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Well, Dallas's is actually more like SFMuni than BART. The TRE is sort of like their CalTrain, too, though far less functional.
DART and Houston's METRORail are both light rail systems that run largely (exclusively, in Houston's case) at grade and are thus, streetcars. Neither is a great solution for suburban transit. Capacity is too low and trains move too slowly in traffic for long-haul commutes.
Yeahh I know DART is light rail but it's function seems to be serving within the city and the close in suburbs and airport. It's the way WMATA functions (which I use regularly excluding winter months, I drive then). From Alexandria into the district and then to either Bethesda or Rockville. Similarly with DART, from Garland to downtown to Carrolton are service areas. It's not as extensive as BART for sure or WMATA but it's service area is leagues ahead of the rest of other four, at least a more visionary concept albeit with dissatisfying results so far (daily boardings). Then there's TRE from downtown Dallas to downtown Fort Worth (in my opinion the main area of Fort Worth).
Honestly though, I'm not so much going for any specifics but as a traveler to a place, I'd just like the option of leaving the car at the hotel for as much as possible and getting to as many places as possible with the transit.
I think DART is eons ahead of MetroRail though. I don't think transit gets more laughable than the Houston, Miami, Seattle, and Phoenix group. You have Miami with heavy rail and still loses out to DART on boardings per day and extensiveness (64,000 versus 78,000). Then you have that basketcase transit hating town of Houston, where fighting to get transit as a priority is like pulling a molar out of a cavity struck mouth as a dentist, Phoenix ehh self explanatory really, and I don't know why Seattle's such a disappointment but lately that's just been my general perception of the place after seeing it for the first time. Exceptional scenery for an average joe American city.
Basically what I'm trying to say is that I'm not yet 24 years old yet and still 2 years away from being so, I couldn't rent a car if I tried and I think it's a bit of an absurdity having to pay over $55 for a cab to go from one point of interest to another for every time you get in a cab for cities that I frankly consider "just alright but nice in their own way" in comparison to places like New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, Washington DC.
With Dallas, I can get from the airport (or will soon be able to if it's not open yet) to downtown, walk around, get back on DART and go to Deep Ellum, walk around, get back on and go to Uptown, and so on. Not possible from Houston, Seattle, or Miami. I have to cab from the airport to Downtown (minimum like $45 for such a waste of a ride), then cab everywhere besides like the few spots served by the transit.
not necessarily. Cutting them down to just the central county leaves the difference at 1M. Cook County loss people last decade, while Harris gained 700K. Its plausible that if the census were to narrow the definition to central counties then Houston could catch up in less than the allotted 20 years
I guess you didn't see how radical some of the changes were last time
this is where you are fooling yourself. Commuting is based on core counties. Milwaukee and Chicagos core counties are too large to gain enough raw people to qualify for merger. The counties around Houston are less populated so they are much easier to tack on. Its the reason why Baltimore and DC won't be an MSa or Philly and NY won't combine. The core counties require a huge number to commute.
Houston's jobs are just as centralized in its core counties. in fact, apart from the Woodland I know of no other job center not in Houston's core counties.
lets just stick to pure numbers and definitions.
a Twin isn't needed. Places like Houston, Boston, ATL etc do rather fine by adding multiple counties instead of one big one.
Like I explained before Milwaukee aint happening its just too hard to join large counties. Finally no one said that anything about Houston coming out strongly on top. You could not see any scenario wher Houston MSA would be bigger than Chicagos in 20 years because of the 3M difference and I gave you the example of Boston.
fact is you Cannot say never unless you know for certain that the OMB wont change the Census definitions in the future
The radical changes you mentioned were due to DFW having a twin cities setup while Boston had a multitude of more distantly connected urban areas that can quickly drop off due to how urban areas in New England had developed as a chain of small cities in fairly close proximity. I can't see how with the current population sizes and the urban development of Houston and Chicago that more constrained possible restrictions would lop off enough Chicago without lopping enough of Houston to make the metro look smaller (yea, you can restrict it to just the single county these cities are in, but I don't see what hint at all of why the census would do this for determining metropolitan areas) nor an expansion of metro definitions where Houston would absorb so much more than Chicago. Do you have any kind of study with projections that validate this?
