What keeps Atlanta from reaching LA, Chicago, or NYC levels?

[ITB495]

Originally Posted by dktshb

Um you could not be more wrong. Los Angeles does not have low density. It is almost triple that of Houston and is actually right up there as one of America's densest cities. Certainly the densest metropolitan area in the county. It is a City of 502 sq. miles, which is a very large area to keep a high density. Wikipedia put the density of Los Angeles at 8,483 and Seattle, which you consider a high density city, at 8,398.

http://worldpopulationreview.com/us-...es-population/

Yup, Los Angeles is indeed more densely populated than I thought. I stand corrected. I guess I still picture LA as the land of freeways, linking together one suburban-like housing development after another. But, apparently, that's a misconception. I'll admit I don't know Los Angeles and have never visited, even though I lived in California—the Bay Area—for 10 years.

Los Angeles is a very large city in terms of area, as you point out. The population is truly enormous, now about 4,000,000 (2016 est./Wikipedia), giving the city some meaningful density, unlike Houston or Atlanta. At the same time, if LA had the same density as Boston, its population would be nearly 7,000,000 (502.76 sq mile x 13,903 [2016 est./Wiki] = 6,989,872).

[dktshb]

Originally Posted by austlar1

LA parks constitute over 7 percent of the land within the city. Here is a very interesting list of cities and their parkland.


http://cloud.tpl.org/pubs/ccpe_Acrea..._Data_2010.pdf

That is from the center of City Parks and does not include State Parks.

Topanga is a State Park not a city park at over 11,000 acres it is entirely within the boarder of Los Angeles city limits. Additionally, you have preserves, recreational areas and national forest land within the city boundaries of LA. Mt. Lukens at 5075ft sits completely within the city of Los Angeles in the San Gabriel Mountains and is entirely National Forest Land.

[dktshb]

Originally Posted by ITB495

Yup, Los Angeles is indeed more densely populated than I thought. I stand corrected. I guess I still picture LA as the land of freeways, linking together one suburban-like housing development after another. But, apparently, that's a misconception. I'll admit I don't know Los Angeles and have never visited, even though I lived in California—the Bay Area—for 10 years.

Los Angeles is a very large city in terms of area, as you point out. The population is truly enormous, now about 4,000,000 (2016 est./Wikipedia), giving the city some meaningful density, unlike Houston or Atlanta. At the same time, if LA had the same density as Boston, its population would be nearly 7,000,000 (502.76 sq mile x 13,903 [2016 est./Wiki] = 6,989,872)

Yet LA has a density closer to San Francisco at 48 sq. miles rather than the less dense Boston.

[LA21st]

Originally Posted by ITB495

Yup, Los Angeles is indeed more densely populated than I thought. I stand corrected. I guess I still picture LA as the land of freeways, linking together one suburban-like housing development after another. But, apparently, that's a misconception. I'll admit I don't know Los Angeles and have never visited, even though I lived in California—the Bay Area—for 10 years.

Los Angeles is a very large city in terms of area, as you point out. The population is truly enormous, now about 4,000,000 (2016 est./Wikipedia), giving the city some meaningful density, unlike Houston or Atlanta. At the same time, if LA had the same density as Boston, its population would be nearly 7,000,000 (502.76 sq mile x 13,903 [2016 est./Wiki] = 6,989,872).

Alot of people have a weird or dated image of LA.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by The North One

Seeing percentages is weird, like how Chicago's is about 70% currently from peak and St. Louis is around 36% as well.

select midwest/rustbelt cities by 2016 percentage of 1950 peak population:

minneapolis: 413,651 / 521,718 = 79.3%
chicago: 2,704,958 / 3,620,962 = 74.7%
milwaukee: 447,006 / 637,392 = 70.1% *
cincinnati: 298,800 / 503,998 = 59.3%
pittsburgh: 303,625 / 676,806 = 44.9%
buffalo: 256,092 / 580,132 = 44.1%
cleveland: 385,809 / 914,808 = 42.2%
detroit: 672,795 / 1,849,568 = 36.4%
st. louis: 311,404 / 856,796 = 36.3%



columbus, indy, and KC are not included because they went crazy with annexation in the postwar period which makes their 1950 population figures a meaningless point of comparison to their 2016 population figures, since the land areas of those cities have increased many times over what they were in 1950.

