Demographics of Europe

[flash110]

Originally Posted by mousquet

^ Sorry but I find you're just somewhat showing some kind of stereotypical bitterness from the so-called New World to so-called old Europe, which is nothing much of a novelty to us. We've been used to it for generations, while we are still here, right? Excuse-me but as far as I can go past, none of my freaking ancestors felt the need to leave our country, while they weren't all well off. Some were from the working class and nonetheless found future for themselves over here. You see what I mean? I think you should clean up your front door before charging any foreigner, including Europeans. That's what I usually do myself, which is much more elegant.

There's a precedent when it comes to French-American territories taking their independence from metropolitan France, that is Haiti. We all know, especially people from Martinique, Guadeloupe or any French overseas territory about the outcome that's been pretty disastrous so far. That's partly why we'd rather think twice before voting for a prospective dismemberment of our nation that will not last forever, however, granted. We're too small to achieve big things on our own, we're quite aware. But then our foreseeable future belongs to a better integrated and federal European Union, nowhere else.



That's a complete nonsense nowadays, though. It's not like the Breton language would any longer threaten the practice of French in Brittany in any way. Same for Occitan in the metropolitan southern regions and so on. I'm all for promoting any cultural and historic trait or specifics in all French regions, now. It would help create wealth from my perspective. We need to grow more open-minded and flexible indeed, huh.

Really I don´t think that example is a fair comparison since, like most of the Independence processes in the 19, 20 centuries, they were a result of the already bad situation under colonial rule. Anyway, I think France is a great country, but if France, as a single exeption (I think not even the super worldpower US has so many overseas territories and territorialistic claims), can keep its strategically far away overseas territories, and keep their residents happy in the long term, Chapeaux!

[New Brisavoine]

The population of the new French regions of Metropolitan France in January 2014 compared to the population of the German Länder.

The new French regions will come into existence on January 1, 2016 (the law has been passed). We don't know their names yet, so I have used the compounded names of the former regions out of which they are created.

First a map:



Population on Jan. 1, 2014:
- North Rhine-Westphalia: 17,571,856
- Bavaria: 12,604,244
- Paris Region: 12,005,077
- Baden-Württemberg: 10,631,278
- Rhône-Alpes-Auvergne: 7,808,323
- Lower Saxony: 7,790,559
- Hesse: 6,045,425
- Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardy: 5,985,719
- Aquitaine-Limousin-Poitou-Charentes: 5,867,448
- Midi-Pyrénées-Languedoc-Roussillon: 5,724,711
- Alsace-Lorraine-Champagne-Ardenne: 5,553,187
- Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur: 4,964,859
- Saxony: 4,046,385
- Rhineland-Palatinate: 3,994,366
- Pays de la Loire: 3,689,465
- City-State of Berlin: 3,421,829
- Normandy: 3,330,120
- Brittany: 3,273,343
- Burgundy-Franche-Comté: 2,817,429
- Schleswig-Holstein: 2,815,955
- Centre-Val de Loire: 2,577,474
- Brandenburg: 2,449,193
- Saxony-Anhalt: 2,244,577
- Thuringia: 2,160,840
- City-State of Hamburg: 1,746,342
- Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania: 1,596,505
- Saarland: 990,718
- State of Bremen: 657,391
- Corsica: 323,092

Population growth in 2013:
- City-State of Berlin: +1.38%
- Corsica: +1.04%
- Midi-Pyrénées-Languedoc-Roussillon: +0.86%
- Pays de la Loire: +0.77%
- Rhône-Alpes-Auvergne: +0.73%
- City-State of Hamburg: +0.70%
- Bavaria: +0.68%
- Baden-Württemberg: +0.59%
- Brittany: +0.54%
- Aquitaine-Limousin-Poitou-Charentes: +0.50%
- Hesse: +0.48%
- Paris Region: +0.44%
- State of Bremen: +0.40%
- Schleswig-Holstein: +0.34%
- Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur: +0.30%
- Centre-Val de Loire: +0.25%
- Lower Saxony: +0.15%
- Rhineland-Palatinate: +0.10%
- Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardy: +0.10%
- North Rhine-Westphalia: +0.10%
- Normandy: +0.09%
- Alsace-Lorraine-Champagne-Ardenne: +0.03%
- Burgundy-Franche-Comté: +0.00%
- Brandenburg: -0.01%
- Saxony: -0.09%
- Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania: -0.24%
- Saarland: -0.36%
- Thuringia: -0.44%
- Saxony-Anhalt: -0.66%

Absolute population growth in 2013:
- Bavaria: +84,673 people
- Baden-Württemberg: +62,167
- Rhône-Alpes-Auvergne: +56,225
- Paris Region: +53,016
- Midi-Pyrénées-Languedoc-Roussillon: +48,864
- City-State of Berlin: +46,607
- Hesse: +28,944
- Aquitaine-Limousin-Poitou-Charentes: +28,922
- Pays de la Loire: +28,094
- Brittany: +17,672
- North Rhine-Westphalia: +17,527
- Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur: +15,075
- City-State of Hamburg: +12,070
- Lower Saxony: +11,564
- Schleswig-Holstein: +9,424
- Centre-Val de Loire: +6,352
- Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardy: +6,015
- Rhineland-Palatinate: +4,088
- Corsica: +3,312
- Normandy: +2,947
- State of Bremen: +2,617
- Alsace-Lorraine-Champagne-Ardenne: +1,674
- Burgundy-Franche-Comté: +45
- Brandenburg: -318
- Saarland: -3,569
- Saxony: -3,819
- Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania: -3,822
- Thuringia: -9,620
- Saxony-Anhalt: -14,816

[Crawford]

Wow, look at that growth in Berlin. I had no idea.

