2010-2014 Change in Density for the Top 10 Densest Cities in the United States (largest, comparison)

[i'm not a cookie]

I just wish people would stop justifying LA's density by comparing it to cities like NYC and philly. No one said LA was not dense at all, YES I think LA is an extremely dense city but With his statement it seemed as if he thought density all looked like NYC style density and literally all I was saying is that you can't compare the two and that yes LA is dense but it's not NYC dense it's a different type of density because it is a different style of city. If a tourist comes out to LA on vacation and is expecting it to be a dense city like east coast dense cities with buildings connected, row houses, being able to walk everywhere/take the metro then they will be displeased and at @21 no I do not think Miami and New Orleans are more dense than LA.

[jamills21]

Originally Posted by i'm not a cookie

With his statement it seemed as if he thought density all looked like NYC style density and literally all I was saying is that yes LA is dense but it's not NYC dense it's a different type of density. If a tourist comes out to LA on vacation it is expecting it to be a dense city like east coast dense cities with buildings connected, row houses, being able to walk everywhere/take the metro then they will be displeased and at @21 no I do not think Miami or New Orleans is more dense than LA.

Wel neither is Seattle.... But I think your not taking into consideration that LA (LA county really) is built more like Tokyo or London than NYC. If you took the totality of nodes in LA than it is much more denss than any place other than NYC. Your talking about walkabilty which is different, especially since most LA's most walkable areas are spread out. Again, the transit system makes LA not as walkable but imagine a purple line that goes from Westwood to DTLA, you would not need a car to get to most important locales except the hills.

[Calisonn]

Just to put this LA vs Seattle density dispute to rest here's some data on the 2 cores, all credit given to none other than RedJohn:

Land area only (excluding water area).



Immediate Seattle Core
- 98121: 8,558 people (00.47 square miles)
- 98104: 13,095 people (00.76 square miles)
- 98101: 9,010 people (00.54 square miles)
- 98102: 19,424 people (01.33 square miles)
- 98122: 28,790 people (02.33 square miles)
- 98119: 19,662 people (02.39 square miles)
- 98109: 16,018 people (02.00 square miles)
- 98144: 24,913 people (03.38 square miles)
- 98112: 20,480 people (03.11 square miles)

Total: 159,950 people (16.31 square miles of land area) for a population density of 9,806 people per square mile.




Extended Seattle Core
- 98174: 180 people (00.001 square miles)
- 98121: 8,558 people (00.47 square miles)
- 98104: 13,095 people (00.76 square miles)
- 98101: 9,010 people (00.54 square miles)
- 98102: 19,424 people (01.33 square miles)
- 98122: 28,790 people (02.33 square miles)
- 98105: 38,963 people (04.15 square miles)
- 98107: 18,516 people (02.16 square miles)
- 98103: 41,971 people (04.64 square miles)
- 98119: 19,662 people (02.39 square miles)
- 98109: 16,018 people (02.00 square miles)
- 98117: 29,667 people (03.92 square miles)
- 98144: 24,913 people (03.38 square miles)
- 98116: 20,826 people (03.00 square miles)
- 98118: 40,791 people (06.09 square miles)
- 98115: 43,567 people (06.58 square miles)
- 98112: 20,480 people (03.11 square miles)
- 98136: 14,138 people (02.31 square miles)
- 98126: 18,906 people (03.39 square miles)
- 98199: 19,156 people (04.21 square miles)
- 98106: 23,317 people (05.23 square miles)
- 98108: 21,223 people (07.34 square miles)

Total: 491,171 people (69.331 square miles of land area) with a density of 7,084 people per square mile.

I went ahead and Los Angeles as well, in both an immediate core region and an extended one as well to mirror the standards used for Seattle.

Immediate Core Los Angeles
- 90057: 43,986 people (00.88 square miles)
- 90020: 42,383 people (01.11 square miles)
- 90005: 43,014 people (01.15 square miles)
- 90006: 62,765 people (01.93 square miles)
- 90029: 41,697 people (01.35 square miles)
- 90017: 20,689 people (00.74 square miles)
- 90011: 101,214 people (04.36 square miles)
- 90004: 67,850 people (03.07 square miles)
- 90038: 32,557 people (01.55 square miles)

Total: 456,155 (16.14 square miles of land area) with a population density of 28,263 people per square mile (basically a population similar to Atlanta proper in half the land area of Miami.

Extended Core Los Angeles
- 90057: 43,986 people (00.88 square miles)
- 90020: 42,383 people (01.11 square miles)
- 90005: 43,014 people (01.15 square miles)
- 90006: 62,765 people (01.93 square miles)
- 90029: 41,697 people (01.35 square miles)
- 90017: 20,689 people (00.74 square miles)
- 90011: 101,214 people (04.36 square miles)
- 90004: 67,850 people (03.07 square miles)
- 90038: 32,557 people (01.55 square miles)
- 90028: 30,562 people (01.51 square miles)
- 90037: 56,691 people (02.80 square miles)
- 90034: 58,199 people (03.07 square miles)
- 90026: 73,671 people (04.15 square miles)
- 90019: 67,510 people (03.93 square miles)
- 90044: 87,366 people (05.17 square miles)
- 90003: 58,187 people (03.54 square miles)
- 90007: 45,021 people (02.76 square miles)
- 90018: 47,127 people (02.90 square miles)
- 90033: 49,418 people (03.12 square miles)

Total: 1,030,177 people (49.09 square miles of land area) for a population density of 20,986 people per square mile.

