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I didn't know that most Urban Area data was old, but I always like to calculate metro areas for myself, and I have no idea what the boundaries of urban areas are, and even if I did, I would never try to add up municipal populations because it'd take ages.
The last time I searched for urbanized area data what I was able to find was old and made Metro Atlanta look far less dense because the population of Atlanta's inner urban area's was way less 10 years ago than it is now. Metro Atlanta has grown a lot more in the last 10, 15 years than Seattle, Denver or Minneapolis and become a lot denser so old data works in favor of them.
Counties are the building blocks of metros, and the smallest thing you can define before going to city level. You can think county density is pointless, and I agree that it does make the area around Seattle seem less dense, but we were talking about counties, and you can't compare Fulton to Denver to Hennepin and then only to half King. I was just using the figures to show that as Galounger said, Atlanta's 5 central counties would be denser together, and just as dense apart as any centre county of the others. For Seattle this is unfair as King is a lot bigger, which I did mention.
If you wanna talk metros, Seattle's is still less dense than Atlanta's at 584/sq mi vs 837 /sq mi.
I do know what you are saying, and just using cold numbers without explanation can be misleading, but I didn't just use the density, I did show and say that King was by far the biggest county, which infers that of course it'd be less dense as even if the mountains weren't there it probably wouldn't have sustained density throughout the county.
Lets just for fact say the area around is not as dense as Atlanta. Seattle as a city is much more dense than Atlanta It makes much sense .Because more people In Seattle live in the city area and in Atlanta more live in the Burbs. Atlanta is a city based on sprawl and Seattle is based on density.
Last edited by ironcouger; 03-19-2011 at 12:28 PM..
Reason: misspelled
The last time I searched for urbanized area data what I was able to find was old and made Metro Atlanta look far less dense because the population of Atlanta's inner urban area's was way less 10 years ago than it is now. Metro Atlanta has grown a lot more in the last 10, 15 years than Seattle, Denver or Minneapolis and become a lot denser so old data works in favor of them.
2010 Population - 2000 Population - Population Increase - Population Percentage Increase
Seattle 3,439,809 - 3,043,878 - 395,931 - 13.0%
Denver 2,543,482 - 2,157,756 - 385,726 - 17.9%
Minneapolis 3,279,833 - 2,968,806 - 311,027 - 10.5%
Atlanta 5,260,436 - 4,369,492 - 890,944 - 20.4%
That's certainly true, it has grown far more by real population and a fair bit more than Denver by percentage.
Yeah, ignore the lion and pit bit, we all know the drill.
No. I won't ignore it. I shall analyze who will win.
Portland would be the first to go as all the granola-eating, biking in the 40s and rain, borderline communists would raise a sign saying "DON'T HARM THE LION!" and subsequently get eaten, and then claim it was "good for the environment" as they will now stop contributing CO2 (or "carbon" ) into the atmosphere and therefore clubbing baby seals and will be recycled as fertilizer.
Seattle and Minneapolis would study on how to get rid of the lion and try to devise a way, but end up bickering (like all engineers do during initial stages of program development). The lion will kill them to stop the bickering.
Austin would try to sing their way away or try to say "they're different" but the lion won't care. Mincemeat.
Denver would probably run away assuming it is low altitude as they all realize they can BREATHE and thus are more energetic.
Atlanta would try running away but is too fat, or would be distracted by NASCAR race, and get eaten.
Which leaves Boise. They'd climb out of the ditch.
JOKING PEOPLE!
Quote:
These are the cities I'm interested in, and I would really love people's opinions as to which one is 'the best'. I'm sure most will pretty much ignore Boise, but maybe some won't. I want to be clear that for the most part, I'm talking about as close to the downtown or rather the part of the city where everything goes on as possible.
Some Criteria I can think of:
Lowest Average housing cost (average downtown condo cost)
Lowest Cost of living
Best Nightlife
Best attractions (cinemas and museums are the main ones for me)
Best restaurants
Best parks
Best Lakes, rivers etc
Most beautiful natural setting
Best cityscape
If anyone happens to know any actual figures when it comes to housing cost, that'd be great and if anyone has enough knowledge, ranking all 6 in order would be great.
That'll do, and anything else you'd care to add would be lovely.
EDIT: I've added Austin in, but the title hasn't changed.
Downtown condos and housing, in general, are very expensive in Seattle. If you want to live downtown in a condo expect to pay something between $250k all the way up to the millions.
It is also expensive.
But it has awesome cinemas (including retro and old OLD places over 100 years old showing movies). It has a lot of museums, including the Asian Art museum with artifacts 1000s of years old.
Nightlife is here. THough I can't comment too much on it, I'm married and in my 30s. I don't go clubbing anymore. I do go to a very nice cocktail bar and that's about it.
Seattle has two mountain ranges and Mt. Rainier nearby, gorgeous summers, skiing in the winter 30 min away, Lake Washington is gorgeous all times of the year, and tons of little towns in the area which thrive on recreational tourism.
Despite COL being high, Seattleites are actually pretty happy. (Broad strokes I know, but all statistics are)
No. I won't ignore it. I shall analyze who will win.
Portland would be the first to go as all the granola-eating, biking in the 40s and rain, borderline communists would raise a sign saying "DON'T HARM THE LION!" and subsequently get eaten, and then claim it was "good for the environment" as they will now stop contributing CO2 (or "carbon" ) into the atmosphere and therefore clubbing baby seals and will be recycled as fertilizer.