[Lear]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Wow, look at that growth in Berlin.

Jup.

Berlin net growth was around +40.000 annually from 2011-14.
The workforce grew by +30.000 annually in this period.
2014 was the first year after reunification (1990) where the housing market had almost no free apartments (around 1%).
2015 will be the strongest housing construction since 1990.

[New Brisavoine]

Berlin is a city though, not a region like the other German and French regions.

In terms of cities, there are some German and French cities that currently grow more than Berlin: Munich, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Nantes, Rennes, Montpellier. Of course in relative terms. In absolute terms (absolute population growth) Berlin grows more than Munich, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Nantes, Rennes, and Montpellier, but then Paris grows more than Berlin in absolute terms anyway.

In terms of real regions (various cities, towns, and rural areas), it's Corsica that has the highest growth, both in terms of population, GDP, and job growth.

[New Brisavoine]

The Economist published a map showing population growth in Germany between 2006 and 2011. I've added France for comparison.

Color scheme is rigorously the same for both countries. Data from 2006 and 2011 French censuses.



Detailed view of the Franco-German border area at the commune level:

[New Brisavoine]

Some wonderful news for urban stat lovers! Ever since I've joined these forums, people have wondered whether the London metropolitan area was larger than the Paris metropolitan area or vice versa. Until now it was impossible to answer this question, because we didn't have enough data. Well, this is no more true.

ONS, the English statistical office, has published detailed cross-tabulations of commuting flow data at a very detailed level (the census tract level, or 'Output Area' in ONS parlance). It is thus now possible to calculate precisely the extent of the London metropolitan area by using INSEE's definition of metropolitan areas (INSEE, the French statistical office, is the only statistical office in Europe which has defined a rigorous scientific method to calculate metropolitan areas; like any definition, it is arbitrary, but at least it exists, and can be applied with a rigorous method).

First, you have to take the urban area, that is the contiguously built-up area with no more than 200-meter gaps between buildings. Then you add the communes (municipalities) which lie beyond the urban area but where more than 40% of the residents in employment commute to work in the urban area, then you add the communes where more than 40% of the residents in employment commute to work in the urban area or in the communes that you've just added, and you run several iterations until no more communes can be added. In the end you get the metropolitan area: an urban area surrounded by a commuter belt where more than 40% of the residents in employment commute to work either in the urban area or in the communes that are attracted by the urban area.

ONS uses the same definition of built-up areas as INSEE, i.e. no gaps larger than 200 meters (it's a UN recommendation). The problem is ONS uses the very small Output Areas as its grid for the built-up areas, whereas INSEE uses the French communes as the grid. As a result, ONS's built-up areas tend to be much more tightly delineated than INSEE's urban areas, because they do not include the unbuilt areas that are included in the French communes.

In order to apply INSEE's definition of metropolitan areas, we must use a grid in the UK which is about the same as in France. Thankfully... there is one. It's the so-called Middle Layer Super Output Area (MSOA). An MSOA is an aggregate of several Output Areas. Its size is roughly the same as that of a French commune.

So now we have everything to work on this.

What I've done so far (it's pretty time consuming) is I've defined the urban area of London. I've checked in which MSOAs lay the built-up area of London. If more than 50% of the population in the MSOA live inside Output Areas part of the built-up area of London, then that MSOA belongs to the urban area of London. INSEE does exactly the same with French communes to determine whether a commune belongs to a given urban area.

The results are already very, very interesting.

This is the built-up area of London (defined at the Output Area level):
- land area: 1,738 km²
- population (March 27, 2011 census): 9,787,426

And this is the London urban area (defined at the MSOA level, which is equal to French communes):
- land area: 2,928 km²
- population (March 27, 2011 census): 9,869,043

For comparison, this is the Paris urban area (defined at the commune level):
- land area: 2,845 km²
- population (January 1, 2011 census): 10,516,110

Several observations: first, we can see that the urban area of London is much larger than the built-up area, but its population is barely larger. This is not surprising, since the built-up area excludes all unbuilt areas, whereas the urban area includes the unbuilt areas within the MSOAs, just as is the case with French communes. The population of the urban area is marginally larger than that of the built-up area because a few built-up areas lying inside the MSOAs but which do not belong to the London built-up area now get integrated in the urban area (the same happens in the case of French urban areas).

