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Old 05-24-2018, 05:22 AM
BMI
 
Location: Ontario
7,454 posts, read 7,266,364 times
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US CSA’s tend to be gigantic areas....

IIRC Boston’s CSA has a larger area than it’s entire state as it includes
most of southern New Hampshire, all of Rhode Island and even part of CT.

Boston CSA is 8 million....more than entire population of Massachusetts (6.8 million)
Boston MSA is 4.6 million...more realistic,
in reality Boston is just slightly larger than Montreal.
Boston CSA would have you believe Boston is larger than Toronto, LOL.
In reality Toronto is slightly smaller than Chicago.

When CSA’s are that huge it makes it hard to compare US cities with
cities in other countries, it becomes like comparing apples and oranges.

For example, Montreal has a metro population of about 4.1 million
and people comparing it with US cities place it at a lower tier than it should be,
imo should be compare with US cities at about 5 million population level.

Now to answer your two questions...

Why are they grossly over stated? ....could it be a bit to do with
american personality...likes to brag....my city is the biggest, baddest city...

Are they (CSA’s) credible for you (me)?
No they a bit of BS really.

Last edited by BMI; 05-24-2018 at 06:36 AM..
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Old 05-24-2018, 05:55 AM
 
Location: Phoenix
30,355 posts, read 19,128,594 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cebuan View Post
Considering cities by metro is more credibly to me than thinking that Fresno is bigger than Atlanta, or Corpus Christi is bigger than St. Louis.
Yeah, that's my thought as well. Most large US cities have a metropolitan population more than double the population of the primary city and this is uncommon compared to most countries of the world.

Atlanta, for example, has under 500K population and unless you know of its metropolitan population is closer to 6M, you might think its a small city. In fact, Atlanta's GDP exceeds any Canadian city, Moscow, Mumbai, Istanbul, Madrid, Beijing or any city in Australia and their airport has led the world in passengers for decades.
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Old 05-24-2018, 06:02 AM
 
Location: Katy,Texas
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For me MSAs are pretty credible. Because they involve rural areas in the county, and since a county seat location affects everyone in the county, even though I travel to rural areas to get there places like Rosenberg and Richmond still feel heavily connected to Houston, because their literally just outside of Houston, now the far out counties that only have like 50,000 people aren’t connected st all but their irrelevant because they ar small counties by population and when you add them up you get less than 200,000-300,000 people included in the metro area living in rural or disconnected cities. MSAs though in states with weird county boundaries like Arizona might lead to the problem of a small city being located in a county, for example LA CSA has 4 extra million people in it but roughly 1.5 of that million live in three relatively unconnected metros that got included just because counties are bigger over there. So for me CSAs aren’t credible at all. Another thing is you forget that Americans live different lifestyles from Europeans the vast majority of the Woodlands which is a city of over 100,000 people at one point had a huge contingent of people that would commute the 30-35 miles daily to Downtown Houston. Not to mention Galveston which is 50 miles away from Houston but still solidly in the metro area all though very few people on Galveston commute directly to Downtown Houston, the entire northern half of the county does or to another business district.
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Old 05-24-2018, 06:07 AM
 
Location: Brisbane
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We have the same problem in Australia, the "Brisbane" Metro for Instance is about 15,000 square Km, of which about 14,000 square km is either uninhabited national park, or rural farm land/towns at densities of less than 500 people per square km. It also excludes the Gold Coast which has 600,00 people and is far closer to Brisbane city than a lot the rural farm land that actually is in the Brisbane Metro area.
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Old 05-24-2018, 06:34 AM
BMI
 
Location: Ontario
7,454 posts, read 7,266,364 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tall Traveler View Post
Yeah, that's my thought as well. Most large US cities have a metropolitan population more than double the population of the primary city and this is uncommon compared to most countries of the world.

Atlanta, for example, has under 500K population and unless you know of its metropolitan population is closer to 6M, you might think its a small city. In fact, Atlanta's GDP exceeds any Canadian city, Moscow, Mumbai, Istanbul, Madrid, Beijing or any city in Australia and their airport has led the world in passengers for decades.
Amercans like to travel by plane and have the perfect combo of large population...320 million,
big country ...3.8 million square miles...affluent....and widely spaced cities...
that is why they have the busiest airports...they don’t even need international travelers included in
the stats...most of it is domestic travel anyway...that’s why Atlanta’s airport leads the world
in passengers...a major US hub...HQ for major airline Delts doesn’t hurt either, not many
are actually travelling to “see” Atlanta....just passing thru

As for GDP ...much like US CSA’s ...again a bit of US bragging...they pump up GDP stats
“goose” them a bit....Those US GDP’s most likely take in the largest area they can.

Atlanta’s GDP is indicated as being 324 billion US dollars...

