The US Census Bureau thread

[pico44]

Originally Posted by ChiSoxRox

Here is the full list for MSAs over 10k ppsm. Under tags for length.

[Spoiler][LIST=1][*]New York: 11,694,534[*]Los Angeles: 6,611,283[*]Chicago: 2,614,012[*]San Francisco: 2,073,127[*]Philadelphia: 1,580,169[*]Boston: 1,448,764[*]Miami: 1,398,475[*]Washington: 1,230,663

I'll end with the list an order of magnitude higher:

MSAs with population over 100k ppsm:

1. New York: 1,678,781
2. San Francisco: 29,472
3. Miami: 7,863
4. Chicago: 6,505
5. Boston: 5,747
6. Honolulu: 4,148
7. Seattle: 3,506
8. Los Angeles: 2,124

Seeing the first list at 10,000ppsm, I guess I didn’t process how undense that threshold was, and seeing LA punching so close to New York’s weight class scrambled my internal perception meter a bit. Then the 100,000 ppsm list was posted, with NYC counting SEVEN HUNDRED TIMES more people at that threshold, and my brain unscrambled. What a beast!

[dimondpark]

Thank you ChiSoxRox for the data.

Half of Los Angeles lives in areas that are 10,000+ppsm, I already figured that I think, but to actually see it in a stat is neat. What a fantastic rebuttal to haters that bemoan the place about sprawl.

MSAs by % Population 10,000+ Per Square Mile
58.0% New York: 11,694,534
50.0% Los Angeles: 6,611,283
43.6% San Francisco: 2,073,127
38.8% Honolulu: 395,854
36.0% San Jose: 720,560
29.3% Boston: 1,448,764
27.1% Chicago: 2,614,012
26.4% Salinas: 116,532
25.3% Philadelphia: 1,580,169
24.7% San Diego: 816,530
23.2% Santa Barbara: 104,916
22.7% Miami: 1,398,475
19.5% Las Vegas: 441,510
19.2% Washington: 1,230,663
18.0% Oxnard: 152,811
18.0% Trenton: 70,272
17.9% Providence: 301,925
17.7% State College: 28,622
17.5% Bridgeport: 168,397
15.9% Santa Cruz: 43,412
14.3% Milwaukee: 226,941
14.2% Reading: 61,836
13.1% Baltimore: 375,152
13.1% Buffalo: 153,098
12.5% Seattle: 505,840
11.1% New Haven: 96,281
10.6% Denver: 315,809
9.9% Champaign: 22,271
9.7% Allentown: 84,293
9.2% Madison: 63,212
8.5% Manchester: 36,655
8.3% Lancaster: 46,505
8.3% Stockton: 65,403
8.0% Springfield, MA: 56,107
7.6% Atlantic City: 21,194
7.3% Riverside: 339,111
7.4% New Orleans: 95,502
7.1% Hartford: 87,780
7.1% Phoenix: 328,143
7.1% Portland: 179,612
6.9% Ann Arbor: 26,580
6.9% Houston: 495,906
6.8% Poughkeepsie: 48,699
6.7% Reno: 33,110
6.7% Worcester: 66,488
6.6% Boulder: 22,321
6.5% Minneapolis: 241,894
6.3% Albany: 57,733
6.3% Fresno: 64,225
6.2% Sacramento: 149,401
5.5% Rochester: 60,997
5.4% Harrisburg: 32,348
5.4% Scranton: 31,525
5.4% York: 25,122
5.1% Dallas: 390,927
4.7% Modesto: 26,829
4.6% Provo: 31,825
4.6% Vallejo: 21,593
4.0% Columbus: 86,536
4.0% Syracuse: 27,262
3.9% Bakersfield: 36,880
3.9% Pittsburgh: 94,694
3.7% Cleveland: 78,607
3.7% Salt Lake City: 47,020
3.3% Austin: 76,408
3.0% Richmond: 40,379
2.8% Detroit: 126,508
2.5% Orlando: 67,832
2.4% Atlanta: 150,542
2.0% Cincinnati: 46,615
1.8% St. Louis: 53,286
1.3% Tampa Bay: 43,634
1.2% San Antonio: 33,299
0.7% Charlotte: 21,929

[Crawford]

That's bc LA has a shit-ton of medium density tracts. Like the whole basin down to Long Beach, much of the SFV, much of Northern Orange County, etc. LA has a gigantic geography of not particularly walkable or transit oriented, but rather dense, mid-century sprawl. And the larger household sizes due to immigration and high housing costs ramps up the density.