#2: we can notice that despite the so-called "green belt", the urban area of London is actually slightly larger than the urban area of Paris. Interesting finding! In fact, having now checked the map in detail for hours as I've done, I've realized that this "green belt" is imperfect and exists only in places. In Hertfordshire, and above all in Surrey, the green belt seems not to exist, or at least to have been created AFTER sprawl had already entered these two counties (the green belt could prevent urbanization, but it could not de-urbanize what was already urbanized). In the end, it's fascinating to note that despite a "green belt", London's urban area sprawls as much as Paris which has no green belt. I can't really explain why Paris doesn't sprawl more compared to London when I think about it, since no green belt ever stopped urbanization. It's as if the central part of the Paris urban area was so dense already that it prevented the outer areas to sprawl too much.

#3: despite a slightly larger land area than Paris, London's urban area has a smaller population. Those of you who follow this thread already know that on a surface of 1,572 km² (the size of Greater London), Paris has more inhabitants than London. Now the interesting discovery is that on a surface of 2,900 km², Paris still has more inhabitants than London. This shows that the population density beyond those 1,572 km² in London is not so much higher than in Paris. In fact I've made the calculation: in London, outside of Greater London (almost all of Greater London is inside the urban area of London, except the village of Harefield), the population density of the rest of the urban area was 1,242 inh. per km² in 2011, whereas in Paris, outside of the central 1,572 km², the population density of the rest of the urban area was 1,069 inh. per km² in 2011. I would frankly not have expected that the density in those distant suburbs of Paris would be so close to the density in the distant suburbs of London!

A commonly held idea is that density drops dramatically in Paris the further out you go compared to London where it remains more equal, but it appears that even as far as 2,900 km² get you, Paris keeps a density almost as high as London. The Paris density drop probably occurs much further away (the real drop compared to London must take place 40 km from Paris, where you land in rural French countryside at 100 inh. per km² or less, whereas 40 km from London you land in dense England at 500 inh. per km²).

I will in the coming days run the several iterations needed to get the London metropolitan area. It's a long process as I need to cross-tabulate hundreds of MSOAs, pinpoint them on a map, etc. What I can say for now, having checked a few samples here and there, is that commuting rates in England are incredibly low. It seems many MSOAs will have a very hard time reaching the 40% threshold. For example Thurrock, which borders Greater London and lies just outside the London urban area, looks like it won't even make it in the metropolitan area (but I can't say yet for sure, because I'll know only after several iterations). So it's not certain at all that the London metropolitan area will be more populated than the Paris metropolitan area, contrary to what many people imagine, but we'll see!

In general, checking all these tables, I'm surprised to see that the English people seem to commute much less long distances than French people. This was confirmed to me today by two maps drawn to my attention by Minato Ku. James Cheshire has made a wonderful map showing the commuting flows between all the MSOAs of England & Wales at the 2011 census. Mathieu Garnier then used the same software and code to make a map showing the commuting flows between all the communes of Metropolitan France. I've scaled the maps at the same scale and pasted them together. The result is below. Absolutely fascinating!!

France is really a country of long-distance commuters. Probably because the country is much less dense than England, so the job market nodes are further apart, and people need to travel longer to reach them. High-speed TGV trains and planes explain some of the longest commutes (personally, when I was at the Sorbonne in Paris, one of my professors was living in Toulouse and commuted to Paris by plane during the week, using Air France's excellent air shuttle between Toulouse and Paris; there are more than 40 flights every day between Paris and Toulouse, from 6am to midnight).

For example at the 2011 census there were 5,310 residents from the Rhône department (Lyon metro area) who commuted to work in the Paris Region (Central Lyon and Central Paris are 393 km apart as the crow flies, and exactly 2 hours apart by high-speed train), i.e. 0.71% of the Rhône residents in employment. In comparison, if we take Newcastle, which lies 398 km from Central London as the crow flies, there were only 2,284 residents from the Tyne and Wear county (Newcastle metro area) who commuted to work in the London urban area at the 2011 census (0.46% of Tyne and Wear's residents in employment).

[Crawford]

Wow very interesting and thanks for doing this work! Nice to see the INSEE method applied outside France. Maybe do American cities next?

And yeah, a bit unexpected, I would think. I would have guessed the two metros have similar long-distance commute patterns.

I would also imagine that, within Europe, Brussels and Frankfurt would have very extensive long-distance commute patterns. I have family members who live near the French border yet commute to Frankfurt, and they are not alone in their town with the supercommutes. That part of Germany doesn't have many good jobs, and Frankfurt has tons of high-paying jobs, so people commute from every little village.

[New Brisavoine]

At the 2011 German census, 342,530 people not residents of the City of Frankfurt commuted to work in the City of Frankfurt (that includes Frankfurt Airport, which is located within the city limits), but we don't know how many came from the neighboring municipalities, and how many from further afield.

Otherwise I've added a final paragraph to my last post.

[New Brisavoine]

I've completed the iterations for the London metropolitan area. Here are the results.

It took only 3 iterations to get the London metropolitan area. The 4th iteration added no new MSOA to the metro area. In comparison, researchers who have double-checked INSEE's Paris metropolitan area say it took 7 iterations to get the Paris metropolitan area. Already there we can see that the London metro area is blocked pretty quickly by neighboring urban areas which are strong enough to resist the pull of London.

