The US Census Bureau thread

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by SAN Man

Has a list of US cities' 2020 weighted density (city propers) been calculated?

not for city propers (a fairly meaningless apples to oranges comparison anyway), but our forum's very own chisoxrox computed the 2020 MSA weighted densities for all US 1M+ MSAs and posted the results in this thread last august, and detroit is right in the middle of the pack.

Originally Posted by ChiSoxRox

Weighted population density for MSAs over 1 million:

1. New York: 33,787.5
2. San Francisco....13,267.8
3. Honolulu....12,581.9
4. Los Angeles....12,169.4
5. San Jose....9,075.9
6. Chicago....9,011.9
7. Boston....8,987.9
8. Miami....8,489.2
9. Philadelphia....8,258.5
10. San Diego....7,381.9
11. Washington....7,296.1
12. Las Vegas....7,031.7
13. Seattle....6,146.3
14. Denver....5,418.0
15. Providence....5,204.6
16. Baltimore....5,144.7
17. Salt Lake City....5,070.9
18. Portland....5,058.8
19. Milwaukee....5,023.7
20. Sacramento....5,002.7
21. Phoenix....4,807.7
22. Riverside....4,636.9
23. Houston....4,606.4
24. New Orleans....4,577.0
25. Fresno....4,518.4
26. Buffalo....4,348.8
27. Dallas....4,274.7
    
28. Detroit....3,906.9
29. Minneapolis....3,784.4
30. Cleveland....3,676.9
31. Tampa Bay....3,616.6
32. Columbus....3,605.8
33. Virginia Beach....3,580.8
34. Austin....3,565.3
35. San Antonio....3,424.0
36. Tucson....3,285.2
37. Orlando....3,275.7
38. Hartford....3,195.3
39. Pittsburgh....2,970.0
40. Rochester....2,948.2
41. St. Louis....2,738.0
42. Atlanta....2,686.4
43. Louisville....2,686.3
44. Cincinnati....2,658.2
45. Oklahoma City....2,647.3
46. Richmond....2,590.4
47. Kansas City....2,561.4
48. Indianapolis....2,457.3
49. Jacksonville....2,431.3
50. Grand Rapids....2,413.3
51. Memphis....2,339.4
52. Tulsa....2,167.3
53. Raleigh....2,166.8
54. Charlotte....1,996.1
55. Nashville....1,943.3
56. Birmingham....1,402.6

[SAN Man]

^Agree. It would be interesting to see city proper weighted densities, not for anything of real use, just another random factoid to know of.

It looks like metro Detroit falls right in the middle of the pack of the top 56 metros by weighted density. 28th out of 56. Surprised to see it behind Vegas, Seattle, Denver, Phoenix, Riverside, Houston and Dallas. Outside of Chicago and Milwaukee it's still the densest place in the midwest ahead of Minneapolis, Cleveland, Columbus, St. Louis, Cincinnati, KC, Indy.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by SAN Man

Surprised to see it behind Vegas, Seattle, Denver, Phoenix, Riverside, Houston and Dallas.

cities out west tend to have WAY less ultra-low density "country sprawl" out in their hinterlands. metro areas out there often end more abruptly, with harder edges where development just stops, one of the more extreme examples being vegas where there are places with 7,500 ppsm tightly packed suburban subdivisions directly abutting wide open desert wilderness.

with a few exceptions like miami, cities in the east have a way more gradual urban bleed on their peripheries, which does drag density figures down, even weighted ones.

take a look at tract density maps of detroit and vegas. do you see all of those shades of green around metro detroit?

that's all "country sprawl", vegas has very little of it by comparison. it just goes straight into mostly uninhabited yellow.

[ChiSoxRox]

Here are selected city proper weighted densities. Census tracts are by county, independent of city lines, so if a city isn't on here it's likely a nightmare of weaving municipal lines cutting across tracts.

