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Location: That star on your map in the middle of the East Coast, DMV
8,128 posts, read 7,560,868 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rnc2mbfl
FWIW, and for these mathematical exercises, county populations have been updated on the Census website reflecting estimates for July 2021.
Estimates are helpful, but due to their history, I'm probably not gonna trust many county or city measurements for at least 2-3 full years post pandemic.
It seems like a common refrain when comparing MSAs is that they vary significantly in size. Cleveland's MSA is less than 2,000 square miles (1,999.4 to be exact) whereas Phoenix's is 14,566.7 square miles. That's a huge difference!
But what would happen if we standardized it and tried to compare city sizes at fixed areas. This thread does that by using a 2,500 square mile benchmark.
The rules are simple. Starting with the center county, I'll adjacent counties (prioritizing those with higher density) until the area is 2,500 square miles, +-10% max deviation.
For counties that are themselves > 2,500 square miles, I'll use the Census Bureau's hidden weapon: Census County Divisions.
The end result should allow us to compare metro areas controlling for land area.
Because CCDs are hard to find, and not yet available for 2020 Census data, I'll be using ACS 2019 data.
for new england, the census bureau uses necta which makes better sense.
PHOENIX - All CCDs are in Maricopa County except for North Pinal -
Chandler CCD - 456,843 - 173
Deer Valley CCD - 287,068 - 409
North Pinal CCD - 180,394 - 1,009
Phoenix CCD - 3,347,177 - 1,086
TOTAL POPULATION - 4,271,482 Land Area: 2,677
North Pinal CCD is 80% rural, so in reality, the number is closer to 4.4 million, as you could trade those 800 square miles of rural North Pinal for Buckeye, and parts of Central Pinal.
But Phoenix's urban form is essentially 0 or 3,000, which is to say, an area either has 3,000 people per square mile or it has near 0. There really is no rural transition. You either live in the urban area, or you live in nowhere. Case in point, the western part of Maricopa County has 215,537 people in 6,196 square miles, or 35 people per square mile. And 70,000 of those are in the Buckeye area. So you really are talking about 140,000 people living in a landmass the size of Maryland. And then there's a city of 4.3 million people that comes out of nowhere.
Yep, anyone who lives here knows this, there are multiple urban cores growing in density (downtown Phoenix, downtown Tempe and downtown Scottsdale albeit to a lesser extent). The rest of Phoenix is very uniform, throwing out the 14K square mile number is just silly, yes cities have incorporated it so they have their land but the reality is it's it's almost all empty land. Everyone lives within about a 3000 mile area...
Curious what census year is this based on? I'm wondering if 2020 figures would put this closer to 4.5 or 4.6M considering the area adds about 100K per year.
Yep, anyone who lives here knows this, there are multiple urban cores growing in density (downtown Phoenix, downtown Tempe and downtown Scottsdale albeit to a lesser extent). The rest of Phoenix is very uniform, throwing out the 14K square mile number is just silly, yes cities have incorporated it so they have their land but the reality is it's it's almost all empty land. Everyone lives within about a 3000 mile area...
Curious what census year is this based on? I'm wondering if 2020 figures would put this closer to 4.5 or 4.6M considering the area adds about 100K per year.
2019 ACS was when this was posted. Of course, since then we've had 2020 Census + 2020 ACS, so these are slightly outdated by now (and 2019 estimates were well off for many NE metros).
Home with mild COVID, so have nothing better to do than finish this (which I thought I did, but was 6 cities away). These last 6 are 2020 ACS counts since Census Reporter has since updated:
SAN DIEGO-TIJUANA
San Diego County excl. Borrego Springs, Mountain Empire, Palomar-Julian CCDs - 3,308,225 - 2,142
Tijuana Municipality - 1,922,523 - 415 (2020 Mexican Census)
SAN FRANCISCO-SAN JOSE Alameda County - 1,661,584 - 738
Contra Costa County - 1,147,788 - 717
Marin County excl. Northwest Marin CCD - 251,101 - 198
Petaluma CCD - 129,799 - 180
San Francisco County - 874,784 - 47
San Jose CCD - 1,791,295 - 373
San Mateo County excl. Half Moon Bay CCD - 734,398 - 176
Santa Rosa CCD - 214,511 - 189
Vallejo CCD - 149,995 - 69
SEATTLE
King County excl. Enumclaw Plateau, Snoqualmie Valley CCD - 2,098,241 - 665
Kitsap County - 268,945 - 395
Olympia CCD - 183,526 - 125
Olympia East CCD - 38,666 - 70
Pierce County excl. Eatonville, Mount Rainier CCD - 881,451 - 725
Snohomish County excl. Darrington, Granite Falls, Sultan CCD - 777,555 - 656
SALT LAKE CITY
Brigham City CCD - 29,152 - 153
Davis County - 350,761 - 299
Logan CCD - 87,595 - 84
Park City CCD - 27,744 - 100
Salt Lake County - 1,146,215 - 742
Utah County excl. Goshen, Springville-Mapleton CCDs - 564,561 - 933
Weber County excl. Ogden Valley CCD - 247,224 - 227
Wellsville CCD - 6,929 - 76
TOTAL POPULATION - 2,460,181 Land Area: 2,614
Like Miami, Salt Lake City's density is dictated by geography: the Wasatch Range to the immediate East and the Great Basin Desert to the immediate West. As a result, the densest jurisdictions go far north and far south of Salt Lake City.
RALEIGH
Chatham County, NC - only CCDs of Baldwin and Williams - 27,697 - 94
Durham County, NC - 321,488 - 287
Franklin County, NC - only 4 southermost Townships + Louisburg - 49,000 - 250
Granville County, NC - only Dutchville and Brassfield Township - 28,313 - 132
Harnett County, NC - only Black River Township CCD - 11,787 - 29
Johnston County, NC - 209,339 - 791
Orange County, NC excl. Bingham, Cedar Grove and Little River Townships - 132,015 - 203
Wake County, NC - 1,111,761 - 835
TOTAL POPULATION - 1,891,400 Land Area: 2,621
.
Just eyeballing, but Raleigh probably is close to 1.95 million with 2021 estimates.
WASHINGTON
Alexandria city - 158,309 - 15
Anne Arundel County - Districts 2, 4, 6, 7 only - 412,370 - 329
Arlington County - 236,434 - 26
District of Columbia - 701,974 - 61
Fairfax city - 23,312 - 6
Fairfax County - 1,149,439 - 391
Falls Church city - 14,309 - 2
Frederick CCD and all bordering CCDs - 183,498 - 269
Howard County - 322,407 - 251
Loudoun County exl. Blue Ridge, Catoctin, Leesburg CCDs - 237,935 - 89
Manassas city - 41,038 - 10
Manassas Park city - 17,548 - 3
Montgomery County excl. Districts 3, 11 - 1,038,891 - 392
Prince George's County - 910,551 - 483
Prince William County - 466,834 - 335
Waldorf CCD - 86,393 - 57
TOTAL POPULATION - 6,001,242 Land Area: 2,719
^^ I did DC a little differently, since otherwise the density ordering would have quickly had me gobble up Baltimore. So I didn't allow any CCD bordering Baltimore city to be added to Washington's population count.
Last edited by manitopiaaa; 05-13-2022 at 02:09 PM..
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