The only significant urban areas that were attracted enough by the London urban area or its attracted MSOAs to enter the London metro area are: Berkhamsted and Harpenden in Hertfordshire (Hemel Hempstead and St Albans are included in the London urban area), Potters Bar also in Hertfordshire, Epping in Essex (Loughton is included in the London urban area), Swanley and Hartley in Kent (Dartford and Gravesend are included in the London urban area), and Cobham and Godalming in Surrey (Guildford is included in the London urban area).

The rest of the commuter belt reaching the 40% threshold is made up of smaller urban areas and rurban areas. "Rurban" indicates settlements which are too small to be part of an urban area, but which are the place of residence of commuters attracted by a larger urban area and are therefore not rural in the original sense (a true rural settlement is not significantly attracted by any urban area).

Toot Hill and Fyfield in Essex are examples of rurban settlements part of the London metro area. Férolles-Attilly (Seine-et-Marne) and Davron (Yvelines) are examples of rurban settlements part of the Paris metro area.

Some urban areas neighboring London fail just short of entering the London metropolitan area at the end of the iterations, for example Brentwood.

Here are some urban areas (UA) which fail to enter the London metropolitan area:
- Brentwood UA: 39.0% (i.e. 39.0% of the people living in the Brentwood UA who are in employment work in the metropolitan area of London)
- Sevenoaks UA: 38.3%
- Aveley UA (Thurrock): 38.2%
- South Ockendon UA (Thurrock): 36.6%
- Gerrards Cross UA: 36.4%
- Hertford/Ware UA: 36.2%
- Dorking UA: 34.9%
- Hatfield UA: 33.6%
- Redhill (Reigate) UA: 32.8%
- Grays UA (Thurrock): 32.7%
- Welwyn Garden City UA: 28.0%
- Slough UA: 26.0%

Keep in mind that these are not administrative districts but urban areas defined at the MSOA level. The Brentwood UA is smaller than the Borough of Brentwood. No MSOA belonging to the Borough of Brentwood make it in the London metro area. Sevenoaks UA fails to make it in the London metro area, but some MSOAs belonging to the Sevenoaks District do reach the 40% threshold to enter the London metro area (such as Swanley or Hartley) and are therefore included in the London metro area. On the other hand the Slough UA is larger than the Borough of Slough (but then even the Borough of Slough proper would not make it in the London metro area).

And for a few administrative districts:
- Medway: 20.2% (i.e. 20.2% of the people living in the district of Medway who are in employment work in the metropolitan area of London)
- Rushmoor: 19.4%
- Wokingham: 16.4%
- Luton: 15.6%
- Crawley: 10.5%
- Reading: 9.7%

Overall I've been really surprised by the weak pull of London. Of course I had always thought that places like Reading were not part of the London metro area, because they are urban centers strong enough to resist the pull of London, and I somehow expected that Slough would not make it in the London metro area after having had a quick glance at those MSOA commuting flow tables, but I frankly didn't expect that even Brentwood or Sevenoaks wouldn't make it into the London metro area!

Of course Paris also has neighboring urban areas which fail just short of making it into the Paris metro area (such as Creil UA or Senlis UA, where we're very near the 40% threshold), but these are located further away from the center of Paris than their peers around London. What we have here, is not just the fact that the green belt blocked the expansion of the London urban area, but it has also blocked the expansion of its metro area, because separate urban areas have formed that are strong enough to resist the pull of London and have their own labor markets.

This is not the only explanation though. There must be something in the pattern of employment and in the local vitality of communities in the South-East of England that make them resist the pull of London, contrary to the situation in the Paris Basin, where towns and cities tend to be weak and totally polarized by Paris. For example Meaux, an urban area of 72,000 inhabitants located as far from Notre Dame Cathedral as Rochester (Medway) from St Paul's Cathedral, a bishopric since the Roman Empire, a town which would be easily the size of Colchester or Rochester in England, is separated from the Paris urban area by some farmland, so it is its own urban area, and historically it was the capital of its own province distinct from the province of Paris, yet it sends more than 40% of its residents in employment to the Paris urban area (and that at the 1st iteration!). Medway, on the other hand, sends only 20.2% of its residents in employment to the London metro area (and only 19.1% to the London urban area at the 1st iteration).

So now, here are the results you're all anxiously waiting for.

London urban area: 2,928 km² / 9,869,043 inhabitants (March 27, 2011 census)
London metropolitan area: 3,976 km² / 10,229,887 inhabitants (March 27, 2011 census)

Paris urban area: 2,845 km² / 10,516,110 inhabitants (Jan. 1, 2011 census)
Paris metropolitan area: 17,174 km² / 12,292,895 inhabitants (Jan. 1, 2011 census)

Size of the commuter belt (INSEE definition using 40% threshold):
- London: 1,048 km² / density: 344 inh. per km²
- Paris: 14,330 km² / density: 124 inh. per km²

The London metropolitan area has less inhabitants than the Paris urban area! I would never have imagined that. I have used rigorously the same INSEE definition for London as is used for Paris. I have double-checked the calculations and maps several times.

We can notice that the commuter belt increases the population of London by 3.7% (from urban area to metro area), whereas it increases the population of Paris by 16.9%. The land area is increased by 36% in the case of London and by 504% in the case of Paris.

74% of the London metro area's surface is the urban area. Only 17% of the Paris metro area's surface is the urban area.

