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Location: Austin, TX/Chicago, IL/Houston, TX/Washington, DC
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Which one of these cities do you think will cross the million mark first? City population 1,000,000 and up- who will it be?
Cities & Their present population: Washington DC: 599,657 Baltimore: 637,418 Seattle: 617,334 Denver: 610,345 Boston: 645,169
They are all roughly in the same range, some of them have a higher growth rate than others. But in the long term who will it be?
Baltimore, Washington DC, & Boston all saw population declining before and are not nearly as close to their population peak from the past right now, but they have started growing again.
So which one? And you can use currently population projections and whatever to help you out, or the location of a city, or it's economy, whatever works for you.
Baltimore and D.C. city proper can only grow via infill, since annexation is not a possibility. The same can not be said of Denver, which is the obvious answer. There is much, much more land available for building and population expansion.
Maybe some extra facts will help inform city-data-ers.
Washington DC!
61.4 sq mi of land
Max Pop: around 802,178 in the 1950s.
Current Pop: 599,657
Percentage Change since 2000: 4.8
Extra facts: DC has been falling in population since the 50s - this decade has been the first since then to show the population increasing. Good news!
Baltimore!
80.8 sq mi of land
Max Pop: around 949,708 in the 1950s
Current Pop: 637,418
Percentage Change since 2000: -2.1
Extra facts: Baltimore has been losing population since the 50s. No positive change since then. Sorry, Baltimore. I still love The Wire.
Seattle!
83.87 sq mi of land
Max Pop: 617,334
Current Pop: 617,334
Percentage Change since 2000: 9.6
Extra facts: This is the biggest Seattle has ever been. Suffered some population loss in the 60s and 70s, but has been on the upswing ever since.
Denver!
153.3 sq mi of land
Max Pop: 610,345
Current Pop: 610,345
Percentage Change since 2000: 10
Extra facts: Like Seattle, Denver is riding and all time high. Lost some population in the 70s and 80s but has doing well for itself since. Also, the biggest of these cities!
Boston!
89.63 sq mi of land
Max Pop: around 801,444 in the 1950s
Current Pop: 645,169
Percentage Change since 2000: 9.5
Extra facts: Suffered population loss from the 50s to the 70s, but has turned itself around since then. This past decade has been especially kind to Boston.
Denver seems to be the best bet: a good 60ish square miles bigger than every other city, and has had the highest population increase by percentage (but not by much - Seattle and Boston have had almost identical population change percentages.) I don't see DC or Baltimore getting to a million anytime soon - DC is just too small and Baltimore, well, Baltimore needs to worry about stopping the hemorrhaging.
Location: Austin, TX/Chicago, IL/Houston, TX/Washington, DC
10,138 posts, read 16,067,872 times
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Fillmont: you are a life saver! I was just working on my post to display the same information, minus the percentage change part.
Washington DC, if it hasn't already started to occupy the space in the city for other things, has potential to reach it's peak, I don't know about more, but Virginia taking that one segment of land back from Washington DC really hurt them a lot. I see most of it's growth happening in the metropolitan area itself instead of the city proper for long term.
I would love to see our national capital reach the million mark first though!
I think Seattle & Denver are the best bet. Seattle's economy is booming, they are a new hot spot for a lot of tech and trade companies. Their prominence is growing, and they will be seeing some large urban growth.
Same thing with Denver.
Boston, I think Boston can reclaim some of it's lost population from back in the day, but it's growth rate isn't going to be enough to get it to the finish line before the other four, IMHO.
Baltimore, I think it will start seeing some population gain this decade, as Washington DC gets stronger I think that will help Baltimore grow as well. Especially with all the mass transit options already there and coming between the two. It might be a surprise, but I am not counting Baltimore out just yet.
Fillmont: you are a life saver! I was just working on my post to display the same information, minus the percentage change part.
Washington DC, if it hasn't already started to occupy the space in the city for other things, has potential to reach it's peak, I don't know about more, but Virginia taking that one segment of land back from Washington DC really hurt them a lot. I see most of it's growth happening in the metropolitan area itself instead of the city proper for long term.
I would love to see our national capital reach the million mark first though!
I think Seattle & Denver are the best bet. Seattle's economy is booming, they are a new hot spot for a lot of tech and trade companies. Their prominence is growing, and they will be seeing some large urban growth.
Same thing with Denver.
Boston, I think Boston can reclaim some of it's lost population from back in the day, but it's growth rate isn't going to be enough to get it to the finish line before the other four, IMHO.
Baltimore, I think it will start seeing some population gain this decade, as Washington DC gets stronger I think that will help Baltimore grow as well. Especially with all the mass transit options already there and coming between the two. It might be a surprise, but I am not counting Baltimore out just yet.
