2015 city estimate predictions? (unemployment, neighborhoods, young professionals)

[btownboss4]

What do you think the population of your city or any selected large cities are going to be come the 2015 estimates.
-What cities do you think are going to pass each other?
-Any cities going to pass xxx,000?
-any cities going to end their population loss?
My Guesses
(obviously DC is excluded because it's population estimate is already known)
Austin, TX will be around 950,000
San Francisco (864,000) will pass Jacksonville (862,000)
Fort Worth and Charlotte will both be around 830,000
El Paso (687,000), Seattle (682,000), Denver (679,000) will all pass Detroit (675,000), and Detroit's decline slows slightly
Boston (665,000) will pass Memphis (659,000)
OKC (627,000) will pass Baltimore (623,000) OKC's growth slows slightly because of the Oil Industry.
Portland, Ore (626,000) also passes Baltimore)
Milwaukee WI will repass 600,000 (602,000)
Tulsa, OK will be around 402,000, again sluggish oil slows growth
Cleveland (387,000) may drop out of the top 50 to Arlington Tx, (387,000)
St Paul, MN (302,000) will pass Cincy (299,000)


On the smaller side of thing I think Grand Rapids will have robust growth (196,000) up about 3,000, that city is one of the lowest unemployment in the country and amongst the best economies.

[HumpDay]

Of my city? Hartford is staying flat and has been flat since the 2010 census. You have people moving out of Hartford and into the suburbs or out of state while you have young professionals who are moving into downtown as well as immigration moving into the outer neighborhoods.

[KayneMo]

For OKC, my guess will be 630,000.

[nashvols]

Nashville has been pretty consistent with about 10,000 per year in estimates....so ~654,000.

[OutOfPlaceInDC]

People on this forum love to talk about population statistics as if the comparisons are relevant between cities of different sizes. In reality, especially for southern and western "cities", population means nothing because of creative annexing and accounting. yes, on paper, OKC looks like it might be a big city.. but it's also over 600 square miles. To put that in perspective, its total footprint is large enough to fit the all of the following cities within its boundaries (combined): NYC, DC, Baltimore, Boston & Philly, with a population of 12 million people.

The south, Texas and the pacific SW are notorious for this sort of BS. That's why when I hear someone say something stupid like "Houston is the third largest city in the country", I just laugh (HOU is physically even larger than OKC).

The only relevant stat that matters are MSA to MSA or CSA to CSA.

[Republic of Michigan]

Originally Posted by btownboss4

Austin, TX (950,000) - 264 miles
San Francisco (864,000)- 46 sq miles
Jacksonville (862,000) - 747 sq miles
Fort Worth (830,000) -Charlotte (830,000) - 297 sq miles
El Paso (687,000) - 255 sq miles
Seattle (682,000) - 83 sq miles
Denver (679,000) - 153 sq miles
Detroit (675,000) - 120 sq miles
Boston (665,000) - 48 sq miles
Memphis (659,000) - 324 sq miles
OKC (627,000) - 601 sq miles
Baltimore (623,000) -81 sq miles
Portland, Ore (626,000) - 145 sq miles
Milwaukee WI (602,000) - 96 sq miles
Tulsa, OK (402,000) - 192 sq mile
Cleveland (387,000) - 77 sq miles
Arlington Tx, (387,000) - 96 sq miles
St Paul, MN (302,000) - 51 sq miles
Cincy (299,000) - 77 sq miles

On the smaller side of thing I think Grand Rapids will have robust growth (196,000) up about 3,000, that city is one of the lowest unemployment in the country and amongst the best economies.

Grand Rapids is only 44 square miles with a density of 4,364 people. Out of the 19 cities listed above, its more dense than all them except 8 of them (San Francisco, Boston, Seattle, Baltimore, St. Paul, Detroit, Cleveland, and Milwaukee). Interestingly, these are all the smallest cities in land area. Perhaps they should all add 200 square miles to make it a more fair comparison.

At any rate, its really welcomed news here in Michigan that Grand Rapids is really booming. Great place to invest. The good thing about Grand Rapids is that development is difficult outside the city proper due to restrictions. So, the city is focusing on developing more and more throughout the city. Based on this model of urban planning, I see the population inside the city limits growing in the future.

[OutOfPlaceInDC]

Originally Posted by Republic of Michigan

Grand Rapids is only 44 square miles with a density of 4,364 people. Out of the 19 cities listed above, its more dense than all them except 8 of them (San Francisco, Boston, Seattle, Baltimore, St. Paul, Detroit, Cleveland, and Milwaukee). Interestingly, these are all the smallest cities in land area. Perhaps they should all add 200 square miles to make it a more fair comparison.

At any rate, its really welcomed news here in Michigan that Grand Rapids is really booming. Great place to invest. The good thing about Grand Rapids is that development is difficult outside the city proper due to restrictions. So, the city is focusing on developing more and more throughout the city. Based on this model of urban planning, I see the population inside the city limits growing in the future.

