Metropolitan area populations, 1940

[Docere]

Metropolitan area populations, 1940 (500,000+)

1. New York 11,690,520
2. Chicago 4,499,126
3. Los Angeles 2,904,596
4. Philadelphia 2,898,644
5. Boston 2,350,514
6. Detroit 2,295,867
7. Pittsburgh 1,994,060
8. San Francisco 1,428,525
9. St. Louis 1,367,977
10. Cleveland 1,214,945
11. Montreal 1,145,282
12. Baltimore 1,046,692
13. Minneapolis 911,077
14. Toronto 909,928
15. Washington 907,816
16. Buffalo 857,719
17. Milwaukee 790,336
18. Cincinnati 789,309
19. Providence 711,500
20. Kansas City 634,093
21. Scranton 629,581
22. New Orleans 540,030
23. Houston 510,397
24. Hartford 502,193

[austlar1]

Originally Posted by Docere

Metropolitan area populations, 1940 (500,000+)

1. New York 11,690,520
2. Chicago 4,499,126
3. Los Angeles 2,904,596
4. Philadelphia 2,898,644
5. Boston 2,350,514
6. Detroit 2,295,867
7. Pittsburgh 1,994,060
8. San Francisco 1,428,525
9. St. Louis 1,367,977
10. Cleveland 1,214,945
11. Montreal 1,145,282
12. Baltimore 1,046,692
13. Minneapolis 911,077
14. Toronto 909,928
15. Washington 907,816
16. Buffalo 857,719
17. Milwaukee 790,336
18. Cincinnati 789,309
19. Providence 711,500
20. Kansas City 634,093
21. Scranton 629,581
22. New Orleans 540,030
23. Houston 510,397
24. Hartford 502,193

Here's a link to 1950 metro area pops and comparison to 1940. Table 2 contains ranking by size. https://www2.census.gov/library/publ...03/pc-3-03.pdf

[Docere]

Not directly comparable. It looks like it was in 1950 that the "eniire county except in New England" definition was adopted.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by austlar1

Here's a link to 1950 metro area pops and comparison to 1940. Scroll down to Table 2 for the good stuff. https://www2.census.gov/library/publ...03/pc-3-03.pdf

I believe the 1950 census was the first to use MSAs, so this won't be an apples-to-apples comparison. For example, the Boston number for 1940 seems larger than I would expect. The 1950 number for Boston is lower than the 1940, and it would've been very weird for any metro to have an actual decline in population that decade.

[Steely Dan]

Back in the good old days when 10 of the top 20 were Rustbelt/Midwest.

Now only 3 of the top 20.

[Crawford]

Wow, Scranton was almost a Top 20 metro. Now it couldn't even dream of matching Allentown. It's now a minor exurban mini-metro.

Great bones, though. At least they still have Dunder Mifflin.

[Docere]

It was in the top 20 for the US.

[Crawford]

That's right. Forgot about inclusion of Canadian cities. And just barely behind KC.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Wow, Scranton was almost a Top 20 metro. Now it couldn't even dream of matching Allentown. It's now a minor exurban mini-metro.

Great bones, though. At least they still have Dunder Mifflin.

Joe Biden left in 1950 and it was all downhill from there.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Wow, Scranton was almost a Top 20 metro. Now it couldn't even dream of matching Allentown. It's now a minor exurban mini-metro.

Great bones, though. At least they still have Dunder Mifflin.

I wonder if there's something weird going on with the methodology there, as its metro only has 560,000 now. That or it just declined, which is also plausible. Either way it doesn't have quite the same historic heft to it that then-similarly sized cities like New Orleans or Kansas City do.

[Docere]

The Census Bureu adopted the more expansive MSA definition in 1950. That area has declined. Scranton is one of the few cities that peaked in population in 1930.

[Docere]

More of a cluster of industrial towns? Scranton had a population of 140,000 (and 76,000 today) in 1940. Wilkes-Barre is 20 miles away and also part of the area. It too lost about half its population (86,000 in 1940, 44,000 today).

[Crawford]

Right, Scranton area is like a mini-version of Germany's Ruhr. There are maybe a dozen mining towns in a valley. Wilkes Barre alone is almost Scranton's equal. Essen is nothing like Frankfurt or Munich but the Ruhr is much more populous.

The Scranton core wouldn't have New Orleans' historical heft, but if you go out in the neighborhoods, I think their prewar heft looks roughly comparable.

[cabasse]

metro atl was at 518,100 in 1940. slotted right between new orleans and houston. edit - actually that link austlar posted shows houston at 528, not 510; revised data?

interesting. says only 442k here https://www2.census.gov/library/publ...3538v1ch04.pdf

[Docere]

^ 442,294 in the Atlanta metropolitan district in 1940.

ETA: We cross-posted. The metropolitan districts did not include entire counties.

[austlar1]

Originally Posted by cabasse

metro atl was at 518,100 in 1940. slotted right between new orleans and houston. edit - actually that link austlar posted shows houston at 528, not 510; revised data?

interesting. says only 442k here https://www2.census.gov/library/publ...3538v1ch04.pdf

Probably some revised criteria in 1950 census report (https://www2.census.gov/library/publ...03/pc-3-03.pdf), which I guess was using the new definition for standard metropolitan areas. In 1950 reoort includes Cobb County in the metro Atlanta metro total. The numbers for 1940 in 1950 census report don't always correspond with the numbers posted by Docere, but they seem to be pretty close. Both the 1940 and 1950 figures provide a great snapshot of where the country was in terms of urban population clusters in the period immediately before and after WW2. The changes since that period are pretty amazing.

[Docere]

The core to periphery shift in the US is quite striking. A majority of the population still lived in the East (i.e. the Northeast or Midwest east of the Mississippi River) in 1940. Today about a third of Americans do.

[dimondpark]

Originally Posted by Docere

8. San Francisco 1,428,525

I actually wouldn't mind this at all.

[Wigs]

Compared to 2020 Census MSA numbers

Originally Posted by Docere

Metropolitan area populations, 1940 (500,000+)

1. New York 11,690,520 /20,140,470
2. Chicago 4,499,126 /9,618,502
3. Los Angeles 2,904,596 /13,200,998
4. Philadelphia 2,898,644 /6,245,051
5. Boston 2,350,514 /4,941,632
6. Detroit 2,295,867 /4,392,041
7. Pittsburgh 1,994,060 /2,370,930
8. San Francisco 1,428,525 /4,749,008
9. St. Louis 1,367,977 /2,820,253
10. Cleveland 1,214,945 /2,088,251
11. Montreal 1,145,282 /4,291,732
12. Baltimore 1,046,692 /2,844,510
13. Minneapolis 911,077 /3,690,261
14. Toronto 909,928 /6,202,225
15. Washington 907,816 /6,385,162
16. Buffalo 857,719 /1,166,902
17. Milwaukee 790,336 /1,574,731
18. Cincinnati 789,309 /2,256,884
19. Providence 711,500 /1,676,579
20. Kansas City 634,093 /2,192,035
21. Scranton 629,581 /567,559
22. New Orleans 540,030 /1,271,845
23. Houston 510,397 /7,122,240
24. Hartford 502,193 /1,213,531

[Docere]

Toronto and DC were pretty much identical in size then and had remarkably similar postwar growth trajectories.