Weighted densities for cities proper
New York, NY…...65,299.0 ppsm
Jersey City, NJ…...36,846.2
San Francisco, CA…...33,572.5
Boston, MA…...27,437.4
Newark, NJ......24,478.2
Miami, FL…...22,014.5
Philadelphia, PA......21,935.1
Yonkers, NY......21,574.1
Chicago, IL.......21,235.2
Washington, DC…...20,642.9
Arlington, VA…...19,960.8
Los Angeles, CA…...17,294.3
Alexandria, VA…...15,708.3
Seattle, WA…...15,249.3
Baltimore, MD…...11,333.0
Minneapolis, MN....11,057.0
Milwaukee, WI…...9,506.5
Buffalo, NY ......9,265.5
Denver, CO…...8,889.4
St. Paul, MN.....7,803.04
New Orleans, LA…...7,189.8
St. Louis, MO…...6,834.8
Cleveland, OH......6,523.5
Richmond, VA…...6,413.2
Detroit, MI......6,213.4


Bonus - Houston inside I-610: 7,794.8 ppsm

[subterranean]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

cities out west tend to have WAY less ultra-low density "country sprawl" out in their hinterlands. metro areas out there often end more abruptly, with harder edges where development just stops, one of the more extreme examples being vegas where there are places with 7,500 ppsm tightly packed suburban subdivisions directly abutting wide open desert wilderness.

with a few exceptions like miami, cities in the east have a way more gradual urban bleed on their peripheries, which does drag density figures down, even weighted ones.

take a look at tract density maps of detroit and vegas. do you see all of those shades of green around metro detroit?

that's all "country sprawl", vegas has very little of it by comparison. it just goes straight into mostly uninhabited yellow.

Us Midwesterners just call it bucolic.

[SAN Man]

Originally Posted by ChiSoxRox

Here are selected city proper weighted densities. Census tracts are by county, independent of city lines, so if a city isn't on here it's likely a nightmare of weaving municipal lines cutting across tracts.

Weighted densities for cities proper
New York, NY…...65,299.0 ppsm
Jersey City, NJ…...36,846.2
San Francisco, CA…...33,572.5
Boston, MA…...27,437.4
Newark, NJ......24,478.2
Miami, FL…...22,014.5
Philadelphia, PA......21,935.1
Yonkers, NY......21,574.1
Chicago, IL.......21,235.2
Washington, DC…...20,642.9
Arlington, VA…...19,960.8
Los Angeles, CA…...17,294.3
Alexandria, VA…...15,708.3
Seattle, WA…...15,249.3
Baltimore, MD…...11,333.0
Minneapolis, MN....11,057.0
Milwaukee, WI…...9,506.5
Buffalo, NY ......9,265.5
Denver, CO…...8,889.4
St. Paul, MN.....7,803.04
New Orleans, LA…...7,189.8
St. Louis, MO…...6,834.8
Cleveland, OH......6,523.5
Richmond, VA…...6,413.2
Detroit, MI......6,213.4


Bonus - Houston inside I-610: 7,794.8 ppsm

Thank you! NYC almost double SF!

What's the population of Houston inside the 610 belt? 1 million?

[ChiSoxRox]

Originally Posted by SAN Man

Thank you! NYC almost double SF!

What's the population of Houston inside the 610 belt? 1 million?

The New York MSA has a weighted density of 33,787.5 people per square mile, meaning the entire New York metropolitan area has a higher weighted density than the city of San Francisco!

New York City is so utterly out of scale that if you stripped the four dense boroughs away, i.e. just the suburbs and Staten Island, suburban New York is still at 9,556 ppsm, higher than the MSAs of Chicago or Boston.

Add in Queens alone of the dense boroughs, and New York is already #1 in weighted density without any of Manhattan, Brooklyn, or the Bronx.

As for Houston inside I-610, I got 507,433.

[subterranean]

I'm betting Anchorage fares a bit better in the weighted density calculations.

[ChiSoxRox]

The parkland in Anchorage is mostly Chugach State Park:



That's a typical state park landscape up here.

Anchorage city: 3,852.2 ppsm for weighted density

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by ChiSoxRox

That's a typical state park landscape up here.

that's spectacular.

here in the upper midwest people go gaga over devil's lake state park in wisconsin.




i don't see any difference, do you?

[The North One]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

cities out west tend to have WAY less ultra-low density "country sprawl" out in their hinterlands. metro areas out there often end more abruptly, with harder edges where development just stops, one of the more extreme examples being vegas where there are places with 7,500 ppsm tightly packed suburban subdivisions directly abutting wide open desert wilderness.

with a few exceptions like miami, cities in the east have a way more gradual urban bleed on their peripheries, which does drag density figures down, even weighted ones.

take a look at tract density maps of detroit and vegas. do you see all of those shades of green around metro detroit?

that's all "country sprawl", vegas has very little of it by comparison. it just goes straight into mostly uninhabited yellow.

