Phoenix Closing Gap on Philly in City Population Once Again (best, compared)
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You do realize that Phoenix and San Antonio are almost 4 x the geographical size of Philly right? At 500 sq miles Philly would have a population of about 4 M people.
Yes, those two city have larger land areas but keep in mind it's the amount federal funding that's at stake here. Federal funding does not go by urban density but according to how many people who live inside the city limits of a city. A city could be 1,000 square miles with a higher population but that's what they go by.
Will we live to see Philly go the way of Detroit, New Orleans, Charleston falling out of the top 10 largest cities list?
Phoenix (city-proper) may pass Philly (city-proper) by the 2020 census, but I just don't see Philly ever "going the way of Detroit". Or New Orleans. Detroit pretty much collapsed on itself in the most severe kind of way, due to it's being a one-industry city. Philly has way too much diversity in it's economy to ever implode the way Detroit did. And New Orleans? How long has it been since it was in the top 10? That was before my grandparents' time. It also didn't help that N.O. was dealt a massive blow by mother nature.
Philly may slip a couple of notches, but it will most likely remain in the top 10, both by city-proper numbers as well as metro numbers, for a good long while. I doubt that I, at least, will ever live to see it drop out of the top 10.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheseGoTo11
This is nonsense. Everyone knows Philly is undercounted due to Census conspiracies to make NYC look bigger, and to promote Sunbelt growth. While the Census might lead you to believe otherwise, Philly is growing by nearly 100,000 people a year and will surpass Chicago and LA in 20 years.
There must be a big sale on tin-foil in the Greater DC area right now, unless that was pure sarcasm.
The city of Philadelphia is continuing to grow every year in population. The Philly area is already more populated than the entire state of Arizona. Phoenix's population estimates have always been overestimated when compared to the actual official census counts. I've used this metric on another thread for the use of population comparison between the Philly area and other cities.
The Phoenix MSA is twice the land area the Philly CSA. So even with the added land area for Philly, the Phoenix MSA is still significantly larger by land area.
Philly MSA: 5,131.7 sq. miles
Philly CSA: 7,281.52 sq. miles
Phoenix MSA: 14,565.76 sq. mi.
As you can see, the Philly area reaches a population of over 7.1 million people in a land area half the size as of the Pheonix MSA at 4.1 million. Throw in Mercer County "224.56 sq mi" (which should technically be in the Philly CSA) and the gap grows even larger to about 7.5 million "7,506.08 sq. mi" vs 4.1 million "14,565.76 sq. mi". That's a 3.4 million difference. A population difference that is almost the size of Los Angeles.
Phoenix (city-proper) may pass Philly (city-proper) by the 2020 census, but I just don't see Philly ever "going the way of Detroit". Or New Orleans. Detroit pretty much collapsed on itself in the most severe kind of way, due to it's being a one-industry city. Philly has way too much diversity in it's economy to ever implode the way Detroit did. And New Orleans? How long has it been since it was in the top 10? That was before my grandparents' time. It also didn't help that N.O. was dealt a massive blow by mother nature.
Philly may slip a couple of notches, but it will most likely remain in the top 10, both by city-proper numbers as well as metro numbers, for a good long while. I doubt that I, at least, will ever live to see it drop out of the top 10.
There must be a big sale on tin-foil in the Greater DC area right now, unless that was pure sarcasm.
Yeah, they say sarcasm is not a strong area of humor in areas outside of the northeast and thesegoto11 just proved it. Please stop trying to be sarcastic down south in DC and leave the sarcasm up here to the Northeast in places like Philly
IMO, metro area is far more important than the population of a particular city. One thing that surprised me is that DC metro is on target to pass Chicago in 3 years as the 3rd largest metro...wow, your tax dollars at work.
IMO, metro area is far more important than the population of a particular city. One thing that surprised me is that DC metro is on target to pass Chicago in 3 years as the 3rd largest metro...wow, your tax dollars at work.
Only if you go by the CSA numbers which include Baltimore. Going by MSA, Chicago still leads by a large gap.
One thing everyone is forgetting.... there are probably a LOT of illegals in pheonix, that dont show up on the cencus. maybe there are 50,000 more people living in pheonix than we know about?
IMO, metro area is far more important than the population of a particular city. One thing that surprised me is that DC metro is on target to pass Chicago in 3 years as the 3rd largest metro...wow, your tax dollars at work.
Yes, a healthy growing metro area which has more population than a city for the most part counts. However, keep in mind Philly's growth rate as a metro is behind most of the cities in the nation. DC's CSA (which includes Baltimore) population has already passed Philly. Right now you have DC and Miami-Ft Lauderdale-WPB about to pass Philly in "MSA" population. (I believe DC already has) Yes, metro population counts when you look at the whole complete picture. The only reason why city population is important is because of the federal funding it receives based on it's actual population ranking. If Philly were to rank 6th or 8th it would not receive the kind of funding that it has at the 5th position or what Chicago or LA gets. When it comes to federal funding for projects that aspect is not something you really want to discount. Just look at Detroit. I don't live in either city so I am looking at this from a logical perspective without emotional bias.
Now if it came down to which city is better I personally would rather choose Philly over Phoenix. However, keep in mind you also have a lot people out there (especially in PHX) who may disagree with me and would rather live there instead of Philly. I like things more urban so when it comes to choices I would even rather live in Charleston or Savannah before Phoenix even if it's much smaller but that's just me. I would love to see Philly grow at Houston or DC's pace but these are the fact cards we're dealt with right now. The question is what do you think Philly could do to bring the growth rate back up even more? What can the city do better to attract more people to come move there than say Houston or even DC? It doesn't have to have Austin's 12% growth rate but what can Philly do to bring it up more is the question here? What can Philly do to at least lure more people from it's burbs to live in the city?
Location: northern Vermont - previously NM, WA, & MA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gottaq
One thing everyone is forgetting.... there are probably a LOT of illegals in pheonix, that dont show up on the cencus. maybe there are 50,000 more people living in pheonix than we know about?
There are also a lot of illegals in LA, Chicago, and even rural parts of Washington State. I don't think Phoenix is special in this regard.
Last edited by JMT; 03-03-2015 at 06:30 PM..
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