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I'm not sure who is "spinning" here, Katiana. Take your example of Denver. It may be true its annexation process ended early as well, but that is not really the point--the point is about central cities taking in very different portions of their MSA, regardless of how that happened. And I just looked it up, and the land area of the City and County of Denver is 153.3 square miles, compared to 55.5 square miles for the City of Pittsburgh. And so I think the real "spin" would be ignoring the likely effects of the boundaries of City and County of Denver being drawn to include almost three times as much land as the City of Pittsburgh.
1/3 of Denver's land area is DIA and the "dogleg" that connects it to the rest of the city. Anyone who talks about how "if" the suburban counties were included in its population it would be the X largest city (larger than now) is spinning. Sure, if all of Denver's MSA were included in its population, it would be about 3 million people, instead of 1/2 million. So what? What is, is.
Last edited by Katarina Witt; 07-10-2008 at 07:55 PM..
Reason: typo
Isn't this true of most cities? It certainly is true of those with which I am familiar, e.g, Denver, Minneapolis, Chicago. Maybe a little less in Chicago, where the Museum of Science and Industry, for example, is south of downtown, but that stuff is still pretty centralized.
It is certainly true of many cities, and probably most, but less true of LA in particular (meaning LA has a relatively high dispersal of its major amenities compared to the other cities we are discussing). Which isn't necessarily a knock on LA ... it just makes it hard to find comparable neighborhoods in LA to central neighborhoods in cities like Pittsburgh, Washington, New York, Chicago, and so on.
I'm not sure who is "spinning" here, Katiana. Take your example of Denver. It may be true its annexation process ended early as well, but that is not really the point--the point is about central cities taking in very different portions of their MSA, regardless of how that happened. And I just looked it up, and the land area of the City and County of Denver is 153.3 square miles, compared to 55.5 square miles for the City of Pittsburgh. And so I think the real "spin" would be ignoring the likely effects of the boundaries of City and County of Denver being drawn to include almost three times as much land as the City of Pittsburgh.
My ideal view of what Pittsburgh's MSA should be but rather this is more considered the Pittsburgh Tri-State or more the areas that associate with Pittsburgh and receive media from Pittsburgh TV and radio...
PA counties: Allegheny, Beaver, Westmoreland, Washington, Fayette, Armstrong, Butler, Indiana, Greene, Clarion, Venango, Forest, Mercer, Lawrence, Somerset, Jefferson
1/3 of Denver's land area is DIA and the "dogleg" that connects is to the rest of the city. Anyone who talks about how "if" the suburban counties were included in its population it would be the X largest city (larger than now) is spinning. Sure, if all of Denver's MSA were included in its population, it would be about 3 million people, instead of 1/2 million. So what? What is, is.
Well, I'm certainly not going to argue with you yet again about what is a simple and obvious implication of differences in land areas.
Incidentally, the equally simple implication with respect to which comparative population measures we should be using is that rather than using historically and politically contingent municipal boundaries, we should use Census-defined units, since those are based on consistent methodologies. And the Census defines a bunch of units suitable for different purposes--for example you have Urbanized Areas, Metropolitan Divisions, Metropolitan Statistical Areas, Combined Statistical Areas, and so on.
But again, if you want to insist that any preference for Census-defined units over municipal boundaries is mere "spin", I'm not going to keep arguing with you, since from prior experience it would be pointless.
1/3 of Denver's land area is DIA and the "dogleg" that connects it to the rest of the city. Anyone who talks about how "if" the suburban counties were included in its population it would be the X largest city (larger than now) is spinning. Sure, if all of Denver's MSA were included in its population, it would be about 3 million people, instead of 1/2 million. So what? What is, is.
Other counties, no. But it's kind of ridiculous that suburbs like Greentree and Dormont and Crafton and Penn Hills aren't part of the city. I know that Dan Onorato has an ongoing effort to combine the towns of Allegheny County. Would any of these places, ten to twenty minutes from Point Park exist if there was no Pittsburgh?