[dimondpark]

And as far as this, The City rightfully gets all the credit when it comes to density, but clearly other Bay Area counties have density in their own right. Nearly half of Alameda County lives in areas that are 10K+ppsm

San Francisco and San Jose MSAs
94.3% San Francisco County: 824,531
48.3% Alameda County: 813,006
37.1% Santa Clara: County: 720,560
36.9% San Mateo County: 282,574
11.7% Contra Costa: County 137,679
5.7% Marin County: 15,337

[dimondpark]

Originally Posted by pico44

Seeing the first list at 10,000ppsm, I guess I didn’t process how undense that threshold was...

10K is clearly very dense compared to most of the United States tho.

[edale]

Originally Posted by Crawford

That's bc LA has a shit-ton of medium density tracts. Like the whole basin down to Long Beach, much of the SFV, much of Northern Orange County, etc. LA has a gigantic geography of not particularly walkable or transit oriented, but rather dense, mid-century sprawl. And the larger household sizes due to immigration and high housing costs ramps up the density.

Right. While LA does have a lot of walkable, traditionally urban areas, it also has a ton of the same stuff that most western cities have-- dense suburban style development. Vegas has nearly twice as many people living in 10k density census tracts than Minneapolis, and four times as many as Pittsburgh. Does anyone really think Vegas is more urban than MSP or Pittsburgh? Not a chance.

Western cities build SFHs at a density that is perplexing from someone from the east coast or midwest. I remember visiting a friend who lived in a gated community in Irvine () and thinking it was going to be this fancy, spacious neighborhood, but in reality it was cookie cutter homes spaced so close to each other you could basically reach out and touch the neighboring home. Of course it was the antithesis of a walkable or urban neighborhood, despite its density. To me, that's kind of the worst of both worlds. You don't get the privacy and space that suburbia is supposed to present, and you also still have to drive everywhere.

[ChiSoxRox]

Originally Posted by eixample

Philly went through a long, slow industrial decline from the late 19th century when factories were moving to new "hot" cities like Detroit. Philly wasn't a one-industry town and it didn't really blow up all at once in the latter half of the 20th century like in Detroit. I don't think there is much special of a reason to compare Philadelphia and Detroit aside from their peak mid-century populations, have similar area of the city, and they both became the byword for urban decline in the US.



You make some good points. On the issue of greenbelt or other industrial or non-residential use sprinkled throughout a city, I think that is why weighted density is the best measurement since it accounts for how density is felt by the average individual in a city/neighborhood rather than just a straight calculation of number of people in a specific area without an account for how the land is used.

Definitely agree. Alas, the current tools we have (the census tract query tool and the gigantic ZIP files) make a weighted density calculation quite tricky. The simple high/low density filter is far simpler, hence the giant data dumps.

P.S. While compiling the 10k megalist, I found two omissions from my earlier 20k list: Trenton and Reading. The 20k threshold does a far better job of filtering out compact Western suburbia, with the tradeoff that the withered post-industrial metros simply vanish.

MSAs by total population over 20,000 ppsm
New York: 9,151,543
Los Angeles: 1,919,006
Chicago: 1,238,801
San Francisco: 899,765
Philadelphia: 841,729
Boston: 727,666
Washington: 501,510
Miami: 396,021
Honolulu: 182,167
Seattle: 160,101
San Diego: 103,421
Houston: 88,080
Baltimore: 67,095
San Jose: 64,724
Dallas: 54,893
Minneapolis: 52,998
Denver: 49,423
Milwaukee: 47,988
Bridgeport: 47,791
Providence: 39,442
Portland: 38,057
Madison: 35,514
Columbus: 31,592
Trenton: 31,210
Reading: 30,136
Allentown: 29,319
Atlanta: 26,589
Worcester: 26,374
Las Vegas: 26,114
Austin: 23,224
Champaign: 22,271
Salinas: 21,893
Phoenix: 20,351

Although I've realized if the Census tract query tool keeps the order of the results for a jurisdiction the same for different parameters (specifically POP2020 and POPDEN2020) we've got the data at hand for weighted population density.

Edit: or I can just pull both WPD parameters at once and gawk the values to their own lists, one python calculation, done. This is exactly where gawk shines, pulling specific text out of a file. Today is busy, but later this week I can see about weighted population density for MSAs, states, etc.

[dave8721]

Originally Posted by ChiSoxRox

By neighborhood-sized area I mean multiple census tracts in a continuous area to fill out much of an understood neighborhood. Other cities (Chicago, Miami, etc) will have super high density tracts, but those will be on their own covering a few apartment towers or a single dormitory.