And yea, Houston is also quite centralized--this is why I said that if tighter constraints made it so just core counties counted, then the hit would get both areas somewhat proportionally. Really, under what reasonable and likely projections do you see in the future that would put Houston ahead of Chicago for the metro if the definitions are working the same way for both of them? Go ahead and plot something out because I looked around a bit and I haven't seen a single projection even with those optimistic for one and pessimistic for the other that has them intersecting within twenty years. Thirty years maybe and forty years is far enough into the future that there's more than enough fuzziness in extrapolating. What projections are you going by? Demographia's projections for 2030 don't have them near enough even with a high for Houston and a low for Chicago. The planning committees for either city doesn't have them intersecting in two decades. The UN's world urbanization prospects report doesn't have them intersecting. Pew Research Center doesn't have them intersecting either. So what projections are you basing this on? I understand that it's within the realm of possibilities, but that doesn't make it likely.
The only person confused is Htown, I don't care for city limits as that has no bearing on how large a city feels and is, to me Houston feels like a solid #7 after NYC, LA, Chi, Philly, SF, DFW, in that order
Not confused at all. I have probably forgotten more about metro definitions than you will ever know. You seem to be stuck on city limits saying I am confused by it. Show me where I mentioned city limits.
You are do crappy at arguing you are arguing against things I did not say. Stop embarrassing yourself
Not confused at all. I have probably forgotten more about metro definitions than you will ever know. You seem to be stuck on city limits saying I am confused by it. Show me where I mentioned city limits.
You are do crappy at arguing you are arguing against things I did not say. Stop embarrassing yourself
Well, can you point us towards a projection from your resources that have Houston over Chicago metro-wise in two decades? I took a look around and even when projections put in a high/average/low, Chicago's low was still larger than Houston's high.
Well, Dallas's is actually more like SFMuni than BART. The TRE is sort of like their CalTrain, too, though far less functional.
DART and Houston's METRORail are both light rail systems that run largely (exclusively, in Houston's case) at grade and are thus, streetcars. Neither is a great solution for suburban transit. Capacity is too low and trains move too slowly in traffic for long-haul commutes.
To be fair, even though a good portion of Dart is at grade, it is on its own row. It only interacts with cars in downtown and street crossings. A good portion is elevated as well. Dart is really nothing like metro system. Houston would have a better mass transit network if it wasn't for goofs like Tom Delay and John Culberson. All politics and to an extent, nimbys on why they don't have it.
Well, can you point us towards a projection from your resources that have Houston over Chicago metro-wise in two decades? I took a look around and even when projections put in a high/average/low, Chicago's low was still larger than Houston's high.
If you talking projections, you are in a whole other classroom.
I am talking definitions affect the future sizes, you are talking about sitting around and speculating on growth without regard to the arbitrary boundaries the census sets.
I don't know why you are being so stubborn about this. All I am saying is that you're assertion that Houston metro is WAY too far behind is faulty thinking because you are assuming that the current definition will hold.
Place your money on the definitions remaining the same for 30 years and you will be making a fools bet.
It's safer to speculate on which will have more purple in a given area, but there is no guarantee of how much of that area will the census a lot to each metro.
Again, stop asking me to project and just read what I am saying
If you talking projections, you are in a whole other classroom.
I am talking definitions affect the future sizes, you are talking about sitting around and speculating on growth without regard to the arbitrary boundaries the census sets.
I don't know why you are being so stubborn about this. All I am saying is that you're assertion that Houston metro is WAY too far behind is faulty thinking because you are assuming that the current definition will hold.
Place your money on the definitions remaining the same for 30 years and you will be making a fools bet.
It's safer to speculate on which will have more purple in a given area, but there is no guarantee of how much of that area will the census a lot to each metro.
Again, stop asking me to project and just read what I am saying
I'm talking about definitions as well as future growth--any sort of loosening of definitions for the metro would have both places absorbing more areas, but the areas around Chicago are more densely populated with the north being especially so. Any constrictions on population would affect each just about the same since both are relatively centralized with a core county/counties that consist of the bulk of the population. These are all things I've said before and they directly address what you say about definitions and are not just about population growth; how is this being stubborn if I'm addressing exactly what you're saying?
A recent topic just posted the likely 2013 definitions which basically shows exactly that--Houston and Chicago both added places (though Houston also dropped a county from its CSA) but Chicago added a significantly greater population. Given that the census seems perfectly fine with adjoining smaller city metros to larger city metros, there's also the possibility of Chicago just annexing some 2 million through Milwaukee as right now the MSAs border each other and the tip of Chicago's MSA is but one small county away from the core Milwaukee county.
Because of the reasons stated above and before, it is unlikely for Houston's metro to become larger than Chicago's in two decades. Also, there are projections that do take into account expansion of metro areas (not just population growth in what is currently within the metro). Why don't you try to find one or at least come up with some reasonable scenario for what definitions of MSA/CSA would have Houston become larger? Also, it was twenty years not thirty.
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