Demographia World Urban Areas March 2014

[GreaterMontréal]

comparing the size ... the urban GTA is 883 square miles.. take the first 883 square miles of urban NY

[softee]

^ Yeah, but that's just taking an inner portion of one city's urban area and comparing it to another city's entire urban area...

We're comparing various city's entire urban areas here.

[dc_denizen]

Western and Canadian metros tend not to sprawl at the edges compared to the east coast and southern US, thus the urban area definition is more clean cut for those areas. Should we include 500 square miles (guessing here) of forested exurbs in Suffolk County and Long Island in NYC's urban area? Sure they fall within the urban area definition but hold only the tail end of the population distribution.

I bet that 20% of NYC's urban area mileage could be cut out, with a loss of only 5% of urban area population.

Normally I agree urban areas are the best comparison but I think a case can be made for looking at a subset. I guess this is what weighted population density gets at however.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by unusualfire

Are you comparing the city of NYC to another metro's urban area?

The point is that there are far more people in a far smaller geography, so it's disingenuous to call the less dense area denser by adding thousands of miles of area to one and not the other.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

I bet that 20% of NYC's urban area mileage could be cut out, with a loss of only 5% of urban area population.

It's actually a far more dramatic difference. Most of the CSA lives within the city proper and older suburban counties. Relatively few people live in the outer counties.

The following NYC CSA counties (1/3 of the counties in CSA and far more than 1/3 the land) have minimal population and collectively cover huge territory-

Putnam County
Dutchess County
Sussex County
Hunterdon County
Pike County
Warren County
Carbon County
Litchfield County
Ulster County
Monroe County

Then there are counties like Suffolk, Bergen, Ocean, Westchester, Rockland, Fairfield and New Haven, most of which are extreme low density, but have small pockets of high density housing the majority of residents.

[memph]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

I think of the big North American urban areas, LA and Toronto are the densest, followed by SF, followed by NYC, followed by Miami and Chicago.

The interesting question is how much population and sq miles could you chop off of New York's urban area to equate to LA or Toronto's density (7000/sq mile).

Depending on what you call big, you'd have other cities in there

LA
Toronto
SF
Montreal
NYC
Vancouver
Las Vegas
Miami
a few others
then Chicago

I prefer weighted density as a measure though, it's just that for international comparisons that data is usually not available.

[ue]

Originally Posted by memph

Depending on what you call big, you'd have other cities in there

LA
Toronto
SF
Montreal
NYC
Vancouver
Las Vegas
Miami
a few others
then Chicago

I prefer weighted density as a measure though, it's just that for international comparisons that data is usually not available.

Vancouver and Vegas?

In terms of 'big' cities, I'd keep it to the following

Mexico City
New York City
Los Angeles
Chicago
Bay Area
Dallas
Houston
Toronto
Miami
Washington
Montreal
Atlanta

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Crawford

It's actually a far more dramatic difference. Most of the CSA lives within the city proper and older suburban counties. Relatively few people live in the outer counties.

The following NYC CSA counties (1/3 of the counties in CSA and far more than 1/3 the land) have minimal population and collectively cover huge territory-

Putnam County
Dutchess County
Sussex County
Hunterdon County
Pike County
Warren County
Carbon County
Litchfield County
Ulster County
Monroe County

Then there are counties like Suffolk, Bergen, Ocean, Westchester, Rockland, Fairfield and New Haven, most of which are extreme low density, but have small pockets of high density housing the majority of residents.

The population weighted density of the New York CBSA is +31K/square mile. People in the New York area live in what is by far the most densely built urban environment in the U.S. or Canada, and one of the most dense environments in the world. It's not Mumbai, but New York and Mumbai are both well into a category of super metro that no other city in the U.S. or Canada has reached.

[JDRCRASH]

^ From a "super metro" standpoint, LA is probably gonna be there in the next 10-20 years for sure.

[Zapatan]

Originally Posted by ue

Vancouver and Vegas?

In terms of 'big' cities, I'd keep it to the following

Mexico City
New York City
Los Angeles
Chicago
Bay Area
Dallas
Houston
Toronto
Miami
Washington
Montreal
Atlanta

Philadelphia is bigger than several of those cities.

[ue]

^ So add Philly to the list.

[Ch.G, Ch.G]

Originally Posted by JDRCRASH

^ From a "super metro" standpoint, LA is probably gonna be there in the next 10-20 years for sure.

LA and SD?

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by JDRCRASH

^ From a "super metro" standpoint, LA is probably gonna be there in the next 10-20 years for sure.

From a population weighted density standpoint, L.A. is slightly behind S.F., which is a far distant second to NYC. I'm not sure L.A. will feel like a super city of the likes of a NYC, Tokyo, etc., in our life times since it would have to dramatically densify in its core to achieve that.

America's top 5 by weighted density (average density in parens):

1. New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA: 31,251 (2,826)
2. San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA: 12,145 (1,755)
3. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, CA: 12,114 (2,646)
4. Honolulu, HI: 11,548 (1,587)
5. Chicago-Joliet-Naperville, IL-IN-WI: 8,613 (1,315)

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/hou...t-metros/3450/

Population weighted density, at least in the context of American cities, is a much better way to compare density for MSAs since it removes the bias of big empty counties on the periphery.

[edluva]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

From a population weighted density standpoint, L.A. is slightly behind S.F., which is a far distant second to NYC. I'm not sure L.A. will feel like a super city of the likes of a NYC, Tokyo, etc., in our life times since it would have to dramatically densify in its core to achieve that.

America's top 5 by weighted density (average density in parens):

1. New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA: 31,251 (2,826)
2. San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA: 12,145 (1,755)
3. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, CA: 12,114 (2,646)
4. Honolulu, HI: 11,548 (1,587)
5. Chicago-Joliet-Naperville, IL-IN-WI: 8,613 (1,315)

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/hou...t-metros/3450/

Population weighted density, at least in the context of American cities, is a much better way to compare density for MSAs since it removes the bias of big empty counties on the periphery.

i wouldn't even put NY and Tokyo in the same league, as Tokyo has a much much higher density than NY outside of it's core.

[Ch.G, Ch.G]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

From a population weighted density standpoint, L.A. is slightly behind S.F., which is a far distant second to NYC. I'm not sure L.A. will feel like a super city of the likes of a NYC, Tokyo, etc., in our life times since it would have to dramatically densify in its core to achieve that.

America's top 5 by weighted density (average density in parens):

1. New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA: 31,251 (2,826)
2. San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA: 12,145 (1,755)
3. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, CA: 12,114 (2,646)
4. Honolulu, HI: 11,548 (1,587)
5. Chicago-Joliet-Naperville, IL-IN-WI: 8,613 (1,315)

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/hou...t-metros/3450/

Population weighted density, at least in the context of American cities, is a much better way to compare density for MSAs since it removes the bias of big empty counties on the periphery.

Thanks for this. Unfortunately, the number for SF doesn't appear to include San Jose and LA doesn't include the Inland Empire.