Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
How do you figure that? There are multiple ways that cities can be measured/compared, with the following being the most common: 1. City Limits, 2. Urbanized Area, 3. Metro Area, 4. CSA, 5. Media Market
Each one has its own pros and cons. "Largest city" tends to be based on #1- city limits. City limits are all different sizes and some seem to think that puts some cities higher in the rankings than they should be, but that's true of literally every method to measure and compare the sizes of cities. There is no perfect way. Based on city limits, SA and Columbus are ranked appropriately.
Second, what does history have to do with current rankings? What the cities were in 1900 or 1950 is irrelevant to how they are now. You are factually wrong that Cincinnati and Cleveland are larger cities, at least without any doubt or challenge. By city limits, Columbus is larger than both by several hundred thousand people. By urbanized area, it is the smallest, but soon won't be. By metro, it is larger than Cleveland, but smaller than Cincinnati, etc.
Additionally, every 10 years, the US Census does a report about population by "Distance from City Hall", the closest thing there is to standardized population counts for cities. The last one of these reports was in 2010, so it's somewhat outdated now. However, if all 3 cities were the same size (either comparable to Columbus or the other 2), Columbus would still be the largest.
You mention there are five ways to measure and cited three for Columbus, the three it ranks highest. But even in metro the only reason it's "bigger" than Cleveland is because Akron is its own MSA, as you probably are aware, taking away two counties that border Cuyahoga from its numbers. CSA, Cleveland is significantly larger, same with media market. Plus, Cleveland's urban area is still over 100,000 more and that doesn't include nearly 200,000 in Elyria-Lorain that would make it 300,000 larger (or the also contiguous Akron and Canton urban areas ... 700,000).
The distance from city hall argument is not apples to apples either because Columbus is landlocked and the northern half of Cleveland is Lake Erie, so of course a radius measurement to a specific point is going to skew in favor of Columbus, especially in this case as it's based on MSA and now not only is Lake Erie to the north, but starting at around the 18 mile mark, a significant chunk of population doesn't exist for Cleveland on this map because its in Summit and Portage counties.
Back on topic, I don't know much about San Antonio, but regardless of where Columbus ranks in comparison to Cleveland or Cincinnati, it's still a growing area and having one of the largest and now most prestigious public universities in the world a couple miles north of downtown is a huge asset, which has helped create IMO one of the country's best urban stetches .... High Street from Ohio State to downtown (which is improving in amenities) and then into German Village.
And yes, from a proximity to other big cities standpoint and natural diversity, I think Columbus wins that hands down.
More people are moving to San Antonio. Dallas and Houston take the growth trophies in Texas, but Austin and San Antonio actually revive a higher percentage of growth from migration.
I live here because it is culturally rich and the lifestyle is very easy. The people are annoyingly friendly, but as with other areas the growth in taking its toll.
I don't get the reliance on city populations for these discussions. They say nothing to the true populations of areas.
It really depends on whether the metro is a collection of suburbs or a centralized city. Dallas-Fort Worth is an example of the former, Houston of the latter.
One example of the importance is that in DFW municipal ordinances can change within several blocks in one direction, depending on how gerrymandered the city limits have been drawn. Houston is mostly contagious with few enclaves/exclaves, so this is rarely a concern except in the border areas (and most of the time it's unincorporated county that was annexable easily until recently).
Austin is a better comparable with Columbus because they are both state capitals with the big state-sponsored university. Austin (and also S.A.) has also been overshadowed by DFW and Houston, just as Columbus has with Cleveland and Cincinnati.
You mention there are five ways to measure and cited three for Columbus, the three it ranks highest. But even in metro the only reason it's "bigger" than Cleveland is because Akron is its own MSA, as you probably are aware, taking away two counties that border Cuyahoga from its numbers. CSA, Cleveland is significantly larger, same with media market. Plus, Cleveland's urban area is still over 100,000 more and that doesn't include nearly 200,000 in Elyria-Lorain that would make it 300,000 larger (or the also contiguous Akron and Canton urban areas ... 700,000).
The distance from city hall argument is not apples to apples either because Columbus is landlocked and the northern half of Cleveland is Lake Erie, so of course a radius measurement to a specific point is going to skew in favor of Columbus, especially in this case as it's based on MSA and now not only is Lake Erie to the north, but starting at around the 18 mile mark, a significant chunk of population doesn't exist for Cleveland on this map because its in Summit and Portage counties.
Back on topic, I don't know much about San Antonio, but regardless of where Columbus ranks in comparison to Cleveland or Cincinnati, it's still a growing area and having one of the largest and now most prestigious public universities in the world a couple miles north of downtown is a huge asset, which has helped create IMO one of the country's best urban stetches .... High Street from Ohio State to downtown (which is improving in amenities) and then into German Village.
And yes, from a proximity to other big cities standpoint and natural diversity, I think Columbus wins that hands down.
You didn't read my post. I literally listed a way that had Columbus as the smallest (UA), and 2nd (metro). So only 1 out of the 3 I mentioned had Columbus as the largest, but otherwise, spot on. And there was no nefarious intent- those are just the 3 most common ways to measure. CSA and media market are almost never used to measure city size because they include so much territory as to be almost useless.
Akron is not part of the Cleveland metro because there is not enough commuting between them. It's that simple. There is no plot against Cleveland.
All of your arguments basically support what I said- there is no perfect, universal way to compare cities that everyone agrees with.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
