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I don't know if the red highlighting of my comment was because you think what I said was contrary to your reply or simply to underline and expand on the point, but the reality is I entirely agree with you and find what you say interesting. I've never said it was a black and white issue, all I've been saying is that the existence of annexation needs to be remembered.
It was to expand on the issue....
As for population, remember that it doesn't just grow within existing footprints of central cities. This is true for cities in the Sunbelt and cities elsewhere in the U.S. This is why I previously suggested looking at counties instead of cities because counties don't expand their limits: thus giving a more balanced view on what's happening in a specific area regardless of any particular annexation strategy.
Some central cities have stopped growing or shrunk while their metros continue to grow at various rates. Some central cities have grown rapidly along with their metros.
Some central cities and their metros are contracting or essentially stagnant.
The reality is that most of the growth in the US has been suburban since the end of WWII. This trend continues today but there is clearly a shift toward growing urban areas as well within metros. Since the Sunbelt has grown more rapidly since WWII, it stands to reason that they have a greater percentage of suburban development to central city. The future success of sunbelt cities will largely rely on their abilities to shift with the trend toward more urban living. As others have suggested, some will likely be more successful than others in much the same way that some non-Sunbelt cities have done the same.
It will be interesting to see how sustainable these massive cities will be in the future. Most I think will be ok, but the law of averages says that it is likely one will have trouble keeping up with providing efficient services to it's residents over the long run. There is also the matter of governing an area that large with a growing population. Political fractures will appear and there will be "localization".
Hey, while we talking about city sizes and stuff, I decided to cobble together (thanks to a new feature in Google Maps) maps of central city limits in relation to the surrounding metro area. While I won't take the time to do all of the cities on the OP I've broken it out to the 10 largest city propers by population, central cities of the 10 largest Metropolitan areas, and some extra cities that don't make either of those lists but are interesting none the less. I initially wanted to do the maps at a "height" of 5 miles, but some of the cities didn't fit so I had to zoom out to 10 miles. The central city is highlighted in pink.
10 Largest Cities by Population
why are the pictures for Houston, San Antonio and Jacksonville bigger than the others. Ten miles on those maps loop like 20 on the other maps. It is a bit miss leading. You made Houston look 4 times the size of Phoenix when in actuality it is only a little bigger.
Don't they have maps all the same scale?
Oh and why would you combine SJ with the state of Oklahoma??? Is that supposed to be Oakland???
Location: The Greatest city on Earth: City of Atlanta Proper
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Quote:
Originally Posted by HtownLove
why are the pictures for Houston, San Antonio and Jacksonville bigger than the others. Ten miles on those maps loop like 20 on the other maps. It is a bit miss leading. You made Houston look 4 times the size of Phoenix when in actuality it is only a little bigger
Don't they have maps all the same scale?.
I assure you I did nothing to manipulate the images, that was all Google and I went to great lengths to make sure all things were equal. All of them were taken at the same scale and so that the entire city limits can be seen for each city. Because of that, the cities with very large city limits look much larger in comparison to those cities with a smaller city limit size. Of course all of that is not Google because, well, they are that much larger than the smaller cities in reality. No getting around that.
On the point about Phoenix, stop looking at square miles to mean the same thing. Square miles are calculated simply multiplying the width and height of a city. Square miles doesn't mean cities with similar sizes cover the same area in the same way. Phoenix has 500 square miles because its a very long city, but very narrow. Houston is 634 square miles because its both wide and long.
Feel free to make your own maps to counter what I did though.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HtownLove
Oh and why would you combine SJ with the state of Oklahoma??? Is that supposed to be Oakland???
long or fat, for Phoenix 10 miles is equivalent to about half an inch while for Houston it is one inch. People just looking at the map and not the scale will come to erroneous conclusions. It would mean more if the maps were to scale and were at the same size - superimposable if you will.
Location: The Greatest city on Earth: City of Atlanta Proper
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Quote:
Originally Posted by HtownLove
long or fat, for Phoenix 10 miles is equivalent to about half an inch while for Houston it is one inch. People just looking at the map and not the scale will come to erroneous conclusions. It would mean more if the maps were to scale and were at the same size - superimposable if you will.
The maps were all to the same scale. I believe I already stated that.
MiamiDade is a county.
Miami City grows more slowly since it's less than 36 square miles and not expanding. Still it added 1000 ppl/sq mile in the last decade.
Err...sorry, I misspoke. I meant to say using the growth numbers for Miami-Dade isn't particularly relevant to this thread because Miami did not do much more annexing. Miami certainly could have annexed North Miami, Coral Gables, Fountainebleau and even Miami Beach, but didn't. So, Miami's growth was clearly not because of annexation, but it wasn't included among the cities in the OP.
Take a place like Jacksonville (#1 in total area growth and #2 in percentage on the list). How does its county growth compare to the national average? Was its growth primarily through annexation or for other reasons? I'm generally curious, I don't have a clue.
Edit: Duval County had 304,029 in 1950 and had 864,263 in 2010. That's an increase of 560,234 or 184% (right? My math sucks). So, yeah, it's more than just annexation (better than the national average, that is).
Location: The Greatest city on Earth: City of Atlanta Proper
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Quote:
Originally Posted by HtownLove
I said same scale and same size. As in all things equal.
The point of the exercise was to show the relation of the sizes of various city propers in relation to each other. Some of the cities on the list are pretty small, some are very large. The distance I selected I feel presented a very accurate view of how big cities are when compared to each other. The truth is cities like Houston, San Antonio, and Jacksonville cover a very large area while other cities like San Franciso, Miami, or DC are tiny especially in comparison to the aforementioned. Houston is big, so it got a bigger map to show the whole thing.
To make each image the same size wouldn't convey that, especially since not everyone is familiar with local landmarks to gauge the relation of distances on a map.
Last edited by waronxmas; 07-18-2012 at 09:28 PM..
Reason: Fixed bad english, writing is hard.
I assure you I did nothing to manipulate the images, that was all Google and I went to great lengths to make sure all things were equal. All of them were taken at the same scale and so that the entire city limits can be seen for each city. Because of that, the cities with very large city limits look much larger in comparison to those cities with a smaller city limit size. Of course all of that is not Google because, well, they are that much larger than the smaller cities in reality. No getting around that.
On the point about Phoenix, stop looking at square miles to mean the same thing. Square miles are calculated simply multiplying the width and height of a city. Square miles doesn't mean cities with similar sizes cover the same area in the same way. Phoenix has 500 square miles because its a very long city, but very narrow. Houston is 634 square miles because its both wide and long.
Feel free to make your own maps to counter what I did though.
It was a typo.
Fantastic work War, no need to defend yourself against this negative barrage. As you say in your last line, let him go post his own maps. Anyone with any skill at reading a map can see the differences and what you were trying to accomplish. Some like Anchorage wouldn't fit on the screen if it were all completely evened out. It's like someone looking at a flat map of the world and thinking Greenland is as big as the US.
To make each image the same size wouldn't convey that, especially since not everyone is familiar with local landmarks to gauge the relation of distances on map.
To make each image the same size would convey that perfectly actually. if each city was on a map, lets say 5inches by 5 inches and on the same scale then you could superimpose them and show relative sizes.
No need to get all defensive, its just a suggestion. Phoenix looks much smaller than it actually is when compared to the Houston, SA, Jacksonvile picture.
In Fact if relativity was your goal you missed a good uportunity on this because the Phoenix pic is smaller than LA, SA, Dallas, etc, when in actuality if the pics were the same size you would see that it is actually bigger than all of these.
PS, it is no negative barrage. Just a suggestion.
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