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Are you kidding me??? NYC and LA the top two LEAST sprawling cities with populations of under one million?!?!? LA is one of the most massively sprawling cities in the country. And NYC??? The reason it doesn't appear sprawling compared to, say, Phoenix is because it is not flat and treeless where you can see the sprawl before your eyes. NYC has a massive suburban area and you don't see cookie cutter tract homes in the "inner suburban" areas such as Westchester county because those areas are way too wealthy and old. But go out forty miles from NYC and you can see the same tract homes you find anywhere else. Same goes for No. 3 on your list. SF has a fantastic downtown. Fantastic. But go outside the city into the larger Bay Area and you have plenty of sprawl, with $1 million dollar tract homes spaced 6 feet from one another.
Living 40 miles from NYC in CT I have yet to see any tract homes on postage stamp lots in NY, CT and NJ (with the exception of Long Island). They just don't exist, especially in Westchester and CT. Homes are on large lots (many towns having strict zoning of above 1.5 acres) and chains are largely not welcome in most areas.
1. NYC
2. LA
3. San Francisco
4. Miami
5. New Orleans
6. Portland
7. San Antonio
8. Louisville
9. Sacramento
10. Pittsburgh
I agree with NYC and SF. New Orleans and Portland possibly, but not really. And the rest are waaaaaay off the mark. Washington DC should be here. Perhaps Cincinatti also. LA is notorious for the most sprawled out city in the US
Are we talking about the actual cities or the metro areas?
You have cities like NYC where everything is packed in there with people living close to eachother, then you have some newer "cities" out west and down south that feature suburban type single homes with spacious yards.
Location: Concrete jungle where dreams are made of.
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NYC really doesn't have anywhere else to spread. Long island is completely built up, and the suburbs upstate practically reach the mountains, which you can't build on.
If you were to restrict this list to city limits, it might be interesting. Every city in the U.S. is plagued by suburban sprawl, but many central cities are also somewhat suburban in their development patterns. For instance: New York, Boston, Philladelphia, Washington D.C., Chicago, and San Francisco are particuarly dense central cities even though they are surrounded by sprawling suburbs. "Newer" cities like Atlanta, Phoenix, Houston, DFW, etc. feel very sprawly within the city limits, however!
1. New Orleans
2. Miami
3. San Francisco
4. Honolulu
5. Seattle
Notice something about these. Geographically, it is impossible for them to sprawl since they are all surrounded by water/swampland. I think any large city in the U.S. that can sprawl is sprawling. There aren't too many that don't nowadays.
If you were to restrict this list to city limits, it might be interesting. Every city in the U.S. is plagued by suburban sprawl, but many central cities are also somewhat suburban in their development patterns. For instance: New York, Boston, Philladelphia, Washington D.C., Chicago, and San Francisco are particuarly dense central cities even though they are surrounded by sprawling suburbs. "Newer" cities like Atlanta, Phoenix, Houston, DFW, etc. feel very sprawly within the city limits, however!
This post is dead on. There are two types of sprawl, suburban sprawl and urban sprawl. Since the latter cities are low density, sometimes its hard to tell the difference as the only thing separating the city and the suburbs is the political boundary. The OP didn't differentiate between the two, so that makes this list a bit impossible to make.
Id say :
1) NYC
2) Chicago
3) San Francisco
4) Miami I guess
From there its a toss up
Since the poster of this stated METRO 1+ Mil...I'm thinking Chicago cannot make the list. Sorry, but Chicago metro has some of the worst sprawl in the country. San Fran also has a very sprawling metro area. If you go by composite indexes, then the city of Chicago makes the list as one of the least sprawling for sure. I'm guessing Philly would make that list and obviously New York. But realistically, the suburbs are just an extension of Chicago. And they sprawl fo-ev-uh.
Location: Austin, TX/Chicago, IL/Houston, TX/Washington, DC
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LA is very famous for sprawling, so the OP must obviously be showing his/her humor by adding it to the list.
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