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

[SFBruin]

Whenever I think of LA, I think of it as a city of about 1 - 2 million, surrounding by a suburban region of about 15 million.

LA city isn't small, by any means, but it is nowhere near comparable to New York, or even maybe Chicago, even though its metro is on par with those of those.

I'm curious, how big do people consider the city part of LA to be?

Edit: Not sure of the actual numbers.

[LosAngelesSportsFan]

You may think of it as a city of 1 to 2 milli9n, but it's a city of 4 million officially. Regardless, city limits mean nothing. LA is massive, with 50+ different areas with substantial offerings

[mhays]

It's completely legit to define it as a city of 1-2 million. The government jurisdiction isn't the only correct definition. Urban form is another fine criteria.

That said, it's urban-level dense over a pretty large area (a car-oriented version of urbanity), and dense suburbia for the rest.

[dktshb]

The city of Los Angeles has a population of 3.89 million people. It seems to fluctuate between 3.8 million and 4 million people. I presume the San Fernando valley has about 800k to a million people so it you got rid of it LA would be about 3 million people with most of its population living in the basin. I think if you removed the San Fernando Valley and the Santa Monica Mountains from its city limits it would have a density of around 12 to 14K.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by mhays

It's completely legit to define it as a city of 1-2 million. The government jurisdiction isn't the only correct definition. Urban form is another fine criteria.

That said, it's urban-level dense over a pretty large area (a car-oriented version of urbanity), and dense suburbia for the rest.

I would guesstimate that L.A.'s mostly "car oriented urban" population is roughly 2 million. The rest of L.A. would be considered "suburbs in the city".

[Quixote]

You might as well not even call LA a city. Saying that it’s a “city of 1-2 million” is viscerally ludicrous.

“Urban form,” besides being relative, is also a faulty premise because it carries with it much ambiguity and contextual, place-specific nuances. Philadelphia, on paper, has the best or second best “urban form” of the “Big Six,” yet it also has the lowest or second lowest transit share and a high percentage of car ownership/dependence. Conversely, Toronto is a city with less “fine-grained” urban design and is majority post-war, yet its transit share is higher than any of the “Other Five.”

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach (to anything in life, really).

“Other Five” = “Big Six” minus NYC

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Quixote

You might as well not even call LA a city. Saying that it’s a “city of 1-2 million” is viscerally ludicrous.

“Urban form,” besides being relative, is also a faulty premise because it carries with it much ambiguity and contextual, place-specific nuances. Philadelphia, on paper, has the best or second best “urban form” of the “Big Six,” yet it also has the lowest or second lowest transit share and a high percentage of car ownership/dependence. Conversely, Toronto is a city with less “fine-grained” urban design and is majority post-war, yet its transit share is higher than any of the “Other Five.”

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach (to anything in life, really).

“Other Five” = “Big Six” minus NYC

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.

[SFBruin]

I guess a better way to phrase this might be what are the geographic boundaries of the city-like part of LA, and what is the population of that area.

That said, I'm not sensing a lot of positivity towards this question, so maybe it wasn't a good thing to ask. :/

[austlar1]

It functions beyond it's "urban" core as one of the world's largest First World cities. It has an economic output that is the third or fourth largest in the world. It is connected to every corner of the globe by daily passenger air service. I always think of LA and experience LA as a city on a par with London or Paris. Nothing in the US rivals it except NY.

[chris08876]

LA, the actual city and LA the actual metro are monoliths. Just an absurd area in its size and dense as hell for U.S. standards. But it needs to be bigger! The city just needs to continue building. A ton of potential.

You could fit a whole NJ population wise in LA county, and a lot of LA county is occupied by mountains and smaller farming areas where weed is grown, and so that makes the density much higher in terms of built form.

But if they can nail the housing issue and also implement solutions to mitigate transit problems, like traffic... there so much damn potential for LA. Its almost sad that the lack of housing mitigates its true potential. For once, I want to see LA at the top of Americas fastest growing cities and construction records.




Very dense. All that space not occupied by built urban form (mountains and farming areas).

Orange County adds another 3.1 to 3.2 million to the count. Very dense in sum.

[nomarandlee]

The thing about LA (as an outsider from Chicago) and NY are obviously huge metro areas that span even larger distances than Chicagoland. Still, all three are very approximately about in the same stratosphere of urban spread.

That said, Chicago's sprawl is pretty evenly distributed from the core. There is really only vast prairie and/or farmland that it radiated out from. In NY you have bodies of water that somewhat separate the metro into huge tracts, and in LA you have large mountain/hill ranges that provide the same kind of seperation.

Even in Chicago it feels like land across the metro may as well be in a different state that you rarely ever would venture into. Those from Naperville (SW burbs) rarely trek to Lake Forest (NE burbs) and vice versa. Those from Algonquin (far NW) rarely venture to Orland Park (S) etc.

I wonder, does LA metro even feel way more segregated and disjointed than Chicago due to the geographic barriers and distances involved? It must, but from those who have lived in both, it would be interesting to hear the comparisons.

[isaidso]

I tend not to think of city proper when gauging a city's size. I view Los Angeles as a mega-city of 17-18 million people.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by isaidso

I tend not to think of city proper when gauging a city's size. I view Los Angeles as a mega-city of 17-18 million people.

Same here. LA is a monster and there's nothing about it that suggests otherwise.