So what we have is two very morphologically different metropolitan areas. This is not unexpected though. London is located in a very dense region (the south-eastern corner of England), whereas Paris is located in a low-density region (the Paris Basin). Metro areas in dense regions are always comparatively smaller than those in low-density regions, and their commuter belts tend to be small, because they are blocked by neighboring urban areas strong enough to have their own catchment areas.

In France we can see that if we compare Toulouse, which lies in a low-density region, and Lille, which lies in a very dense region. The difference between these two metro areas is very similar to the one between Paris and London. The Toulouse metro area has more inhabitants than the Lille metro area, and is usually seen as a larger city than Lille in France, but the Toulouse metro area has 1,250,251 inhabitants (Jan. 2011) over 5,381 km² of land whereas the Lille metro area has 1,159,547 inhabitants (Jan. 2011) over only 926 km² of land. If we took a territory within a 60 km radius from the center of Lille, there would be more people (in fact much more people) living inside it than within 60 km from the center of Toulouse, but that doesn't mean the Lille metro area is more populated than the Toulouse metro area. It's the same with London: there probably live more people in a 60 km radius from St Paul's Cathedral than in a 60 km radius from Notre Dame Cathedral, but that doesn't mean the London metro area is more populated than the Paris metro area, as the figures now show beyond any doubt.

Last but not least, considering that London lies in a dense region and so is limited by neighboring urban areas, its metro area of 3,976 km² is in fact quite large for a metro area in a dense region (compare Lille and its 926 km²). With 3,976 km², the London metro area is smaller than the Toulouse metro area (5,381 km²) or the Lyon metro area (6,019 km²), but it is larger than the Nantes metro area (3,302 km²), which is one of the sprawliest French metro areas in a moderately dense region. This to put things in perspective.

Next week I'll try to make a calculation for the London metropolitan area if we used a 25% commute threshold instead of INSEE's 40% threshold, to see whether London at 25% would have more inhabitants than Paris at 40% (it will not be possible to calculate a Paris metro area at 25%, because INSEE has not published detailed commuting flow data, and in any case 25% would take us pretty, pretty far... for example Beauvais or Chartres could become part of the Paris metro area at 25%).

I will also make maps showing the London urban area and its commuter belt (at 40% and hopefully also at 25% threshold).

In the meantime, these maps below show the percentage of residents in employment in each department/county who commute to Paris & inner suburbs/Inner London. The two maps are at the same scale. This is how to read the maps: 32.9% of the residents of Seine-et-Marne who are in employment work either in the City of Paris or its inner suburbs. 31.5% of the residents of Outer London in employment work in Inner London.

[New Brisavoine]

INSEE has just published the total fertility rates (TFR) for the French regions and departments as of 2013.

In 2013, the TFR in Metropolitan France (the European part of France) declined slightly, from 1.99 in 2012 to 1.98 in 2013. One region was above replacement rate (replacement of generations, set at 2.075 children per woman in the developed world): Nord-Pas de Calais, with 2.11 in 2013. Two regions were nearly at replacement rate: Pays de la Loire and Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, both at 2.07. A few other regions were close to replacement rate: Picardy (2.06), Upper Normandy (2.03), Centre-Vale of the Loire (2.02), the Paris Region (2.01), Rhône-Alpes (2.00).

At the other end of the spectrum, Corsica had a TFR of only 1.51 (down from 1.64 in 2011), Limousin only 1.78, and Aquitaine only 1.79.

Alsace had a TFR of 1.83 in 2013, compared to 1.41 in neighboring Baden‑Württemberg. Franche-Comté had a TFR of 1.98, significantly higher than in the neighboring Swiss cantons of Jura (1.67), Neuchâtel (1.52), and Vaud (1.60).

Alpes-Maritimes (French Riviera) had a TFR of 1.92, compared to only 1.34 in Italy's Liguria. Pyrénées-Orientales ("Northern Catalonia") had a TFR of 1.99, compared to 1.34 in (Spain's) Catalonia, and 1.46 in the neighboring province of Girona. Pyrénées-Atlantiques (French Basque Country + Béarn) had a TFR of 1.70, compared to 1.30 in the Spanish Basque Country and 1.36 in Navarre.

Overseas, the TFR in French Guiana remained pretty high at 3.49 in 2013. In Réunion the TFR also remained high at 2.40. In comparison, neighboring Mauritius had a TFR of only 1.44 in 2013 (down from 1.54 in 2012, and 1.92 in 2004). The TFR of Guadeloupe was at 2.17 in 2013, whereas Martinique renewed with a rather low fertility rate at just 1.90 in 2013.

[New Brisavoine]

Here is the TFR of the main metropolitan areas in France and the UK in 2013.

