2020 Urban Area Predictions? (map, compare, place, population)

[qworldorder]

There’s been a lot of threads lately about MSAs, CSAs, urban cores and downtown vibrancy. But I’ve yet to see any specifically on the Census defined Urban Areas. It appears the 2020 rankings have yet to be released, as how they’re calculated has been changed since 2010. I personally prefer Urban Area over every other metric (less fluff, easier to compare internationally), so I’d be eager to read your predictions. For reference, here are the top 20 from 2010:

Rank Name Population
(2010 Census) Land Area
(km2) Land Area
(sq mi) Density
(Population / km2) Density
(Population / sq mi) Central City
Population
(2010 Census) Central City
Pop % of
Urban Area Central City
Land Area Central City
Land Area % of
Urban Area
1 New York–Newark, NY–NJ–CT–PA 18,351,295 8,936.0 3,450.2 2,053.6 5,318.9 8,175,133 44.5% 302.643 8.8%
2 Los Angeles–Long Beach–Anaheim, CA 14,083,662 5,907.8 2,281.0 2,383.9 6,174.3 3,792,621 31.2% 468 27%
3 Chicago, IL–IN–WI 8,608,208 6,326.7 2,442.8 1,360.6 3,524.0 2,695,598 31.3% 227 9.3%
4 Miami, FL 5,502,379 3,208.0 1,238.6 1,715.2 4,442.4 399,457 7.3% 36 2.9%
5 Philadelphia, PA–NJ–DE–MD 5,441,567 5,131.7 1,981.4 1,060.4 2,746.4 1,526,016 28% 134 6.8%
6 Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington, TX 5,121,892 4,607.9 1,779.1 1,111.5 2,878.9 1,197,816 23.4% 340 19.1%
7 San Francisco–Oakland, CA 4,945,708 2,096.9 809.6 2,358.6 6,108.8 805,235 24.5% 46.9 9%
8 Houston, TX 4,944,332 4,299.4 1,660.0 1,150.0 2,978.5 2,099,451 42.5% 639 38.5%
9 Washington, DC–VA–MD 4,586,770 3,423.3 1,321.7 1,339.9 3,470.3 681,170 14.9% 61 4.6%
10 Atlanta, GA 4,515,419 6,851.4 2,645.4 659.0 1,706.9 420,003 9.3% 133 5%
11 Boston, MA–NH–RI–CT 4,181,019 4,852.2 1,873.5 861.7 2,231.7 617,594 14.8% 48 2.6%
12 Detroit, MI 3,734,090 3,463.2 1,337.2 1,078.2 2,792.5 713,777 19.1% 138 10.3%
13 Phoenix–Mesa, AZ 3,629,114 2,969.6 1,146.6 1,222.1 3,165.2 1,445,632 40% 517 45.1%
14 Seattle, WA 3,059,393 2,616.7 1,010.3 1,169.2 3,028.2 608,660 20% 83.9 8.3%
15 San Diego, CA 2,956,746 1,896.9 732.4 1,558.7 4,037.0 1,307,402 44.2% 325.2 44.4%
16 Minneapolis–St. Paul, MN 2,650,890 2,646.5 1,021.8 1,001.7 2,594.3 382,578 14.4% 54.9 5.4%
17 Tampa–St. Petersburg, FL 2,441,770 2,478.6 957.0 985.1 2,551.5 335,709 13.7% 113.4 11.8%
18 Denver–Aurora–Lakewood, CO 2,374,203 1,730.0 668.0 1,372.4 3,554.4 600,158 25.2% 153.3 22.9%
19 Baltimore, MD 2,203,663 1,857.1 717.0 1,186.6 3,073.3 620,961 28.2% 80.9 11.3%
20 St. Louis, MO–IL 2,150,706 2,392.2 923.6 899.0 2,328.5 319,294 14.8% 61.9 6.7%

[SweethomeSanAntonio]

San Antonio urbanized area has almost 2.1 million inhabitants within 597 square miles and closing in on the top 20. St .Louis has 2.144 million within nearly 1,000 square miles. That says a lot about San Antonio's urbanization and how it is moving up in the rankings.