[Doady]

Quixote brings up a good example with Toronto. If urban and suburban are two discrete categories, and the city is defined simply by being urban, and car-dependent is defined simply as being suburban, then Toronto is not a real city. In fact, Toronto is one of the most car-dependent metropolitan areas in North America, way worse than Los Angeles, let alone real cities like Detroit, Buffalo, Akron, St. Louis, Memphis, Oklahoma City, Omaha, etc.

Instead of urban and suburban as binary and discrete categories, I'd rather look as urban and rural as the opposites, and suburban is anywhere in-between (i.e "less urban" or "more urban"). Urban not as either/or, but as a continuum, affected by multiple variables, the mostly important of course is density. If you would rather see suburban simply as being not urban or vice versa and ignore the density and commute mode share statistics, then Toronto is a more fitting poster boy for suburbanization and car-dependence than LA is.

[ChrisLA]

It feels like the 4 million residents that it is no way does it feel like a 1-2 million resident city, even if you didn't include the SFV. The San Fernando Valley alone is estimated to be 1.5 to 1.8 million in 220 sq miles, and to me it feels more populated than a city like Dallas or Phoenix. Very little of of the city feels small to me, not even the hillside communities. When you're in those communities (canyons and hillside) you're still very aware you're in the mist of a huge mega-city. Crossing over from the San Fernando Valley into the LA basin through Laurel Canyon and some of the other cross over canyon streets will still give you the sense of a big place, the traffic alone and the aggressive city culture will definitely bring you to your senses. LA is not laid back as some outsiders like to claim.

I have yet to visit a city in the USA and Canada (NYC excluded) that feel as big as LA, and I'm speaking of the city limits only. Only the downtown Chicago and it's central neighborhoods, Downtown San Francisco , and to a to a lesser degree Downtown Philadelphia makes those cities feel bigger, but outside the those boundaries you get the sense they aren't no where as large as LA city, that's just my opinion from those cities.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by Doady

In fact, Toronto is one of the most car-dependent metropolitan areas in North America, way worse than Los Angeles, let alone real cities like Detroit, Buffalo, Akron, St. Louis, Memphis, Oklahoma City, Omaha, etc.

Toronto is not by any metric more "car-dependent" than Detroit. You're too fixated on this pre-1945 = urban/post-1945 = suburban thing.

The interwar period is different than pre-WWI development too. Both Detroit and L.A. were early "auto-oriented" cities.

Detroit and L.A. just had spectacular interwar growth.

[Docere]

LA in 1930 had about twice the car ownership rate of the US in 1930. 806,000 cars registered in L.A. County, which then had a population of 2.2 million.



https://www.smithsonianmag.com/histo...were-43267593/

https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/summary95/mv201.pdf

[LA21st]

Originally Posted by ChrisLA

It feels like the 4 million residents that it is no way does it feel like a 1-2 million resident city, even if you didn't include the SFV. The San Fernando Valley alone is estimated to be 1.5 to 1.8 million in 220 sq miles, and to me it feels more populated than a city like Dallas or Phoenix. Very little of of the city feels small to me, not even the hillside communities. When you're in those communities (canyons and hillside) you're still very aware you're in the mist of a huge mega-city. Crossing over from the San Fernando Valley into the LA basin through Laurel Canyon and some of the other cross over canyon streets will still give you the sense of a big place, the traffic alone and the aggressive city culture will definitely bring you to your senses. LA is not laid back as some outsiders like to claim.

I have yet to visit a city in the USA and Canada (NYC excluded) that feel as big as LA, and I'm speaking of the city limits only. Only the downtown Chicago and it's central neighborhoods, Downtown San Francisco , and to a to a lesser degree Downtown Philadelphia makes those cities feel bigger, but outside the those boundaries you get the sense they aren't no where as large as LA city, that's just my opinion from those cities.

The 101/134/ventura corridor - Woodland hills to burbank/Glendale/downtown Pasadena alone feels very big.
On the freeways and the surface streets. Probably feels larger than many 2-3 million cities on it's own. Even though you're nowhere near downtown, you def know you're in a mega city region.

I'm 40 miles away from Anaheim, but instead of it being just more strip malls and office parks, it has its own sports teams, giant convention center, tens of thousands of hotel rooms, disneyland. And 10-15 miles beyond that, is Irvine, one of the biggest employment districts in the country. It's really crazy when yout think about it.

[JDRCRASH]

Originally Posted by ChrisLA

It feels like the 4 million residents that it is no way does it feel like a 1-2 million resident city, even if you didn't include the SFV. The San Fernando Valley alone is estimated to be 1.5 to 1.8 million in 220 sq miles, and to me it feels more populated than a city like Dallas or Phoenix. Very little of of the city feels small to me, not even the hillside communities. When you're in those communities (canyons and hillside) you're still very aware you're in the mist of a huge mega-city. Crossing over from the San Fernando Valley into the LA basin through Laurel Canyon and some of the other cross over canyon streets will still give you the sense of a big place, the traffic alone and the aggressive city culture will definitely bring you to your senses. LA is not laid back as some outsiders like to claim.

Heck no x1000. It’s probably one of the most outdated narratives about this place. Nevermind the ceaseless potholes you have to maneuver around that only worsen the experience. Even by the time you enter the valleys you can already start to “feel” the tension on the freeways.

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.

San Diego, though… large city, yet feels like a breath of fresh air in comparison.

[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.