I can't pretend to have done the research to know what that would mean to the new City of Pittsburgh fiscally, politically, with regards to police and fire departments, school districts in the city proper or the ones that would be annexed. Anybody know?
First of all, Brian, I would ask you to quit insulting me by implying that I am somehow dense because I don't agree with you.
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But again, if you want to insist that any preference for Census-defined units over municipal boundaries is mere "spin",
That is certainly putting an interpretation on what I said that I did not intend, and I think it is obvious. The argument that I have heard time and again on this forum about Pittsburgh and on some other forums about other cities is "If we included our suburbs in our city's population figures, we would be the X largest city instead of the X-something largest." In point of fact, ANY city could do that. In Pittsburgh, encouraged somewhat by the PG, people add "all these western cities are just annexing land, and if we could do that. . . ". To which I say again, so what? I beleive Pittsburgh is about #22 in metro population. It will still be that size, no matter what it decides to count as its city population.
I am fine with using "census-defined units" as you call them. That makes Denver about 3 million people instead of 1/2 mil. as I said before. It makes Chicago about 9 million, instead of what, 3 million? Minneapolis would be 3.5 million. Minneapolis itself, within the city limits, has a population of 369,000, just slightly larger than Pittsburgh. But of course, there is St. Paul, and there are the suburbs. I just don't see what makes Pittsburgh so unique in this situation.
Yes, if Pittsburgh counted its suburbs, and NO OTHER CITY did, which seems to be what is implied with all this calculation, Pittsburgh's poplation would move up quite a bit in rank. Again, SO WHAT?
Last edited by Katarina Witt; 07-10-2008 at 08:33 PM..
Reason: Clarification of who I was responding to
I'm staying out of this one except to say that Pittsburgh doesn't seem to put itself forward as some kind of world-class metropolis, unlike practically every Sun Belt hellhole. It's a smaller midsize city and still my favorite from that category and I've been to them all.
People are leaving Pittsburgh (exodus is slowing to a trickle, too) because of city-data forums.
Pittsburgh has suburban employment as well, of course, but this issue is not simply about employment. The area within a few mile radius of Downtown and Oakland also contains most of Pittsburgh's top cultural and entertainment amenities, universities, and so on. Much the same is true of the Washington area--no area in the suburbs can compete with DC (plus the close-in parts of Virginia which would fall within the aforementioned six mile radius) in terms of the density of such amenities and institutions.
But, compared to Pittsburgh's suburbs, the DC suburbs are more affluent, have significant retail/dining presence in their own right, and are well connected to DC's top cultural and entertainment amenities via mass transit (e.g. the Red Line Metro goes all the way out to Shady Grove). I think the amenities of a city like Bethesda, MD totally dominates anything that a place like Monroeville could offer.
In fact, I would say that the retail/dining amenities of the Bethesda-Rockville corridor of Montgomery County MD dominates anything Allegheny County, including City of Pittsburgh, has to offer. And that doesn't take into account DC itself or the rest of the DC suburbs.
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I don't think that is unusual for an MSA. In fact I just looked up the composition of the Washington MSA, and in addition to the District it contains six counties in Maryland, nine counties and six independent cities in Virginia, and a county in West Virginia.
Yeah, I see that. I guess MSA just isn't a kind of unit I find useful in these discussions.
But, compared to Pittsburgh's suburbs, the DC suburbs are more affluent, have significant retail/dining presence in their own right, and are well connected to DC's top cultural and entertainment amenities via mass transit (e.g. the Red Line Metro goes all the way out to Shady Grove). I think the amenities of a city like Bethesda, MD totally dominates anything that a place like Monroeville could offer.
In fact, I would say that the retail/dining amenities of the Bethesda-Rockville corridor of Montgomery County MD dominates anything Allegheny County, including City of Pittsburgh, has to offer. And that doesn't take into account DC itself or the rest of the DC suburbs.
Yeah, I see that. I guess MSA just isn't a kind of unit I find useful in these discussions.
