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Sacramento. It's poised to grow a lot as more and more people leave the Bay Area, and it does already have a light rail system that could support a lot more density.
Cities where outward sprawl is restricted will densify the most in terms of second-generation growth (all of West Coast, Miami, others to some extent). It's always due to voter-approved legislation with an assist to geography.
Cities without sprawl restricts are infilling too, because a substantial number of people want urbanity, proximity, transit, etc.
I'm watching my own city (Seattle area) closely of course. We might be the best suituated city for ongoing densification. Why?
--Much of our developed area isn't very dense. Our sprawl restrictions are only a couple decades old for the most part.
--Outward growth is restricted pretty well, though not as tightly as some places.
--All urban cities and counties are required to accommodate growth. Most do this by zoning densish town centers close to transit. The result will be a lot more of what's happening now -- a city that's still mostly houses by land area, but with dozens of walkable mixed-use nodes of varying size. Several have upzoned to allow highrises beyond the current prevalence of six-story woodframes.
--Population growth seems likely to continue. We'll probably gain population with climate change, proximity to Asia, aesthetics, business leadership, and other factors.
--Our transportation systems will be jammed forever, so people want proximity. We aren't expanding roads much. Transit is being expanded at a huge pace, but everything fills up. Also our transit is mostly based on transit-only movement, not park-n-rides (though we have them) or kiss-and-drops.
--Jobs are centralized. While the city is a linear 60 miles N-S, the vast majority of offices and office construction are in central Seattle and transit-served core Eastside locations. That contributes to high demand for nearby infill.
I mean, none are going to compare to Boston/NYC/Philly/Bmore/DC/Chicago/SF/Seattle in the future. But some cities will make some significant improvements.
-Phoenix is building the public transit needed for an urban city.
-I agree Sac has the potential as Bay Area transplants escape the high COL but want urban lifestyles still.
-Atlanta, Dallas, and Houston have done a good job at building in the cores, and I think they'll continue and also expand their public transit systems.
-Nashville and Austin will finally reach the tipping point where traffic is so extreme they're begging for alternatives.
-Raleigh might do a decent job as it continues attracting Northeast transplants.
-Las Vegas will oppose it every step of the way, but eventually it's just going to run out of room to build SFH.
-In 40 years, Miami might be underwater, so all the refugees leaving the Miami metro will probably end up in nearby cities like Orlando and Tampa which will need to rapidly urbanize to accommodate all the displaced former Miami residents.
-NoVa will have some extra rail lines to build TODs around, but the current TODs will continue to become even more urban.
It's already becoming more dense, and currently it's one of the least dense. There's a lot of trees that stand in the way on infill, but that can always be dealt with.
Los Angeles will be very dense. It is already doing lots of infill and building up of it's public transit network. You see it everywhere these days with places getting quite dense of housing, jobs and/or people, especially near Metro rail stations. It maybe not seem obvious year to year but despite being 1000 of square miles of the Metro, many square miles are getting denser with housing and jobs: From Long Beach to Torrance to Venice to Warner Center to Glendale and Monrovia, Alhambra to Downey, Santa Ana to Anaheim. It only works because there is really no room left to build more more more. Even the IE has built a lot of the land on the western side and so has Ventura County. Sure things will be built in the far far burbs, but that becomes to far for most in LA County. That is why LA is growing more dense.
The first one that popped up in my head was LA. They are really fixing up their Subway and packing in the density which is great.
The only reason I didn't say LA is because it's already denser than most cities, it just doesn't visually look it the same way because it doesn't have the built form. Like, in my mind, I view LA as dense already, but it definitely has a huge potential for growth and more density, more than most other cities already considered dense like NYC, Boston, SF, Seattle, etc. I think the only ones that have even similar potential are Philly (lots of infill available throughout the city and can sustain more high rise growth), DC (if height limits are ever removed, that city would shoot up), and Chicago (lots of comparatively cheap land to build massive high rises on).
Within city limits, Seattle is over 50% denser than 33 years ago. In real time it's over 9,000 per square mile, vs. 5,800 in 1986. In 2018 it was around 8,900 with a population of 486,000 vs. the most recent estimate of 745,000. It's not a "legacy" densish city, but a new one.
A few decades ago Seattle was mostly neighborhoods of SFH/with yards, with a sizable urban core and small-ish nodes in the different neighborhoods.
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