Toronto’s GDP is indicated as 304 billion US dollars (conversion from Canadian dollars hurts it)

I think Totonto’s GDP is measured from a smaller geographic area than for US cities...
as Province of Ontario GDP is about $750 billion and Ontario has a population of about 14 million,
Metro Toronto is about 6 million...so I think it is calculated from that...
if Toronto had a CSA ....which would be equivalent the “Golden Horseshoe” ..population 9.3 million,
then the Toronto GDP would be as a percentage of the provincial total...about 500 billion USD
which makes sense...a bit less than Chicago GDP of 551 billion USD.

So you can brag that Atlanta has a higher GDP than any Canadian city all you want
but in reality it is significantly less...and probably same thing comparing with other large cities in
the world too...like Hong Kong is listed as having a GDP of only 320 billion USD
southern China powerhouse Shenzen only 338 billion US....gigantic Shanghai only 448 billion US...
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Old 05-24-2018, 06:34 AM
 
Location: Katy,Texas
6,470 posts, read 4,066,378 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by danielsa1775 View Post
We have the same problem in Australia, the "Brisbane" Metro for Instance is about 15,000 square Km, of which about 14,000 square km is either uninhabited national park, or rural farm land/towns at densities of less than 500 people per square km. It also excludes the Gold Coast which has 600,00 people and is far closer to Brisbane city than a lot the rural farm land that actually is in the Brisbane Metro area.
I don’t know whether it changes across the country but another thing to look at is how U.S the only thing that is a constant nationwide is Counties and even then Louisiana/Virginia/Alaska and Maryland buck that trend somewhat as in some of those places counties are as important as cities and thus cities are speedster or counties are called something else etc. some places like Houston without county based populations it’s next to impossible to add up the population of a metro area.
Fort Bend County for example has 750,000 people but the biggest cities are
Sugar Land- 120,000
Missouri City- 80,000
Rosenberg- 40,000
Stafford- 20,000
Richmond-10,000
And a few small cities and towns added up that together doesn’t hit 30,000.
Where did the 450,000 people go? Well most of those people are in unincorporated areas or CDPs were the only government their under is a school district and county government, which in some states is essentially no government. As a result of just adding communities it’s next to impossible to gauge the real population of Houston because of this, and each state even metropolitan area has their wired rules that makes it next to impossible like Long Island with its seemingly thousands of small towns that you would have to add. The easiest state to probably count population of metro areas are Michigan because of their townships and Massachusetts because unincorporated areas don’t exist so things like NECTA accurately portrays Boston size.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_..._and_town_area
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Old 05-24-2018, 08:18 AM
 
Location: Phoenix
30,355 posts, read 19,128,594 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BMI View Post
Amercans like to travel by plane and have the perfect combo of large population...320 million,
big country ...3.8 million square miles...affluent....and widely spaced cities...
that is why they have the busiest airports...they don’t even need international travelers included in
the stats...most of it is domestic travel anyway...that’s why Atlanta’s airport leads the world
in passengers...a major US hub...HQ for major airline Delts doesn’t hurt either, not many
are actually travelling to “see” Atlanta....just passing thru

As for GDP ...much like US CSA’s ...again a bit of US bragging...they pump up GDP stats
“goose” them a bit....Those US GDP’s most likely take in the largest area they can.

Atlanta’s GDP is indicated as being 324 billion US dollars...

Toronto’s GDP is indicated as 304 billion US dollars (conversion from Canadian dollars hurts it)

I think Totonto’s GDP is measured from a smaller geographic area than for US cities...
as Province of Ontario GDP is about $750 billion and Ontario has a population of about 14 million,
Metro Toronto is about 6 million...so I think it is calculated from that...
if Toronto had a CSA ....which would be equivalent the “Golden Horseshoe” ..population 9.3 million,
then the Toronto GDP would be as a percentage of the provincial total...about 500 billion USD
which makes sense...a bit less than Chicago GDP of 551 billion USD.

So you can brag that Atlanta has a higher GDP than any Canadian city all you want
but in reality it is significantly less
...and probably same thing comparing with other large cities in
the world too...like Hong Kong is listed as having a GDP of only 320 billion USD
southern China powerhouse Shenzen only 338 billion US....gigantic Shanghai only 448 billion US...
So your imaginary statistics trump world organizations that measure these things Sorry, Toronto has a lower GDP than does Atlanta, deal with it.
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Old 05-24-2018, 08:51 AM
 
14,299 posts, read 11,677,294 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BMI View Post
Atlanta’s GDP is indicated as being 324 billion US dollars...

Toronto’s GDP is indicated as 304 billion US dollars (conversion from Canadian dollars hurts it)
Huh? OK, leave Toronto's GDP in Canadian dollars and convert Atlanta's GDP to Canadian.

