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View Poll Results: Will or Has Phoenix Passed Philly in City Population?
Phoenix will eventually pass Philly in city population 64 58.72%
Phoenix has already passed Philly in city population 19 17.43%
No Philly will remain ahead of Phoenix in city population 15 13.76%
I'm not sure could swing either way 11 10.09%
Voters: 109. You may not vote on this poll

Closed Thread Start New Thread
 
Old 01-16-2015, 06:09 PM
 
Location: Earth
2,549 posts, read 3,980,930 times
Reputation: 1218

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It seems that Phoenix is closing in to surpass Philly in city population to reclaim the 5th spot once again. Has this already happened? or Could it happen this year? This time it is inevitable unless Philly can boost a growth rate at or greater than Phoenix. You also have San Antonio closing in at a faster rate than Phoenix as well with over 1.4 million clicking in at over 6 percent. However, I will give Philly some benefit of the doubt. Even though it's growing it doesn't have Detroit's declining growth rate. If New Orleans once the nation's 3rd largest city during the 1840's can bounce back while still maintaining at 10% growth rate (hard to believe it's still doing this despite people returning from Katrina but that was years ago) I guess anything is possible but then again it's possible that Phoenix could knock Philly out of the 5th position. Would we see Philly blowing up in growth like DC in the future? Who knows. Only time will tell.

Or

Will we live to see Philly go the way of Detroit, New Orleans, Charleston falling out of the top 10 largest cities list?

Your thoughts and predictions. I posted a poll option.

List of United States cities by population - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Last edited by urbanologist; 01-16-2015 at 06:18 PM..

 
Old 01-16-2015, 06:15 PM
 
Location: Philadelphia, PA
8,700 posts, read 14,698,612 times
Reputation: 3668
Phoenix never actually surpassed Philadelphia. It's population was overestimated. Yearly counts aren't as accurate as the decade census so we won't know for sure again. I assume they're overestimating once again.

It is however easier to grow a city with 600 sq miles than it is one with 134 square miles. It may be inevitable eventually but Phoenix will never actually be the larger city.
 
Old 01-16-2015, 06:16 PM
 
300 posts, read 441,325 times
Reputation: 320
Here is a graph. I'm assuming that the 2009 numbers were estimates so who knows if Phoenix really was higher.

https://www.google.com/publicdata/ex...l=en&ind=false
 
Old 01-16-2015, 06:20 PM
 
Location: northern Vermont - previously NM, WA, & MA
10,749 posts, read 23,822,981 times
Reputation: 14665
I've never been impressed with the city populations of about half of the cities on the list of the top 10 largest in the US. Everybody knows about the sunbelt formula of city limits stretched our to the size of New England counties and Phoenix is certainly no exception of that.

Both cities are jockying around 1.5 million

Philadelphia packs it in with 134 square miles of land
Phoenix's land area 517 square miles

Or compare San Antonio which has twice the city population of Boston. Which city seems bigger?
 
Old 01-16-2015, 06:21 PM
 
Location: Philadelphia, PA
8,700 posts, read 14,698,612 times
Reputation: 3668
Quote:
Originally Posted by ghdana View Post
Here is a graph. I'm assuming that the 2009 numbers were estimates so who knows if Phoenix really was higher.

https://www.google.com/publicdata/ex...l=en&ind=false
Every year between 2000 and 2010 are rough estimates. They're not exact. They take into account only new housing and apartment unit construction but don't take into account rehabs of old buildings or conversions, vacancy rates, foreclosures, etc.

The decade censuses are much more accurate and when they did that they found they were overestimating Phoenix's growth.
 
Old 01-16-2015, 06:21 PM
 
Location: Villanova Pa.
4,927 posts, read 14,216,234 times
Reputation: 2715
Quote:
Originally Posted by urbanologist View Post
It seems that Phoenix is closing in to surpass Philly in city population to reclaim the 5th spot once again. Has this already happened? or Could it happen this year? This time it is inevitable unless Philly can boost a growth rate at or greater than Phoenix. You also have San Antonio closing in at a faster rate than Phoenix
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.
 
Old 01-16-2015, 06:25 PM
 
Location: Earth
2,549 posts, read 3,980,930 times
Reputation: 1218
Quote:
Originally Posted by RightonWalnut View Post
Phoenix never actually surpassed Philadelphia. It's population was overestimated. Yearly counts aren't as accurate as the decade census so we won't know for sure again. I assume they're overestimating once again.

It is however easier to grow a city with 600 sq miles than it is one with 134 square miles. It may be inevitable eventually but Phoenix will never actually be the larger city.
Larger as in city population or metro? When it comes to metro population Phoenix will not be larger in that regard.
 
Old 01-16-2015, 06:29 PM
 
Location: Philadelphia, PA
8,700 posts, read 14,698,612 times
Reputation: 3668
Quote:
Originally Posted by urbanologist View Post
Larger as in city population or metro? When it comes to metro population Phoenix will not be larger in that regard.
Larger just as in larger. Even if Phoenix surpasses Philadelphia in population, just look at the two. And this isn't considering Metro population at all. Phoenix is over 500 square miles. It is very sprawly and low density. Very little in the way of highrises or urbanity. Philadelphia is massive and packs 1.6 million people into 134 square miles. Massive downtown with hundreds of highrises, vibrancy, miles upon miles of dense walkable urbanity. Philadelphia will always be viewed as the larger city just like most people view San Francisco, Boston and DC as larger cities that Phoenix.
 
Old 01-16-2015, 06:30 PM
 
Location: Land of the Free
6,741 posts, read 6,730,607 times
Reputation: 7590
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.
 
Old 01-16-2015, 06:32 PM
 
Location: Philadelphia, PA
8,700 posts, read 14,698,612 times
Reputation: 3668
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheseGoTo11 View Post
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.
Lol. Philadelphia hater. Should've known this thread would bring them out!
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