Should there be any doubt that LA belongs among the big 6 urban US cities?

[tech12]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I think number of cars per adult in a city gives a better idea of car dependency than just cars per household. Using the number of vehicles per household (2016) from this Governing article, I was able to calculate the cars per adult using 2020 census data for the largest cities.

Vehicles per adult by city (2020 census)

1. New York, New York - 0.30
2. Boston, Massachusetts - 0.46
3. Washington, District of Columbia - 0.48
4. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - 0.55
5. Baltimore, Maryland - 0.57
6. Chicago, Illinois - 0.58
7. Detroit, Michigan - 0.60
8. San Francisco, California - 0.61
9. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania - 0.62
10. Miami, Florida - 0.63
11. New Orleans, Louisiana - 0.64
12. Cleveland, Ohio - 0.68
13. Oakland, California - 0.69
14. Atlanta, Georgia - 0.70
15. Minneapolis, Minnesota - 0.72
16. Milwaukee, Wisconsin - 0.72
17. Los Angeles, California - 0.72
18. St. Louis, Missouri - 0.74
19. Cincinnati, Ohio - 0.75
20. Orlando, Florida - 0.75
21. Seattle, Washington - 0.76
22. Tampa, Florida - 0.77
23. Portland, Oregon - 0.78
24. Sacramento, California - 0.79
25. Las Vegas, Nevada - 0.79
26. Houston, Texas - 0.81
27. San Diego, California - 0.83
28. Phoenix, Arizona - 0.83
29. Columbus, Ohio - 0.84
30. Dallas, Texas - 0.84
31. San Antonio, Texas - 0.85
32. Indianapolis, Indiana - 0.87
33. Raleigh, North Carolina - 0.88
34. Austin, Texas - 0.89
35. Charlotte, North Carolina - 0.90
36. Denver, Colorado - 0.90

A higher ratio means more cars per adults in the city. A city that is more car dependent will naturally have more cars per adult.

The ranking lines up pretty closely with my understanding of prewar vs Sun Belt cities. The top five cities are the five major cities of the BosWash Corridor. All of the top 10 were major prewar cities. The cities with a higher ratio mostly grew in the postwar era.

The number of cars is also a measurement of the walkability/accessibility of the suburbs and nearby cities and attractions (can you easily visit them and get around them by public transit or not?), and to some extent is also a measurement of wealth. Detroit and Baltimore for example, are not less car-dependent than SF despite having fewer cars per capita (they have much lower transit usage and density), but they do have higher poverty rates. And SF for example, also has lots of nearby wilderness/parkland areas with poor transit access (and car-dependent suburbs as well, like everyhere else), with highly-car-dependent cities and more rural/wilderness areas beyond the metro area, which is unlike the Bos-Wash corridor for example, which is lined with large, dense, walkable cities with easy transit access to each other.