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Like I said before on another thread for cites like Houston and Phoenix, for them to have a population of 4 or 5 million or greater, they would have to change their whole city infrastructure. Even with their large land areas these cities are not built for the kind of density. Those cities would have to almost start over from scratch to achieve that type of density in its city limits. Its not like Houston can just magically change from a city with lots of suburban sprawl to a densely populated city like New York or Philadelphia. It just doesn't work that way.
i mean
2050
1. NY 9,000,000-9,500,000
2. L.A. 7,500,000-8,000,000
I really doubt that LA is going to pass 4.5 M anytime in the future. If LA couldnt pass 4 M by 2000, its not gonna happen. LA's greatest growth was the last century.
Like I said before on another thread for cites like Houston and Phoenix, for them to have a population of 4 or 5 million or greater, they would have to change their whole city infrastructure. Even with their large land areas these cities are not built for the kind of density. Those cities would have to almost start over from scratch to achieve that type of density in its city limits. Its not like Houston can just magically change from a city with lots of suburban sprawl to a densely populated city like New York or Philadelphia. It just doesn't work that way.
I've never been to NYC or Philly but Houston's southside has masses of undeveloped land, even farmland. Some places in the center of the city are even pretty suburban and within 50 years will be densely developed, I have much faith that Houston will become much denser in the future. Not claiming it will be NYC dense though...
Quote:
Originally Posted by rnc2mbfl
On the other hand, Jacksonville has a MASSIVE amount of land to develop and can easily add a million people in a rather suburban model. N. Florida is the cheap part of Florida. I can easily see it happening.
I was in Jacksonville somewhat recently and I completely agree.
I really doubt NYC can grow any further, at least not as much as some of the figures proposed here, it's changed very little since 1930, when it had 7 million people. Today just over 8 million. If in 80 years time it only increased by 1 million people, I doubt it will grow 200 times faster in 40 years.
The city is as built up as it can get, realistically.
New York is just now starting to spark some growth. See:
If one were to ask the folks in 1910 which cities would be the largest in 2010, they'd probably rattle off a list of cities that were essentially the largest back then. They'd talk about cities like Cleveland, St. Louis, Detroit and Pittsburgh because those cities were all the rage then. The reality is that we do the same thing now. We can't imagine that some of the big cities of today won't remain so in the future.
While it's perfectly reasonable to imagine today's large cities in similar positions in 50 years, 75 years or 100 years, it's also perfectly reasonable to imagine a scenario where some of our larger suburban model cities like Phoenix fall victim to their development model because of infrastructure failure and the costs associated with repairing it. The coming infrastructure collapse of America's suburbia is going to be a huge wake up call to Americans. It could make the collapse of Detroit look like child's play.
I've never been to NYC or Philly but Houston's southside has masses of undeveloped land, even farmland. Some places in the center of the city are even pretty suburban and within 50 years will be densely developed, I have much faith that Houston will become much denser in the future. Not claiming it will be NYC dense though...
I was in Jacksonville somewhat recently and I completely agree.
For Houston to get to 4+ million it would have to have density throughout the city higher than what exists today within the loop. I understand there are places that are vacant today but seriously this is not going to happen in Houston any time soon if ever
Even the inner loop is 70% of the density that whole city would need to be to reach this level.
Bascially Houston would need to be approximately half as dense as the foreground here over the nearly 600 sq miles; it just aint going to happen.
Or closer to the foreground density in this image over the whole city
View from USB | Flickr - Photo Sharing! (http://www.flickr.com/photos/mdorn/3967161537/ - broken link)
Houston does not develop this way; which is fine but reality needs to be placed on these aspirations. The current mid rise apt development is below what it would take for the whole city to reach this density.
If one were to ask the folks in 1910 which cities would be the largest in 2010, they'd probably rattle off a list of cities that were essentially the largest back then. They'd talk about cities like Cleveland, St. Louis, Detroit and Pittsburgh because those cities were all the rage then. The reality is that we do the same thing now. We can't imagine that some of the big cities of today won't remain so in the future.
While it's perfectly reasonable to imagine today's large cities in similar positions in 50 years, 75 years or 100 years, it's also perfectly reasonable to imagine a scenario where some of our larger suburban model cities like Phoenix fall victim to their development model because of infrastructure failure and the costs associated with repairing it. The coming infrastructure collapse of America's suburbia is going to be a huge wake up call to Americans. It could make the collapse of Detroit look like child's play.
Agree NYC, LA, Houston, Chicago will all be there but after there are so many, especially those with large borders. SA, Charlotte, Dallas, Ft Worth etc may all be among the top ten in population plus maybe some surprises
For Houston to get to 4+ million it would have to have density throughout the city higher than what exists today within the loop. I understand there are places that are vacant today but seriously this is not going to happen in Houston any time soon if ever
Even the inner loop is 70% of the density that whole city would need to be to reach this level.
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Houston does not develop this way; which is fine but reality needs to be placed on these aspirations. The current mid rise apt development is below what it would take for the whole city to reach this density.
What aspirations? That it can increase in density. I don't think anyone will believe Houston will ever reach Philly's density much less NYC's density. LA won't ever reach Philly's sustained density either. But do I believe Houston can reach LA density? Yes. If Houston can bring it's new development that we all saw in the inner loop to the even Beltway 8, I can Houston sustaining 5000-7000 in 20 years. The inner loop is near 5000 ppsm itself.
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