New York and San Francisco are the only US cities where you can find several continuous blocks of population density over 100,000 per square mile.

Brickell in Miami is pretty close. It has Miami's 3 100k tracts. The one tract between those 3 100k tracts is a 99k density tract. With another 96k density tract right next to it. That's 5 95k+ density tracts all forming basically a square and covering a good chunk of "east of the metrorail tracks" Brickell. As a whole Brickell's density probably falls in the 80k range. Might be higher if it wasn't brought down by the large 40k tract that includes the big properties that are the future phases of Brickell CityCentre just south of the river.

[streetscaper]

I'm actually quite impressed by the numbers coming out of Miami at the higher densities (30K+ /sqmi). And the number of people currently living downtown (from Yuri's other downtown thread)

[pico44]

Originally Posted by dimondpark

10K is clearly very dense compared to most of the United States tho.

Absolutely, the first list tells that story pretty well. But the 10K threshold obscures just how vastly more dense New York is compared to LA. It isn’t just apples and oranges, it apples and hamburgers.

[Chisouthside]

Originally Posted by edale

Right. While LA does have a lot of walkable, traditionally urban areas, it also has a ton of the same stuff that most western cities have-- dense suburban style development. Vegas has nearly twice as many people living in 10k density census tracts than Minneapolis, and four times as many as Pittsburgh. Does anyone really think Vegas is more urban than MSP or Pittsburgh? Not a chance.

Western cities build SFHs at a density that is perplexing from someone from the east coast or midwest. I remember visiting a friend who lived in a gated community in Irvine () and thinking it was going to be this fancy, spacious neighborhood, but in reality it was cookie cutter homes spaced so close to each other you could basically reach out and touch the neighboring home. Of course it was the antithesis of a walkable or urban neighborhood, despite its density. To me, that's kind of the worst of both worlds. You don't get the privacy and space that suburbia is supposed to present, and you also still have to drive everywhere.

on top of this alot of valuable open space on these lots is reserved for concrete driveways.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by ChiSoxRox

The 20k threshold does a far better job of filtering out compact Western suburbia, with the tradeoff that the withered post-industrial metros simply vanish.

yes, from what i've observed and experienced, 20K+ ppsm is definitely closer to the threshold where the scales start to tilt more toward functional urbanism.

now, that doesn't mean that 10K+ ppsm is no different than low density sprawl, but even within the same city, i can notice the difference in vibrancy, function, and vibe between a 10K ppsm bungalow belt neighborhood and a 20K+ ppsm multi-family neighborhood. my best friend bought a house for his family out in norwood park last year (hardcore "cop & fireman" bungalow belt out on the far NW side of chicago), and his tract is 10,500 ppsm. we live ~5 miles due east of him over in lincoln square in a tract that is 26,000 ppsm, and the amount of things that we can actually walk to in a 5-10 minutes from our home is like an order of magnitude higher, not to mention the fact that the retail corridors around him are way less cohesive and much more swiss-cheesed by strip malls, stand-alone parking lot retail buildings, and other auto-centric crap that very strongly encourages people to drive. now, it certainly ain't schaumburg bad, but it sure as hell doesn't feel like a denser, more urban chicago neighborhood either.



i think the 10K+ ppsm threshold might've come from the numerous discussions of midwest cities we'ver had here at SSP, and it was used there primarily because, outside of chicago, there are very precious few 20K+ tracts left in midwest cities (though minneapolis' recent strong growth in that category will hopefully light the way to the future).

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by ChiSoxRox

Edit: or I can just pull both WPD parameters at once and gawk the values to their own lists, one python calculation, done. This is exactly where gawk shines, pulling specific text out of a file. Today is busy, but later this week I can see about weighted population density for MSAs, states, etc.

I'd love to see these numbers.

Hand tabulated, so maybe accidentally missing a precinct or two for each:

Originally Posted by wwmiv

Weighted population densities for Austin and San Antonio MSAs (I.E. the density at which the average person lives in Austin and San Antonio).

Austin: 4,569 ppsm
San Antonio: 5,210 ppsm

Despite Austin having an "actual" urban core (as discussed above) and San Antonio lacking one, the average citizen in San Antonio lives at slightly higher density levels than the average person in Austin. This is probably ENTIRELY due to household size differences in the two metropolitan areas.