Glad to see someone bringing some additional honesty into this thread. Of course, for some reason, other cities were left out of the OP's post. In terms of cities by pop density, wiki does a great job aggregating, which you can dump to excel and do some analysis. In terms of cities over 190K population (GR is listed at 193, so I wanted to make this relevant), you have the following with greater population densities:

New York New York 8491079 302.6* 27012
San Francisco California 852469 46.9* 17179
Jersey City New Jersey 262146 14.8* 16737
Boston Massachusetts 655884 48.3* 12793
Santa Ana California 334909 27.3* 11901
Chicago Illinois 2722389 227.6* 11842
Miami Florida 430332 35.9* 11539
Newark New Jersey 280579 24.2* 11458
Philadelphia Pennsylvania 1560297 134.1* 11379
Yonkers New York 200667 18.0* 10880
Hialeah Florida 235563 21.5* 10474
Washington District of Columbia 658893 61.0* 9856
Long Beach California 473577 50.3* 9191
Los Angeles California 3928864 468.7* 8092
Baltimore Maryland 622793 80.9* 7672
Oxnard California 205437 26.9* 7358
Seattle Washington 668342 83.9* 7251
Huntington Beach California 200809 26.7* 7103
Minneapolis Minnesota 407207 54.0* 7088
Oakland California 413775 55.9* 7004
Anaheim California 346997 49.8* 6748
Buffalo New York 258703 40.4* 6471
Glendale California 200167 30.5* 6295
Milwaukee Wisconsin 599642 96.1* 6188
Rochester New York 209983 35.8* 5885
Honolulu Hawai'i 350399 60.5* 5573
Pittsburgh Pennsylvania 305412 55.4* 5521
Saint Paul Minnesota 297640 52.0* 5484
Modesto California 209286 36.9* 5456
San Jose California 1015785 176.6* 5359
St. Louis Missouri 317419 61.9* 5157
Detroit Michigan 680250 138.8* 5144
Cleveland Ohio 389521 77.7* 5107
Chula Vista California 260988 49.6* 4915
Sacramento California 485199 97.9* 4764
Stockton California 302389 61.7* 4730
Fontana California 204950 42.4* 4621
Norfolk Virginia 245428 54.1* 4486
Fresno California 515986 113.2* 4418

If you lower the population requirement and assume that some "cities" are actually just sub-portions of larger cities, you'd find dozens if not hundreds more cities between 50-180k that meet or exceed 4K pop density pretty easily. A selfish example of this would be my town, Alexandria, VA, which is across the river from DC, has 150K people and a population of slightly over 10K/sq mile. Neighboring Arlington isn't even a city and has a population density of around 8500/sq mile and around 250K residents.

Edit, and here are the cities sorted by total pop:
2014 rank City State 2014 estimate Land Areas Pop Density
1 New York New York 8491079 302.6* 27012
2 Los Angeles California 3928864 468.7* 8092
3 Chicago Illinois 2722389 227.6* 11842
5 Philadelphia Pennsylvania 1560297 134.1* 11379
10 San Jose California 1015785 176.6* 5359
13 San Francisco California 852469 46.9* 17179
18 Detroit Michigan 680250 138.8* 5144
20 Seattle Washington 668342 83.9* 7251
22 Washington District of Columbia 658893 61.0* 9856
24 Boston Massachusetts 655884 48.3* 12793
26 Baltimore Maryland 622793 80.9* 7672
31 Milwaukee Wisconsin 599642 96.1* 6188
35 Sacramento California 485199 97.9* 4764
36 Long Beach California 473577 50.3* 9191
44 Miami Florida 430332 35.9* 11539
45 Oakland California 413775 55.9* 7004
46 Minneapolis Minnesota 407207 54.0* 7088
48 Cleveland Ohio 389521 77.7* 5107
55 Honolulu Hawai'i 350399 60.5* 5573
56 Anaheim California 346997 49.8* 6748
57 Santa Ana California 334909 27.3* 11901
60 St. Louis Missouri 317419 61.9* 5157
62 Pittsburgh Pennsylvania 305412 55.4* 5521
63 Stockton California 302389 61.7* 4730
66 Saint Paul Minnesota 297640 52.0* 5484
69 Newark New Jersey 280579 24.2* 11458
74 Jersey City New Jersey 262146 14.8* 16737
75 Chula Vista California 260988 49.6* 4915
76 Buffalo New York 258703 40.4* 6471
84 Norfolk Virginia 245428 54.1* 4486
90 Hialeah Florida 235563 21.5* 10474
103 Rochester New York 209983 35.8* 5885
104 Modesto California 209286 36.9* 5456
106 Oxnard California 205437 26.9* 7358
108 Fontana California 204950 42.4* 4621
112 Huntington Beach California 200809 26.7* 7103
113 Yonkers New York 200667 18.0* 10880
116 Glendale California 200167 30.5* 6295

Edit 2: Note, these are 2010 pop numbers, not the latest 2014/2015.

[Spade]

Originally Posted by OutOfPlaceInDC

People on this forum love to talk about population statistics as if the comparisons are relevant between cities of different sizes. In reality, especially for southern and western "cities", population means nothing because of creative annexing and accounting. yes, on paper, OKC looks like it might be a big city.. but it's also over 600 square miles. To put that in perspective, its total footprint is large enough to fit the all of the following cities within its boundaries (combined): NYC, DC, Baltimore, Boston & Philly, with a population of 12 million people.

The south, Texas and the pacific SW are notorious for this sort of BS. That's why when I hear someone say something stupid like "Houston is the third largest city in the country", I just laugh (HOU is physically even larger than OKC).

The only relevant stat that matters are MSA to MSA or CSA to CSA.

Depending on the source you use. I know wiki has it over 600 sq miles but most sources have Houston at 599. I think OKC is around the same with 600 sq. miles. Houston does however have a much higher density than OKC and I expect that to increase honestly even inside the those large city limits. But I do hear what you're saying. I really wish Houston was the 95 sq miles of the inner loop. In that case, the population would be only around 480,000 people. But that's a density of over 5,000 ppsm.

[Republic of Michigan]

Great Map of metropolitan centers with density rankings.

Population Density for U.S. Cities Map

[NigerianNightmare]

To be honest 7,000-12,000 people per square mile is Average density for most cities in the world. Even Chinese cities (Chinese cities have that density it is just that their large city limits influence that number to go down. If your not hitting 20,000 people per square mile I don't consider that dense, in fact if your not hitting 10,000 people per square kilometer it isn't really dense. American cities as a whole aren't dense because of large housing stock and roads.