New Method of Measuring Urbanity (2015, metro area, areas)

[grega94]

So this all started when I noticed that Russia has more cities (proper, not metro) of 1 million plus than the US, even though the US has a population that is twice as large. So I then came up with a way to measure how the population of a country tends to cluster in large cities (1 million plus) or in other words how urban that country is. I did this by getting the total population of a country divided it by the number of cities it had over 1 million and then divide that new number by 1 million and round the final number to the tenths place.

For Example the US has a population of 321,360,559, with 10 cities that passed the 1 million mark. So I divide the two to get 32,136,055.9. Then I divide by 1 million to get 32.1360559. And after rounding you get 32.1. The closer the final score is to 1, the more urban that country is.

So here is the list that i got so far, you can add to it. Also tell me what you think about my method, do you think the numbers agree with how urban the countries are? Also this method is only applicable with countries that are not city states with at least one city greater than 1 million.

Country.............#Cities........Score
US.........................10...........32.1
Russia....................12...........12.0
EU.........................18...........28.2
Ukraine....................5............8.9
Brazil.....................17...........11.9
China....................160............8.5
Japan.....................11...........11.5
India......................46...........26.3
Mexico....................10...........12.2
Canada.....................3...........11.9
Australia...................5............4.8
Turkey.....................7...........11.1
Iran.........................8............9.8
Indonesia................14...........18.2
Bangladesh...............2...........78.3
France.....................1...........66.6
Spain.......................2...........23.2
Egypt.......................6...........14.9
Colombia..................4...........12.1
S. Korea...................9............5.7
Saudi Arabia..............5............6.2
Nigeria....................11..........16.1

[fusion2]

City proper's over 1 million are often based on arbitrary and usually municipal boundaries at a local or regional level with no national let alone international standardization. If you change the boundary of the city proper you change the number of cities over 1 million or less than.. This can be done overnight through amalgamation or a reverse process as an example while doing nothing to the urbanization of the area.

For example Boston has a city proper population of 655K while San Antonio has a population of 1.4 million in its city proper.. Your method excludes Boston entirely from the urban landscape of the U.S yet clearly Boston anchors a larger urbanized area than San Antonio.. There are plenty of other examples of this in the U.S as well - Washington D.C and Baltimore are not included yet Phoenix is...

In the case of Canada - Calgary is included as a city larger than 1 million yet Vancouver isn't even though Vancouver is almost 2.5 times as large an urban area... Ottawa same thing, slightly larger urban area than Calgary yet not counted..

Point being - I think you should be looking towards urban areas greater than 1 million instead of city proper population to drive your data for better results!

[Jesse44]

Not to mention lower the population bar to something significantly less, since setting urban areas over 1 million would exclude places like Vancouver or Boston still.

[grega94]

Thank you for the suggestions. So I'm doing the exact same thing except that I'm using metro areas and the bar is still 1 million. I got my data from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ountry_in_2015

Country..............#city.............score
China..................101...............13.4
India....................57...............21.2
US.......................44................7.3
EU.......................41...............12.3
Brazil...................18...............11.3
Pakistan...............17...............11.3
Mexico.................14................8.7
Indonesia.............14...............18.2
Russia..................11..............13.0
Japan...................10..............12.7
Nigeria...................9..............19.7
Turkey...................8................9.7
Germany................7...............11.5
Iran......................7................11.2
Colombia...............6.................8.0
UK........................5................12.9
Canada..................5.................7.9
Dem Rep of Congo...5................15.5
South Africa............5................10.8
Australia.................5.................4.8
Iraq.......................5.................7.2
Philippines..............4................25.4
France...................4................16.7
Ukraine..................4................11.1
Italy......................4................15.2
Spain.....................4................11.6
Venezuela...............4.................8.3
Morocco.................4..................8.5
Taiwan...................4..................5.8
Syria......................4.................4.5
Argentina................3................14.5
Malaysia.................3................10.2
Bangladesh.............3.................52.2
Bolivia...................3...................3.5
Burma....................3.................17.2
Poland...................2..................19.2
Egypt.....................2..................44.6
Vietnam.................2...................45.3
Peru......................2...................15.6
Belgium.................2.....................5.6
Israel....................2.....................4. 1
Ecuador..................2....................7.6
Cameroon...............2...................11.3
Ghana....................2...................13.5
Angola...................2....................12.2
Kenya...................2.....................22.5
Netherlands............2......................8.5
Portugal.................2......................5. 2

[nei]

Supports what I've thought; American metropiltan areas are rather large for worldwide standards. Not sure if it reflects urbanity or something else. Note that a large portion of American metro areas are very low density so they don't feel that urban.

[fusion2]

Originally Posted by nei

Supports what I've thought; American metropiltan areas are rather large for worldwide standards. Not sure if it reflects urbanity or something else. Note that a large portion of American metro areas are very low density so they don't feel that urban.

I've made that observation as well, that the U.S has plenty of large metro's but that they are typically more spread and less dense than most other nations. I'm always amazed by how often CSA is thrown around in connection to an anchor city - its pretty far fetched.. Might be ok for statistical purposes but to gauge an 'urban' area not so much.

[fusion2]

Another note about this list and Jesse eluded to it and OP I do think it is better than the first one for sure but it does omit cities with smaller urban areas. An example would be say Quebec city in Canada, It has about 750K people in its metro and would as such be omitted though still accounts for urbanity.. I know 1 million is a nice number to go by but just saying, a city with a metro of 750K people can still contribute to the urban landscape of any nation. Same thing goes with 500K but I get it, you have to draw the line somewhere

[nei]

Originally Posted by fusion2

I've made that observation as well, that the U.S has plenty of large metro's but that they are typically more spread and less dense than most other nations. I'm always amazed by how often CSA is thrown around in connection to an anchor city - its pretty far fetched.. Might be ok for statistical purposes but to gauge an 'urban' area not so much.

But the list of US Urban areas still have 42 over one million. I think CSA is often far fetched, but many times it's just American metros are really sprawling, but it's an interconnected "city" just much lower density.

[Ariete]

Terribly flawed system. You've got that Syria is one of the most urbanised areas in the world, still 45% of the country's population is rural.

Singapore is a city state with 100% urban population, and will get a score of 5.5. But, if Singapore would have a population of 1 million, it would get a score of 1.0 = total urbanisation.

[nei]

I think it's a useful measure, just not of urbanity, but something else