Wow...I'm impressed that Philadelphia is 7th in population but one of the smallest CSA's in land size. This is a very densely populated area.

:haha: So true...

But you're right to observe those numbers. In terms of the physical expanse of a contiguous developed area, Atlanta is probably #3 in the country, behind Chicago and New York. Those are the only three US metros I've been to that sprawl at least 50 to 60 miles in every geographically possible direction.

Chicago and NYC are lucky to have such expansive water boundaries. It's helped them create some really dense nodes of activity. They are also lucky to have grown very centralized economies.

No offense but I find it mind boggling that someone truly thinks Atlanta is that big and that other places don't sprawl as much or more than Atlanta. Please go to LA, Boston, Philly, SF bay.

I have driven through and around all the cites you mentioned, and there is no way that Boston or Philly sprawl out to the extent Atlanta does. No way.

Atlanta sprawls. Its so dauntingly huge that my trip home to the suburbs this break will be thirty-five miles and I'll still be in an area with more jobs than people promoting the construction of skyscrapers in the area. Atlanta is so vast and unplanned that the world outside your daily commute is unknowable. People would be hopelessly lost if they strayed from the highways and tried to make a forty miles trip with roads. Atlanta is so large that it is impossible for fifth ring of suburbs to see the CBD due to the curvature of the earth.

Atlanta is the kind of city where you drive through one skyline, see a lot of trees, then drive through another and another before you finally reach an urban area. It is important to realize, though, that there is a limit to how far people will commute when traffic reaches a certain level. The growth has already started turning in on itself and the city of Atlanta itself had more permits than any County in the metro area (other than the one its in of course). Here is a nice reminder of the city. The photo is credited so I hope this is kosher.

Buckhead (north City of Atlanta) (no this is not the CBD, this is the view from one outer business district to another)
http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/4009/p1011284es5.jpg
ATLksuGUY

Also, the city of Atlanta has a density of 3,690 people per square mile and a core density of tens of thousands of people per square mile. I know my block is urban and I don't ever leave my little urban area except to visit the family so its not like you can't have the 'urban' lifestyle around here.

I go to Atlanta often for business. It has lots of freeways and low density sprawl that gives way to the sticks 40 miles from the city. 40 miles from Boston is Providence with a metro of 1.6 million. To the west is Worcester with a metro over 500,000. To the north is Portland, ME metro over 500,000. There really is no comparison between metro Boston and Metro Atlanta. Boston is much more extensive and dense. After you get done looking at pictures and reading US census statistics for what that's worth, try driving from Warwick, RI to Portland, ME at 5PM any weekday or on a holiday. Even on one of the loop freeways that goes around Boston it's about 150 miles of endless congestion.

I've learned that the OMB has recently added two additional counties to Sacramento's CSA (Yuba City, CA MSA = Sutter, Yuba counties). The revised 2006 number now looks like this:


Sacramento—Arden-Arcade—Yuba City, CA-NV CSA

Sacramento County- 1,374,724
Placer County- 326,242
Yolo County- 188,085
El Dorado County- 178,066
Nevada County- 98,764
Sutter County- 91,410
Yuba County- 70,396
Douglas County, NV- 45,909

Total: 2,373,596

SacTownAndy, where did you get that info? I'd like to see if any other metros have been redefined...I'm pleased to see this thread still alive..it's almost time for next year's thread!

Steve-

Someone actually pointed it out to me in the CaliForum. So I went directly to the OMB's website and looked up Sacramento on their list of CSA designations. Sure enough, there the new designation including Yuba City was. I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but it had to have been some point in the last year- the last census estimates were only the "Sacramento-Arden-Arcade-Truckee" counties (which didn't include Sutter and Yuba), whereas now it's listed as "Sacramento-Arden-Arcade-Yuba City" CSA and now includes Sutter and Yuba counties (the Yuba City MSA was added).

I don't think there was a press release or anything, so if there are any metros you're curious about specifically and knew what they were beforehand, I would go to the CSA listing and look them up. It might be a pain but that's the only way I can think of for right now.

Here is the document I was looking at specifically, updated 11/20/07:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/bullet...008/b08-01.pdf

^ Wow thats larger than the state of New Jersy. Cincinnati region would be way over 4 million with that kinda real estate.

I don't think he's disputing which city is bigger at all, because it's not much of a question. Obviously Boston is more built up, and has much larger/urban areas surrounding the city. Atlanta is built up in a completely different way. As you mentioned, if you move outside of the central part of Atlanta, it becomes very low density, borderline rural in many areas. But if you continue to travel on a main street, you'll probably run into a little mini-city cluster which is basically just a glorified Suburban Office park, only with larger buildings. This is what I think Dante was trying to say...not that it's built up more than anywhere else, but the fact that you can leave the main city, be in a very low density/rural area, but if you follow a main road you're just going to run into another little area like you were before. Whenever I go through or visit Atlanta (which is only a couple hours from my university), I'm always amazed by how decentralized the city is...it's very unique in the sense that it's developed in the most cookie-cutter style possible. I know not everyone in the world loves urbanity, but I hope that few cities choose to develop in this manner.

I've heard that Houston sprawls alot to.