I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that cities like Vegas were literally built yesterday (other than geography constraints). Older Midwest/Northeast cities have had time to inch and creep their exurban sprawl. Vegas has had to house a lot of people in a very short amount of time and literally the only thing they build is detached home sprawl cul-de-sacs so there are more hard edges where developers drew the line.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by subterranean

New Orleans listing on here is only due to Bayou Sauvage wildlife refuge... which is technically in city limits. But it's not really "parkland". It's wetlands and water.

[The North One]

^ Are they counting the various giant cemeteries in NYC as parks? Otherwise it doesn't make sense for it to rank there.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by pj3000

New Orleans listing on here is only due to Bayou Sauvage wildlife refuge... which is technically in city limits. But it's not really "parkland". It's wetlands and water.

I think they also include the Jamaica Bay Wildlife refuge for NYC's calculation, hence why it is so large.

[Crawford]

I mean, NYC does have a high share of parkland, relative to other large cities. The Bronx is 25% parkland. The southern half of Staten Island is nearly half parkland.

Gateway Park encompasses NY and NJ, isn't that big, and much of its geography isn't in NYC.

[mhays]

Originally Posted by The North One

I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that cities like Vegas were literally built yesterday (other than geography constraints). Older Midwest/Northeast cities have had time to inch and creep their exurban sprawl. Vegas has had to house a lot of people in a very short amount of time and literally the only thing they build is detached home sprawl cul-de-sacs so there are more hard edges where developers drew the line.

That's a big one.

It's also legislated growth limits in many cases.

And topographic limits in others.

And the lack of small towns that each grow separately.

And the lack of public roads supporting unplanned sprawl.

...

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by mhays

That's a big one.

It's also legislated growth limits in many cases.

And topographic limits in others.

And the lack of small towns that each grow separately.

And the lack of public roads supporting unplanned sprawl.

...

Those are all very significant factors.

Another layer in the east/west divide is access to water/water rights.

In the eastern US, if you're in the middle of nowhere and you want some water, you just dig a well. BOOM, plentiful amounts of ground water pretty much everywhere. But out west, it's not always that simple. Water is a much bigger limiting factor on development, and where it can be located, in vast stretches of the west, particularly the southwest. It's another big reason why you see so much less "country sprawl" out there.

Here's a map of US domestic ground water wells:


Source: https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/domestic-wells-united-states

[Klippenstein]

LA is really interesting in comparison to other cities with the top population densities. It has one of the highest MSA weighted densities, but the city is not even 1.5x the density of the MSA. Whereas most other high density cities are at least 2x (if not 3x) that of their MSA.

Weighted densities for cities proper vs MSA
New York, NY…...65,299.0 | 33,787.5
San Francisco, CA…...33,572.5 | 13,267.8
Boston, MA…...27,437.4 | 8,987.9
Miami, FL…...22,014.5 | 8,489.2
Philadelphia, PA......21,935.1 | 8,258.5
Chicago, IL.......21,235.2 | 9,011.9
Washington, DC…...20,642.9 | 7,296.1
Los Angeles, CA…...17,294.3 | 12,169.4
Seattle, WA…...15,249.3 | 6,146.3
Baltimore, MD…...11,333.0 | 5,144.7
Minneapolis, MN....11,057.0 | 3,784.4
Milwaukee, WI…...9,506.5 | 5,023.7
Buffalo, NY ......9,265.5 | 4,348.8
Denver, CO…...8,889.4 | 5,418.0
New Orleans, LA…...7,189.8 | 4,577.0
St. Louis, MO…...6,834.8 | 2,738.0
Cleveland, OH......6,523.5 | 3,676.9
Richmond, VA…...6,413.2 | 2,590.4
Detroit, MI......6,213.4 | 3,906.9

[Steely Dan]

Yeah, LA suburbia is some of these most consistently medium-high density suburbia in the nation. There's not a ton of low and ultra-low density sprawl on it's edges dragging the MSA number well below the city like in most other cities.

I'd be curious to see similar city vs. weighted density stats for a place Vegas that is probably even more uniform across the board (Vegas suburbia tends to be quite dense, and city proper Vegas doesn't have the urban core density spikes of LA).

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I mean, NYC does have a high share of parkland, relative to other large cities. The Bronx is 25% parkland. The southern half of Staten Island is nearly half parkland.

Gateway Park encompasses NY and NJ, isn't that big, and much of its geography isn't in NYC.

According to Wikipedia, NYC controlled parkland covers about 15% of the city. The Jamaica Wildlife refuge would get that to slightly above 20%, but the refuge cover a lot of water and swamp. I'm not sure what else they counted to get to 24% though.

It makes sense that a place like NYC would have a lot of park space since most residents don't have access to private outdoor space.