Agreed. That is my main complaint about Pittsburgh. Yes, there are many pretty parts and the city is gorgeous at night with all the hillside twinkling lights. But this area is definitely retail/dining restrained and lacking in diversity and quantity. I say quantity because it is difficult finding those diamonds in the rough because they are spread out all over the place which makes it absolutely necessary to have a car to get to them.
For instance, last year my daughter and I took the train from Baltimore to DC and it was very quit & easy. We were able to travel to many parts of the city that offered a variety of dining and retail options. Mass transit in Pittsburgh is limited at best... as are the retail and restaurant options.
But, compared to Pittsburgh's suburbs, the DC suburbs are more affluent, have significant retail/dining presence in their own right, and are well connected to DC's top cultural and entertainment amenities via mass transit (e.g. the Red Line Metro goes all the way out to Shady Grove). I think the amenities of a city like Bethesda, MD totally dominates anything that a place like Monroeville could offer.
Well, first that is a loaded comparison. Pittsburgh's most affluent suburbs are places like Sewickley, Fox Chapel, and so on, not Monroeville. Moreover, we are now getting into a different topic by comparing suburbs as opposed to central neighborhoods. I think it is true that the inner suburbs of DC tend to have more of certain kinds of amenities (see below) in their own right than inner suburbs of Pittsburgh. However, they are also much more expensive, and in part for the reason we discussed above--more people in DC means more demand for inner suburbs, the supply of which is again more or less fixed by geometry, which contributes to higher prices. What this means is that for a given amount to spend on housing, in the Pittsburgh suburbs you can either get much closer to the center city, or get a much nicer house/lot, or a bit of both, than you could get in DC. But you will be sacrificing that density of local amenities of a certain kind ... a topic to which I will now turn.
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In fact, I would say that the retail/dining amenities of the Bethesda-Rockville corridor of Montgomery County MD dominates anything Allegheny County, including City of Pittsburgh, has to offer. And that doesn't take into account DC itself or the rest of the DC suburbs.
It is true that the number of retail and dining options is something that does tend to scale up with population (small-scale entertainment venues, like music and dance clubs, is another such example). And there is some benefit to this effect for any given individual insofar as you are likely to get somewhat more total variety the more options there are in a given market, although in practice I believe surveys have found most people end up frequenting a relatively low number of favorite places. Anyway, the upshot is that if maximizing the variety of such options is your goal, it does indeed make sense to seek out a higher population area. But you will likely pay a price for this preference, again because you are likely to pay more for otherwise comparable housing, have reduced access to the sort of amenities which don't scale up with population, and so on.
All of this is part of why I would never suggest it is necessarily a mistake to prefer bigger cities over medium-sized cities (or, conversely, smaller cities, towns, or rural areas over both). It really is just a matter of tradeoffs, and the question for a given individual should just be what makes the most sense given their particular preferences and resources. That said, all that is consistent with the proposition that housing in centrally-located neighborhoods is likely to be less expensive in medium-sized cities, and some (but not all) sorts of city amenities do not scale up with population. So, you really need to be clear on what amenities you will truly value when making such a choice.
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Yeah, I see that. I guess MSA just isn't a kind of unit I find useful in these discussions.
When exclusively discussing the central parts of MSAs and not the farther out suburbs and exurbs, I think the Census-defined "Urbanized Areas" are more useful. The Census defines these in terms of density regardless of political boundaries, and the upshot is they tend to capture most of what people would think of as the "central city" of the MSA in the broader sense.
Anyway, for comparison, the Washington UA had about 3.9 million people in 2000, good for #8, and Pittsburgh was at about 1.8 million people, good for #22. As previously noted that does virtually nothing to change Pittsburgh's ranking by MSA, nor for that matter does it change Washington's ranking by MSA, so both count as relatively typical cities in terms of population balance between UA and the rest of the MSA.
For a couple examples of cities that do vary a bit, Boston is #10 by MSA but #7 by UA, which implies Boston has a relatively large portion of its population in its urban core--something that makes sense given my experiences with Boston. Conversely, Houston is #6 by MSA but #10 by UA, which means it has a relatively low portion of its population in its urban core--again something that makes sense given what I know about Houston.
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wow, we actually agree on something!
