Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > U.S. Forums > Texas
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
 
Old 08-02-2011, 04:00 PM
 
Location: Chicago
1,257 posts, read 2,522,347 times
Reputation: 1144

Advertisements

Quote:
Originally Posted by HtownLove View Post
did you read my post?

bet you didn't.

To be fair, your post was a bit all over the place. It sounds like you were trying to say that Houston/Harris County is more centralized and dense than Dallas, but the metro as a whole is where the Dallas area is able to catch up. HamiltonPL provided numbers that show the city of Dallas, the core of the metroplex, is actually slightly more dense than Houston itself.

 
Old 08-02-2011, 05:41 PM
 
Location: Up on the moon laughing down on you
18,495 posts, read 32,779,083 times
Reputation: 7752
Quote:
Originally Posted by ClarenceBodiker View Post
To be fair, your post was a bit all over the place. It sounds like you were trying to say that Houston/Harris County is more centralized and dense than Dallas, but the metro as a whole is where the Dallas area is able to catch up. HamiltonPL provided numbers that show the city of Dallas, the core of the metroplex, is actually slightly more dense than Houston itself.
not really.

what I was doing is trying to compare similar sized areas or in the case of Harris County, trying to compare similar populations and see how big a land area in DFW it would require.

for example to get The 8 county Dallas metro Division population all you need is Harris county.

To get to the population of the City of Dallas all you need is the 100 sq mile portion of SW Houston (Danny did a thread about this earlier this year, where he showed that you got the entire population of Dallas in just SW Houston.

so no. The core of Houston metro is denser than the Core of DFW.
I asked Hamilton if he read my post because it is a bit unfair to compare a 400 sq mile area for DFW and a 600 sq mile area in Houston and say they are even. Dallas county is the same number of sq miles bigger than Houston that Houston is bigger than the city of Dallas, what Hamilton did would be the same as me comparing the density of the city of Houston (3623 ppsm) and Dallas county (2368 ppsm).

how about a 400 sq mile radius around each downtown. do that and see which comes out on top???
 
Old 08-02-2011, 07:23 PM
 
Location: Chicago
1,257 posts, read 2,522,347 times
Reputation: 1144
I wouldn't be surprised if Houston's central 400 square miles was more dense than Dallas', but I don't think the difference would be that great or noticeable.
The only part of your post I would disagree with is that all you need is Harris County to get the population of 8 counties of the DFW metroplex. Harris County is 4.09 million, and is also very large at 1,778 square miles. Dallas County is only 900 square miles, so of course the population is quite smaller. However, Dallas and Tarrant combined is very comparable to Harris County in landsize. Combined they are 1,805 square miles, and that's all you need to match the population at 4,177,173. The population density of the two areas are pretty even at 2,394 for Dallas and Tarrant and 2,367 for Harris.

So what I see from that info is, DFW metro is bigger in landsize and population, just as Houston and Harris county are bigger in landsize and population than Dallas. But if you start at the core and compare evenly sized areas of land, the population density remains particularly close. So would Houston have a higher population density around its core 400 square miles? Possibly. It wouldn't surprise me. But I doubt it would be enough to be noticeable.


Furthermore, if you ask me, I wish the Dallas area didn't grow so fast. You can have all the transplants. If the Dallas area gets too much more crowded, I'm going to bolt to Austin or perhaps even another state.
 
Old 08-02-2011, 07:53 PM
 
Location: ITL (Houston)
9,221 posts, read 15,870,878 times
Reputation: 3545
Quote:
Originally Posted by HtownLove View Post
not really.

what I was doing is trying to compare similar sized areas or in the case of Harris County, trying to compare similar populations and see how big a land area in DFW it would require.

for example to get The 8 county Dallas metro Division population all you need is Harris county.