Seattle and Minneapolis would study on how to get rid of the lion and try to devise a way, but end up bickering (like all engineers do during initial stages of program development). The lion will kill them to stop the bickering.
Austin would try to sing their way away or try to say "they're different" but the lion won't care. Mincemeat.
Denver would probably run away assuming it is low altitude as they all realize they can BREATHE and thus are more energetic.
Atlanta would try running away but is too fat, or would be distracted by NASCAR race, and get eaten.
Which leaves Boise. They'd climb out of the ditch.
JOKING PEOPLE!
Downtown condos and housing, in general, are very expensive in Seattle. If you want to live downtown in a condo expect to pay something between $250k all the way up to the millions.
It is also expensive.
But it has awesome cinemas (including retro and old OLD places over 100 years old showing movies). It has a lot of museums, including the Asian Art museum with artifacts 1000s of years old.
Nightlife is here. THough I can't comment too much on it, I'm married and in my 30s. I don't go clubbing anymore. I do go to a very nice cocktail bar and that's about it.
Seattle has two mountain ranges and Mt. Rainier nearby, gorgeous summers, skiing in the winter 30 min away, Lake Washington is gorgeous all times of the year, and tons of little towns in the area which thrive on recreational tourism.
Despite COL being high, Seattleites are actually pretty happy. (Broad strokes I know, but all statistics are)
Actually Portland would just offer the lion a J and they would get stoned and talk it out. then the lion would have the munchies and eat them all. basically the lion wins every time
Actually Portland would just offer the lion a J and they would get stoned and talk it out. then the lion would have the munchies and eat them all. basically the lion wins every time
Yeah, the lion was a mistake, people can't get over it.
Replying to both comments, the fact is not many people want to live in Atlanta or Minneapolis, especially when comparing to cities like Seattle, Portland, Denver and Austin. The information I revealed is base from approved data.
Also it is true Atlanta growth has dramatically cruved, and most of the city has been hyped from the media. I don't see Atlanta being any better than Indianapolis.
Well if that were true I suppose the numbers in growth would reflect that.Fact is ...THEY DON'T!Atlanta was the fastest growing major city after Dallas.
No offence to Indianapolis,but if Atlanta was no better than Indianapolis,the Indianapolis would have a higher ,GDP,higher incomes,education,higher natonal or international profile etc...
The population has curved from an extremely breakneck pace over a period of 40 years.In fact its still growing.The economy is the blame for that slowdown like many places in the U.S.
I sure would like to know what media hype you are referring too.
Location: Cleveland bound with MPLS in the rear-view
5,509 posts, read 11,875,397 times
Reputation: 2501
Quote:
Originally Posted by BruceTenmile
No, my 'argument' is not flawed, and yes that is picking and choosing. You must compare like for like as I said. It makes no difference at all whether, as you say 'western counties are different', and anyway, it only makes sense if you're talking about 'eastern counties' which have a major city in them, as they do have uninhabitable areas of mountains in the east, and even then, I'm sure there are a couple of major cities which have uninhabitable areas in their counties.
I used the LAND area for the density, not the total, so you can stop going on about Puget sound. What you are basically saying is because Seattle is in a very large county, it must be specially examined, with all the areas of the municipalities totalled to make it comparable to all those 'eastern counties' which have no uninhabitable area at all.
I have no idea where you are from, but you seem to be really swinging for Seattle. It's a dense city, which is the centre of a very large metro, but that metro is made of only 3 counties which happen to be very large.
Summit county in Colorado is pretty much covered in mountains. It's population is about 27,000. Would you have the mountains be ignored and have only the 10 or so sq mi of towns be used to calculate it's county density? You probably would actually.
Land area is the fairest way to get county density regardless of mountains and desert or whatever else. There are areas within city limits which are uninhabitable, would you have them ignored when talking about city density?
The TRUE metro area densities look like this, in order:
Denver
Seattle
Minneapolis/St. Paul
Atlanta
At some point when I have time I'll find the data to support this, but you can't use county populations -- it's apples to organges.
No. I won't ignore it. I shall analyze who will win.
Portland would be the first to go as all the granola-eating, biking in the 40s and rain, borderline communists would raise a sign saying "DON'T HARM THE LION!" and subsequently get eaten, and then claim it was "good for the environment" as they will now stop contributing CO2 (or "carbon" ) into the atmosphere and therefore clubbing baby seals and will be recycled as fertilizer.
Seattle and Minneapolis would study on how to get rid of the lion and try to devise a way, but end up bickering (like all engineers do during initial stages of program development). The lion will kill them to stop the bickering.
Austin would try to sing their way away or try to say "they're different" but the lion won't care. Mincemeat.
Denver would probably run away assuming it is low altitude as they all realize they can BREATHE and thus are more energetic.
Atlanta would try running away but is too fat, or would be distracted by NASCAR race, and get eaten.
Which leaves Boise. They'd climb out of the ditch.
JOKING PEOPLE!
Actually, Boise is probably the most fit and active of these cities, so Boise would either run, jog, or ride their mountain bikes and get away from the lion
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) into the atmosphere and therefore clubbing baby seals and will be recycled as fertilizer.
