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I compiled a list of the top 10 U.S. Combined Statistical Areas from 2010, and included their population from 2000 as well as the numerical change between the two figures. If you look at the growth in terms of percentage, the clear leaders are Dallas, Houston, and Atlanta--all sprawling sun-belt metropolises. All three agglomerations grew between 22-26% in the past decade.
Washington-Baltimore was the only other top 10 CSA to grow more than 10% in 10 years, with the region growing roughly 13% between 2000 and 2010.
Growth in terms of % increase is deceptive, though. Even though four other CSAs come out ahead of it in terms of percentage increase in population, the Los Angeles area still has a healthy lead when it comes to numerical growth, having added over 1.5 million residents this past decade--over 250,000 more than Dallas, which came second in terms of raw growth.
Los Angeles's numbers are extremely impressive, especially for a city of its size. If trends from the past decade continue--and they will not, as the growth of cities is extremely unpredictable for a variety of reasons--it would still take well over 50 years for the Los Angeles region to pass New York. Even if Los Angeles manages to grow more robustly in future decades while New York stagnates, the numbers show it will be a very long while before New York loses its number one spot to Los Angeles.
Simply put: New York will be the undisputed largest city in the United States until 2050 at the very earliest, and that is assuming something terrible happens to the New York region while the Los Angeles area booms. While that is always a possibility, it seems very unlikely at this time, especially as real estate has experienced a tremendous crash in the Los Angeles area, with the Inland Empire--where much of the region's growth has occurred--hit particularly hard.
I wrote it, but growth projections are always something I love discussing with others. Much more text at the source; let me know what you guys think! Could LA surpass NYC one day?
This is an interesting thought exercise. And given that we are in the more thoughtful Urban Planning forum, rather than the Mine is Bigger than Yours so phbbbbttt!!! City v City forum, I'll offer some slight counter arguments. These won't disprove your thesis, but they might modify it some.
A certain portion of the growth of the New York CSA came from the addition of additional counties to the CSA in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and maybe Connecticut. I'm not sure exactly how much, but probably around a quarter million of the gain came from geographic expansion. Geographic expansion is a hard way to add population to a CSA when the commutes start stretching out into the 2 hours plus for a one way trip. Eventually, the CSA reaches a geographic limit beyond which it can't grow using current transportation methods. Therefore, if we are going to do straight line extrapolation, I would add only 500k per decade to New York City rather than 750k.
Regarding Los Angeles, yes there is currently a housing bust in the Inland Empire, but there was a nearly as nasty one during the early 1990s. Southern California has these real estate cycles on a regular basis. This down cycle may be a tad worse than the early 90s one, but eventually the area rebounded smartly, and could do so again.
So could the Los Angeles CSA outstrip the New York City CSA? Yes, it is possible. It even could happen by 2040, but in the end, I agree your 2050 prediction as an earliest date is still pretty sound.
Until NYC and LA have their land area reduced to something that aligns with the other cities...
then yes, they will continue to have be the cities with the largest raw number of people.
Go back to your graphic and add the columns for area and pop/sq mile...
then see what you come up with.
Go back to your graphic and add the columns for area and pop/sq mile...
then see what you come up with.
That's misleading. The metro boundaries for NYC include counties that are as much rural as suburban (Ulster, Orange and Dutchess counties in NY, Litchfield county in CT, Pike county in PA, etc). These areas are a mix of farmland, forest, small towns and sprawl near the old small towns. The layout of these areas make the metro seem lower density that it is. The region does have decent commuter rail service, but it goes through places like this:
and
The latter line just reopened after being wrecked by Hurricane Irene.
The Los Angeles metro is much more continuous at its edge, with suburbs that stop abruptly instead of gradually mixing with rural areas. Still if you use LA county to calculate density, you'll add in completely uninhabited wilderness areas. There's a 10,000 foot mountain range in the county.
Mountains in the background are in the county limits.
Misleading is to use the term CITY in the thread topic...
and then go on to use CSA statistics.
It's almost as though people have no appreciation for the distinction.
hth
Agreed but city limits are somewhat arbitrary (as all almost all metrics).