TRF in 2013:
- Bouches-du-Rhône (Marseille metro area): 2.14
- Nord (Lille, Valenciennes, Dunkirk): 2.09
- West Midlands County (Greater Birmingham): 2.03
- Loire-Atlantique (Nantes metro area): 2.02
- Rhône (Lyon metro area): 2.01
- Paris Region: 2.01
FRANCE: 1.99
METROPOLITAN FRANCE: 1.98
- West Yorkshire (Leeds-Bradford metro area): 1.94 (Bradford 2.21; Leeds only 1.77)
- Greater Manchester: 1.92
- Alpes-Maritimes (Nice metro area): 1.92
- Bristol metro area: between 1.74 and 2.01 for its constituent parts
UNITED KINGDOM: 1.83
- Bas-Rhin (Strasbourg, Haguenau): 1.80
- Cardiff metro area: between 1.68 and 2.01 for its constituent parts
- Gironde (Bordeaux metro area): 1.78
- Haute-Garonne (Toulouse metro area): 1.78
- South Yorkshire (Sheffield-Doncaster metro area): 1.78
- Greater London: 1.74
- Merseyside (Greater Liverpool): 1.74
- Tyne and Wear (Newcastle metro area): 1.67
- Glasgow metro area: between 1.46 and 1.88 for its constituent parts

It seems the birth bubble in the UK is pretty much over.

Also, we can notice that despite less immigration, Paris has a much higher TFR than London, which should definitely nail the coffin of this myth that the high TFR in France is due to the immigrants.

[New Brisavoine]

I've calculated the metropolitan area of Manchester, UK by using INSEE's definition of the metropolitan areas (see post #427 above).

As was the case for London, the Manchester metro area attracts only very few towns. It is surrounded by urban areas strong enough to resist its pull. The only urban areas that it attracts (40% commuter threshold) are Marple, New Mills, and Westhoughton. Warrington and Macclesfield are definitely not part of the Manchester metro area (only 13.7% of residents from the Borough of Warrington who are in employment commute to the metro area of Manchester; only 23.1% of residents from the urban area of Macclesfield who are in employment commute to the metro area of Manchester).

Of note, the Manchester metro area does not include the urban area of Wigan (but it does include parts of the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan which are either physically joined with Manchester or attracted enough by it as is the case with Westhoughton). The urban area of Wigan is physically separate from the urban area of Manchester, and strong enough to resist its pull (only about 15% of its residents in employment commute to the Manchester metro area despite the fact that the latter includes nearby places such as Hindley, Westhoughton, or Bolton).

In total, the metro area of Manchester covers all of the Greater Manchester metropolitan county except for the western part of the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan, and it extends in places beyond Greater Manchester because some towns lying across the border are part of the built-up area of Manchester, and therefore of its urban area and metro area (such as Glossop, Wilmslow, or even Newton-le-Willows in Merseyside). The borough of High Peak in Derbyshire is the one whose territory is the most engulfed by the Manchester metro area. The metro area stops sharply at the border of West Yorkshire (not even a village beyond the border is attracted by the Manchester metro area).

And now the figures you were all waiting for.

Built-up area of Manchester (defined at the Output Area level):
- land area: 630 km²
- population (March 27, 2011 census): 2,553,379

Manchester urban area (defined at the MSOA level, which is equal to French communes):
- land area: 1,331 km²
- population (March 27, 2011 census): 2,569,033

Manchester metro area (INSEE definition, 40% threshold):
- land area: 1,470 km²
- population (March 27, 2011 census): 2,639,762

For comparison:

Lyon metro area:
- land area: 6,019 km²
- population (Jan. 1, 2011 census): 2,188,759

Lille metro area (French part + Mouscron and Comines-Warneton in Belgium):
- land area: 1,027 km²
- population (Jan. 1, 2011 census): 1,232,602

The Manchester metro area resembles the Lille metro area a lot. A conurbation surrounded by other urban areas strong enough to resist its pull, and therefore a small metro area (in terms of surface). For example in the case of Lille, the Lille metro area fails to attract the nearby urban areas of Armentières or Carvin (Armentières is as close from the center of Lille as Marple from the center of Manchester, yet less than 40% of its residents in employment commute to Lille contrary to Marple where the 40% threshold is crossed). The Lille metro area attracts only a few smaller urban areas such as Orchies or Wavrin.

Lyon, on the other hand, is a typical French metro area surrounded by rather empty countryside and therefore free to expand for miles and miles without being blocked by other urban areas (although whenever it meets a significant urban settlement, its expansion does get blocked, such as in the case of Vienne which blocks the expansion of the Lyon metro area towards the south).

Next I will calculate the metro area of Birmingham. We will finally be able to solve the mystery of which city is the 2nd largest in the UK.

[New Brisavoine]

I have completed the calculation for the metro area of Birmingham using INSEE's definition of the metro areas (see here for explanations).

As was the case for London and Manchester, the Birmingham metro area attracts few towns. The only significant urban areas outside of the West Midlands County that are attracted by the Birmingham metro area (40% threshold) are Wombourne, Codsall, and Coven in South Staffordshire, as well as Coleshill in North Warwickshire, and then some smaller settlements like Belbroughton and Romsley in Bromsgrove District.

Outside of the West Midlands County, the Birmingham metro area also includes towns such as Hagley, Rubery, and Hollywood in Bromsgrove District, Perton and Essington in South Staffordshire, or Little Aston in Lichfield District because these towns are physically joined to the Birmingham built-up area (they are part of the Birmingham urban area).

