Suburbs that are denser than the city?

[Dariusb]

What are some examples of a suburb being more dense than it's parent city? Not just in US or Canada but worldwide as well.

[Steely Dan]

Berwyn, Cicero, and Elmwood Park are all a little bit denser than Chicago is overall.

in reality, they are all just bog-standard west side bungalow belt neighborhoods that simply never got annexed by the city, so today they are considered "suburbs".

Had they been annexed by the city as they probably should have, they would just be "city neighborhoods" today, and no one would bat an eyelash at that classification.

At around 13,000 - 14,000 ppsm, they don't come close to matching Chicago's urban core density, which is more in the 25,000 - 35,000 ppsm range.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Berwyn, Cicero, and Elmwood Park are all a little bit denser than Chicago is overall.

in reality, they are all just bog-standard west side bungalow belt neighborhoods that simply never got annexed by the city, so today they are considered "suburbs".

Had they been annexed by the city as they probably should have, they would just be "city neighborhoods" today, and no one would bat an eyelash at that classification.

At around 13,000 - 14,000 ppsm, they don't come close to matching Chicago's urban core density, which is more in the 25,000 - 35,000 ppsm range.

How much of an impact does ORD have on Chicago's density? It's a pretty big appendage.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by JManc

How much of an impact does ORD have on Chicago's density? It's a pretty big appendage.

ORD is quite large in land area. Its so big it has its own community area with 13 sq. miles of land and zero population.

There is also an even bigger contiguous chunk of uninhabbitted land on the far southeast side: the Lake Calumet industrial zone. This 18 sq. mile chunk of land was once the beating blue collar heart of industrial Chicago, but today is apex rustbelt with vast tracts of now vacant industrial sites, slag fields, land fills, and other throw away land with nary a soul living there. There are places down there that you simply cannot accept as being within the city limits of a major US city.

If you take those two giant hunks of land out of the population density calculation, then Chicago's average density would be bumped up to around 13,800 ppsm.

[kool maudit]

Hamtramck, I suspect.

[Centropolis]

Clayton, University City, Maplewood all have a higher population density than St. Louis. They don’t have large empty areas and are just a continuation of the urban core of St. Louis really, except for downtown Clayton which is its own animal

[craigs]

None of the Bay Area suburbs are as dense as the city of San Francisco, but Daly City comes closest at 14,006 persons per square mile. The highest densities in the Bay Area outside of San Francisco are found in Berkeley and Oakland, but officially those cities' respective densities are watered down by mountains within city limits.

Several Los Angeles suburbs are technically more dense than the city itself, such as West Hollwood and Maywood, but they don't have mountain ranges within city limits like Los Angeles does.

[proghousehead]

Originally Posted by craigs

None of the Bay Area suburbs are as dense as the city of San Francisco, but Daly City comes closest at 14,006 persons per square mile.

Several Los Angeles suburbs are technically more dense than the city itself, such as West Hollwood and Maywood.

Union City and Hoboken are denser than NYC. But they really aren’t suburbs. More like extensions of the city itself.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by proghousehead

Union City and Hoboken are denser than NYC. But they really aren’t suburbs. More like extensions of the city itself.

Whoops, didn't see this before I responded.

But this is even more true of Hamtramck, MI (Detroit) than those places.

[MonkeyRonin]

Guttenburg, NJ (22,015/km2); Union City, NJ (20,045/km2); West New York, NJ (19,059/km2); and Hoboken, NJ (15,083/km2) are all denser than NYC (10,715/km2).

Somerville (7,680/km2) and Cambridge, Massachusetts (7,144/km2) are denser than Boston (5,538/km2).

Westmount, Quebec (4,952/km2) is denser than Montreal (4,670/km2).

L'Hospitalet de Llobregat (21,000/km2) is denser than Barcelona (16,000/km2).


Among many others I'm sure. For the most part though, these aren't really "denser" than the main city, they're just geographically small, mostly-residential land with little commercial or other uses to drag down the density numbers.

[iheartthed]

Hoboken, Union City, and West New York in New Jersey are all more densely populated the NYC.

[jpdivola]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

.. For the most part though, these aren't really "denser" than the main city, they're just geographically small, mostly-residential land with little commercial or other uses to drag down the density numbers.

Yeah, these density comparisons really highlight the shortcomings of using municipal density figures as a proxy from urbanism/vibrancy.

I tend to think of 3 categories when it comes to urban suburbs:
1) Places that are genuinely more urban than the core city:. Tempe AZ or maybe Miami Beach.
2) Places that are functionally part of the urban core, but are technically separate municipalities: Cambridge Ma is probably the prime example.
3) Inner Ring Suburbs that are technically denser on average than the city, but in practice are on par with an putter city neighborhood. Cicero Il, Langley Park Md, maybe Everett Ma.

The only two examples I can think of where the suburb is

[kool maudit]

It's no longer a question of suburbs, but Copenhagen is a little rare insofar as its inner neighbourhoods are denser and structurally more imposing than its core. Built out of five-six storey courtyard blocks, they resemble parts of Berlin whereas the 17th-century core is very Danish, and mainly built of narrow houses.



vs.

[ThePhun1]

I'd bet West U is denser than Houston without looking it up.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by ThePhun1

I'd bet West U is denser than Houston without looking it up.

Yeah but West U is entirely within the InnerLoop and totally surrounded by the city of Houston. Southside Place, south of West U, would be the densest city in Texas with 8,600 ppsm.

[SFBruin]

As mentioned before, several LA suburbs are denser than the city of LA overall (including West Hollywood, Santa Monica, Long Beach, and a few others).

But I don't think that any suburb is as dense as is the core of LA.

I don't think that any suburb of San Francisco is denser than San Francisco itself, but Berkeley is technically denser than Oakland, of which it could be considered a suburb.

[ThePhun1]

Berkeley is more like Cambridge to Boston. It's special.

[Shawn]

As was mentioned above, for Boston there’s:

Somerville: 81,562 (19,893 sq mi / 7,680.80 sq km)
Cambridge: 118,977 (18,503 sq mi / 7,144 sq km)
Boston: 694,583 (14,344 sq mi / 5,538 sq km)

For Providence, there’s also:

Central Falls: 19,398 (16,107 sq mi / 6,219 sq km)
Providence: 179,335 (9,676 sq mi / 3,736 sq km)

For Burlington VT, there’s also:

Winooski: 7,267 (5,191 sq mi / 1,964 sq km)
Burlington: 42,899 (4,122 sq mi / 1,581 sq km)

[DetroitSky]

Others mentioned it, but Hamtramck actually has the highest population density in Michigan with 10,382.82/square mile. Detroit is second in the state at 4,852.42/square mile.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by DetroitSky

Others mentioned it, but Hamtramck actually has the highest population density in Michigan with 10,382.82/square mile. Detroit is second in the state at 4,852.42/square mile.

Interesting. Even with all the urban prairies not a single (real) suburb is denser than Detroit. Which one comes closer?

But now converting sqm to sqkm, Detroit is still quite dense: 1,900 inh/km2. Detroit urban area density is at 1,000 inh/km2 and I guess US typical suburb is at 500 inh./km2 or so.