How Big Would you Consider the Actual City of LA to be?

[LA21st]

Originally Posted by plinko

Living 66 miles west of city hall, I always think of ‘the city’ as from when you come down the hill on the 101 at Valley Circle and the entire SFV (if it’s clear) spreads before you. It’s city all the way across to about the 605. In the basin you could probably cut out the Palos Verdes peninsula but it still goes east to about the 605.

Hawthorne and San Pedro and Pasadena and San Fernando and Van Nuys may all be generally car dependent and overwhelmingly single family, but they all feel distinctly different and way more urban than say Irvine or Fontana or Thousand Oaks.

So that’s an area of about 8 million people or so.

Just my opinion.

605 is a good line actually. That probably feels where things become more "regular" suburban. There's likely less prewar retail strips east of 605.

I sure as hell dont think of Glendale or whatnot as typical suburbia.

[Quixote]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I think it's a fair question. Los Angeles has, by far, the largest land area of the big prewar cities and it also happens to be the only one of those cities to have never recorded a population loss. It seems fairly obvious in hindsight that the reason Los Angeles did not record a loss was because the city was able to build suburban development inside its borders that its peer cities did not have room to match. Even San Francisco posted population declines in the postwar period because it was fully built out.

What does that really have to do with the comments in my post?

It's certainly true that municipal boundaries are arbitrary and therefore not a good measure of population size. Does anybody really think that Jacksonville is a larger city than, say, San Francisco?

"Urban form" adds an extra layer of ambiguity. Some urban neighborhoods, such as San Francisco's Sunset District or larger sections of Greater London south of the Thames, have homes abutting each other. But the design of these neighborhoods is clearly car-oriented, or at least is less conducive to car-free living. Then you have portions of places like Evanston or Flatbush, Brooklyn (right smack-dab in the middle of the borough) with more suburban characteristics, but are served by multiple rapid transit stations and are generally more attractive places to walk.

I'd love to hear the argument as to how/why Savannah is a bigger city than Atlanta.

[craigs]

For context on how I define Los Angeles, consider how I experience San Francisco (the place in which I've lived longer than all the others combined). San Francisco is very obviously distinct in terms of geography, built form, residential densities, and commercial activity from every other nearby city and suburb. There are many sub-sections of the Bay Area, and together they form a large urbanized area, but only one relatively small part of the Bay Area is "San Francisco," and everything else, whatever it may be called, is not. The city and its surrounding metro are binary in that sense.

Meanwhile, Los Angeles is a massive, indistinct blob of human activity. The ocean presents a hard border, but geography that might define civic borders elsewhere do not here. That mountain range? It's all officially Los Angeles, and so, too, is that entire valley on the other side. There are distinctive sections of the metro, of course. Some independent cities have strong civic and cultural identities (i.e., Beverly Hills) and LA's urban core is sui generis, but regionally it's all Los Angeles. The neighborhoods of LA proper are indistinguishable from the neighborhoods on the other side of the nearly imperceptible city line. And that strong regional similarity in built form, residential densities, commercial activity, etc. extends well beyond city limits. Essentially, with the exception of the communities on the farthest metropolitan perimeter, it's all LA. So my answer here is somewhere between 12.2 million (the UA) and 18.4 million (the CSA), depending on the context.

[Nite]

Urban Area is the best measure of US metropolitan population in my opinion.
No ridiculous massive rural areas included in the figure, just the built up contiguous area.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ity%20criteria.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Quixote

What does that really have to do with the comments in my post?

It's certainly true that municipal boundaries are arbitrary and therefore not a good measure of population size. Does anybody really think that Jacksonville is a larger city than, say, San Francisco?

"Urban form" adds an extra layer of ambiguity. Some urban neighborhoods, such as San Francisco's Sunset District or larger sections of Greater London south of the Thames, have homes abutting each other. But the design of these neighborhoods is clearly car-oriented, or at least is less conducive to car-free living. Then you have portions of places like Evanston or Flatbush, Brooklyn (right smack-dab in the middle of the borough) with more suburban characteristics, but are served by multiple rapid transit stations and are generally more attractive places to walk.