In total, the Birmingham metro area extends over all the West Midlands County except the Metropolitan Borough of Coventry and the eastern extremities of the Metropolitan Borough of Solihull (Balsall Common, Meriden; in Balsall Common 29.4% of the local residents who are in employment commute to work in the Birmingham metro area and 16.3% commute to work in the Metropolitan Borough of Coventry). The metro area extends beyond the West Midlands County in the places that I have mentioned above, plus a few other smaller settlements.

South Staffordshire is the district which is the most engulfed by the Birmingham metro area (only Penkridge, Brewood, Wheaton Aston, and the suburbs of Cannock escape the orbit of the Birmingham metro area). A large part of the Bromsgrove District is also inside the Birmingham metro area, but not the Bromsgrove urban area (only 28.4% of the residents from the Bromsgrove urban area who are in employment commute to work in the nearby Birmingham metro area).

In the urban area of Cannock, only 26.7% of the residents in employment commute to work in the Birmingham metro area. Finally in the Metropolitan Borough of Coventry, only 5.6% of the residents in employment commute to work in the Birmingham metro area. It's quite bizarre that they have joined the two into the same metropolitan county.

And now for the figures that you were waiting for.

Built-up area of Birmingham (defined at the Output Area level):
- land area: 599 km²
- population (March 27, 2011 census): 2,440,986

Birmingham urban area (defined at the MSOA level, which is equal to French communes):
- land area: 840 km²
- population (March 27, 2011 census): 2,447,636

Birmingham metro area (INSEE definition, 40% threshold):
- land area: 1,097 km²
- population (March 27, 2011 census): 2,520,673

And the 2nd largest metropolitan area in the UK is...

- Manchester metro area (1,470 km²): 2,639,762 inhabitants
- Birmingham metro area (1,097 km²): 2,520,673 inhabitants

This should finally settle the question once and for all! Even if we used a lower threshold than 40%, it's unlikely that the Birmingham metro area could pass the Manchester metro area. And if push came to shove, we could always merge Manchester with Liverpool into a mega-metro area, whereas there is nothing the size of Liverpool that can be merged with Birmingham.

So now, let's compare the 3 largest metro areas of France and the UK, as of Jan. 1, 2012 (2012 census figures for France, post-censal population estmates for the UK).

Population of the metropolitan areas on Jan. 1, 2012 (INSEE definition, 40% threshold):
- Paris: 12,341,418
- London: 10,326,645
- Manchester: 2,651,145
- Birmingham: 2,532,642
- Lyon: 2,214,068
- Marseille: 1,727,070

The Manchester and Birmingham metro areas are larger than the Lyon metro area, but the Lyon metro area is growing faster than them (despite lower international immigration). Here below is the average growth in the last 5 years available (from Jan. 2007 to Jan. 2012). I have calculated this within the exact limits of the metro areas at the MSOA level.

Average growth rate 2007-2012:
- Lyon metro area: +1.08% per year
- Birmingham metro area: +0.80% per year
- Manchester metro area: +0.77% per year

Absolute population growth 2007-2012:
- Lyon metro area: +23,172 people per year
- Manchester metro area: +19,931 people per year
- Birmingham metro area: +19,862 people per year

The growth of Manchester and Birmingham is remarkably similar. In France, with ca. +0.8% per year, the Manchester and Birmingham metro areas would rank above the average in terms of population growth. Not among the fast growing metro areas like Toulouse, Bordeaux, Montpellier, Rennes, or Nantes, but growing much faster than the likes of Rouen, Lille, Valenciennes, Strasbourg, Metz, or Nancy, which is somehow odd from a French perspective because Manchester and Birmingham are very similar to Rouen, Lille, Valenciennes, Strasbourg, Metz, or Nancy in terms of their industrial history (these French metro areas from the Industrial Revolution would dream of a growth rate of +0.8% per year, but this is unattainable for them as long as France remains an anti-immigration country under the sway of the Le Pen ideology).

[New Brisavoine]

Now that we have precise and homogeneous definitions for the 3 largest metro areas in the UK and in France, here are some economic comparisons.

First the number of jobs in each metro area in 2011 based on the number of jobs in the MSOAs at the UK March 2011 census and in the communes at the Jan. 2011 census. Note that these census figures underestimate the real number of jobs by 5% to 10%, but the underestimate is roughly the same in the French and in the UK censuses, so the figures can be compared with each other.

Number of jobs in early 2011:
- metro area of Paris: 5,768,524
- metro area of London: 5,447,592
- metro area of Manchester: 1,226,158
- metro area of Birmingham: 1,088,876
- metro area of Lyon: 985,251
- metro area of Marseille: 684,593

Next, let's look at the GDP of these 6 metro areas. Eurostat has finally published the rebased (2010 rebasing including essentially R&D, and then other stuff such as the much talked about prostitution revenues, in the GDP of each country/region) regional GDP figures complete as of 2012.

In order to calculate the exact GDP of each metro area, what I've done is I've taken each NUTS-3 region, and counted the number of jobs inside the NUTS-3 which belonged to MSOAs or communes of each metro area, and then I've assigned the GDP of the NUTS-3 to each metro area in proportion of the number of metropolitan jobs there (so for example, given that 70.8% of the jobs in Surrey are located in MSOAs which belong to the London metro area, I've assigned 70.8% of Surrey's GDP to the London metro area).