This is a big change from 2010 and a big shift in the trendline as well. San Antonio MSA was at 3,475 ppsm and Austin MSA was at 3,132 ppsm, both of which were actually decreases between 2000 and 2010. These are HUGE increases in density and are akin to the weighted densities of Seattle, Denver, and Baltimore in 2010, and also denser than were El Paso, Houston, or DFW at that time.

https://www.austincontrarian.com/aus...d-density.html

On the basis of these numbers and the on-the-ground reality throughout Texas, I'd wager Houston Metro and DFW are around 7,500 ppsm weighted density in 2020.

[ChiSoxRox]

Originally Posted by wwmiv

I'd love to see these numbers.

Hand tabulated, so maybe accidentally missing a precinct or two for each:



On the basis of these numbers and the on-the-ground reality throughout Texas, I'd wager Houston Metro and DFW are around 7,500 ppsm weighted density in 2020.

Nice density gains! Thanks for the link with the 2010 numbers.

The main bottleneck will be the Census query site being limited to 1000 tracts at a time, so for the big MSAs I'll have to pull density bands (>10k, 5k-10k, 3k-5k, and so on) at a time and accumulate in Excel. But it will be straightforward.

Math nerdiness ensues:

Since weighted population density is defined for each area as the sum of the products of population (n) and density (ρ) normalized to the entire population (N),

i.e. WPD = Σ (n*ρ) / N

this would be very quick indeed if the sum of the products equaled the product of the sums, i.e. sum up n and sum up ρ individually. But that does *not* hold, so I'll have to calculate tract by tract and then sum.

[iheartthed]

I took the MSA numbers for 10k ppsm and aggregated by region:

Northeast: 17,987,115 / 75,900,118 ~ 24%*
West: 13,643,657 / 78,588,572 ~ 17%
Midwest: 3,586,462 / 73,491,290 ~ 5%**
Southeast: 2,792,904 / 103,478,445

*Northeast includes Virginia and West Virginia.
**Midwest includes Kentucky. Also, there appears to be some missed 10k tracts in Kansas City and Louisville, but the number of residents in those tracts is immaterial.

[ChiSoxRox]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Also, there appears to be some missed 10k tracts in Kansas City and Louisville, but the number of residents in those tracts is immaterial.

When I compiled the megalist, to keep the number of cities manageable I only retained metros passing 20,000 people above 10k. A good example is Lincoln, Nebraska: 18,274 in qualifying tracts.

Still, compared to the Chicagos and San Franciscos, the total sum in these scattered tracts will be orders of magnitude less.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by ChiSoxRox

When I compiled the megalist, to keep the number of cities manageable I only retained metros passing 20,000 people above 10k. A good example is Lincoln, Nebraska: 18,274 in qualifying tracts.

Ah, ok. That makes sense.

[LA21st]

Originally Posted by pico44

Absolutely, the first list tells that story pretty well. But the 10K threshold obscures just how vastly more dense New York is compared to LA. It isn’t just apples and oranges, it apples and hamburgers.

Well, LA is denser than most, so. ..

Half the damn msa lives in 10k and above psm.
That's incredible.

That's basically the size of the entire Miami metro.

[LA21st]

Originally Posted by edale

Right. While LA does have a lot of walkable, traditionally urban areas, it also has a ton of the same stuff that most western cities have-- dense suburban style development. Vegas has nearly twice as many people living in 10k density census tracts than Minneapolis, and four times as many as Pittsburgh. Does anyone really think Vegas is more urban than MSP or Pittsburgh? Not a chance.

Western cities build SFHs at a density that is perplexing from someone from the east coast or midwest. I remember visiting a friend who lived in a gated community in Irvine () and thinking it was going to be this fancy, spacious neighborhood, but in reality it was cookie cutter homes spaced so close to each other you could basically reach out and touch the neighboring home. Of course it was the antithesis of a walkable or urban neighborhood, despite its density. To me, that's kind of the worst of both worlds. You don't get the privacy and space that suburbia is supposed to present, and you also still have to drive everywhere.

You may have to drive, but because of the density of LA, you're much closer to amenities and things to do compared to 90 percent of America
I lived on nova, and I remember traveling much further for anything compared to la suburbs.
DC suburbs have miles and miles of sfh and barely anything else.
It's not ideal.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by LA21st

Half the damn msa lives in 10k and above psm.
That's incredible.

That's basically the size of the entire Miami metro.

Frankly, I find LA's 20K+ ppsm figure even more impressive.

10K+ ppsm can be fairly urban in some circumstances, but it can also be a kind of limbo zone of tightly packed houses and very lackluster retail corridors.

But at 20K+ ppsm, things tend to lean more in the urban direction more often than not.