Metropolitan area populations, 1940

[Crawford]

I think NY and LA are both pretty secure. It's true that LA has little room to grow, but it's waaay ahead of any other potential city. There are 18 million in the CSA.

Dallas is probably the most likely option, but I'm not sure I can see a 20+ million Dallas. Metros usually slow down at some point Even in Texas, there will eventually be drags on growth. The Metroplex would be well into Oklahoma at that point.

[hipster duck]

If you overwhelmingly rely on the car for transport, then cities kind of max out at LA sizes.

If you rely on a car, you have to limit density so as not to overwhelm even a high capacity road network, so you sprawl out, but then if your city is 100 miles across, you can't reach the other side in less than 2 hours, and so you stay in your corner of the metroplex and don't look for work or shop in other parts, so then can you really be part of the larger MSA?

Other than LA, the other developed world megacities have huge rail networks.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Other than LA, the other developed world megacities have huge rail networks.

Right, LA is unique in that it's the only developed world megacity that's overwhelmingly auto-oriented. And it came of age in the immediate postwar years. And LA is a lot denser than the other Sunbelt boomers. Not sure if it's replicable.

[iheartthed]

I think LA's spot is secure for now, but definitely not 100 years out unless it radically reconfigures itself as a region. L.A. has exhausted footprint expansion as a source of growth, so it will need to become much more dense to keep moving forward. I would argue that this has been the problem for a lot of other American cities too, but the fundamental problems have gotten misdiagnosed in those places.

Density is in NY's DNA and the region seems to grow almost on command.

[Wigs]

sorted by numerical growth (or decline in the case of Scranton)



It's hard to comprehend how much growth LA has experienced. 10.3 million people!
With huge investments/improvements to their transit system underway and planned I have no doubt LA will increase density along the transit corridors. DTLA will continue to grow vertical as well. I'm bullish on LA.
It's one of my favorite Metros. Barring extreme effects of climate change and a mega earthquake, it will continue to grow for the foreseeable future.

Interesting how small the Metro growth has been in Buffalo and Pittsburgh in 8 decades. Even Providence grew by almost 1 Million.

The city of Buffalo, city of Cincinnati after decades of losses are growing again, yet somehow Pittsburgh (and Cleveland, Detroit, St. Louis) is still showing declines.

Minneapolis is the true sleeper Metro that's been consistently growing while most have paid no attention, outpacing even Boston.

Houston has had phenomenal growth. As has DFW (even though it didn't make the 1940 cut).

DC's growth is amazing but somewhat expected, being the center of government for 330+ Million people.

The growth of inner Toronto is hard to comprehend and mind boggling if viewing the highrise development thread. The fact that it's often spoken in the same breath as Chicago shows how far it's come.
https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/sho...80485&page=173

We should compare the central city population compared to overall Metro population. Toronto is rare in that it's closer to 50/50 split.
Hartford has to be one of the worst with like 10/90 split

[iheartthed]

DFW metro increased by 6,720,629 between 1940 and 2020 using the current 11-county definition, slightly edging out Houston.

[LA21st]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

L.A. will have to grow up to continue growing. I don't think there is any risk of another city overtaking NYC by 2140, though. NY Metro still adds about 1 million per decade, which is about the same as the "fast growing" metros in Texas.

LA just updated Holllywood and Downtown LA plans to include a 135,000 new housing units alone.

I'm guessing they'll build (they already are) more highrises near/on transit lines too. Koreatown is consantly wiping out strip malls and houses for 6-8 story buildings.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by LA21st

Koreatown is consantly wiping out strip malls and houses for 6-8 story buildings.

Nice!

Few things light up my urbanist brain more than seeing a stupid fucking strip mall bite the dust.

See my sig below.

[LA21st]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Nice!

Few things light up my urbanist brain more than seeing a stupid fucking strip mall bite the dust.

See my sig below.

Yea, it's great. LA's only been doing the 5-8 story mixed use blitz since 2013 or so. So the next 10 years should be even better.
I'm guessing more highrises thrown in.

[craigs]

Originally Posted by Wigs

It's hard to comprehend how much growth LA has experienced. 10.3 million people!
With huge investments/improvements to their transit system underway and planned I have no doubt LA will increase density along the transit corridors. DTLA will continue to grow vertical as well. I'm bullish on LA.
It's one of my favorite Metros. Barring extreme effects of climate change and a mega earthquake, it will continue to grow for the foreseeable future.

I'm bullish on greater Los Angeles as well. The shape of things to come in this metropolis, I think, is an overlay of denser, more walkable and transit-oriented corridors and nodes, anchored by the ever-expanding rail network, on top of the existing cityscape. Up-zoning of parcels and neighborhoods around rail stations and feeder bus line stops will combine to gradually alter the overall cityscape. LA will likely still be recognizable in 100 years, and will not be mistaken for New York in form or function, but it will almost certainly function more like a traditionally urban city does than today thanks to that high-density, walkable, transit-oriented overlay.

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I think LA's spot is secure for now, but definitely not 100 years out unless it radically reconfigures itself as a region. L.A. has exhausted footprint expansion as a source of growth, so it will need to become much more dense to keep moving forward. I would argue that this has been the problem for a lot of other American cities too, but the fundamental problems have gotten misdiagnosed in those places.

Density is in NY's DNA and the region seems to grow almost on command.

