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So I gave Pittsburgh a break! Suburban lots in the Denver area are small, usually <1/4 acre. Pittsburgh suburban lots are big.
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Originally Posted by Moby Hick
That's not a measure of sprawl. That's just a measure of how much political consolidation/annexation is allowed by the state government. Pittsburgh hasn't annexed anything since 1930 and that was only Overbrook (less than one square mile). Denver is a consolidated city-county.
Not this folderol again! Yes, Denver is a city-county. However, even with the airport (~50 sq. mi.) it is only 150 sq. mi; Allegheny County is 730 square miles, so if you want to talk county to county, we're discussing something entirely different. Sort of like apples to cats. There is an amendment to the Colorado constitution enacted in 1974 that makes it very difficult for Denver to annex land. Since then, the only major annexation was the land for DIA, voted on by all the voters of Denver and Adams Counties. The western border of Denver, Sheridan Boulevard, is unchanged since 1902, when Denver annexed the city of Highlands. Ditto the northwestern border, 52nd Avenue.
Not this folderol again! Yes, Denver is a city-county. However, even with the airport (~50 sq. mi.) it is only 150 sq. mi; Allegheny County is 730 square miles, so if you want to talk county to county, we're discussing something entirely different. Sort of like apples to cats. There is an amendment to the Colorado constitution enacted in 1974 that makes it very difficult for Denver to annex land. Since then, the only major annexation was the land for DIA, voted on by all the voters of Denver and Adams Counties. The western border of Denver, Sheridan Boulevard, is unchanged since 1902, when Denver annexed the city of Highlands. Ditto the northwestern border, 52nd Avenue.
Finally you are considering area. Because the sprawl is measured by density.
I agree that county to county is different. But comparing city-to-city, Pittsburgh is more dense than Denver. Considering metro area to metro area, the result is still the same.
The majority of restrictions listed there are from wholesaling and contracting. It appears that PA is the only one with strict control over wine (on top of liquor) and the inclusion of the necessity of beer "distributors". From this list it appears that this state is the most strict overall.
Finally you are considering area. Because the sprawl is measured by density.
I agree that county to county is different. But comparing city-to-city, Pittsburgh is more dense than Denver. Considering metro area to metro area, the result is still the same.
Finally? What are you talking about? I've posted this same info time and again on this forum, starting in 2007!
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Originally Posted by FallsAngel
Actually, the reason I brought that up is because some of the largest cities in the U.S. have done that. Somebody a while back on this forum posted something about it - they are high in the rankings for population because they annexed their MSA and are calling it part of their city.
Yes, someone did post this. And they offered a link to an opinon piece to "prove" it. But as much as the Pittsburgh bloggers like to think that Pittsburgh is getting a bum rap, it's simply not true. Not every city other than Pittsburgh is gobbling up land to increase its population. An amendment to the Colorado constitution made it very difficult for Denver to annex any more land, and its borders have been stable since the late 1970s. Cities in Virginia are not part of any county. If Denver could annex the rest of Denver County, its population would be . . . the same. Denver is a city/county. Chicago appears to be the same geographic size as it was when I first went there in 1971. Some cities, yes, have been annexing land around them. Omaha just annexed a whole town named Elkhorn (don't we have cool names out west?). But guess what folks? Pittsburgh did the same thing. It just did it in a different era, so "that's different" meaning, that's OK, I guess. Both the north and south sides used to be independent cities/towns. Omaha, et all aren't doing anything that hasn't been done before.
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Originally Posted by FallsAngel
RowJimmy: I swore I was not going to mention the "D" city again, since some people got annoyed when I answered a question on this thread with that city. But I will say, since you brought it up: The City and County of D was formed in 1901. There have been very few changes to its land area since then. An amendment to the Colorado constitution in 1976 made it all but impossible for D to annex any more land. That was over 30 yrs ago, and at the beginning of City D's big population boom. The Cherry Creek area of D is not "suburban". If you are thinking of Cherry Creek schools, none of them are in Denver proper; some are even in Aurora. Stapleton is a "new urbanism" area that is being developed since the closure of the old airport. It is comparable to the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Shadyside in that it attracts the young, affluent types, a sort of gentrification area. Prior to the closure of the airport, the area surrounding Stapleton was rather low-income.
The question was crime rates, and someone said that Phoenix, San Antonio and Las Vegas have suburbs within their boundaries. I disagreed. I have been to Phoenix. It has a city core surrounded by suburban cites, that are NOT part of Phoenix. I have read other places that some Texas cities are annexing their suburbs. I cannot confirm or deny that. I can tell you that D is not.
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Originally Posted by FallsAngel
Oh, good. I thought you were talking about Denver. Except for the airport, its boundaries haven't changed much since a 1974 amendment to the Colorado constitution. Some of the boundaries go back to the formation of the City and County of Denver in 1902.
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Originally Posted by FallsAngel
All right, I'll give you something from the book. I was with this guy until I read this:
How can a city grow when it is legally prevented from growing as a city? "Here in Pennsylvania," he writes, "unlike other parts of America where cities grow, no small municipality can be annexed without a majority of its citizens voting for the change."
Read more: O'Neill book expresses tough love for Pittsburgh
I have posted before how the Pittsburgh populace, egged on by the local press, accuses growing cities of growing by annexation. This is, in fact, in many cases incorrect. Not every state allows these forced annexations of smaller ciites by larger ones, not even in the 21 states west of the Mississippi. The Colorado voters passed an amendment to the Colorado constitution in 1976 that made it all but impossible for Denver to annex more land. The last annexation was to build Denver International Airport on land in what was previously in Adams County. Virtually no people live on this land. The only city I have heard of to annex any suburban area lately is Omaha:
Had Elkhorn been 10000+ people, Omaha could not have annexed it, either.