(*) milwaukee also went on a bit of a postwar annexation binge, but i was able to find a relatively accurate 2016 population figure on SSC for the original 50 square mile 1950 city limits to make for an apples to apples comparison with the city's 1950 population figure.

[destroycreate]

Originally Posted by ITB495

I'll admit I don't know Los Angeles and have never visited, even though I lived in California—the Bay Area—for 10 years.

Explains a lot. A lot of people in the Bay Are have a completely pretentious, stereotyped and dated idea of Los Angeles.

[Sun Belt]

Originally Posted by ITB495

Yup, Los Angeles is indeed more densely populated than I thought. I stand corrected. I guess I still picture LA as the land of freeways, linking together one suburban-like housing development after another.

The land of freeways image is not accurate for a city the size of Los Angeles. The high density areas are greatly underserved.

Originally Posted by ITB495

At the same time, if LA had the same density as Boston, its population would be nearly 7,000,000 (502.76 sq mile x 13,903 [2016 est./Wiki] = 6,989,872).

If LA has a San Francisco within it's core, it could be stated that it has a Boston within it's 502 square miles as well.

Originally Posted by dktshb

Yet LA has a density closer to San Francisco at 48 sq. miles rather than the less dense Boston.

^It does.

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=229127

[emathias]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

select midwest/rustbelt cities by 2016 percentage of 1950 peak population:

minneapolis: 413,651 / 521,718 = 79.3%
chicago: 2,704,958 / 3,620,962 = 74.7%
milwaukee: 447,006 / 637,392 = 70.1% *
cincinnati: 298,800 / 503,998 = 59.3%
pittsburgh: 303,625 / 676,806 = 44.9%
buffalo: 256,092 / 580,132 = 44.1%
cleveland: 385,809 / 914,808 = 42.2%
detroit: 672,795 / 1,849,568 = 36.4%
st. louis: 311,404 / 856,796 = 36.3%

...

Is it still true that Detroit is the only city in the modern world to have crossed a million in population and then fallen below it?

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by emathias

Is it still true that Detroit is the only city in the modern world to have crossed a million in population and then fallen below it?

it's the only one that i'm aware of, but my knowledge of cities outside of the US is FAR from definitive.

baltimore got really close, topping out at 949,708 in 1950 before going through its post war decline.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by emathias

Is it still true that Detroit is the only city in the modern world to have crossed a million in population and then fallen below it?

I doubt it. Glasgow had 1.1 million people at one point. Cologne dropped under a million (and then went back over). Obviously Rome (but not in modern times).

After WW2, probably Berlin, Hamburg, Vienna, Budapest, Warsaw all dropped under 1 million for an extended period.

[mhays]

Any preserved older city of 1,200,000 in 1950 would be much less now because households are smaller.

I don't know how much smaller. But I'd guess that Chicago Minneapolis, and Milwaukee might have a similar number of households today vs. those 1950 numbers. Keeping up with 1950 requires a major infusion of additional households.

LA's perception of not being dense is probably related to key spots not being dense. As DTLA has started to densify in residential and tourism terms that will do wonders. But still much of the image is big houses on windy hilly roads in the hills, looking over a sea with many areas dominated by bungalows. That said, the garden court type apartment neighborhoods are also an LA fixture that's been in a lot of movies.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by emathias

Is it still true that Detroit is the only city in the modern world to have crossed a million in population and then fallen below it?

It is the only American municipality to have done so. But it is not useful to put this into a global context since "Detroit" has not actually fallen below 1 million people. Detroit is an arbitrary political boundary.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by emathias

Is it still true that Detroit is the only city in the modern world to have crossed a million in population and then fallen below it?

metro st. louis had a pre-war urban population of well over 1,000,000...about a 1/4 million in urban st. louis county beyond the 1876 city limit and whatever there was in the illinois industrial satellites.

neither metro area declined in the way you are insinuating, though, like a rome or something.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by mhays

Any preserved older city of 1,200,000 in 1950 would be much less now because households are smaller.

