Great Lakes Cities

[MolsonExport]

Dunno 'bout Cleveland, but Jacksonville has got quirkiness over Toronto in spades.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Dunno 'bout Cleveland, but Jacksonville has got quirkiness over Toronto in spades.

It just isn't fair to compare Toronto with Jacksonville. It's like comparing the 8th grade science fair winner with the Ph.D. student at MIT.

[Docere]

Population living in Great Lakes basin by state/province (% of total state/province population), 2020-2021:

Ontario 12,427,877 87%
Michigan 10,077,331 100%
Illinois 5,989,383 47%
Ohio 5,196,533 44%
New York 4,216,538 21%
Wisconsin 3,770,046 64%
Indiana 1,959,533 29%
Pennsylvania 371,210 3%
Minnesota 342,530 6%

https://stateofgreatlakes.net/wp-content...lation-Subindicator-Report-SOGL-2022.pdf

[iheartthed]

Pennsylvania and Minnesota really dropped the ball by being the only Great Lakes states/provinces to not have a +1 million person metro on the Great Lakes coastline.

[Docere]

Great Lakes shoreline (statute miles):

Ontario 5,127
Michigan 3,288
Wisconsin 820
New York 473
Ohio 312
Minnesota 189
Illinois 63
Pennsylvania 51
Indiana 45

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Pennsylvania and Minnesota really dropped the ball by being the only Great Lakes states/provinces to not have a +1 million person metro on the Great Lakes coastline.

And Indiana? Unless the Gary area is a lot bigger than i thought.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

And Indiana? Unless the Gary area is a lot bigger than i thought.

Indiana's three Lake Michigan counties combine for roughly 785K.

But that population is fairly disjointed and without a definitive center (other than nextdoor Chicago itself).

[Steely Dan]

All of the UAs over 50,000 people that are either directly on one of the great lakes, or one of their connecting waterways.



Lake Michigan:

Chicago: 8,671,746
Milwaukee: 1,306,795
Green Bay: 224,156
Muskegon: 166,414
Racine: 134,877
Kenosha: 125,865
Holland: 107,034
Sheboygan: 74,369
Michigan City: 71,367
Benton Harbor: 61,888
Traverse City: 56,890



Lake Erie:

Detroit: 3,776,890
Cleveland: 1,712,178
Buffalo: 948,864
Toledo: 497,952
Windsor: 306,519
Lorain: 199,067
Erie: 187,820
Welland: 69,302
Sandusky: 61,743
Monroe: 57,260



Lake Ontario:

Toronto: 5,647,656
Hamilton: 729,560
Rochester: 704,327
Oshawa: 335,949
St. Catharines–Niagara: 242,460
Kingston: 127,943
Belleville: 75,052
Bowmanville: 56,742



Lake Superior:

Duluth: 119,411
Thunder Bay: 95,266
Sault Ste. Mare: 64,923



Lake Huron:

Port Huron: 82,226
Sarnia: 73,944
Bay City: 68,472

[Docere]

Cities like Grand Rapids and London aren't on the lakes, but they're in the population of the basins.

[Wigs]

Steely, thanks for that list. It's nice to see the population distribution by Great Lake.

For Canada we'll have to wait for the 2026 census to see updated population centre/"urbanized area" numbers. Population estimates for municipality, region, CMA come out yearly, but as far as I'm aware the population centre numbers are only calculated every 5 years during Canada's census as the boundaries have to be updated.

[softee]

Toronto, Hamilton, & Oshawa are really one urban area, but are separated due to Statcan's quirk of never combining established CMAs (or urban areas) even after they've grown into each other.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by softee

Toronto, Hamilton, & Oshawa are really one urban area, but are separated due to Statcan's quirk of never combining established CMAs (or urban areas) even after they've grown into each other.

^To be fair, he also listed Kenosha and Racine as separate from Chicago, even though they are contiguous.

***

If we counted separate UAs that were physically conjoined, we might have a 4th metro region for Lake Huron! Collingwood (pop. 25,786 in 2021) + Wasaga Beach (pop. 24,862) sprawl into each other and are over 50,000 now.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by softee

Toronto, Hamilton, & Oshawa are really one urban area, but are separated due to Statcan's quirk of never combining established CMAs (or urban areas) even after they've grown into each other.

The Greater Toronto Area (GTA) is more known in everyday speech anyway and includes Oshawa. Toronto-Hamilton is sort of borderline. It's been among Ontario's largest cities since the 19th century and has a TV station (one of the few independent ones left), a CFL team and a long-established university. A lot do commute into the GTA, but that's largely to neighboring Burlington.

Oshawa seems comparable to maybe Joliet or Aurora. Not sure what a US analogue to Hamilton is.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

And Indiana? Unless the Gary area is a lot bigger than i thought.

Well Gary is part of the Chicago metro area. Also, the Northwest Indiana counties that are considered part of Chicagoland have nearly 1 million in population in their own right.

[Nouvellecosse]

^ lol

[ColDayMan]

I'll just say, I've always thought it was strange that Michigan, arguably the Great Lakes state, doesn't really have any large/medium-sized cities on a Great Lake. The largest is...*checks notes*...Muskegon. That's not even a Duluth or Erie (PA) sized city. Detroit barely touches the — — lake, Lake St. Clair, but that's about it.

Strange.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by ColDayMan

I'll just say, I've always thought it was strange that Michigan, arguably the Great Lakes state, doesn't really have any large/medium-sized cities on a Great Lake. The largest is...*checks notes*...Muskegon. That's not even a Duluth or Erie (PA) sized city. Detroit barely touches the — — lake, Lake St. Clair, but that's about it.

Strange.

Detroit is already located at one of the most critical nexus points in the Great Lakes system. What would be the strategic advantage of another major city?

[ColDayMan]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Detroit is already located at one of the most critical nexus points in the Great Lakes system. What would be the strategic advantage of another major city?

I meant historically. For example, Traverse City or Muskegon could've been a Rochester, Toledo, or Buffalo-sized city for ***insert weird Michigan fact here***. You don't think it's bizarre that Michigan, the Great Lakes state, never developed a mid/large-ish city on a Great Lake?

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by softee

Toronto, Hamilton, & Oshawa are really one urban area, but are separated due to Statcan's quirk of never combining established CMAs (or urban areas) even after they've grown into each other.

I'm glad for that "quirk"
Hamilton really doesn't want to be seen as a Toronto suburb/exurb. It has its own identity as the former manufacturing powerhouse and still steelmaking capital of Canada. People like the uniqueness, distinctiveness, the slightly rougher edges/reputation of Hamilton.

That's hard for some Torontonians to grasp.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by ColDayMan

I meant historically. For example, Traverse City or Muskegon could've been a Rochester, Toledo, or Buffalo-sized city for ***insert weird Michigan fact here***. You don't think it's bizarre that Michigan, the Great Lakes state, never developed a mid/large-ish city on a Great Lake?

Detroit is located on a strait, not a tributary, so it kind of seems like splitting hairs to say there's no major Michigan city on the lakes. It's also located in just about the absolute most strategic location to reach the Atlantic Ocean from the state of Michigan by water. I don't see a good reason why there would be another major port city in Michigan?