Annexing land to Pittsburgh would increase Pittsburgh's population, but it would not add one person to the metro area's population. It would also not change the fact that Pittsburgh, the city, went from a population of about 676,000 people in 1950 to ~300,000 now.
Just what is this guy proposing. Forcible annexations?
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Originally Posted by FallsAngel
Well, Reilly already gave the stats.
Not really, but I just included it to be complete, as far as what Reilly left out, which was most of the western cities. I set an arbitrary basis of 100K+. Actually, the cities that look the most like Pittsburgh in area and population are Minneapolis and St. Paul, both of which seem to be doing fairly well.
In some states. Not all states. In fact, of 20 western states, only four show any evidence of doing so: Arizona, California, Oklahoma and Texas.
Well, if Denver annexed to 37%, it would have about 1,000,000 people. But it can't, because the Colorado constitution makes it extremely difficult. It's the same process that O'Neill decries in Pennsylvania; the people in both communities have to vote for it. My main point is that Pennsylvania is not the only state to have such a requirement. His writings imply PA is the only state to have such requirements. I will say we have more intergovernmental cooperation out here than Pgh seems to have.
Well, you need a school funding equalization act, that gives more state money to poor districts so that all districts have a similar per-pupil amount of money.
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Originally Posted by FallsAngel
I agree. The Pittsburgh media has promoted this idea that Pittsburgh is unique in these issues. I recall my parents talking like this in the 1980s; they were surprised to hear that the Colorado constitution has made it extremely difficult for Denver to annex land. The only cities I know of that are annexing whole suburbs are Omaha, NE and some Texas cities. It all depends on state laws.
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Originally Posted by FallsAngel
An interesting two cents. My thoughts:
As I said, there is an "urban legend" going around Pittsburgh that other cities are constantly annexing land to make themselves bigger, and that Pennsylvania law is what prevents this. For example, look at this from another thread about a book about Pittsburgh:
That is, as we have shown, untrue. Now you posted (in the other thread) about Denver, a post I missed at the time. Here it is:
You are very mistaken about what is going on in Denver. 1/3 of those 153 sq. miles are the Denver International Airport. Now, Pittsburgh apparently doesn't include its airport in its square mileage. The actual livable part of Denver is about 100 sqare miles. In addition, the Colorado voters passed an amendment to the Colorado constitution in 1974 that made it all but impossible for Denver to annex more land. The last annexation was to build the airport on land in what was previously in Adams County in 1989.
It is nearly imposible to annex in Colorado. An amendment to the Colorado constitution in 1974 put the kibosh on Denver annexing land w/o consent of the landowners.
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Originally Posted by FallsAngel
Well I guess!
I'm sorry, I don't see it as Pittsburgh getting such a bad deal. I have put much thought into this issue as these threads, including one of God knows how many started by me, keep popping up. People are always looking at ways to "improve" Pittsburgh's standing in these lists. I do not see Pittsburgh getting such a bum deal in the way these stats are kept. If you included Pittsburgh's "inner ring" suburb's you'd have to include every city's inner ring burbs, etc. I posted that one time years ago.
There are some cities with no county. St. Louis is one of them. It's roughly the size of Pittsburgh and it is ranked #58 in population. San Francisco has a city/county government, with contiguous boundaries, smaller than Pittsburgh, and with hills (which for some reason is significant), and it is ranked #14. Minneapolis and St. Paul are both geographically smaller than Pittsburgh, and they are ranked #48 and 66, respectively. Even with two largish cities, one bigger than Pittsburgh and one smaller, they are only ranked 16 in MSA size, just a few places above Pittsburgh. Some people complain in these threads that some of California's suburban cities shouldn't "count" for some reason. The issue is not (or so I thought) population density, it is that Pittsburgh is supposedly "artificially" small. The OP has not explained what "aritificially" means. Annexation laws in many states prevent cities from annexing other cities in 2012, and for a long time prior. Colorado has an amendment to its constitution that has special, stricter requirements for Denver than even for the rest of the state. The OP accuses Oklahoma City and Los Angeles of "cheating". (I don't think it's true that LA is annexing much of anything; most of the area surrounding it is incorporated, and has no desire to be annexed by LA, meaning such a plan wouldn't survive a public vote.)
Every city is differnt and every city has its own unique issues.
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Originally Posted by FallsAngel
How is it contradictory? Denver and all these cities have city limits, outside of which are the suburbs. They're not looking at, I don't think, urban "form", they're looking at political divisions. Denver is ~ 150 sq. mi., 50 of which are the airport. The built part of the city, where people live, is ~100 sq. miles and it can't annex w/o a vote of the entire county of the area being annexed. The only time this has happened since this amendment to the constitution was passed was the annexation of the airport land.
So, the Pittsburgh metro area is more dense than the Denver metro area but somehow Pittsburgh has more sprawl?
I think those figures are a little unbelievable. That's not an official government website. It's hard to believe that Boulder's population density is higher than Denver-Aurora's, when the entirety of Boulder County is included in the Boulder MSA, including a lot of farmland and part of Rocky Mountain National Park!
The fact that Pittsburgh does not include its airport in its city limits may have something to do with that.
The CSA vs. MSA issue is a good point. There are commonly used definitions of metro area for which the Denver metro would be more dense than the Pittsburgh metro.
The airport point works both ways. Yes, Denver (city, not metro) is less dense because of the annexation for the airport. However, both airports are in the metro area. And for a city to take 53 square miles of basically empty land and pave them for the use of its citizens is pretty much the definition of "sprawl." Denver's airport occupies nearly as much ground as the entire city of Pittsburgh (53 square miles vs 58).
I learn more about Denver & Colorado on the Pittsburgh city data forum then I've ever cared to know in my life.
I've concluded that I would never want to live there.
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