Phoenix Area Population and Area - a little clarity (Mesa: how much, university)

[R_Cowgirl]

Just a thinkin' out loud post about this area we call Phoenix.

The media is fond of calling Phoenix "The Sixth Largest City in America." Arizona Republic said that Mayor Stanton was "Mayor of the Sixth Largest City in America." Not true. There are between 20 and 35 mayors of this area, depending...

For those who are not from here - please avail yourself of the original page of this forum -- //www.city-data.com/city/Arizona.html

You will note that you can choose to look at "bigger cities of 6,000+" or you can choose "All Cities."
While it is true that there are a boatload of people in the "Greater Phoenix Area" and the metro area is upwards of 4.3 million -- there are some different interpretations of how many people and how many square miles make up all of this Valley of the Sun.

Phoenix itself - you know, the town that Stanton is Mayor of, is just shy of 1.5 million people, which does NOT make him "mayor of the 6th largest city in America." It makes him mayor of a city with roughly the same population as Honolulu County.

Now, if you count the cities and towns around Phoenix that may or may not consider themselves part of "The Valley of The Sun" - there are roughly 35 municipalities, or 21, or.... Each with its own distinct personality, mini-culture, mayor, city council, taxes, fees, fines, police force, etc. THAT is why, when people write to us on this forum and say, "Tell me about Phoenix!" All most of us can do is tell you about our little corner of the world we know as Phoenix. It may or may not come close to someone else's idea, because they live in a completely 'nother corner of the Valley and rarely venture out of it.

The "Valley" is either 585 Square Miles or slightly over 1 million square miles - again, depending on whether or not the people in Buckeye, Anthem, Casa Grande, Avondale and Fountain Hills consider themselves part of it. I don't think Wickenburg and Wittman think they are Phoenix. But maybe Surprise does. Who knows?!

I just thought we should clear this up for the many visitors we have to CD who don't know why they get such a variety of answers to their questions. They think we all live in the same spot!

Discuss amongst yerselves...

[dvxhd]

There are quite a few exaggerations and/or factual errors in this. The City of Phoenix is the sixth largest. The combined metro area pushes the Valley down a few places because other cities have more people in suburbs that pushes their metro populations up. The City of Phoenix alone also has a few hundred thousand more people than Honolulu County. Calling the whole area "Phoenix" really isn't unique to this city either: people frequently lump smaller suburbs and townships together under the label of the core city. It's faster and less clunky to say than tagging on "metro area" to every city. On top of that, "the Valley" hasn't really caught on as a common nickname outside of this area. And slightly over one million square miles would mean the Phoenix area occupies more than 25% of America's land area, which would easily be nearly the entire West, from Seattle to west Texas (Arizona alone is just under 114,000 square miles).

[exit2lef]

Originally Posted by R_Cowgirl

The media is fond of calling Phoenix "The Sixth Largest City in America." Arizona Republic said that Mayor Stanton was "Mayor of the Sixth Largest City in America." Not true.

The Republic was correct. Phoenix is indeed the nation's sixth largest city in terms of population.

Linking to Wikipedia for convenience, but the data comes from the Census Bureau:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._by_population

In terms of metropolitan areas, Phoenix is at the center of the 12th largest in the country:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...tistical_Areas

In terms of counties, Maricopa, which includes Phoenix and most of its suburbs, is the fourth largest in the country:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._United_States



The more subjective and potentially interesting issue is how much residents of various suburbs and outlying communities identify with Phoenix, or whether they try to differentiate themselves from the city. Three out of four local sports teams call themselves "Arizona" rather than "Phoenix." I don't think that's a big deal, but some people I know fret about it. The suburbs here are unusually large by national standards, and that has an influence. A city that has several hundred thousand residents of its own may be less likely to lean on its larger neighbor for identity.

[Colt AZ]

You all make good points, but the title of this section which newbies see is Phoenix Area. Maybe it could have been titled Phoenix, excluding all of its cute little 'burbs.

[JGMotorsport64]

Originally Posted by R_Cowgirl

Just a thinkin' out loud post about this area we call Phoenix.

The media is fond of calling Phoenix "The Sixth Largest City in America." Arizona Republic said that Mayor Stanton was "Mayor of the Sixth Largest City in America." Not true. There are between 20 and 35 mayors of this area, depending...

For those who are not from here - please avail yourself of the original page of this forum -- //www.city-data.com/city/Arizona.html

You will note that you can choose to look at "bigger cities of 6,000+" or you can choose "All Cities."
While it is true that there are a boatload of people in the "Greater Phoenix Area" and the metro area is upwards of 4.3 million -- there are some different interpretations of how many people and how many square miles make up all of this Valley of the Sun.

Phoenix itself - you know, the town that Stanton is Mayor of, is just shy of 1.5 million people, which does NOT make him "mayor of the 6th largest city in America." It makes him mayor of a city with roughly the same population as Honolulu County.

Now, if you count the cities and towns around Phoenix that may or may not consider themselves part of "The Valley of The Sun" - there are roughly 35 municipalities, or 21, or.... Each with its own distinct personality, mini-culture, mayor, city council, taxes, fees, fines, police force, etc. THAT is why, when people write to us on this forum and say, "Tell me about Phoenix!" All most of us can do is tell you about our little corner of the world we know as Phoenix. It may or may not come close to someone else's idea, because they live in a completely 'nother corner of the Valley and rarely venture out of it.

