Has a suburb ever passed a main city in population? (school, beach)

[Raphael07]

I was just wondering if a suburb ever annexed so much land that it actually passed its main city in population.

[Katarina Witt]

Aurora, CO is getting close, and Denver is precluded from annexing much more land, due to an amendment to the Colorado constitution.

[westhou]

It seems like one of the Los Angeles suburbs could do that.

[andrew61]

I don't know if you'd call it a "suburb", exactly, but San Jose is now bigger than San Francisco.

[olecapt]

Unincorporated Clark County is much larger than any of it component cities.

Basically the boonies run the strip and all the fat areas. Las Vegas and the other cities are each relatively small potatoes.

The school board (and other things) is actually a state agency to confuse things further.

[Trae713]

Miami.

Originally Posted by westhou

It seems like one of the Los Angeles suburbs could do that.

I highly doubt that. Los Angeles is at four million. The closest "suburb" (Long Beach) is around 400,000.

[th3vault]

Cape Coral surpassed Fort Myers, Florida. Fort Myers is the older, "central city" with a downtown in SW Florida... population 68,000 or so. Cape Coral is mostly residential... population 160,000.

San Jose, while not really a suburb, is the newer city in the SF Bay Area and has surpassed San Francisco in population.

[lammius]

Virginia Beach passed Norfolk in 1980. Suburban Va Beach was growing quicky, and urban Norfolk declining.

Currently:
Norfolk: ~230,000
Virginia Beach: ~430,000

Another suburb in the area, Chesapeake, is over 200,000 now and will likely pass Norfolk's population sometime in the early 2010s.

[bigdave01]

Yeah, I immediately thought of the SF bay area and Norfolk.

[Marlin331]

Broward County, FL has a population of about 1,750,000. Fort Lauderdale is the county seat and has historically been its largest city with a population of just about 160,000. However, the 2010 is likely to reveal that suburban Pembroke Pines (population 150,000 in 2000) will have surpassed Fort Lauderdale in population.