Toronto = $391 billion Canadian dollars.
Atlanta = $417 billion Canadian dollars

Does that give Toronto the edge?
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Old 05-24-2018, 08:52 AM
BMI
 
Location: Ontario
7,454 posts, read 7,266,364 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tall Traveler View Post
So your imaginary statistics trump world organizations that measure these things Sorry, Toronto has a lower GDP than does Atlanta, deal with it.
Key word in your response is Trump ...a guy known to brag alittle
Stats like GDP can be sometimes misleading ...are the US city GDP
stats taken from CSA or from MSA ....could make a significant difference...
that’s all I’m saying.
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Old 05-24-2018, 10:05 AM
 
518 posts, read 397,811 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by grega94 View Post
Boston: 4,181,019 inhabitants on 4,852.2 km2, density: 861.7 people per km2
Quote:
Originally Posted by BMI View Post
Boston MSA is 4.6 million...more realistic,
in reality Boston is just slightly larger than Montreal.
Boston CSA would have you believe Boston is larger than Toronto, LOL.
In reality Toronto is slightly smaller than Chicago.

When CSA’s are that huge it makes it hard to compare US cities with
cities in other countries, it becomes like comparing apples and oranges.

For example, Montreal has a metro population of about 4.1 million
and people comparing it with US cities place it at a lower tier than it should be,
imo should be compare with US cities at about 5 million population level.
Yeaha, it's like comparing apples with strawberries.

Montréal is larger than Boston in reality! Don't get tricked by the US numbers, they are SOOO HIGH that people think "well, maybe this city is not sooo big but still very, very big?!".

Boston metropolitan area: 4,5 mill. Inhabitants on12105km², density: 371 people per km².
(Now Boston metro area seems to have 4,7 mill., which would mean a density of 388 per km²)
Metropolitan Montréal: 4,1 million inhabitants on 4,600km², density: 890 people per km².

Boston's metro area is 160% larger, contains towns that are more than 60km away from the core city, but has only 14,6% more residents than Montréal's metro.
If we exclude all these vast outlying lands and far-away-lying towns that Boston's metro area incorporates, Montréal's metro areas has more inhabitants than Boston's metro area.
Doing so, Montréal's metro area would shrink from 4,1 to 3,8-3,9 million inh., but Boston's metro area would shrink from 4,7 million inhabitants to only 3,3-3,6 million inhabitants.


According to Grega, Boston's urban area population is by US-American definiton:
Boston: 4,181,019 inhabitants on 4,852.2 km2, density: 861.7 people per km².
This urban area definition for Boston, nevertheless, still includes many stretches of land area, places with low-density and towns with no urban continuum to the core city. In fact, even the urban area defintion of the United States is still oversized, just less extreme.


If we want to compare Boston's urban population with Montréal, we also have to compare it to Montréal's urban area, which is:
3,5 million inhabitants on 1,294 km² with a density of 2,719 people per km².
This definition excludes anything rural or not-urban and places with low densities:
Census Profile, 2016 Census - Montréal [Population centre], Quebec and Ontario [Province]

The real urban area for Boston by European and Canadian measurements is below 3 million inhabitants, and therefore smaller than Montreal, whose real urban area is 3,5 million inhabitants.

City of Montréal: 1,7 million inhabitants on 365km² with a density of 4662 people per km².
Profil du recensement, Recensement de 2016 - Montréal, Ville [Subdivision de recensement], Québec et Canada [Pays]

Plateau Mont Royal: 104 000 inhabitants on 8,1km² with a density of 12840 people per km².
Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce: 165 000 inhabitants on 21,4km² with a density of 7700km².
Ville Marie: 84 000 inhabitants on 14,5km² with a density of 5,800 people per km².
Outremont: 24 000 inhabitants on 3,9km", density 6100km².
Westmount: 20 000 inh. on 4km², density: 5000 km².
Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie: 134 000 inhabitants on 15,9km² with a density of 8,400km².
397 000 51,9 7649

The core of Île de Montréal: 531 000 inhabitants on 67,8km² with a density of 7830 people per km².

City of Boston: 687000 inhabitans on 232km² of which is 125,4km² land area. Density for land area: 5480 people per km².

Montréal is the second-largest city and second-largest real metro area after New York in the Québec, New York and New England "superregion". Boston is "only" number three and only larger by artifically bolstering its metro numbers.

You are also right, that comparing US metro regions with each other and from other countries does not make much sense. The metro regions who incorporated the largest land areas are simply more likely going to win and distort comparisons. Montréal probably is not in the lower-tier of the 25 largest metro areas in North America, it is probably in the upper-tier. It was the first Canadian city to reach more than 1,000,000 inhabitants and had Canada's largest urban area until the 1970s. It has a real dense core with an urban continuum, which is a mix of the typical super dense French big city and the less dense typical American city. It is bigger than Boston, Seattle, etc. and likely also Miami.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tall Traveler View Post
Yeah, that's my thought as well. Most large US cities have a metropolitan population more than double the population of the primary city and this is uncommon compared to most countries of the world.
Yes! Good observation. American metro's are up to 8x larger than the actual primary city itself. In Russia, the metro areas usually are not more than 1,5x larger than the primary city itself, despite being also a large country.

Last edited by QuebecOpec; 05-24-2018 at 10:14 AM..
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