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Last month or so I was thinking of a way to compare cities that I hadn't really considered before, and came up with the novel idea to find out the geographic and demographic breakdowns of regions of cities I'm affiliated with...
I did a ton of this leg work myself, as 2020 Census data isn't readily available yet, relying on 2019 ACS estimates. For larger cities a quick Google search can turn up the info I'm looking for, but for most cities I found I actually have to dig and piece together myself...
This was a fun project to me, and confirmed some similarities I felt parts of some cities had to others, demographically. But I also wanted to create a thread where interested posters can post info on their "side of town", enabling me to nerd over that info and compare it (or not) to cities I'm in tune with!
Los Angeles is a ton of work and I'm nowhere near finished with it, but I did profile South LA as that was one of my childhood homes. South LA today has ~roughly~ 820,000 residents in 51.4 mi², a residential density approaching 16,000 people per square mile. Within that I was able to see demographic and economic breakdowns...
Other cities of note for me personally that I've been able to map:
•South Charlotte, ~283k (I'm double checking all Charlotte geographic data because I think I messed something up, bit it's within 10% of this population mark)
•South Sacramento, ~275k in ~49.5 mi² (~5550 ppsm)
•North Raleigh, ~258k in ~81 mi² (~3200 ppsm)
•North Charlotte, ~228k
•Southwest Virginia Beach, ~198k in ~40.6 mi² (~4900 ppsm)
•East Charlotte, ~183k
•North Sacramento, ~178k in ~36.8 mi² (~4900 ppsm)
•West Charlotte, ~144k
•Northside Norfolk, ~120k in ~27.6 mi² (~4400 ppsm)
•South Raleigh, ~116k in ~40.4 mi² (~2900 ppsm)
•Northwest Virginia Beach, ~111k in ~30.8 mi² (~3600 ppsm)
Also data comparing 2010 and 2020 Census population and density in persons per kilometer squared is available at:
Moderator cut: link removed, competitor site
Both tools provide maps with clickable data links embedded.
I looked by zip code since census tract seems like it would really take an eternity.
So far in zip codes I know to be in Cleveland city limits mostly west of Cuyahoga, I count 172K West Side (sorry, didn't grab sqmi just then)
East of Cuyahoga, I counted 222K. Honestly, I'll be the first to admit, my look at the map I used was very unscientific. It wasn't a bad one, but it did include a number of entries that happened to be from outside of Cleveland city limits (Euclid, Shaker, etc.) That probably distorted my numbers some as I see it's higher than present population of like 388. However, it's also possible I missed some city limits neighborhoods I should've gotten. In any case, you get the idea.
North Side (also includes Riverside and Black Rock) - 60k in 8 sq mi - density 7,407
South Side (also includes Kaisertown and First Ward) - 46k in 13.4 sq mi - density 3,436
East Side (not including downtown, Kaisertown or First Ward) - 109.7k in 14.2 sq. mi - density 7,726
West Side (also includes downtown, but does not include Riverside or Black Rock) - 63.2k in 7.3 sq. mi. - density 8,662
Note that about 2/3 of South Side is industrial or park land. Main Street diagonally bisects the city, and divides the East Side from the North and West sides.
I used the source RocketSci posted and the Census Reporter site for a census block that is in a different sector/neighborhood than the rest of the census tract.
Last edited by ckhthankgod; 03-02-2022 at 09:37 PM..
Odd little tidbit. A square mile is about 28 million square feet. So a city with 8000 people per square mile sets one person on each 60 x 60 piece of ground. Quite the image. Doesn’t sound too bad until you throw in all the infrastructure like streets, nonresidential buildings and wastewater retention ponds on to those same theoretical pieces of ground.
Odd little tidbit. A square mile is about 28 million square feet. So a city with 8000 people per square mile sets one person on each 60 x 60 piece of ground. Quite the image. Doesn’t sound too bad until you throw in all the infrastructure like streets, nonresidential buildings and wastewater retention ponds on to those same theoretical pieces of ground.
You also have to consider how much of that is parkspace, hills in some cases, etc.
In the case of Syracuse’s North Side, it has areas of dense single family home streets that were home to many German, then Italian and now New American(and some from major Northeastern cities) in that area. So, you may have some bigger family households say here: https://goo.gl/maps/wqdxSpZHoioNrcp86
I appreciate all the respondents, this is a fun project for me!
Spent the last few days revising Charlotte, I guess I was pretty distracted as I was initially scoring it. Charlotte's geography breaks down as follows:
•South Charlotte, ~357,000 in 115 mi², ~3100 ppsm
•North Charlotte, ~212,000 in ~79.2 mi², ~2700 ppsm
•East Charlotte, ~142,000 in ~39.6 mi², ~3600 ppsm
•West Charlotte, ~127,000 in ~71.6 mi², ~1800 ppsm
•Uptown/Center City, ~37,000 in ~2.1 mi², ~17,600 ppsm
Last edited by murksiderock; 03-03-2022 at 09:19 AM..
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