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Nemean there is nothing dirty about it.
All cities have the same situation as Birmingham where there is lots of land that is undeveloped. I would bet Houston has a higher percentage. The area is criss crossed with waterways that are left as undeveloped floodplain.
But undeveloped wasn't my point. My point was that any urbanity that Birmingham has, would be a fraction of what could be found in Houston. You only need less than 35 sq miles in Houston to get up to the entire population of Birmingham. And mind you, I didn't pick the most dense 35 sq miles. I just started from downtown and just added continuous zip codes till I hot there.
Had I started in Uptown I would have gotten 191,756 people in 26.19 sq miles. But I don't want to Cherry pick land area to make a point. It's more apples to apples if you just start with the core and build out.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gaylord_Focker
Crazier is DC has 670k in 68 square miles.
Houston can't touch DC but it compares very well with Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Denver, Baltimore and Minneapolis.
Pittsburgh is 302K in 54sq miles. Starting from downtown Houston, South of Buffalo Bayou to the Uptown area, I get 338, 049 people in 49.24 Square miles. More people in a smaller area.
Cleveland has 362K people in 78 sq miles. Houston almost gets there in 49sq miles.
Baltimore has 570k people in 78 sq miles. You add the 59S area, going sw from Uptown and I got 576,573 in 79.75 sq miles. Contiguous area with more people than Baltimore in a smaller area.
Minneapolis has 425K in 54 sq miles. The Sw area plus Uptown, and I got 430, 280 people in 56.7 sq miles. A bigger population but a slightly bigger area for Houston.
Milwaukee has 563k in 96 sq miles. Using the comparison above, I already mentioned that Houston gets to 576,573 people in 79.75 square miles
going from downtown Houston out to the sw keeping close to 59 so I get a uniform contiguous block I get 698,408 in 99.19 sw miles. Denver has 713k in 153sq miles. I just added one more contiguous zip code to the last count for Houston and the number blew past Denver. I got 749,308 people in 111.58 sq miles.
Houston compares quite well with Midwestern cities.
In the sunbelt if you take the California cities out of the picture, Miami is the only one that whoops Houston's butt. I tried gerrymandering Atlanta to see if it could get to 60ok in 80 sq miles but I just couldn't get it there. Dallas doesn't come close either. New Orleans unfortunately has too much swamp land and it's most dense areas are not really all that populated.
Nemean there is nothing dirty about it.
All cities have the same situation as Birmingham where there is lots of land that is undeveloped. I would bet Houston has a higher percentage. The area is criss crossed with waterways that are left as undeveloped floodplain.
But undeveloped wasn't my point. My point was that any urbanity that Birmingham has, would be a fraction of what could be found in Houston. You only need less than 35 sq miles in Houston to get up to the entire population of Birmingham. And mind you, I didn't pick the most dense 35 sq miles. I just started from downtown and just added continuous zip codes till I hot there.
Had I started in Uptown I would have gotten 191,756 people in 26.19 sq miles. But I don't want to Cherry pick land area to make a point. It's more apples to apples if you just start with the core and build out.
True, but I was also not just cherry-picking the densest areas either. Otherwise, I'd say Homewood, Fairfield, Center Point, etc. It was also contiguous area. The thing is, Birmingham's probably one of the only cities where the city proper has lower density than the urban area without being a consolidated city-county. I really didn't want to go full zip code counting because it'd be tedious.
My point wasn't that Birmingham's close to Houston, but rather the comparison methods you were using were overselling the difference by easily noticeable tactics.
True, but I was also not just cherry-picking the densest areas either. Otherwise, I'd say Homewood, Fairfield, Center Point, etc. It was also contiguous area. The thing is, Birmingham's probably one of the only cities where the city proper has lower density than the urban area without being a consolidated city-county. I really didn't want to go full zip code counting because it'd be tedious.
My point wasn't that Birmingham's close to Houston, but rather the comparison methods you were using were overselling the difference by easily noticeable tactics.
I know, I understand what you mean.