The method is the best estimate we can get for metropolitan GDPs in the absence of detailed GDP figures at the MSOA and commune level (I doubt that detailed figures would retrieve a result much different than those below anyway).

GDP in 2012 (in US dollars at market exchange rates):
- metro area of Paris: 810.8 billion US dollars
- metro area of London: 676.9 billion US dollars
- metro area of Lyon: 109.1
- metro area of Manchester: 95.6
- metro area of Birmingham: 85.8
- metro area of Marseille: 74.9

Regarding the fluctuation of exchange rates recently, what I've done is I've looked at the GDP growth of each metro area in 2013 (we don't have GDP figures for the French NUTS-3 in 2013 yet, but growth rates can be estimated with the NUTS-2 regions; no data are available for 2014 yet), and then estimated the GDP of each metro area in 2013. Based on these 2013 figures, it looks like the GDP of the London metro area would be higher than the GDP of the Paris metro area if the pound was worth more than 1.44 euros. The GDP of the Manchester metro area would be higher than the GDP of the Lyon metro area if the pound was worth more than 1.37 euros. The GDP of the Birmingham metro area would be higher than the GDP of the Lyon metro area if the pound was worth more than 1.53 euros.

So it looks like Paris has an economy firmly larger than the London economy (due to the small size of the London metro area), whereas Lyon and Manchester are currently more or less on par given the very high value of the pound at the moment, but Lyon will again be ahead of Manchester when the pound falls back to more normal levels. It's quite impressive considering that Lyon has a smaller job market than Manchester, but I guess it says more about the complete disregard for the northern English cities by the British government in the past 30 years than about any Lyonnaise prowess (although Lyon does have a GDP per capita roughly similar to Milan, so it's a nice achievement nonetheless).

Finally, let's compare the economy of these metro areas to the economy of the US MSAs.

GDP in 2012 (in US dollars at market exchange rates):
- New York MSA: 1,435.3 billion US dollars
- Los Angeles MSA + Riverside-San Bernardino MSA: 926.5
- metro area of Paris: 810.8
- metro area of London: 676.9
- Chicago MSA: 575.8
- San Francisco-Oakland MSA + San Jose MSA: 564.4
- Houston MSA: 489.2
- Washington MSA: 460.0
- Dallas MSA: 432.4
...
...
...
- Pittsburgh MSA: 127.0
- Cleveland MSA: 120.4
- Indianapolis MSA: 120.3
- Tampa-St. Petersburg MSA: 117.7
- Cincinnati MSA: 115.1
- Kansas City MSA: 114.0
- metro area of Lyon: 109.1
- Columbus MSA: 108.8
- Orlando MSA: 106.4
- Sacramento MSA: 103.5
- Austin MSA: 100.1
- Nashville MSA: 97.3
- metro area of Manchester: 95.6
- Milwaukee MSA: 92.2
- San Antonio MSA: 91.9
- Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk MSA: 91.4
- Las Vegas MSA: 89.1
- Virginia Beach-Norfolk MSA: 86.9
- metro area of Birmingham: 85.8
- Hartford MSA: 84.3
- New Orleans MSA: 82.4
- metro area of Marseille: 74.9
- Salt Lake City MSA: 73.5

Nashville has an economy larger than Manchester! I wonder what the Victorians would have thought of that...

[JGreat]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

Nashville has an economy larger than Manchester! I wonder what the Victorians would have thought of that...

I wonder what Napoleon would think about Hartford being larger than Marseille

[New Brisavoine]

^^He foresaw it actually. That's why he sold the Louisiana Territory to the US, so they would become a big country that would topple the UK from its pedestal. Mission accomplished!

[nito]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

^^He foresaw it actually. That's why he sold the Louisiana Territory to the US, so they would become a big country that would topple the UK from its pedestal. Mission accomplished!

I think you’re stretching history a bit because the decline of the UK as a global superpower didn’t materialise until some 150 years later. And even with the decline of the UK on the world stage, the UK has been the closest ally of the US for many years and (along with Canada and Australia) affirmed Anglo-Saxon global hegemony; I sincerely doubt that was Napoleon’s intentions.

The Louisiana Purchase (along with the successful Haiti insurrection shortly thereafter) more accurately cemented the decline of France in the western hemisphere and laid the foundations which ultimately consolidated Britain’s position as the global power of the era. Napoleon hoped to use the additional coinage from the Louisiana Purchase to dominate Europe, and he came close, but thankfully his megalomaniac campaign was finally brought to an end and later this month (the 18th), Europe will celebrate the bicentennial of his demise at Waterloo.

The Fight for the Standard

Image sourced from BBC Your Paintings: http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpainti...waterloo177244

[Centropolis]

the louisiana territory was being over run by what were called generally "kentuckians," fleeing taxes and from whatever else stomping towards the west, so it was unavoidable that the louisiana territory would not stay under control of a preoccupied european power. the spanish had sort of let the laid back francophones do generally whatever they wanted but dealing with the unruly kentuckians (much less the yankees) would have been a fracas royale.

[fern]

The UK population grew by almost half a million last year to 64,596,800, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-33266792