 1,779.1 ---------- 2,878.9
7 Houston ----------- 4,944,332 ---------- 1,660.0 ---------- 2,978.5 8 Washington ------- 4,586,770 ---------- 1,321.7 ---------- 3,470.3
9 Atlanta ------------ 4,515,419 ---------- 2,645.4 ---------- 1,706.9
10 Boston ----------- 4,181,019 ---------- 1,873.5 ---------- 2,231.7
11 Detroit ----------- 3,734,090 ---------- 1,337.2 ---------- 2,792.5
12 Phoenix ---------- 3,629,114 ---------- 1,146.6 ---------- 3,165.2
13 San Francisco --- 3,281,212 ---------- 523.6 ------------- 6,266.4
14 Seattle ----------- 3,059,393 ---------- 1,010.3 ---------- 3,028.2
15 San Diego -------- 2,956,746 ---------- 732.4 ------------ 4,037.0
16 Minneapolis ------ 2,650,890 ---------- 1,021.8 ---------- 2,594.3
17 Tampa ------------ 2,441,770 ---------- 957.0 ------------ 2,551.5
18 Denver ----------- 2,374,203 ---------- 668.0 ------------ 3,554.4
19 Baltimore -------- 2,203,663 ---------- 717.0 ------------ 3,073.3
20 St. Louis --------- 2,150,706 ---------- 923.6 ------------ 2,328.5
This is where the Urban areas flaws start to show. Where in this chart you have Washington with basically the same (slightly more) urban population as Atlanta in half the land mass and still has twice the density. Yet the OP shows Atlanta having a slightly higher "urban area". Something is not adding up.
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3,530 posts, read 4,175,298 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by the resident09
This is where the Urban areas flaws start to show. Where in this chart you have Washington with basically the same (slightly more) urban population as Atlanta in half the land mass and still has twice the density. Yet the OP shows Atlanta having a slightly higher "urban area". Something is not adding up.
The Urban Area metric posted above is from the US Census' 2010 numbers, as opposed to the UN Urban Area 2016 numbers also posted in the OP. So two different measuring agencies, and one of those measures is already very outdated.
The Urban Area metric posted above is from the US Census' 2010 numbers, as opposed to the UN Urban Area 2016 numbers also posted in the OP. So two different measuring agencies, and one of those measures is already very outdated.
The 2016 UA estimates from the UN are guestimates themselves based what the US CB is estimating for growth. The UN does not do it's own counts. When I look at those numbers they seem little more than US 2010 UA numbers with US growth estimates factored in. Can someone maybe explain this?
UA is a difficult metric to track which is why the CB only releases it decennially.
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