City limits would suggest that Jax and San Antonio are larger cities than Boston or SF
CSA limits include county designations, for LA that includes 30,000 sq miles when the Inland Empire is added with a vast amount uninhabited desert. From that perspective UA may be the best marker/proxy
Lastly, love the LA image with the snow capped mountains but would say those images are a little artificial, in the 20 years I have been going to LA I have never seen anything close with the naked eye, maybe just bad timing on my part but I even look for a similar view form planes and have yet to replicate that with the starkness, at times it appears the mountain isnt even snow capped best i can tell whereas I have seen the snow caps from Seattle. America is cool in this regard so many vantage poitns and perspectives
IMHO I would like to see a continuous UA like for something like 5K+ ppsm or so as a measure of developed city area as even UA at 1,000 ppsm as the criteria is pretty rural or at least exurban in many contexts
But none really do a perfect job and use of the multiple metrics help provide context in this regard.
Even DMA has its place based on media market reach, at least from a business and advertising perpective.
@ nei places you picture while attached by commuters and with some form of attachment dont really add to a urban fabric. Pike county PA as an example for NYC, it makes the 15% commuter rate and attaches to NYC because of 10,000 people that commute into Western NYC suburbs in New Jersey, hardly part of the true fabric but maybe more a demonstration of the pul of a huge job market.
Beautiful pics BTW not sure if they were all Hudson Valley or Delaware Valley but gorgeous none-the-less
Last edited by kidphilly; 12-04-2011 at 09:02 AM..
Misleading is to use the term CITY in the thread topic...
and then go on to use CSA statistics.
It's almost as though people have no appreciation for the distinction.
hth
Oh. I agree with that. I assumed you meant CSA because of the OP.
There was a thread that did exactly what you suggested: What would your city's population be if it were the area of San Francisco? NYC came out way above the others (about 3 million). Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia were all very close to each other, somewhere in the 0.9-1.1 million range, with (I think) Chicago very slightly ahead. Kidphilly might remember the ranking.
For comparison London comes out to 1.5 million, Tokyo 2.1 million.
Oh. I agree with that. I assumed you meant CSA because of the OP.
There was a thread that did exactly what you suggested: What would your city's population be if it were the area of San Francisco? NYC came out way above the others (about 3 million). Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia were all very close to each other, somewhere in the 0.9-1.1 million range, with (I think) Chicago very slightly ahead. Kidphilly might remember the ranking.
For comparison London comes out to 1.5 million, Tokyo 2.1 million.
LA was after NYC at about 1.1 million Philly and Chicago were right at the 1 million number and Boston and SF were right at about 800K.
Then also extended the others to 135 sq miles (Philly) and again here LA was a more clear leader (after NYC of course much larger than any) with Chicago a little above Philly to this measure and SF and Boston just a little behnd Philly (though believe SF was spreading from Boston at this distance). At 200 miles more of the same LA pulling away, Chicago about 250K more than Philly and then larger laggards on the extension of Boston and SF which drop relative to Philly in the next 65 miles from the 135 to get to 200. Only NYC, LA, and Chicago continue with any consistency after the 200 sq mile footprint
LA is a monster in this regard actually as much as people see it as not developed, it very much is and for a large area.
footnote, am going a little off memory above but think am pretty close and also SF never had the airport included where Philly and Boston did on many of the metrics.
Think NYC was closer to 2 million though as opposed to three at the ~50 sq miles
After these 200 sq (the next 500 msq miles) miles places like Houston and DFW and even PHX start to close the gap on cities like Philly/Boston/SF as their next set of development is typically more dense than especially their NE counterparts
DC was a little below the above 5 on the 50, 135, and 200 sq miles and would have likely been next on these measures, didnt do Miami which may do well on the 50 and 135 so not sure. Miami is more like LA in that it has pretty consitent development over a wide area, though an a slightly less dense and smaller scale.
Didnt do Atlanta which seem far less developed, roughly as a city the size of Philly with only ~400K in the city. Atlanta extends a long distance and among the larger metros is easily these lest dense
Last edited by kidphilly; 12-04-2011 at 08:58 AM..
On the question at hand, unless drastic changes with Census designations it seems hard to imagine any place with a higher population than NYC or its metro et al
I know it's a bit odd shaped, but it's continuous. Even if you played around with the boundaries it won't change around that much. 2 million is too low; there's 1.6 million in Manhattan's 23 square miles and there are plenty of high density areas in the outer boroughs.
Did you post the other calculations on another thread? I'm thinking Seattle or San Diego might be comparable to Miami. And perhaps Baltimore.
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