I didn't imply that you Cherry picked, I just said that I could have, but didn't want to.
I don't think Birmingham is alone in having cities in its urban area more dense than itself.
Almost every city has spots like that. Even NY has Hoboken and Union City that is more dense than NYC itself.
To explain my point differently 30 sq miles around Houston will be more built- up than Birmingham so the poster who stated that Birmingham is more urban than Houston wasn't giving an apples to apples comparison.
Looking at the inner 30sq miles of sunbelt cities, Birmingham isn't big enough to be on the list. Yes, Birmingham has parts outside the city, but Houston does too. Galveston alone can match the City of Birmingham and you would still have all of Houston to spare.
I don't want to sound like I an hating on Birmingham, just correcting the person claiming Birmingham was more urban.
If you think my methods are are unfair, how would you compare them? I think looking at inner areas tells more than expanding Birmingham to match Houston.
For example Birmingham's entire urban area has less than 800k people in 500 sq miles. Houston gets to 800k in just over 100sq miles. In Houston's Metro, the Woodlands Urban Area and The Galveston Urban area are both more dense than the Birmingham urban area.
Idk how to portray them without overselling it because Houston is just so much bigger than Birmingham. The City of Houston has half the population of the State of Alabama. Houston's Urban Area has 800k more people than the state of Alabama and the Houston metro has about 2M more people than the state of Alabama. It's just not a fair fight.
As Urban as SF is, I would never compare it to NY because NY is so overwhelmingly bigger.
Even New Orleans wouldn't be able to keep up except if you kept the radius to about a half mile from downtown.
Richmond is another good one that measures well for about a 1 mile radius, but after that doesn't compare well.
San Antonio has some old buildings in the core but it certainly is not dense. I think only Houston and Austin has tracks over 40,000 ppsm in Texas. I would rank SA as the least dense urban core among Texas urban cities. San Antonio has zero census tracks over 10k in its 410 loop. Houston has peaks at 50k with consistent densities around 10k from Downtown to near George Bush Park. The other Texas cities do not maintain this uniform density as Houston does. Dallas's flood plain hinders it in this regard. Houston is decades behind LA but mimics its uniform density .
Further, outside a few touristy streets the development falls off the map abruptly. It's crazy people are listing SA as an example here and acting like Midtown Houston is some sort of wasteland.
Midtown Houston and Downtown NOLA density is about the same. The population density around Downtown Houston are higher than all Texas cities except for a few Austin spots. People ride the rail Down Midtown and think they know the city. That poster saying Dallas has connected neighborhoods around downtown but Houston doesn't is clueless. East Downtown to Downtown to Washington Ave /Rice Military, Heights, Montrose, Upper Kirby, Museum District, TMC, it's seemless. Really laughable that someone would boost the urban virtues of San Antonio and then look down on Houston.
Apart from places like San Francisco, I would say the best answer to the OP would be New Orleans as it has imo the best form maintained outside Downtown. Miami is another good contender. The posts boosting Birmingham and SA is just comedy hour.
San Antonio does have a dense central city population. It was listed as having the second most populated urban core amongst the Texas cities on a city data thread, only Houston is more densely populated. I'm not saying it ranks second in Texas for new high rise or multifamily residential construction in the urban core, or the most dense single census tract in the urban core, but it definitely does have a large overall central city population and again, according to a post I viewed on this site.
If old central San Antonio is anything like it was back in 1940 or 1950 then I would say it does have a dense central city population. According to a city of SA website, In 1940, San Antonio covered 36 square miles and had a population of 253,854. In 1950 the population was 408,442 within the 50 square mile range. After that the city started to annex heavily and sprawled outward.
If you look at current overall (UA) stats, San Antonio is the second most dense Urbanized area in Texas, Houston is first followed by San Antonio, Dallas then Austin, according to the census.
Last edited by SweethomeSanAntonio; 06-30-2023 at 09:35 PM..
Nemean there is nothing dirty about it.
All cities have the same situation as Birmingham where there is lots of land that is undeveloped. I would bet Houston has a higher percentage. The area is criss crossed with waterways that are left as undeveloped floodplain.
