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You're measuring the sprawl of both. City limits are arbritary and vary wildly in size, population, and density, doesn't really work. What do you suggest? Comparing the density of cities over a 50/100/200 sq mile area? That still takes in suburban land for most cities.
UA seems best suited for this discussion, moreso than city limits, MSA or CSA.
Yeah, but that's suburban sprawl, not city sprawl. I guess we could say, though, that since city limits are arbitrary, urban sprawl isn't a meaningful comparison. But I wouldn't say New York City sprawls simply because its suburbia goes halfway through Jersey.
I think when people say urban sprawl, they're really thinking of something else. They're taking the characteristics of suburban sprawl, i.e. things like strip malls, car-centric culture, etc., and applying them to cities. New York has less of this than other major cities (although, it does exist).
The reason sunbelt cities get criticized for sprawl is not because their UAs are very large or because their suburbs sprawl -- every city's suburbs sprawl, including London, Paris and even Tokyo (suburbs are supposed to be low density - that's their raison d'être). It is because they don't have a quality urban core and even if they have some fairly dense hoods in the city (e.g. LA) they all have an auto-centric design through and through that gives the same optical perception of sprawl whether you are 5 minutes from downtown or an hour. As a visitor to one of these cities you may not even be able to tell if you are in the city or in the suburbs. That's the problem.
Intepretation is all subjective. It really depends on how YOU feel in a certain burb. Some folks would go to a LA/Miami/Houston/ATL/etc inner-burb and feel like they're in the heart of the city. In these Sunbelt cities, burbs vary. You got dense burbs that feel Auto-centric, and you then there are actual walkable, vibrant, burbs. But what may seem auto-centric to you, may feel perfectly walkable to others.
Never said they were all suburbs, but Long Island, and the townships and whatnot that make up the NY UA are sprawly, no matter what they're called.
I must say though, referring to New York City as the "the antithesis of sprawl" was a HUGE understatement on my part. How much of an understatement?
If NYC + Hudson and Essex County were an urbanized area, it would be the 2nd most populous in the United States--9,663,145 million people living in a 475.8 sq mile area (20,309 ppsm).
For comparison's sake, the actual #2 (Chicago) is home to 8.6 million people, spread over 2,442 sq miles. That's an absurd difference.
Having said that, the other 8,700,000 residents in the NY UA live on a 2,975 sq mile area of land, which is still ginormously HUGE, and undense (2900 ppsm).
New York's UA is unique, no doubt about it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RaymondChandlerLives
1. The New York UA is a behomoth. Even if you completely remove NYC's city limits from the equation, it remains the largest UA in physical size in the United States. The city is the antithesis of sprawl, but the suburbs consume land like a m'fer.
Excluding Californian suburbs, New York City suburbs aren't particularly sprawly. In fact some sections are similar in density to many mid-size cities. The fact the rest of the NYC urban area uses up only slightly more land than the entire urban area of Chicago is a big hint. The land usage of many parts of NYC burbs is extremely uneven. Take Nassau County, Long Island.
The section from New Hyde Park to Bethpage looks reasonablely compact, though much less dense than the south. Going south looks like similar or slightly more density. Go north, look at the area of north of I-495 and east of Glen Cove Road. Part of the urban area but low density homes for the wealthy. Takes up a lot of room but few people live there. Do they add to the sprawl or not? If you calculate a weighted density average the density of every census tract in the county weighted by how many people live in each tract, it's roughly the same as the weighted density of the city of Denver but a bit less than Orange County, CA. Calculating a weighted density of New York City itself gives a much higher figure than the standard number.
I've wondered if the New York City UA might have the largest density contrast in the world.
2. San Francisco is the least sprawly UA in the United States, half the size of the next city on this list (Seattle). It remains the smallest footprint even when combined with San Jose's UA ( AKA: The Bay Area).
I thought it was noticeable when I visited. Developments tend to have houses with not much space between and then end abruptly into open land. In some ways the style is the most European looking in the US I've seen.
NYC
LA
Washington
Chicago
Atlanta
Dallas
Phoenix
San Diego
Denver
St.Louis (its basically a glob of suburbs and then a few spaced out suburbs that the land area of st.louis + more)
Kansas City
Indianapolis
Some of these cities have a lot of sprawl simply because they are large cities but some cities on here have too much sprawl. Sprawl is okay but only to a certain extent. When you have a town that has only 35,000 people a area more than the size of your anchor city you know you have a problem
NYC
LA
Washington
Chicago
Atlanta
Dallas
Phoenix
San Diego
Denver
St.Louis (its basically a glob of suburbs and then a few spaced out suburbs that the land area of st.louis + more)
Kansas City
Indianapolis
Some of these cities have a lot of sprawl simply because they are large cities but some cities on here have too much sprawl. Sprawl is okay but only to a certain extent. When you have a town that has only 35,000 people a area more than the size of your anchor city you know you have a problem
I think just about every city has a metro area larger than the anchor city...
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