Naming US metropolitan areas

[DCReid]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

My point was more to show that San Jose was not even top fiddle in Santa Calra County, rather than to show that San Francisco is not nearly as dominant as it should be, but I guess both are true!

When was this data taken; it seems low. I wonder what it proves as I suspect many people who work in San Francisco live there. Also, downtown SF has a decent size downtown in office space, but it is not super large and dominant as say NYC and Chicago downtown. I think San Francisco is the dominant city in Northern California as it is considered the cultural and historical hub. It is true that SF may no longer be dominant in business with the rise of Silicon Valley, but Silicon Valley is really a multi-mode cluster of cities. But the city most people think of in northern California is San Francisco. Perhaps it's a reason why SF and San Jose are separate metros by the US census.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by DCReid

When was this data taken; it seems low.

Caltrain doesn't have super high passenger counts. I mean, for a single line, in the U.S. context, it has decent ridership, but not really that many commuters.

Also, the Caltrain SF station isn't right downtown, so isn't super-convenient to a big part of the core, likely limiting ridership.

[ocman]

Originally Posted by Crawford

It suggests the Bay Area, as expected, has much more diffuse commuting patterns than, say, Chicago. I imagine Stanford plays a big role, but it's kinda amazing that puny Palo Alto has half the passenger count as SF. Imagine if Evanston or Hyde Park carried half the passengers of the downtown Chicago stations.

Bay Area really is a region rather than a traditional metro area, with an universally identifiable, dominant center.

More than Stanford, the Palo Alto station is where you finally hit east Palo Alto, where the higher concentration of low-income residents are less likely to own a car and more dependent on public transit to get to/from work. But yeah, commuting pattern data is meaningless in this discussion.

[craigs]

San Jose loses population on workdays, when its residents commute to their tech jobs in other suburbs like Santa Clara and Mountain View. This "capital of Silicon Valley" moniker was a successful P.R. campaign. San Jose is the bedroom of Silicon Valley.

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by ocman

More than Stanford, the Palo Alto station is where you finally hit east Palo Alto, where the higher concentration of low-income residents are less likely to own a car and more dependent on public transit to get to/from work. But yeah, commuting pattern data is meaningless in this discussion.

That is not the typical Caltrain rider in Palo Alto. There are a lot of Caltrain commuters to Stanford though... if you don't want to live on campus as a grad student or postdoc or junior faculty member (yes, Stanford provides housing for faculty...), then Palo Alto is likely unaffordable so many commute from Mountain View or Redwood City (or even Potrero or Dogpath).

[ocman]

Originally Posted by craigs

San Jose loses population on workdays, when its residents commute to their tech jobs in other suburbs like Santa Clara and Mountain View. This "capital of Silicon Valley" moniker was a successful P.R. campaign. San Jose is the bedroom of Silicon Valley.

Sunnyvale -80K
Santa Clara -67K
San Mateo-57K
Mountain View -46K
Redwood City -46K
Palo Alto -33K
Cupertino -27K
Menlo Park -16K

San Jose -545K


This is a rough google search of city employment data I got from datausa.io/.

SJ has 1/3 of the population of SV, so it would also lose population during the day compared to cities where few people live.



*San Francisco: 537K

[mhays]

Central cities usually gain population during the day.

[ocman]

Central cities usually also have the largest population.

[ThePhun1]

Usually but not always.

[jd3189]

Is the Bay Area the only metro in the US or world in which the major city isn’t the largest in population? I can’t think of anywhere else with that dynamic.

[ThePhun1]

Probably Hampton Roads qualifies.

[mhays]

Sometimes a secondary city has simply annexed an enormous amount of land. That's the case with SJ.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by jd3189

Is the Bay Area the only metro in the US or world in which the major city isn’t the largest in population? I can’t think of anywhere else with that dynamic.

Washington?

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by jd3189

Is the Bay Area the only metro in the US or world in which the major city isn’t the largest in population? I can’t think of anywhere else with that dynamic.

It's common for the major city to be a small fraction of the population, and then how that's apportioned around other municipalities may not be so important.

In the US, someone mentioned Hampton Roads. I think Cape Coral is also bigger than Ft. Myers. North Charleston is almost as big as Charleston, for example, and it wouldn't be surprising if it overtook Charleston. St. Louis County is bigger than St. Louis, although it's not a unified city I get the impression it sometimes kind of acts like one.

One notable global example is that Quezon City is bigger than Manila. New Taipei City is also bigger than Taipei.

[craigs]

Originally Posted by ocman

Sunnyvale -80K
Santa Clara -67K
San Mateo-57K
Mountain View -46K
Redwood City -46K
Palo Alto -33K
Cupertino -27K
Menlo Park -16K

San Jose -545K


This is a rough google search of city employment data I got from datausa.io/.

SJ has 1/3 of the population of SV, so it would also lose population during the day compared to cities where few people live.



*San Francisco: 537K

Where are you getting your numbers?

[lio45]

Originally Posted by jd3189

Is the Bay Area the only metro in the US or world in which the major city isn’t the largest in population? I can’t think of anywhere else with that dynamic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Victoria is another metro area where the central city isn't the one that has the highest population.

Vancouver could become like this soon, I think Surrey is on track to pass Vancouver soon-ish at current growth rates.

[KB0679]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Washington?

Huh?

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by KB0679

Huh?

I assume he's referring to Baltimore, which traditionally had a larger population than DC, though no longer, I think.

Also, if you want to be super-pedantic, the District of Columbia isn't an incorporated city, but a federal district.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I assume he's referring to Baltimore, which traditionally had a larger population than DC, though no longer, I think.

The swap occurred rather quickly and definitively over the course of the last decade with DC's fast growth and Baltimore's continued slide.


2010 pop.:

Baltimore - 621K
DC - 602K



2019 estimate:

Baltimore - 593K
DC - 706K

[Zeej]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

The change over occurred rather quickly and definitively over the course of the last decade with DC's fast growth and Baltimore's continued slide.


2010 pop.:

Baltimore - 621K
DC - 602K



2019 estimate:

Baltimore - 593K
DC - 706K

How much further does Baltimore have to slide? St. Louis as well for that matter - about to fall below 300,000.

It seems as though Detroit and Pittsburgh have just about leveled out, while Cincinnati has slowly been recovering from it's bottom and other municipalities such as Newark and Minneapolis have been growing steadily once again.