The "Valley" is either 585 Square Miles or slightly over 1 million square miles - again, depending on whether or not the people in Buckeye, Anthem, Casa Grande, Avondale and Fountain Hills consider themselves part of it. I don't think Wickenburg and Wittman think they are Phoenix. But maybe Surprise does. Who knows?!

I just thought we should clear this up for the many visitors we have to CD who don't know why they get such a variety of answers to their questions. They think we all live in the same spot!

Discuss amongst yerselves...

I'm happy you have decided to enlighten us Mayor Stanton is the mayor of a city of 1.5 Million making him the mayor of the 6th largest city in the United States

He didn't say I am the mayor of the 6th largest Metropolitan Area in the U.S. but as a mayor of the City of Phoenix as a distinct body.

Like every major city we have suburbs, we have a few larger suburbs like Scottsdale, Glendale and Mesa but on the whole these comprise bedroom communities like most major suburbs.

Yes the 4.3 Million is called a Metropolitan Statistical Area it takes into account the relation between Phoenix and the surrounding cities, commuting patterns and where industries are located. That 4.3 Million pushes us down to around the 13 or 14th largest Metro in the U.S. which is surrounding the 6th largest city in the U.S. pretty simple, this is how other large cities are.

585 sq miles takes into account vast undeveloped land including Mountain Ranges, Parks and Desert Preserve. Phoenix also annexes a lot of land from the state, our state tax code incentivizes this behavior to gain larger shares of tax returns paid to the state. Arizona tax code frowns on large unincorporated county populations (Pima County for example). Maricopa County has lax annexation rules. So while City boundaries might be 585 sq mi, that isn't all developed land.

We have nowhere near a million miles, that is a gross exaggeration. In fact we don't really have one of the largest continuously built environments at all. We have a pretty unique pattern and that is the fact that we maintain a standard population density throughout the valley (thanks to the same developers building everything) and then it just drops at the edge. In many more traditional cities you have, Core, inner ring suburb, towns and hamlets rural. Here we have Core, Inner ring suburb, other nodal core, more suburbs, rural. Some cities are dense in a core that rapidly tapers off in every direction, we have a dense core (Phoenix to DT Scottsdale and DT Tempe then a consistent 3500 people/sq mi (give or take), until the development ends.

I wouldn't say we all hide in our corner of the valley and don't venture out that is another gross exaggeration. Because of how easy we have made it to drive, I would argue that many of us have spent a lot of time all over the place for whatever various reasons.

I hope I was able to provide you with a little clarity.

[Finger Laker]

We are all Phoenix. The suburbs are not that unique fire the most part and share much more in common than contrast.

Phoenix proper is really suburban as well in how it sprawls and the metro area is very easy to navigate.

Jobs and entertainment arent centralized either, this helps people explore more.

You just kind of flow from one city to the other, but never really leave Phoenix.

This isn't Philly which jams the same city population into less than 1/3 of the land, where you have a 2.5 mile stretch on Market that would take you through university city, into center city and to the Delaware river filled with high rise buildings, etc

Their suburbs provide stark contrast to the very urban core

Phoenix just sprawls and replicates until you get to the fringes of the metro area

[exit2lef]

Originally Posted by Colt Cassidy

You all make good points, but the title of this section which newbies see is Phoenix Area. Maybe it could have been titled Phoenix, excluding all of its cute little 'burbs.

The change to "Phoenix Area" from just "Phoenix" occurred many years ago. I suggested it, and maybe a few other posters did as well. At the time (circa 2007), lots of people were posting inquiries about Scottsdale and other Phoenix suburbs in the Arizona forum because they didn't understand that this Phoenix forum is supposed to be about the entire metropolitan area. The posts then had to be moved by a moderator into this forum. Looking at the array of forums that exist today, some are named just <city>, others are named <city area>, and a few (e.g. Chicago) separate the city and its suburbs.

[Hschlick84]

Considering how big Maricopa county is, has there been any proposals to split the counties up into west valley, easy valley and Phoenix county? Would this be a good idea?

[sloguy1496]

Phoenix is the 6th largest city in the nation. As a metro area, the "Phoenix Metropolitan Area", the "Phoenix Area", and the Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale MSA all have different definitions depending on what source you are looking at. I understand and agree with many of your points, though. Most people don't really differentiate between the cities of the Phoenix area, just as they do with the LA Basin, or San Diego, for example. Many west coast cities, and newer east coast cities (like Charlotte) are the same way, with only major suburbs being truly set apart from the primary city or cities in the metro.

Metro to Metro, we compare differently. However, to claim that Phoenix is not the the 6th largest city in the United States greatly undersells it and is simply factually incorrect.

The 30 Most Populous Cities
//www.city-data.com/top1.html

Generally, Phoenix has a lot in common with it's suburbs. There are a few areas that feel different, such as Tempe, Paradise Valley, Scottsdale, North Peoria, etc. But the growth and development patterns are fairly uniform across the valley.

Also, comparing a city population to a county population is a big false equivalency. It is true that we are the 4th largest county by population in the US. (Metro Phx slightly spills over into Pinal County, which explains why the full 4.3 million is not represented).

Largest Counties by Population in the US

[exit2lef]

Originally Posted by Hschlick84

Considering how big Maricopa county is, has there been any proposals to split the counties up into west valley, easy valley and Phoenix county? Would this be a good idea?

Yes, the issue comes up every once in a while. Most often, it's a proposal to make the East Valley into a distinct county. The proposals never seem to gain much traction, though.