To get to the population of the City of Dallas all you need is the 100 sq mile portion of SW Houston (Danny did a thread about this earlier this year, where he showed that you got the entire population of Dallas in just SW Houston.

so no. The core of Houston metro is denser than the Core of DFW.
I asked Hamilton if he read my post because it is a bit unfair to compare a 400 sq mile area for DFW and a 600 sq mile area in Houston and say they are even. Dallas county is the same number of sq miles bigger than Houston that Houston is bigger than the city of Dallas, what Hamilton did would be the same as me comparing the density of the city of Houston (3623 ppsm) and Dallas county (2368 ppsm).

how about a 400 sq mile radius around each downtown. do that and see which comes out on top???
This makes sense. DFW does feel less dense than Houston, but I kept telling myself "the metro and urban area densities are the same...even though it doesn't feel like it at all". Guess this explains it.
 
Old 08-02-2011, 08:47 PM
 
Location: Up on the moon laughing down on you
18,495 posts, read 32,779,083 times
Reputation: 7752
Quote:
Originally Posted by ClarenceBodiker View Post
I wouldn't be surprised if Houston's central 400 square miles was more dense than Dallas', but I don't think the difference would be that great or noticeable.
The only part of your post I would disagree with is that all you need is Harris County to get the population of 8 counties of the DFW metroplex. Harris County is 4.09 million, and is also very large at 1,778 square miles. Dallas County is only 900 square miles, so of course the population is quite smaller. However, Dallas and Tarrant combined is very comparable to Harris County in landsize. Combined they are 1,805 square miles, and that's all you need to match the population at 4,177,173.
Tarrant County is not in The Dallas-Plano-Iving Metropolitan Division. I said you would need all of the 8 counties in the Dallas Metro division. The Dallas Metro Division includes these counties:

Denton
Colin
Dallas
Hunt
Delta
Kaufman
Ellis
Rockwall
and add up to 4.2M people. It takes all these to match Harris County

Tarrant, Parker, Johnson and Wise belong to the FW metro division.


Quote:
The population density of the two areas are pretty even at 2,394 for Dallas and Tarrant and 2,367 for Harris.
again I am not gerrymandering the thing, just made an observation that the entire 8 county metro division adds up to just Harris County, If I were to gerrymander it and pick which parts of the counties I want, I would add in the closer parts of Fort Bend County and Montgomery county while omitting the emptier parts of Harris and increase the number to 5.2M people in 2000 sq miles. but that is too much fancy work so I will stand by my original comment that Harris alone stands up to the entire Dallas Irving Plano metro division.

Quote:
So what I see from that info is, DFW metro is bigger in landsize and population, just as Houston and Harris county are bigger in landsize and population than Dallas. But if you start at the core and compare evenly sized areas of land, the population density remains particularly close. So would Houston have a higher population density around its core 400 square miles? Possibly. It wouldn't surprise me. But I doubt it would be enough to be noticeable.
It would be more than noticeable. 400sq miles would give you almost all of the city of Houston (the far out pieces that fall out of the sphere are more sparcely populated) plus all the cities that are surrounded by Houston, and some on the edge. So while a 400sq mile area around Houston will give you in excess of 2.5M people a corresponding sphere around Dallas will offer at most 1.3M people. That would make Houston 50% more dense than Dallas. That IS a noticeable difference.

The entire 900 sq mile Dallas county has 2.3M people. The 579sq mile city of Houston has 2.1M people. It is safe to say that the difference in density withing a 400 sq mile sphere around Houston WILL be noticeably more dense than one anywhere in Dallas County

Quote:
Furthermore, if you ask me, I wish the Dallas area didn't grow so fast. You can have all the transplants. If the Dallas area gets too much more crowded, I'm going to bolt to Austin or perhaps even another state.
The congestion on 35 in Austin is worse than anything in Houston OR DFW. It is the 4th most congested portion of road in the US
 
Old 08-02-2011, 08:59 PM
 
Location: Up on the moon laughing down on you
18,495 posts, read 32,779,083 times
Reputation: 7752
Quote:
Originally Posted by Trae713 View Post
This makes sense. DFW does feel less dense than Houston, but I kept telling myself "the metro and urban area densities are the same...even though it doesn't feel like it at all". Guess this explains it.
Oh you are not deceiving yourself when you say it feels less dense.