I'd love to hear the argument as to how/why Savannah is a bigger city than Atlanta.

Flatbush isn't suburban. Absolutely no one would confuse Flatbush with a suburb in Nassau County. OTOH, there are plenty of areas in the city of Los Angeles that are indistinguishable for outer suburban areas in metro Los Angeles.

Maybe you could make that argument about parts of Staten Island, but it is the most peripheral of the 5 boroughs and Staten Island barely makes up 5% of the city's population.

[dktshb]

From LA Times:

Population Density
Select one of L.A.'s 272 neighborhoods to see where it ranks

https://maps.latimes.com/neighborhoo...hborhood/list/

[Docere]

Originally Posted by plinko

Living 66 miles west of city hall, I always think of ‘the city’ as from when you come down the hill on the 101 at Valley Circle and the entire SFV (if it’s clear) spreads before you. It’s city all the way across to about the 605. In the basin you could probably cut out the Palos Verdes peninsula but it still goes east to about the 605.

Hawthorne and San Pedro and Pasadena and San Fernando and Van Nuys may all be generally car dependent and overwhelmingly single family, but they all feel distinctly different and way more urban than say Irvine or Fontana or Thousand Oaks.

So that’s an area of about 8 million people or so.

Just my opinion.

That would be a city that rivals NYC in size. With more or less similar urban form as the city of L.A.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by Nite

Urban Area is the best measure of US metropolitan population in my opinion.
No ridiculous massive rural areas included in the figure, just the built up contiguous area.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ity%20criteria.

Agreed, and these UA populations are more directly comparable to urban areas in other countries. That said, there are still some quirks here - like Riverside-San Bernardino which should be combined with LA, and San Jose with San Francisco. These ones are contiguously built up areas, but still categorized separately as they're independent MSAs (not unlike the situation with Toronto-Hamilton-Oshawa CMAs).

[tech12]

Originally Posted by Nite

Urban Area is the best measure of US metropolitan population in my opinion.
No ridiculous massive rural areas included in the figure, just the built up contiguous area.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ity%20criteria.

There is no perfect one-size-fits-all way to measure how big a city is. Urban area measurements are imperfect, just like every other method. For example, places like SF, that are broken up by lots of parkland and water that you can't build on, are often misrepresented by both UA and MSA measurement methods, which divide things way too much (and then for SF, the CSA measurement includes too much, extending out to Santa Cruz and the Central Valley). The Concord, and Dublin/Pleasanton/Livermore UAs are suburbs that only exist because of SF/Oakland, are connected by metro lines to them, and are only separated from the SF UA by parkland. The San Jose UA isn't physically separated at all. But arbitrary rules about population density somehow makes these all separate urban areas/metros/cities? Together they have about 6 million people. There are more urban areas within the Bay Area, making up 1.5-2 million more people, but they're a bit more separated, and have worse public transit connections...for some of them, it feels like it could be accurate to exclude them from a combined SF/SJ urban area (Santa Rosa, Petaluma, Napa, Fairfield, Gilroy, Vacaville?) but others feel like maybe they should be included (Vallejo, Antioch).

Imagine if Newark and NYC were considered separate urban areas/metro areas, because Jersey City was mostly warehouses and office parks instead of being densely populated, and because the suburbs stretching north along the Hudson were mostly parkland, and because Newark was bigger and attracted more commuters. The two places still have residents who identify as being in the same region/metro area, they're heavily connected by public transit, share media markets, share sports teams, and a bunch of cultural stuff, and send lots of commuters to each other, as well as to/from their shared suburbs, but the census says they're totally separate. The relationship between the SF and SJ MSAs/UAs feels kinda like that lol.