But dude, L.A. dominates.
In fact, I remember seeing a quote calling Mammoth Lakes "The Farthest Suburb of L.A." Of course, on the way up there, you have to go through the desert. The Mojave Desert is pretty desolate(except for California City, Mojave, etc)
I actually wouldn't be suprised if that will be the next prime hotspot in the next real estate upturn.

for a real trip
 

Compare the land area of the Mexican cities mentioned a few posts back to their relative populations.

Try to pack 17 million (mexico city) people inside phoenix.

http://www.citymayors.com/statistics...-area-125.html

Have you seen those Mexico City slums?

Actually the 2007 population estimates for the Sacramento-Arden Arcade-Yuba City CSA as compiled from the California Department of Finance are;


Sacramento 1,415,117
Placer 329,818
Yolo 197,530
Yuba 71,612
El Dorado 178,689
Sutter 95,516
Nevada 98,764
Douglas NV 45, 909


Sacramento-Arden Arcade-Yuba City CSA total population 2,432,955

(without Douglas NV which is silly imo is 2,387,406)

That's only about 6,784 mi² (as noted above)..


Most of Sacramento's Metropolitan Population is within a 20-25 minute drive of downtown that sits between Folsom Lake and Downtown Sacramento (near the confluence of the Sacramento and American Rivers.)

The Alpine additions are a collection of very small towns along Highway 50 and Highway 80 such as Placerville, Pollock Pines etc...


http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b1...cramento2m.jpg

Um, wasn't really talking about Boston. On Atlanta, it seems to me that the city works just fine. Even rush hour isn't that serious despite the chorus of whiners. I'm also not sure where walkability comes in. Most cities are only walkable in their urban core, but Atlanta has several urban cores and you an pretty much get everything you want by train or by foot. If you want to talk auto-centric, I dare you to get by in South Florida without a car.

I heard a poster talking about how incredibly dense Miami was but I seriously doubt that amounts to much. I remember sneaking through backyards and hopping fences to get to the shopping center a couple dozen feet from my house down there growing up. In suburban Atlanta, at least the neighborhoods aren't fenced off like some kind of criminal element is stalking around. I don't know if its just Alpharetta, but for being 35 miles from downtown, you can get around it surprisingly well on a bike. Of course Atlanta itself begs you get out of your car by never providing enough parking. Half a million train passengers a day don't lie. If you're going to a sporting event or a concert you automatically use mass transit, no questions asked.

After all Atlanta is drop dead gorgeous. A city in the rolling hills embedded in a dense canopy and free for the most part of the dehumanized oppression of grid networks and numbered streets. If its between Manhattan and Atlanta I'll take nature's beauty over mankind's efficiency any day. Everyone is so damed relaxed and friendly here, homes are on the cheep, and jobs are as ubiquitous as the grass. This city is missing nothing. There is a reason why it tops the list in growth by percentage and only second in raw numbers to LA-Riverside. There is no recession here, no housing crash, no end to the growth. The city is bright blue too so no worries there either. Isn't it nice to be in a city that people drop billions to create new projects out of sheer love of the city? Isn't it nice to be in the city that is building the largest monument built in the US in six decades, the Millennium Arch? Isn't it nice to see a plethora of cranes everywhere heralding that the future is always even brighter than today? Yes it is.

Are you kidding? You've got a state so desperate for water to feed those that want their cake and to eat it too it's literally trying to redraw state borders. Do you realize how much more a negative impact that the sprawled urban area has on that dense canopy than a 'dehumanizing' gridded urban area?

There are legitimate reasons to appreciate Atlanta. It's sprawling layout (especially, if you're a true nature lover) is not one of them in the least bit. Yes, there is a reason why it tops the growth list, because the vast majority of people don't much care about future negative consequences as long as they got their's. It's the rule that this country has lived under for too long that you can buy now and pay later. The areas waters and air are screaming at it, and everyone's pretending that they don't hear it.

We aren't as desperate for water as you would imagine and that had nothing to do with the city in as much as it had to do with the worse drought in recorded history. We conserved our way right out of the crisis and the drought is essentially over. Plans are already in place to make sure that never happens again all without ever harming the river system. Yes I would like to know what impact Atlanta has on the mostly lifeless forest it inhabits. There is a reason why people don't ever complain about the environmental impact here. As shown in that photo, it is mostly intact at the end of the day not to mention the countless preservation projects across the city.

The quality of life is soaring here and as much as people hate sprawl on paper, it isn't as if there is a huge environmental problem here. I hate to say it to the tenants of this whole 'smart growth' agenda but it may have many more consequences than the alternative. Unfortunately, having to shell out most of your income for your home is a great shame of cities like Portland and Miami and these places crash first when a recession comes around. The slight increase in efficiency is not really worth having a computer generated traditional city based on old and failing theories.

We even get around the problems with uninodal sprawl by having multiple urban centers each with the potential for dense development. And yes there is something comfortingly human about not having gridded streets numbered 1 to 200 in every direction.

I never said the sprawl was why people moved here. I said it was the physical beauty among a dozen other things I listed, but since you brought it up, I'll have to respond to the knee jerk reaction to Atlanta from out-of-towners.