Let me give you another example.

Houston's Urban area is denser than Philly's but philly still feels a lot more dense than HOuston. How is that possible??

Houston builds up consistent numbers further out into its metro than Philly. so while Philly has a denser and livelier core the outskirts bring down the average density lower than Houstons.

It is the same phenomenon occurring with DFW and Houston.

Dallas maintains consistent numbers further out into its metro because of the multiple bases (FW, Irving, plano, etc etc) while in Houston everything you can ever need is within highway 6. So the parts where people actually think of as the city is denser than the parts people usually think of as the city in Dallas.

Same with Philly. the parts people think of as the city around Philly is much denser than the corresponding parts around Houston.

The metro may be built out from Dallas to Fort worth, but it certainly lower density than downtown Houston to Katy area (which should be about the same distance. correct me if I am wrong)
 
Old 08-02-2011, 09:05 PM
 
Location: Dallas,Texas
6,620 posts, read 9,834,625 times
Reputation: 3386
This was from 2005

City of Dallas

30.0 sq mi of Parks and Flood Plains
44.7 sq mi of water
63.0 sq mi of vacant land
We were only using 247.8 sq mi

Dallas County

58.7 sq mi of Flood Plains and Parks
257.6 sq mi of vacant land
40.4 sq mi of water
We were only using 551.4 sq mi

Last edited by Dallaz; 08-02-2011 at 09:15 PM..
 
Old 08-02-2011, 09:47 PM
 
Location: Up on the moon laughing down on you
18,495 posts, read 32,779,083 times
Reputation: 7752
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dallaz View Post
This was from 2005

City of Dallas

30.0 sq mi of Parks and Flood Plains
44.7 sq mi of water
63.0 sq mi of vacant land
We were only using 247.8 sq mi

Dallas County

58.7 sq mi of Flood Plains and Parks
257.6 sq mi of vacant land
40.4 sq mi of water
We were only using 551.4 sq mi
Its the same for all cities. We have 3 major airports and a dozen private ones that take up over 125 sq miles of land.

Houston has two of the nations largest parks and some of the largest nature conservatories. Houston has over 50 sq miles of parks.

The entire half of the city is almost vacant. Even areas such as midtown Houston has huge plots of empty land. I posted an article last week.

Houston might be using less land than Dallas even though Dallas is 200 sq miles smaller.

All cities have what you mentioned it is not an uncommon thing to be using half the land the city claims.

although Dallas County does not seem that vacant to me:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ighted.svg.png

look at the flood plains in Harris county:
http://www.corpsnedmanuals.us/FloodD...loodplains.jpg

look how much of the land area is left empty:
http://pics4.city-data.com/tym/un2620.png

here is a population density map for the city:
http://www.westhouston.org/COH%20200...%20Density.png
 
Old 08-02-2011, 09:59 PM
 
Location: Chicago
1,257 posts, read 2,522,347 times
Reputation: 1144
Quote:
Originally Posted by HtownLove View Post
The congestion on 35 in Austin is worse than anything in Houston OR DFW. It is the 4th most congested portion of road in the US
True, I-35 is terrible in Austin. But I also manage just fine living in Dallas without having to use freeways on a daily basis (unless I'm going to the Fort Worth area), and I would be able to easily accomplish the same thing in Austin. Austin manages to maintain a small town feel throughout much of the town.
 
Old 08-02-2011, 10:02 PM
 
Location: Up on the moon laughing down on you
18,495 posts, read 32,779,083 times
Reputation: 7752
this website shows the two metros pop density side by side:

Greg's Opinion – Census Stuff

but you can clearly see the unified density around Houston while for DFW it is broken up into multiple clusters. the density is not sustained as long as it does in Houston.

use the scale at the bottom for reference.
You can see the green extends for about 50 miles east to west for Houston and about 70 from the south east to the northwest.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Closed Thread


Settings
X
Data:
Loading data...
Based on 2000-2020 data
Loading data...

123
Hide US histogram


Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > U.S. Forums > Texas

All times are GMT -6.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top