I stopped it at 49 square miles because it was far too easy for Los Angeles to match Seattle's entire population in about 25 square miles or so and then at San Francisco's land area size, Los Angeles is able to exceed 1 million people and a density over 20,000 people per square mile. I could have kept going until I reached a total area of 69 square miles to match the Seattle extended core statistics from above, but there was no point, in just a tiny 16 square miles Los Angeles put away a 70 square mile Seattle core by both population and density.

Los Angeles:Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitor sites is not allowed
Seattle: Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitor sites is not allowed

[i'm not a cookie]

Originally Posted by jamills21

Wel neither is Seattle.... But I think your not taking into consideration that LA (LA county really) is built more like Tokyo or London than NYC. If you took the totality of nodes in LA than it is much more denss than any place other than NYC. Your talking about walkabilty which is different, especially since most LA's most walkable areas are spread out. Again, the transit system makes LA not as walkable but imagine a purple line that goes from Westwood to DTLA, you would not need a car to get to most important locales except the hills.

I've just always associated walkability with density/thought they go hand in hand so that's my only irritation with LA density, I agree LA's walkable parts are so far apart unlike other major cities which also irritates me but at least i'll have the opportunity to go from DTLA to SaMo come may.

[jamills21]

Seattle Total: 491,171 people (69.331 square miles of land area) with a density of 7,084 people per square mile.

I went ahead and Los Angeles as well, in both an immediate core region and an extended one as well to mirror the standards used for Seattle.

LA Total: 456,155 (16.14 square miles of land area) with a population density of 28,263 people per square mile (basically a population similar to Atlanta proper in half the land area of Miami.


Thank You.

[Freddy K]

Lol

[polo89]

Although Miami might be small in terms of land area, Dade County and South Florida in general is are some of the most densely populated regions in the US anyway you slice it....

[Lets Eat Candy]

Man this thread has so much surplusage. It literally just are a bunch of stats. It's implied that cities look different, so of course "density" looks different.

[MDAllstar]

High population density only matters when it's achieved with good urban planning techniques like urban streetwalls and zero lot development which elimnates setbacks. I think that pretty much sums up this debate and why so many people are unimpressed with LA. Even though it's the most dense metropolitan area in the nation, you can't tell based on the structural development of the city.

[benleis]

Originally Posted by Calisonn

Just to put this LA vs Seattle density dispute to rest here's some data on the 2 cores, all credit given to none other than RedJohn:

Land area only (excluding water area).



Immediate Seattle Core
- 98121: 8,558 people (00.47 square miles)
- 98104: 13,095 people (00.76 square miles)
- 98101: 9,010 people (00.54 square miles)
- 98102: 19,424 people (01.33 square miles)
- 98122: 28,790 people (02.33 square miles)
- 98119: 19,662 people (02.39 square miles)
- 98109: 16,018 people (02.00 square miles)
- 98144: 24,913 people (03.38 square miles)
- 98112: 20,480 people (03.11 square miles)

Total: 159,950 people (16.31 square miles of land area) for a population density of 9,806 people per square mile.

Los Angeles:Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitor sites is not allowed
Seattle: Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitor sites is not allowed

I'll start by saying that this is a bit of straw man argument. I don't think anyone doesn't realize how much bigger LA is than Seattle and even by the numbers cited in the article its still overall denser. So I'd expect under most metrics/maps you'd find data that confirms those truths. If you even wanted to make such a comparison, you can't make it on square miles since again LA is huge (and its impressive to sustain density over larger populations). You could compare equivalent percentages of the land area. But everyone also knows Seattle is mono-centric and LA is multi-nodal. So that doesn't really do either city much justice.

That all said, the zipatlas site's numbers are really weird (where this was pulled from). If you look at its totals for Seattle you find:

Seattle is located in Washington
Latitude: 47.596022
Longitude: -122.331860
Population: 786,130
Area: 145.18 sq. miles
Land: 143.82 sq. miles
Water: 1.36 sq. miles
Population Density: 5,466.25 people per sq. mile

The population is off by 120k maybe because of a zip codes overlapping the city boundaries (although that's alot more people than I'd expect even then) and more oddly the Water area is really off distorting the density calculations. All of which doesn't make me confident in the rest of their data. In addition, your second map it doesn't really pass the sniff test for the core (77 out of 84 sq miles) 91% of the city to be that much less dense than overall number given that the parts excluded are SFH neighborhoods almost certainly below the city density average.

Again I don't think a comparison is that interesting and I if you took DTLA + West Side/Wilshire corridor area that people like to consider I'm sure you'd find more density than in Seattle but to get a more accurate picture of the core of Seattle I'll take the just published State of Downtown report: http://www.downtownseattle.com/files...mic-report.pdf. There's a reasonable map showing clearly where the >10k/square mile areas are. Or you can see the same data in the interactive map in the original article. The immediate core is comprised of census tracts between 14k-54k/sq mile density. The striking thing is the relative change within the city rather than compared to other one i.e. in 4 years this small area actually grew dramatically.