But undeveloped wasn't my point. My point was that any urbanity that Birmingham has, would be a fraction of what could be found in Houston. You only need less than 35 sq miles in Houston to get up to the entire population of Birmingham. And mind you, I didn't pick the most dense 35 sq miles. I just started from downtown and just added continuous zip codes till I hot there.
Had I started in Uptown I would have gotten 191,756 people in 26.19 sq miles. But I don't want to Cherry pick land area to make a point. It's more apples to apples if you just start with the core and build out.
Houston can't touch DC but it compares very well with Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Denver, Baltimore and Minneapolis.
Pittsburgh is 302K in 54sq miles. Starting from downtown Houston, South of Buffalo Bayou to the Uptown area, I get 338, 049 people in 49.24 Square miles. More people in a smaller area.
Cleveland has 362K people in 78 sq miles. Houston almost gets there in 49sq miles.
Baltimore has 570k people in 78 sq miles. You add the 59S area, going sw from Uptown and I got 576,573 in 79.75 sq miles. Contiguous area with more people than Baltimore in a smaller area.
Minneapolis has 425K in 54 sq miles. The Sw area plus Uptown, and I got 430, 280 people in 56.7 sq miles. A bigger population but a slightly bigger area for Houston.
Milwaukee has 563k in 96 sq miles. Using the comparison above, I already mentioned that Houston gets to 576,573 people in 79.75 square miles
going from downtown Houston out to the sw keeping close to 59 so I get a uniform contiguous block I get 698,408 in 99.19 sw miles. Denver has 713k in 153sq miles. I just added one more contiguous zip code to the last count for Houston and the number blew past Denver. I got 749,308 people in 111.58 sq miles.
Houston compares quite well with Midwestern cities.
In the sunbelt if you take the California cities out of the picture, Miami is the only one that whoops Houston's butt. I tried gerrymandering Atlanta to see if it could get to 60ok in 80 sq miles but I just couldn't get it there. Dallas doesn't come close either. New Orleans unfortunately has too much swamp land and it's most dense areas are not really all that populated.
A huge part of this is density vs urbanity. Houston has a ton of people but Kirby is suburban as all get out. Denver's core, from my memories in urban neighborhoods in Houston 12 years ago, is denser.
Probably any city that was already a major city before WWII is going to have urban bones and thus not feel like a typical sunbelt city, although many of them didn't do a good job of preserving their urban centers and many of them got replaced by parking lots. However those that grew slower didn't have their urban centers torn down as much either.
according to the 1950 census here were the largest sunbelt metros in 1940
I know, I understand what you mean.
I didn't imply that you Cherry picked, I just said that I could have, but didn't want to.
I don't think Birmingham is alone in having cities in its urban area more dense than itself.
Almost every city has spots like that. Even NY has Hoboken and Union City that is more dense than NYC itself.
To explain my point differently 30 sq miles around Houston will be more built- up than Birmingham so the poster who stated that Birmingham is more urban than Houston wasn't giving an apples to apples comparison.
I don't want to sound like I an hating on Birmingham, just correcting the person claiming Birmingham was more urban.
If you think my methods are are unfair, how would you compare them? I think looking at inner areas tells more than expanding Birmingham to match Houston.
I'd probably go with census tracts (namely for relative clean lines), and do the area within 459 and 59/20, ignoring the wildness areas around Ruffner Mountain to the northeast and Red Mountain/Ross Bridge/Beyond. That's about as wide as you could possibly go with cleanish boundaries. Then compare that to the Inner Loop noting density and area as well as pop. If I remember right, that should be around 300-400k for Bham. Should be an easy enough demonstration.
I did a check, and it seems it's not quite as rare, but still less likely for urban area density to higher than city proper. Though it seems to be more than likely that the city's west of the Mississippi thing for the most part (Phoenix, San Diego, Las Vegas, etc. Orlando seems like the other non-county city east, unless you count Virginia Beach, but... Virginia Beach is basically a county anyway.).
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