I don't know how much smaller. But I'd guess that Chicago Minneapolis, and Milwaukee might have a similar number of households today vs. those 1950 numbers. Keeping up with 1950 requires a major infusion of additional households.

yeah, average household size decrease is a significant factor in the population decline of any legacy city whose city boundaries have held more or less steady over the past 70 years.

without lots of annexation or lots of new dense residential construction, it would be impossible for an older legacy city to hold on to its 1950 population figure.

since 1950, the average US household size has decreased from 3.37 to 2.53, or a decrease of ~25%. if we subtract that 25% "loss" out of the 1950-2016 overall population losses for these midwest/rustbelt cities, we can get a better picture of how many people these cities have actually lost vs. the amount lost simply due to the decrease in average household size.


city: overall percentage loss 1950-2016 - 25% household size decrease = actual percentage lost to flight from the city

minneapolis: 20.7% - 25.0% = +4.3%
chicago: 25.3% - 25.0% = -0.3%
milwaukee*: 29.9% - 25.0% = -4.9%
cincinnati: 40.7% - 25.0% = -15.7%
pittsburgh: 55.1% - 25.0% = -30.1%
buffalo: 55.9% - 25.0% = -30.9%
cleveland: 57.8% - 25.0% = -32.8%
st. louis: 63.6% - 25.0% = -38.6%
detroit: 63.7% - 25.0% = -38.7%

(*) original core city pre-annexation.

[Sun Belt]

Originally Posted by emathias

Is it still true that Detroit is the only city in the modern world to have crossed a million in population and then fallen below it?

St. Petersburg, Russia reached 1 million people in 1895 and dropped below 1 million not once, but twice in the 20th century.

The German siege of the city was a catastrophe of epic proportions.
1939 population was over 3,000,000 (some place it at 3.5 million)
1944 population 545,000 (this figure includes military numbers).

The German siege of St. Petersburg was the longest and most destructive in human history.

Those that fled the city were the lucky ones. It is estimated that 1.2 to 1.5 million civilians were killed or died in the city from starvation and exposure to the elements from the German blockade.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effect...ad_on_the_city

[mhays]

The 25% figure is useful, but core cities probably lost more than the US average, since they have smaller percentages of their metros today.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by mhays

The 25% figure is useful, but core cities probably lost more than the US average, since they have smaller percentages of their metros today.

i don't follow.

since 1950, the average US household size has decreased from 3.37 to 2.53, or a change of -24.9%.

why would average household size have decreased even more in core cities?

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

yeah, average household size decrease is a significant factor in the population decline of any legacy city whose city boundaries have held more or less steady over the past 70 years.

without lots of annexation or lots of new dense residential construction, it would be impossible for an older legacy city to hold on to its 1950 population figure.

since 1950, the average US household size has decreased from 3.37 to 2.54, or a decrease of 25%. if we subtract that 25% "loss" out of the 1950-2016 overall population losses for these midwest/rustbelt cities, we can get a better picture of how many people these cities have actually lost vs. the amount lost simply due to the decrease in average household size.


city: overall percentage loss 1950-2016 - 25% household size decrease = actual percentage lost to flight from the city

minneapolis: 20.7% - 25.7% - 25.0% = +4.3%
chicago: 25.3% - 25.0% = -0.3%
milwaukee*: 29.9% - 25.0% = -4.9%
cincinnati: 40.7% - 25.0% = -15.7%
pittsburgh: 55.1% - 25.0% = -30.1%
buffalo: 55.9% - 25.0% = -30.9%
cleveland: 57.8% - 25.0% = -32.8%
st. louis: 63.6% - 25.0% = -38.6%
detroit: 63.7% - 25.0% = -38.7%

(*) original core city pre-annexation.

So would it not be fair to say that cities like Chicago, whose population loss almost exactly matches household size losses, really only experienced a net loss of children during this time period?

Less children = less school expense; meanwhile the rise of the 2 person household = rising tax base.

[pizzaguy]

Originally Posted by Sun Belt

The land of freeways image is not accurate for a city the size of Los Angeles. The high density areas are greatly underserved.



If LA has a San Francisco within it's core, it could be stated that it has a Boston within it's 502 square miles as well.



^It does.

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=229127

Density isn't everything. Daly City is almost as dense as its next-door neighbor San Francisco, yet is undoubtedly auto-centric suburbia.

[The North One]

Household size is dependent on flight and suburbanization though.