Combined, Washington-Baltimore now outsizes Chicago as America’s 3rd largest CSA
Combined, Washington-Baltimore now outsizes Chicago as America’s third largest metropolis
There are many ways to measure the population of regions. According to one that combines Washington & Baltimore, our region has passed Chicago to become the third largest metropolis in the United States. For most of the past century or so, the United States’ three largest cities have been, unshakably, New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. That’s still true according to most measures: Most populous municipalities: NY, LA, Chicago (DC is 23rd) Most populous metropolitan areas: NY, LA, Chicago (DC is 6th) Most populous urbanized areas: NY, LA, Chicago (DC is 8th) Most populous media markets: NY, LA, Chicago (DC is 9th) But in one measure, Combined Statistical Areas (CSAs), that logjam just broke. CSAs combine adjacent metropolitan areas with shared commuter markets. If a high enough percentage of commuters in one metro area commute into another, you get a CSA. Washington and Baltimore are combined. So is Los Angeles and its Inland Empire of Riverside & San Bernardino. So are San Francisco and San Jose, Boston and Providence, Detroit and Flint, Cleveland and Akron, Denver and Boulder, and 165 other combinations nationwide. The Census does combine Chicago into a CSA with Ottawa, IL, Kankakee, IL, and Michigan City, IN, but nearby Milwaukee doesn’t make the cut. And according to that measurement method, the 2021 Census estimates show Washington-Baltimore surpassing Chicago for the first time. Ten most populous CSAs https://ggwash.org/images/made/image...00_330_90.jpeg https://ggwash.org/view/amp/84981 |
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Another interesting thing to note is that L.A. has occupied the #2 slot for about as long as Chicago did. Philadelphia held the #2 slot far longer, and I don't think there's an immediate threat to L.A., but if history holds then we might have a new #2 within the next 2-3 decades. https://www.peakbagger.com/pbgeog/HistMetroPop2010.jpg source: https://www.peakbagger.com/pbgeog/histmetropop.aspx |
I have to wait until 8 years before it becomes the New York-Jersey City, NY-NJ-CT-PA CSA. One day. lol
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https://www2.census.gov/library/publ...03/pc-3-03.pdf New York 12,831,914 Chicago 5,475,535 Los Angeles 4,339,225 Philadelphia 3,660,676 Detroit 2,973,019 You will also see in that document that in 1940: Philadelphia 3,199,637 Los Angeles 2,916,403 LA most likely had surpassed Philly by the mid-40s. It's not entirely inaccurate to say that LA was a top-three population center for most of the 20th century. Quote:
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I see that the Statistics Canada thread in the Canada forum seems to be causing more controversy than here. It always does whenever the Canadian census gets released.
That aside, WOW I never knew that Washington-Baltimore was that large! I've always assumed that it hovered around 6..Ditto for Boston..I guess CSA'S are a different counting method than MSA'S? |
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That's crazy talk. |
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I tried a while ago to figure out the 'real' numbers for the LA area, trimming off disconnected zones like Lancaster/Palmdale. It was a bit less than 16 million, as I recall. The DC-Baltimore blob is very diffuse and sprawls all over the place, all the way into West Virginia. It feels very different from a typical 10+ million-person megacity. |
How long until we have the "Chicago-Milwaukee CSA"?
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Points in favor: 1. Updated integrated transit infrastructure leads to higher commuter interchange could lead to a single MSA on its own, but also: 2. The OMB has been considering updating criteria to include unbuildable terrain as a possible de facto restriction to consider contextually on the minimum width necessary to combine two currently separate UAs into a single UA. If they do this, San Fran and San Jose would likely become the same UA (they remain uncombined because there is not a continuous 5 mile wide band of tracts, because of the underlying geography, at the residential density threshold to be combined). If the UA is combined, the MSAs are automatically combined and they would likely simply be separate MSA divisions at that point. I will go on record as saying that I do think these changes are eventually going to happen. 3. Current population trajectories of the CSA have it still growing whereas Los Angeles’s MSA has it plateaud. If Los Angeles metro has two more decades of slightly red growth, if the Bay Area (SF metro notwithstanding) as a whole continues to grow at close to the pace they are currently growing, the Bay Area would come out about tied with LA. Points in rebuttal: 4. Los Angeles’s CSA may also eventually become its MSA as well, which would completely put out of contention any other MSA in the entire country from eclipsing it. This fact may be driven by two factors: A. the same changes OMB has been considering MAY (although not guaranteed) also affect LA/Riverside; and B. population growth in Riverside, etc. is being driven by super-commuters priced out of LA’s pricing crisis. 5. Those are a LOT of “what ifs” in the support column. Wildcards: 6. New counties for SF? If SA/SF become a single MSA, that would necessitate other changes as well. The single metro would have a new set of “core counties” — this larger set of counties would be the basis of commuter aggregation for all outlying counties. This by definition would capture more outlying counties. ————— All this to say, we don’t know what the future holds except many possibilities. |
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The author would likely say that the data cannot support the bold assertion that the Los Angeles MSA became top 3 in 1950. Firstly, the author expressly does not use MSAs. Secondly, the ad hoc decisions the author made (without a full list of those decisions) make comparisons harder so we can’t be sure it was top 3 in their data. We can be sure that it was one of the largest, however. Top 5, at minimum. Thirdly, because they use different data for different years, we also can’t be sure about 1950 either—so let us build in some error to your analysis (and give it some color): This data presentations suggests that the current second most populated city-based region in the country, Los Angeles and it’s surroundings, developed into one of the top five largest population centers during the period from 1920 until 1970, competing during this time period with cities (and their surroundings) such as Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, Boston, and San Francisco. Since 1970, 20 years after the advent of “metropolitan statistical areas,” Los Angeles has remained as yet uneclipsed as the second most populated city-dominated urban region of the United States both in the census data and by this author’s judgment. |
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They are totally different cities. Let them remain that way. But I think CSAs are kinda dumb, so....... |
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Not gonna happen. |
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Los Angeles will remain in that position till the 22nd century. |
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It is true that the Sierra Pelona Ridge physically separates that area from the Valley and the Basin beyond, but it is also true that (pre-pandemic), the annual average daily traffic on the 14 at Sierra Highway, which consists of traffic moving between the growing Lancaster/Palmdale area and the rest of greater LA, was 210,000 vehicles. The calculation includes weekend days, so it's likely that more than 105,000 commuters made workday round trips between Lancaster/Palmdale and the job centers in the Valley and beyond. And that is out of a total Lancaster/Palmdale population of roughly 342,966. I don't know the number of working-age adults out of that population, but it is certain that a very high ratio of employed adults in Lancaster/Palmdale commute to work in the rest of greater LA. Alternatively, a lot of those trips are big rigs moving goods between the harbor and inland distribution centers--which, combined with frequent cargo rail service along the same route, indicates another inseverable economic link between Lancaster/Palmdale and the rest of greater LA. Meanwhile, MetroLink provides 14 daily trains in each direction between Lancaster/Palmdale and Los Angeles Union Station--and those are one-seat trips. Would a truly "disconnected" area have such a frequent, one-seat commuter rail connection to downtown LA? I don't think so. |
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With sky-high COL, geographic constraints, and NIMBYs, how/where do you see the Bay Area adding an additional 3+ million residents over the course of a few decades? I mean, DFW CSA has "only" added 2.6 million since 2000. |
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Why proffer a far-fetched, “bold assertion” with more “points in favor” than “rebuttal,” only to essentially conclude with a blanket obvious statement? Basically there was no point to your post. Should’ve included a “TL;DR” at the end there.
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