Municipal Size and Population Rankings (comparison, Chicago, airport, beach)
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One of the largest factors in obesity is income and access to good food. I think that makes it harder to assess the correlation between density and obesity, because inner cities are poorer than American suburbs on pretty large scale.
I also think the conversation is less about density and more about build to some extent. In order for a walkable environment to have good amenities that one can easily walk to, there needs to be enough density. However, there are plenty of dense environments that are not particularly walkable (e.g. high rises next to highways).
This is exactly what hat I meant, just being dense doesn't mean your city is going to be healthy or not neither is not being dense. Density does not equal health. Even Paris is more obese and overweight than most places in Africa and Asia that are dense and not dense. Same with Japan, the place with the highest life expectancy in that country is a rural area.
Spade what if the center of the city was moved towards southwest Houston which while poorer and having a ton of crime is also ridiculously dense for Sunbelt and America in general, and more diverse than central Houston. http://www.arcgis.com/home/viewer.ht...5f71c4aae8bae8
Also so still stand by density is unimportant, the healthiest part of the U.S is Boulder and because of the way Japanese and Chinese cities are organized most of their cities aren't dense on paper, yet they are infinitely denser. Also rural areas have very little carbon emissions etcetera. Even the densest part of Houston is fatter than many other regions I the same city. Although density helps if Houston had the same density with skinnier streets and more highway crossings that alone would help more than building 12 apartments in one area.
That will never happen. Downtown will always be the center of the city. SW Houston is only dense because of the cluster of garden style apartments. It is not urban by any stretch of any imagination, though. The only area that has a chance to form a dense cohesive urban environment is the inner loop and it's not surprising. It actually has the bones to become that way unlike most of the areas outside the loop.
But if I wanted to go visit a vibrant city with a real downtown and strong dense neighborhoods, I could never use UA. Density has to be considered IMO. For example, do you think that Houston is bigger than Boston just because Houston has denser low-density suburbs (empowering the UA stat)?
Houston
Metro Pop - 6.3M in 10,000 sq. miles
Urban Pop - 4.9M in 1,600 sq. miles
Boston
Metro Pop - 4.6M in 5,300 sq. miles
Urban Pop - 4.2M in 1,800 sq. miles
The metro is 2 times the size in land area. Same thing with so many other low density cities with sprawling metros.
This is only because Texas counties are larger than counties in the NE. With Houston being kind of isolated, only a small slice of a county has to have heavy commuters into Houston (like eastern Chambers County or SW Waller County).
Not sure why UA doesn't work.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Spade
That will never happen. Downtown will always be the center of the city. SW Houston is only dense because of the cluster of garden style apartments. It is not urban by any stretch of any imagination, though. The only area that has a chance to form a dense cohesive urban environment is the inner loop and it's not surprising. It actually has the bones to become that way unlike most of the areas outside the loop.
Density is density. It doesn't matter what style the build is. You'll see very crowded bus stops, people walking down the sidewalks, etc. It may not be the right density for you since all of the businesses aren't built in the pre-WWII format, but it's still density and there are still a ton of people there.
And btw, the cluster of garden style apartments aren't the only form of density there either.
What I meant to say is that the only reason that this part of Houston has a higher density than the inner loop is because of the garden style apartments. I'm aware that there are other contributing factors. But the garden style apartments are a main reason why this is such the case. You are right that even though it is dense, it's not very impressive. It's 100% post WW2 suburban. The complexes are huge and they cover a decent amount of ground.
^^^^
I was asked more along the lines of if you took 100 or 96 square miles of Southwest Houston whether it would have more people than inner loop Houston.
This is only because Texas counties are larger than counties in the NE. With Houston being kind of isolated, only a small slice of a county has to have heavy commuters into Houston (like eastern Chambers County or SW Waller County).
Not sure why UA doesn't work.
Density is density. It doesn't matter what style the build is. You'll see very crowded bus stops, people walking down the sidewalks, etc. It may not be the right density for you since all of the businesses aren't built in the pre-WWII format, but it's still density and there are still a ton of people there.
And btw, the cluster of garden style apartments aren't the only form of density there either.
But 10,000 square miles is the size of Boston's CSA of over 8,000,000 people. The MSA and CSA are calculated the same all around the country unless you use the New England City and Town Area data which wouldn't be used in this case anyways. (New England City and Town Area's (NECTA) is broken down to the town and city level and gives probably the most accurate picture of MSA and CSA populations and areas in the country because the units forming them are smaller)
In the end though Houston may have a somewhat inflated MSA size but I doubt it is by that much seeing as there is a Houston CSA that covers an even larger area. Maybe I am totally wrong, but I think the development is just different enough to lead to a larger commuting area.
Its not just sunbelt cities and not all Sunbelt cities are expanding like Atlanta.
Cities have to expand for different reasons.One is for the future growth.Theses cities are the fastest grwoing cities in the country.Not expanding for the future is not wise city planning.
Who should be in charge of "allowing" them to expand.
I understand that. But it's also not wise to continue to build in a suburban style development that takes up a ton of space and resources. Be efficient about the room you have first... and be even more efficient about the space you just gained to expand so you can plan for the cities future even better. Especially if (God forbid) they have to start cutting down on resources.
Japan and Eastern China organizes cities like US organizes Counties.
For example Kyoto, Japan has a density of 5,000 people per square mile because about a third of the city limits is mountain. Same is true with Sapporo. Same with Yamaguchi https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamaguchi,_Yamaguchi
You can see on the map how cities are organized, basically cities are like counties except smaller. Major cities may grow out of their boundaries but for smaller cities that mane dense with a majority of land being empty it makes places look a lot dense than they actually are. Since all Of Japan is organized like this that means you could have a city were everyone live in the core 30 miles but it has a hinterland of over 300 square miles. China is even worse, the city of Beijing has a munincipality area of 6,000 square miles. That is bigger than some states https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing. Same with all other Chinese cities. For example the city of Shaoguan has a population of 2.8 million but the density of 400 people per square mile. Most of these 2.8 million live in an area that is less than 400 square miles.
By rural people I mean 1 million rural people will have the lower emissions than 1 million urban people. I know that you could have no skyscrapers and be dense, I am from a country that masters that. I was saying density does not affect health because depending on how the apartments are faced whether or not the apartments has parking and other factors can influence the citizens health. I was saying Boulder is healthier Than most of the U.S and it isn't a dense city, that was my point.
The differences is that the core of Kyoto is significant and dense. I was just in Kyoto a few months ago and I assure you that it is not organized like a Sun Belt city. They may annex a lot of land, but there is still a dense, walkable city at the core in most every case.
By rural people I mean 1 million rural people will have the lower emissions than 1 million urban people. I know that you could have no skyscrapers and be dense, I am from a country that masters that. I was saying density does not affect health because depending on how the apartments are faced whether or not the apartments has parking and other factors can influence the citizens health. I was saying Boulder is healthier Than most of the U.S and it isn't a dense city, that was my point.
Any links or sources to prove that 1 million rural people have lower emissions than 1 million urban people? Same for health?
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