[Nouvellecosse]

I agree about arbitrary cut offs that reflect political divisions rather than actual breaks in the urban geography. But with gaps caused by things like park space, water, or industrial I think it's totally fair to consider the areas on either side to be separate urban areas that just happen to be close to each other. After all, every city has parks, industrial, or other non-residential areas, but most have qualifying development that either surrounds them or continues beyond on at least one side unless it is, indeed, at the edge of the UA. If qualifying developed area actually stops between two UAs, then they are by definition separate since they have something physically separating them. After all, UA is quite generous in terms of the population density cut off and includes stuff that many people wouldn't even consider "urban".

[Doady]

Urban area is not the same as a metropolitan area. One is based on contiguous urban development, the other based on commute patterns. A metropolitan area can be comprised of multiple urban areas, and likewise an urban area can be part of multiple metropolitan areas.

The difference between urban area and metropolitan area highlights the problem of judging and measuring Los Angeles as a monocentric city when it is in fact a polycentric city. It's not Los Angeles, it's something more like Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Monica-Santa Ana. Another example is Minneapolis-St Paul. In Canada there is Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge.

[citywatch]

Political boundaries don't really work for LA....metro LA is its own animal, for both good & bad. There are cities or urban regions throughout the US & world that ping more conventional characteristics...good ones too. But such cities or metros may be like the popular student in high school who never graduated to something equally good or very interesting later in life.


• Video Link

LA is the 2nd largest urban area in the US. France's 2nd largest urban area is Marseilles. But that city is in the distant shadow of Paris. Hamburg is the 2nd largest urban area of Germany...but it gets overlooked next to cities like Berlin. Birmingham is the UK's 2nd largest metro area, but it has to deal with not just London but all the other powerhouse urban areas of Europe. Yokohama is Japan's 2nd largest city after Tokyo, but generally gets lost in the shuffle.

brazil's 2nd largest city, Rio de Janerio, however, is as well known as...or even more famous than...Sao Paulo is.

[jd3189]

I’ll have a chance to determine this within the next few years, but I think the actual city of LA would be most of the upper basin minus the San Fernando Valley. Outside of that, there is still dense suburbia, but not as much of the small garden apartments and dingbats.

By the way, is core LA ( Downtown, Koreatown, Hollywood, Boyle Heights, etc) relatively safe to walk and bike around? I heard property crime has been increasing but is it still worth it?

[Xing]

The sign on the freeway said 4 million the last time I saw it. I swear I remember seeing it say something like, 4,000,012. Barely over.

Ok, just checked Google Streets. The sign I always saw was at the Calabasas/LA border, and says, "4,045,873."

[LA21st]

Originally Posted by jd3189

I’ll have a chance to determine this within the next few years, but I think the actual city of LA would be most of the upper basin minus the San Fernando Valley. Outside of that, there is still dense suburbia, but not as much of the small garden apartments and dingbats.

By the way, is core LA ( Downtown, Koreatown, Hollywood, Boyle Heights, etc) relatively safe to walk and bike around? I heard property crime has been increasing but is it still worth it?

Crime has been going down since last July in the city overall.
Those crazy covid era days are long gone. Last week there was an article how safe residents in Venice feel now, far less homeless etc. Downtown is just quieter when I've gone but I don't feel unsafe. I was there last weekend.

I was just in Koreatown and there were people everywhere. It felt as safe as 2019. Maybe even more vibrant, with all these new buildings. Same for Hollywood. All those new buildings have brought more
streetlife.

[kittyhawk28]

Originally Posted by citywatch

Political boundaries don't really work for LA....metro LA is its own animal, for both good & bad. There are cities or urban regions throughout the US & world that ping more conventional characteristics...good ones too. But such cities or metros may be like the popular student in high school who never graduated to something equally good or very interesting later in life.