[mhays25]

It'll be an interesting sign of how much the various growth-management efforts are working, or not working. UA densities can be as much about sprawl and horse farms as core densities.

It would be interesting to see a 2,000/sm version in addition to the 1,000/sm version...that would be an interesting cutoff for real suburbia vs. exurbs. Though you really need both versions.

[18Montclair]

That SF number is way too high. Did they change boundaries or something?

[qworldorder]

Regarding the proposed changes for 2020, you can read all about them in the link below.

In a nutshell, the Census proposed moving to a housing unit threshold for measure, rather than population density. They've also proposed increasing the minimum threshold to 10,000 persons, rather than the previous 2,500 person definition (converts to 4,000 housing units). They will stop distinguishing between urbanized areas and smaller urban areas (50,000 person threshold). "Jumps" through non-contiguous urban areas will be reduced from 2.5 miles to 1.5 miles, and those low density areas being jumped will no longer be counted. Lastly, they're going to split urban agglomerations.

So with these proposed changes, will we see population counts skew higher or lower than they have in the past? It appears a given that Baltimore and St. Louis will drop from the top 20, with either Riverside, Las Vegas, Portland or San Antonio taking their place. And Dallas, Houston, and San Francisco have the potential of pulling ahead of Philadelphia, depending on how the redefinition goes.

https://www.federalregister.gov/docu...posed-criteria

[2Easy]

Originally Posted by SweethomeSanAntonio

San Antonio urbanized area has almost 2.1 million inhabitants within 597 square miles and closing in on the top 20. St .Louis has 2.144 million within nearly 1,000 square miles. That says a lot about San Antonio's urbanization and how it is moving up in the rankings.

San Antonio has 1.435 million in city limits of 504 square miles for about 2,850 people per square mile. 2.1 million in 597 square miles means that extra 93 square miles has 665,000 people and is 7,150 people per square mile. Is that right? The densest parts of the metro are outside the city limits? Or are parts of the city limits not part of the urban area? I've never been so I don't know.

[Boston Shudra]

Originally Posted by qworldorder

"Jumps" through non-contiguous urban areas will be reduced from 2.5 miles to 1.5 miles, and those low density areas being jumped will no longer be counted. Lastly, they're going to split urban agglomerations.

This may hurt the Boston area as there are a lot of gaps in density between the various small cities and denser towns in the area.

[SweethomeSanAntonio]

Originally Posted by 2Easy

San Antonio has 1.435 million in city limits of 504 square miles for about 2,850 people per square mile. 2.1 million in 597 square miles means that extra 93 square miles has 665,000 people and is 7,150 people per square mile. Is that right? The densest parts of the metro are outside the city limits? Or are parts of the city limits not part of the urban area? I've never been so I don't know.

San Antonio's urbanized area is not confined to only the S.A. city proper, and only covers a segment of those 504 sq miles. The UA lies within other incorporated areas; such as bedroom independent municipalities surrounded by the city, and the adjacent counties of Comal and Guadalupe. The UA sits within 597 square miles according to the census.

The 2000 census, S.A. proper contained almost 1.2 million people within 330 square miles. Shortly thereafter, the city annexed nearly 100 square miles of undeveloped portions of far South Bexar county to help balance growth due the the city's historical northern trajectory growth pattern. It is quite apparent by looking at a map of the city.

Nonetheless S.A. contains upward of 2.1 million inhabitants within 597 square miles and ends where the fringes of southern metro Austin begins. San Antonio's UA growth is still heavily towards the northern and western expanse as well as densifying in the Urban core.

[Losfrisco]

If I'm reading those stats correctly then San Diego's urban area is more densely populated than Chicago.

[18Montclair]

Originally Posted by qworldorder

"Jumps" through non-contiguous urban areas will be reduced from 2.5 miles to 1.5 miles

That would combine SF and SJ, which at present time, is only disqualified because Stanford's massive Accelerator Laboratory sits right at the border of the 2 UAs and shrinks the contiguous density to about 2 miles across I think. Otherwise the density is completely overlapping and indistinguishable from one UA to the next.

Interesting. We'll see if it happens soon enough.