Happy to help!
Virginia took some of DC's land? This I had not heard about. Was this recent? Color me unaware.
I agree that Denver and Seattle are the best bets.
How built up is Boston, anyway? If it reaches its peak again, is there more room for more building? Higher density?
And I hope B'more gets going, too. It looks like a fine city that has just been dealing with some bad times. I want all of America's cities to prosper. (Well, not in sports - every other city can fail on that account!)
Awesome Danny Scraper! I do have one question: why these cities? Just curious, cause there are other cities around this population we can look at too!
Location: Austin, TX/Chicago, IL/Houston, TX/Washington, DC
10,138 posts, read 16,067,872 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Fillmont
Happy to help!
Virginia took some of DC's land? This I had not heard about. Was this recent? Color me unaware.
I agree that Denver and Seattle are the best bets.
How built up is Boston, anyway? If it reaches its peak again, is there more room for more building? Higher density?
And I hope B'more gets going, too. It looks like a fine city that has just been dealing with some bad times. I want all of America's cities to prosper. (Well, not in sports - every other city can fail on that account!)
Awesome Danny Scraper! I do have one question: why these cities? Just curious, cause there are other cities around this population we can look at too!
Haha well when I decided to make the thread I could have also added in Milwaukee, Charlotte, & El Paso as well. But I decided not too, because of this reason:
This list of cities includes two very prosperous cities economically for the future Seattle & Denver.
Two of America's finest historical cities Boston & Baltimore, both of which have dealt with population loss in the past.
And of course our beloved national capital. I really want to see what others have to say about it's growth because it's one of the most dramatic shifting cities in our country right now, and it's booming as well.
Yeah originally when Washington DC was established it extended to both sides of the Potomac Rive, and land area was taken from both Maryland and Virginia to create the capital. Virginia however took the land back in 1846 due to economic downfall in Alexandria (NoVa), because the city wasn't doing enough to help improve the conditions.
No idea about Boston, I would imagine that their city can still hold 200,000 or so more at least.
Haha, the Dallas teams?! It's cool, Dallas has some really good teams besides the NHL Stars... those guys are bad.
Yeah I would like to see all our cities being prosperous not just certain ones. Hopefully Baltimore gets it together and gets moving, being close to Washington DC right now is going to help it, because Washington DC is rising and at a good pace.
Haha well when I decided to make the thread I could have also added in Milwaukee, Charlotte, & El Paso as well. But I decided not too, because of this reason:
This list of cities includes two very prosperous cities economically for the future Seattle & Denver.
Two of America's finest historical cities Boston & Baltimore, both of which have dealt with population loss in the past.
And of course our beloved national capital. I really want to see what others have to say about it's growth because it's one of the most dramatic shifting cities in our country right now, and it's booming as well.
Well, that makes perfect sense.
The reason I asked was due to the fact that I am, indeed a Texan, and I was thinking about Austin and Fort Worth, which have about the same population and are probably going to reach a million before any of these cities, due to their larger size. (I honestly forgot about El Paso, but then again, so does the rest of Texas!) But if any of these 5 cities you mentioned do make a million, it'll be pretty sweet - the smaller sizes means more density means more walkable, bikable super fun times, so lets get on it, Denver, Seattle, DC, Boston and Baltimore.
Quote:
Yeah originally when Washington DC was established it extended to both sides of the Potomac Rive, and land area was taken from both Maryland and Virginia to create the capital. Virginia however took the land back in 1846 due to economic downfall in Alexandria (NoVa), because the city wasn't doing enough to help improve the conditions.
Well, that supplies my history quota for the day. That extra land would surely make a big difference. Either way, DC rocks, so yea.
Quote:
Haha, the Dallas teams?! It's cool, Dallas has some really good teams besides the NHL Stars... those guys are bad.
And yet, they're the last team to win anything important
Quote:
Yeah I would like to see all our cities being prosperous not just certain ones. Hopefully Baltimore gets it together and gets moving, being close to Washington DC right now is going to help it, because Washington DC is rising and at a good pace.
DC's job market helps and hurts it's population. It's job markets helps DC in that there are plenty of them all around the city and area. With the amount of gentrification and rebuilding throughout the city, it will continue to grow in population. I think the city is over 600,000 but it won't be official until the census 2010. The job market is good enough to warrant an explosion inside the city.
But the job market also hurts the city in that it is very competitive and since the jobs are high salaried jobs, the cost of living will keep many people out of DC and in some cases, move out of DC. Thus it will have a hard time reaching 1,000,000. DC has the potential to surpass it's peak population and that would be one dense city in US standards.
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