Glad to see this one is about to start!
Quote:
Originally Posted by franktko
I always find it funny how people in SF just love that density figure and shout it out at every opportunity  If you tell them that the city is only the 14th largest in the US, behind even Austin or Indianapolis, then you'll hear that core city population is meaningless and the metro area is what is really representative of a city size (which I totally agree with). But don't tell them that this density figure is just as meaningless! 
Densities for downtown cores and metro areas would be the numbers I would really be interested to see, to be able to compare different areas on the same basis... |
1. city limit populations are pretty arbitrary, and that does not apply only to SF.
2. How is density meaningless? SF
is more dense than any other big city aside from NYC, and is even second densest in the US on the metro level as well (after LA at #1).
3. The downtown core of SF contains the densest census tracts you'll find in America outside of NYC, and those tracts make up a contiguous chunk containing the Tenderloin, Chinatown, and part of nob hill. It's a denser chunk than anything in downtown Boston, Philly, DC, Chicago, or LA, etc.
The reason plenty of people like to bring up the fact that SF is a densely populated place is because it is a densely populated place.