• Video Link

LA is the 2nd largest urban area in the US. France's 2nd largest urban area is Marseilles. But that city is in the distant shadow of Paris. Hamburg is the 2nd largest urban area of Germany...but it gets overlooked next to cities like Berlin. Birmingham is the UK's 2nd largest metro area, but it has to deal with not just London but all the other powerhouse urban areas of Europe. Yokohama is Japan's 2nd largest city after Tokyo, but generally gets lost in the shuffle.

brazil's 2nd largest city, Rio de Janerio, however, is as well known as...or even more famous than...Sao Paulo is.

The countries you listed above are relatively small countries with <200 million. An interesting trend is that for countries of those size or smaller, the primate city model holds, where the largest city of the country is substantially bigger than the 2nd or 3rd largest cities. However, for countries with more than 200 million, that model breaks down, as you've noted with Rio de Janeiro vs Sao Paulo (although Sao Paulo is still ~80% larger than Rio), and the top two cities tend to be more or less peers. In China, Shanghai and Beijing and Guangzhou-Shenzhen are in a similar tier of importance and economic/demographic size, similar to Mumbai vs. Delhi in India, or Islamabad vs. Karachi in Pakistan. In America, greater NYC is merely 10~20% larger than greater LA, rather than the 2-3x disparity commonly seen between the 1st and 2nd cities of other countries

[citywatch]

^ I don't know exactly how accurate or wrongly calculated the following vid is, but some of the cities listed in it are unexpected, rank higher (or lower) than assumed, & include a few that are predictable.


• Video Link

[liat91]

Starting from Westwood and going counter clockwise I’ll show rough boundaries for my view of LA and the population of that.

Westwood-
Sherman Oaks-
Van Nuys-
North Hollywood-
Magnolia Park-
Burbank(inside the 5)-
Glendale(up to Verdugo park)
South Pasadena-
Alhambra-
Monterey Park-
Montebello-
Bell Gardens-
South Gate-
Lynwood-
Compton-
San Pedro corridor-
Gardena-
Hawthorne-
El Segundo-
Venice-
Sawtelle-West LA

I did opt out of Santa Monica, part of Burbank and Pasadena. They seem to lean to more of distinct close in (yet far enough) satellite cities.

Population: 4,072,864

[austlar1]

Originally Posted by liat91

Starting from Westwood and going counter clockwise I’ll show rough boundaries for my view of LA and the population of that.

Westwood-
Sherman Oaks-
Van Nuys-
North Hollywood-
Magnolia Park-
Burbank(inside the 5)-
Glendale(up to Verdugo park)
South Pasadena-
Alhambra-
Monterey Park-
Montebello-
Bell Gardens-
South Gate-
Lynwood-
Compton-
San Pedro corridor-
Gardena-
Hawthorne-
El Segundo-
Venice-
Sawtelle-West LA

I did opt out of Santa Monica, part of Burbank and Pasadena. They seem to lean to more of distinct close in (yet far enough) satellite cities.

Population: 4,072,864

Pasadena maybe, but Burbank and Santa Monica definitely fall within most people's experience of LA as a city. Ditto for Encino and other West San Fernando Valley locations.

[Buckeye Native 001]

Originally Posted by JDRCRASH

I suppose Orange County is somewhat more relaxed, despite the insane amount of people there driving and weaving in and out of traffic north of 80 mph. And that may be due in part to the gargantuan amount of extra space for cars to move down there that has resulted from highways being widened again and again. Very few of the freeways (like the 405, 5, 55) down there are under 12 lanes, and the average main blvd down there is 6 lanes (Harbor, PCH, Westminster, Chapman, Beach, Bristol, Katella, etc). And at certain intersections they add on 2 sometimes even 3 left turn lanes in EACH direction. I sometimes wonder how the culture down there would be if those streets were only 4 lanes like say, Wilshire.

Orange County is Phoenix with an ocean and better amusement parks.

And considering how many times I almost wrecked trying to navigate the traffic circle in Old Towne Orange, anything with fewer than three lanes in each direction is pandemonium.