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I created a graphic, which I've posted to my blog, comparing all the U.S. cities over 500,000 in population with respect to their land area and population density. I felt compelled to do this to get an idea of how the largest cities use space. The result was so interesting I thought I'd share it and see what you all think.
By the way, this is my first time posting on this forum. I've enjoyed reading various threads in the past and look forward to participating more in the future.
It's amazing — I thought Houston would be the most sprawling city in the graph but it scores somewhere in the middle. I had no idea how much area some of these cities cover.
I liked the boxes you used to represent the city's land size compared to each other. It is wierd to see a scale of the amount of space a place like Jacksonville uses compared to somewhere like Philadelphia.
It really is amazing how much denser NYC is than all the others. SF is second densest and trails far behind.
So the conclusion you can draw is that unless there are significant geographic constraints (island or peninsula), sprawl (low density living) is inevitable.
Also, I believe Nashville, Jacksonville, and Indianapolis have a consolidated city/county government. In other words, the city limits encompass the entire county (including rural areas) which would account for the large size and low population density. It'd be interesting to compare and contrast their size/population density pre and post consolidation.
Yeah, I was wondering about how to deal with the consolidated city/county government issue. It brings into question the way we define a city. For me a lot of the time it's a sense of place rather than the technical incorporated boundaries (of course, how a city is governed over time determines the qualities it will have).
Chicago is the densest city not on an island. Chicago should be renowned for density more than NY and SF who gets too much credit. Its not even like New York or Frisco has a choice. So, Chicago city planning is obviously superior.
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