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ATL had 340k in 37 square miles back in the 50s, so i think you could add another 25k or so if you were to include the 5 sq mile city of decatur next door. (for all purposes an uninterrupted part of the central area that is actually older than atlanta)
However, Boston and New York have their airport(s) and port in city limits San Fran Does not.
San Francisco does have a port, and it is within city limits. Everyone thinks that the port of Oakland is the only port around in the Bay Area...it's definitely the main/largest port by far, but there are sizable ports in SF, Richmond, and Redwood City as well. SF's port is pretty large overall (in literal size, not in cargo volume), stretching all along the eastern waterfront of the city, from Fisherman's Wharf to Hunters Point. There was very little room to expand port facilities though when container shipping took off several decades ago, so much of it was subsequently abandoned or converted to other uses. Oakland's port on the other hand had plenty of room to expand, and became one of the largest ports in the nation
San Francisco does have a port, and it is within city limits. Everyone thinks that the port of Oakland is the only port around in the Bay Area...it's definitely the main/largest port by far, but there are sizable ports in SF, Richmond, and Redwood City as well. SF's port is pretty large overall (in literal size, not in cargo volume), stretching all along the eastern waterfront of the city, from Fisherman's Wharf to Hunters Point. There was very little room to expand port facilities though when container shipping took off several decades ago, so much of it was subsequently abandoned or converted to other uses. Oakland's port on the other hand had plenty of room to expand, and became one of the largest ports in the nation
Fair point but not the footprint of the Boston airport is much larger and larger ports as well within the city itself.
Philly as an example has nearly 42 sq miles of airports/refineries/shipping ports within the city limits - though one area (the Navy Yard) has been rezoned to allow for residential. That doesnt even include park land of which there are over 10,000 acres
Dude, Im not singling out any particular city the way SF is being singled out for some "perceived but not real" advantage it has when it comes to density.
No, really, SF is very dense. Some people need to get over it.
Yes, it is. This is nevertheless an interesting exercise. I'd suggest as an alternative and interesting question, what happens if we super impose a larger city, say Philadelphia, over all of SF or Boston or DC, etc. plus a necessary external but contiguous region to match the total square mileage of Philly. What would we get for a population? Recognizing that this thread may have been started to troll SF homers, it's still a useful framework for creating apple to apple comparisons.
Yes, it is. This is nevertheless an interesting exercise. I'd suggest as an alternative and interesting question, what happens if we super impose a larger city, say Philadelphia, over all of SF or Boston or DC, etc. plus a necessary external but contiguous region to match the total square mileage of Philly. What would we get for a population? Recognizing that this thread may have been started to troll SF homers, it's still a useful framework for creating apple to apple comparisons.
This has actually been calculated. For SF if you add the most dense blocks to get to 135 sq miles Mostly (east Bay Oakland/Berkeley etc) it comes close to Philly though has far less industrial/ports/refineries and airports (Includes Oakland and not SFO whereas Philly has nearly 42 sq miles of the 135 as these such areas and basically population zero in them, also the SF mileage become very linear along the East aby to come close at 135 sq miles, less radiating and more hugging the bay in a line north/south on the East Bay side while leaving out much closer areas on the penisula (like where the airport is for example)). I believe SF would be 50-100K shy of the Philly number. Boston ended up being about 50-100K shy of SF - all were in the same ballpark. Extended to 200 sq miles was where there was a greater example of the size and population cluster in Philly compared to the others actually. SF then maintains higher suburban densisty then either extending away from the core
Didnt do DC but imagine it would be firmly behind the other 3
I did a part of Toronto that's 46.95 square miles and had a population of 944,375 and density of 20,114 ppsm as of the 2006 census. Depending on how you manipulate the boundaries, you could probably get 900,000 - 1,050,000. For 2011, I would add about 60-80,000 people. Some of the lower density areas I included in the 47 square miles that could have been removed to get a higher value include the Port Lands, Toronto Islands, High Park, some wealthy neighbourhoods in North Toronto and Midtown (ex Lawrence Park, Moore Park, Rosedale) and some parks/Exhibition Place near the waterfront.
Here's the map of the area I used for 944,000 people.
What would be your cities' density if you could put 47 sq miles anywhere in your city?
My city's density would be 1721 people per square mile if I stretched the population out over 47 square miles. As it stands, the city's current density is 2619.8 people per square mile, with the land area being 25.6 square miles.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 18Montclair
Actually a better question would be what would your city's population be if it had 17,000 people per square mile. Dallas for example, would have 4,811,000 people.
Figuring it this way, my city would have a population of 435,200 as opposed to the 80,885 it currently has.
Location: NY-NJ-Philly looks down at SF and laughs at the hippies
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 18Montclair
Actually a better question would be what would your city's population be if it had 17,000 people per square mile. Dallas for example, would have 4,811,000 people.
Every major city would have a huge increase except NYC itself, which would actually decline since its a bit more dense than SF to begin with(of course).
Actually, the best question would be for every major city in the U.S. to take the densest 46.87 square miles as long as it's continous and then compare.
I love it when natives of that hippie mecca hide behind their small square miles.
That's really a difficult task to do. How is anybody going to find a source that will allow them to square off a certain 47 square miles of their city and to then come up with an accurate population density figure? I guarantee you NYC will be the only one with a higher Pop density.
Luckily, I know Hudson County NJ is literally 47 square miles. That has a population density of 13,044. Mind you, this county is home to the densest cities iin the nation (Union city, Hoboken, West New York, Guttenberg etc- And Jersey city is the 3rd densest major city after NYC & SF) and even with these claims, SF comes still beats out HC in terms of Pop Density.. So you're really not going to find much else close to SF's 17,462 PPSM other than Boston/Hudson County.
I'd just like to point out that a lot of this is because there are urbanized areas with rowhouses and apartment buildings, but within the county, there are areas with a very low population density. The eastern part of Bayonne is a garbage dump and oil refineries, and there are parts of Kearny, Secaucus, and North Bergen that are industrial areas with a low population density. If San Francisco had more industrial areas, it would have a lower population density.
But you are right that no major city comes close to San Francisco's population density except for NYC. Philadelphia's population density is about 11,000 people per square mile, Boston's is 13,000, Washington DC's is 9,900, Baltimore's is 7,600, and Miami and Chicago are around 12,000.
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