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For Los Angeles, I found a 300 sq mile chunk of land in the 11,000 ppsm range, and a 500 sq mile chunk (pretty much the basin as a whole) clocking in at 10,000 ppsm. Even the SFV has a 60 sq mile chunk in the 10k range.
What are you using to "find" these chunks? Can you let me know how you're choosing census tracts for study? I want to make a thread in the LA forum about "creating fantasy borders for the City of Los Angeles," and would love to know what the demographics would be for various configurations--just need an easy way to create lists of census tracts within a given boundary.
Regarding the discussion on how much and which Angelenos know about central LA: Los Angeles is unfortunately the posterchild when it comes to metropolitan residents not knowing about their region's urban core. It was only very recently (within the past decade) that Downtown started to become a place that draws in a diverse mix of the region's residents. LA still lacks a central location for the region's culture... and I don't think whatever materializes downtown will ever truly feel like the "heart" of LA. . . .
Interesting perspective.
I grew up in the NYC area and while I had a pretty good knowledge of the area 30 miles from my home it was very rare for people to travel to other parts of the region (aside from Manhattan). I have family in Brooklyn but I was 17 before I ever went out on Long Island. The only reason we ever went to SW Connecticut is because my mom's aunt lived there. The only reason she moved out there was to teach at Yale.
That sort of travel is a lot more difficult in the NYC metro because there are large bodies of water in the way and to do it, in most cases, involves driving directly through NYC. People avoid it.
One thing that hasn't been explicitly mentioned as much in this topic, but has been mentioned in other similar topics (though I didn't make a thorough search of this topic) is that LA's downtown has Santa Monica, Pasadena, Long Beach, and others (go ahead and fill in this others category) that Chicago does not have. Since the OP does mention metro in this topic, they should be put forth for consideration. These municipalities, though not contiguous (arguable for Santa Monica) with the core of Los Angeles, all have very dense and lively urban areas which are sizable. Chicago has Evanston, but few others without going further out. Factoring these in could make a good argument for LA in terms of being more urban.
Outside of the current scope of this topic, how likely is it that LA unambiguously pulls away from Chicago in this discussion? Would it be possible within a decade once it has the regional connector, metrolink run-through tracks (allowing for a S-Bahn type thing for the LA metro), westside subway, crenshaw line, expo line to santa monica, gold line extension, and the crenshaw corridor to be built along with the continued infill of LA due to population pressures and zoning changes? Does Chicago have a lot of plans in the work where Chicago is always in contention (could be, though Chicago isn't growing at the same pace and doesn't have the funding in place the way LA has)?
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 05-09-2013 at 07:34 PM..
By population. What it gives you, basically, is the average density experienced by residents in their neighborhood (census tract). Since people don't live evenly dispersed across an area, it gives you a sense of the density that people actually live at.
What are you using to "find" these chunks? Can you let me know how you're choosing census tracts for study? I want to make a thread in the LA forum about "creating fantasy borders for the City of Los Angeles," and would love to know what the demographics would be for various configurations--just need an easy way to create lists of census tracts within a given boundary.
I used the Mapping L.A. project. Unfortunately it's somewhat obsolete now (2000 data) even though little has changed population-wise. I simply combined the various subregions until I got the size I was looking for. For example these contiguous regions:
Central LA and the Westside (minus the hillside communities)
Eastside
South LA
Southeast LA (gateway cities)
Equal:
301.33 sq miles
Population: 3,481,887
Density: 11,856 persons per sq miles
There are tons of unpopulated areas within those 300 sq miles (Vernon, Commerce, Griffith Park, etc) so it isn't just census tracts.
Here are the hillside communities I omitted from Central and Westside LA.
Palisades, Brentwood, Bel-Air, Beverly Crest, Hollyood Hills West, Hollywood Hills
64.59 sq miles
Population: 112,000k
Density: 1,799 persons per sq miles
^^Thanks. I had forgotten about Mapping LA. Curious, what is it without the Gateway Cities?
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