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Old 08-02-2012, 11:17 AM
 
Location: Plum Borough, east suburb of Pittsburgh, PA
144 posts, read 223,039 times
Reputation: 130

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Pittsburgh is ranked 60 in Wikipedia's US Cities by Population article. However, it feels a lot bigger than 60, and it's metro area is 22. What a big difference! I think a big part of this is due to the fact that the City of Pittsburgh has such a small land area of 55.5 sq mi. By comparison, 33 of the top 35 cities have more land area than Pittsburgh, excepting Boston and San Fran. Oftentimes this is due to annexation-which is really difficult to do in Pennsylvania. But imagine that Pittsburgh were allowed to annex some places near the city limits, what would our city population be then? I'm not trying to cheat Oklahoma City/Los Angeles style by gobbling up areas such as Plum, so only places that were at least somewhat dense and close to city limits were considered. I got a total population of 458,411, total land area of 107.97 square miles, and density of 4245.73 people per square mile. That would put us as the new 38 spot in US population, below Kansas City (pop 463,202, 315 sq mi) and above Mesa (pop 446,518, 136.5 sq mi). And to top it all off, Pittsburgh would still be fairly small compared to many other top cities!


Place population land area density
Pittsburgh 305704 55.6 5498.273381295
Penn Hills 44614 19 2348.1052631579
Wilkinsburg 15930 2.3 6926.0869565217
Swissvale 8983 1.2 7485.8333333333
Monroeville 27973 19.8 1412.7777777778
Dormont 8593 0.74 11612.1621621622 wow that's packed!
Mt Lebanon 31469 6.05 5201.4876033058
Millvale 3744 0.65 5760
Blawnox 1432 0.32 4475
Forest Hills 6518 1.56 4178.2051282051
Etna 3451 0.75 4601.3333333333


What do you think about this? Are there any on this list that shouldn't be here-I imagine Monroeville's inclusion might be somewhat controversial. Also, are there any places around here I omitted that should be included?
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Old 08-02-2012, 11:37 AM
 
5,802 posts, read 9,847,193 times
Reputation: 3051
Pittsburgh feels a lot bigger when you experience it directly, rather than the 300K that is on paper....Just being Downtown or Oakland you feel like you're in a city of 600-700K people. A lot of Pittsburgh inner ring suburbs feel just like City Neighborhoods more than "Burbs" at all.

The city IMO would be the perfect size at 450-500K people, it would need some major Transportation upgrades to support anymore....Allegheny County probably could support upwards of 2million pops before thing really started getting tight.
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Old 08-02-2012, 11:41 AM
 
Location: Bethel Park, PA
142 posts, read 363,903 times
Reputation: 141
Interesting and fascinating thought. Dormont, I believe, is the most densely populated municipality/borough in Allegheny county.

In this scenario you laid out, Penn Hills and Monroeville would be too "Oklahoma City" style, since they both border Plum and are too far east. But I get what you're saying. I forget where I read this, but I think there was talk at one point in history about merging McKeesport, Duquense and other cities in that area to form a large city over 100,000 in population. But I may be way off base about that.

But interesting topic nonetheless.
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Old 08-02-2012, 12:02 PM
 
6,356 posts, read 5,002,654 times
Reputation: 3309
it used to be that the bigger your city, the greater its influence in getting federal funds it would receive. it might be now that its the statistical metro area instead. it might not be as advantageous to increase population from expansion rather than from an influx of residents - with an influx, you are getting more tax revenue in the same area. with expansion, then you have more people over less density.

i dont want ANY of those areas, except mt. lebanon!
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Old 08-02-2012, 12:47 PM
 
20,273 posts, read 32,859,479 times
Reputation: 2910
I've suggested using the Congress of Neighboring Communities ("CONNECT"), which is basically the munis that border Pittsburgh:

Congress of Neighboring Communities



That adds up to about 690,000 people, which I believe would put CONNECT at about #19 on the list of U.S. cities by population, which is approximately right given the relative size of the Pittsburgh Metro.
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Old 08-02-2012, 12:56 PM
 
Location: On the Chesapeake
44,885 posts, read 59,858,372 times
Reputation: 60427
But that's never going to happen. All those little towns have been around a couple hundred years now, have their own tax base (or not for some of them) and their own identity and culture. Sharing some services/equipment (having a sewer jet truck for every town doesn't make sense for example) can and does work, but annexation likely won't happen

I'll use the example of Barnesboro and Spangler merging several years ago. That took years to accomplish and a large number of people living there (especially in Spangler) have yet to accept it.

Clarion and Clarion-Limestone School Districts explored merging a few years ago, neither system is big enough to be real efficient. The discussions lasted about 6 months and were dropped. Every School Board meeting at both Districts was taken up by people raising Hell about them even talking about it or if it would even work. They hadn't even got to a recommendation phase yet.
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Old 08-02-2012, 12:56 PM
 
6,596 posts, read 8,909,095 times
Reputation: 4673
Why are WestView, Blawnox, and Carnegie excluded?
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Old 08-02-2012, 01:01 PM
 
Location: Mexican War Streets
1,584 posts, read 2,083,629 times
Reputation: 1389
Quote:
Originally Posted by ferrarisnowday View Post
Why are WestView, Blawnox, and Carnegie excluded?
From the fantasy plan or CONNECT? As far as CONNECT, I think the only requirement is that a municipality physically border the City. They don't.
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Old 08-02-2012, 01:14 PM
 
Location: Pittsburgh, PA (Morningside)
14,360 posts, read 16,861,447 times
Reputation: 12390
This is my own vision of what could be.

Black is the city (duh!)

Blue are the first-ring suburbs which I think have little reason to be separate from the city. In most cases they are prewar development, and they functionally blend into adjacent city neighborhoods.

Purple are more second-ring areas, which are either more suburban in development or a bit further from the core. I think it's arguable if they belong in the city, but I could see Pittsburgh expanding to roughly these borders without the City itself changing in any real way.

Red are the truly suburban areas, along with a few mill towns pretty far from the Pittsburgh core. Barring a city-county merger with teeth, I don't think it makes sense for these areas to join the city.
Attached Thumbnails
If Pittsburgh wasn't so artificially small-pittsburgh-merger.png  
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Old 08-02-2012, 01:15 PM
 
82 posts, read 140,317 times
Reputation: 215
Allegheny County is the 31st most populated county in the U.S. with 1,223,348 people.
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