Quote:
Originally Posted by chris08876
Imagine how great Detroit would of been if it retained its 1950's population and continued to grow. 
Surely would of been the 4th most populated. Chicago I believe had something like 3.5 mil by 1950; probably would of been at 5 million by now assuming it continued to grow. |
Detroit was mostly growing horizontally for most of it's history. Had city limits stayed the same, it would probably have 1.3 million due to household size changes, and then you can add about 100,000 from infill (assuming infill continued at the same pace as pre-WWII) for a total of 1.4 million.
BTW the number of housing units in Detroit peaked in 1960 since there were still a few green fields at the outskirts, but household size decreases negated that so the population still decreased in the 50s.
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