Los Angeles moving forward will operate increasingly as more than a metropolitan area. There is still substantial growth potential on the periphery. Santa Clarita, Lancaster, Victorville, Oxnard, Santa Barbara, Perris, Temecula, San Jacinto will continue to expand and fill in and be more interconnected with the Los Angeles basin (which will continue to densify) and Valley. Palm Springs will likely do the same. San Diego may also increasingly operate within a regional setting as well. Expansion by agglomeration. The region could easily be 30-35 million in 100 years, given that we have no idea what future events might precipitate large scale immigration.

Because of regions like this, I think the census bureau needs a new set of statistical tools to describe these emerging mega-regions. They are beyond combined statistical areas (which I think are useless anyway). Macropolitan Areas?

[cabasse]

Originally Posted by pj3000

Considering current times, I guess. But why would anyone think that a city in Texas or anywhere in the South would be bigger than any prominent city of the North at that time? There was basically nothing of note down there in comparison to the northern US. LA, San Francisco, and even Kansas City were outliers of the time.

There's a reason that New Orleans and Houston are the sole southern metros on this list -- they were industrial/heavy manufacturing/port cities, which were for the south, but paled in comparison to massive economic manufacturing machine that was happening up north.

houston really took off between 1930 and 1940. biggest southern metros in 1930 in no particular order:

metro         1930 pop    ppsm (metro)

new orleans   494877      1724

houston       339216      424

memphis       276126      1248

dallas        309658      613

birmingham    382792      1243

atlanta       370920      1676

atlanta deserves the crap it gets for its modern development patterns but it was one of the densest southern cities/metros by far back then. (right behind new orleans albeit only 2/3rds its size)

https://www2.census.gov/library/publ...3450421ch1.pdf

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by cabasse

houston really took off between 1930 and 1940. biggest southern metros in 1930 in no particular order:

metro         1930 pop    ppsm (metro)

new orleans   494877      1724

houston       339216      424

memphis       276126      1248

dallas        309658      613

birmingham    382792      1243

atlanta       370920      1676

atlanta deserves the crap it gets for its modern development patterns but it was one of the densest southern cities/metros by far back then. (right behind new orleans albeit only 2/3rds its size)

https://www2.census.gov/library/publ...3450421ch1.pdf

To me, and maybe this is my pro transit Canadian perspective, Atlanta's failure to expand MARTA in step with its rapid growth (and now it's extremely limited streetcar) and improve service frequency is a setback. It had such ambition when MARTA was introduced. What happened?

[cabasse]

the marta board is trash. we keep getting baited and switched; we have approved two tax increases with the promise of a couple of new light rail lines that have since been downgraded to BRT. (i'm especially salty about the clifton corridor - already a rail line!) their argument is that rail construction is so much more expensive than a busway - but that argument falls apart in my opinion because the majority of the cost is acquisition of the ROW.

it's crazy that we were able to get marta in the first place - we got seattle's system, basically. i doubt we will ever see heavy rail expansion again; there was talk of a one station extension on the northwest spur, but microsoft has backed out of their campus plans so that is highly unlikely. the only hope for any kind of LRT expansion right now is actually an extension of the downtown streetcar onto the beltline to ponce city market, but even this is suddenly facing backlash from NIMBYs. it's hard to give a shit about this city.

sorry for the thread hijack, carry on

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by cabasse

the marta board is trash. we keep getting baited and switched; we have approved two tax increases with the promise of a couple of new light rail lines that have since been downgraded to BRT. (i'm especially salty about the clifton corridor - already a rail line!) their argument is that rail construction is so much more expensive than a busway - but that argument falls apart in my opinion because the majority of the cost is acquisition of the ROW.

it's crazy that we were able to get marta in the first place - we got seattle's system, basically. i doubt we will ever see heavy rail expansion again; there was talk of a one station extension on the northwest spur, but microsoft has backed out of their campus plans so that is highly unlikely. the only hope for any kind of LRT expansion right now is actually an extension of the downtown streetcar onto the beltline to ponce city market, but even this is suddenly facing backlash from NIMBYs. it's hard to give a shit about this city.

sorry for the thread hijack, carry on

Thanks for the explanation. Hopefully when more of "the olds" die out things will get better.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by cabasse

houston really took off between 1930 and 1940. biggest southern metros in 1930 in no particular order:

metro         1930 pop    ppsm (metro)

new orleans   494877      1724

houston       339216      424

memphis       276126      1248

dallas        309658      613

birmingham    382792      1243

atlanta       370920      1676

atlanta deserves the crap it gets for its modern development patterns but it was one of the densest southern cities/metros by far back then. (right behind new orleans albeit only 2/3rds its size)

https://www2.census.gov/library/publ...3450421ch1.pdf

It is sort of sad to see how NO went from first to worst on the population rankings.

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

It is sort of sad to see how NO went from first to worst on the population rankings.

Buffalo feels their pain, and fared worse for city decline and Metro growth than NOLA
The Buffalo-Niagara Metro only grew by ~310k while Toronto CMA grew by 5.3 Million! ouch. Thankfully the declines are behind.

[Wigs]

Comparing 1940 to 2020 city population as % of Metro
*1941/2021 numbers for Canada

[TWAK]

My micropolitan area had 8k people lol.
The threshold for a micropolitan area is 10k in an urban cluster (wiki), so it wasn't even referred to that back then.

[Wigs]