The US Census Bureau thread

[ChiSoxRox]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Actually, going by those numbers, Hudson has rights to being NYC's 5th borough, and Staten island should be demoted to 6th


To its credit, cook county is the first one on that list that includes a GIGANTIC amount of suburbia along with the central city. The others above it are all "city counties" (or subsets thereof in the case of NYC) or pretty damn small, relatively speaking (Arlington, Essex, etc.)

I'd love to know the weighted density for the urban core of Chicagoland: the area bounded by the north side of Evanston, then Dempster St north of Skokie to I-294 and following the TriState Tollway all the way to Indiana. This is pretty much the rectangular grid part of Cook County.

But that would be a very lengthy calculation, far more than just running census tract queries.

Edit: Actually, I can pull all of the Cook County tracts into a spreadsheet and use the map to pull out tracts for specific municipalities. The tracts align exactly with the townships of Cook County, and the city of Chicago is a township equivalent. If I trim off the townships one by one, I can calculate their WPDs and when finished, the remaining tracts will be Chicago itself. Stay tuned...

[mhays]

Originally Posted by subterranean

Good to see that all the hubbub about the Portland UGB does essentially nothing for density. It even surprises me, a planner in the region, seeing the tiny lots they’re building houses on, decent tensor for a city its size, etc. Maybe the new middle housing rules will eventually help us densify.

It's not very impactful for weighted density. It's certainly good for avoiding much of the outer exurbia, which doesn't impact weighted density much.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by ChiSoxRox

I'd love to know the weighted density for the urban core of Chicagoland: the area bounded by the north side of Evanston, then route 14 north of Skokie to I294 and following the TriState Tollway all the way to Indiana. This is pretty much the rectangular grid part of Cook County.

Yeah, so much of the density game is reliant upon wherever you draw the line.

The big cities of bos-wash are all essentially within their own exclusive counties (or multiple counties for NYC). Ditto San Francisco.

Chicago and LA are the only two cities of "the big urban 7" that exist within giant counties that also contain a substantial amount of their suburbia as well.



In any event, it's always kinda funny when non-locals provide a dead give-away of not being local. As a life long resident of the northside and inner northern burbs of Chicago for 45 years now, I literally had no idea what "route 14" was, so I looked it up. It's apparently Dempster street.

I have never, as in like not even one single time in over 4 decades, ever heard anyone here refer to Dempster street as "route 14". It's just "Dempster".

[ChiSoxRox]

As someone with a Chicago avatar, wearing a White Sox shirt, and tentative plans to be back in Chicago in November -- damn it. Dempster St has been fixed in my older post.

Looks like the township chop will work. I can pull the data, and separate out the townships easily. As proof of concept:

Evanston is 19 tracts. Weighted density of 11,847.3 ppsm.

[Steely Dan]

^ it's all good.

I just totally WTF'ed when I read "route 14".

What the hell is that?

Ohhhhhhh, Dempster.

Now I'm on the trolley.


Anyway, thanks for crunching those e-town digits. Not bad at all for a burb, and roughly 5% growth last decade to boot. That's the biggest percentage and numerical growth for Evanston since the '50s!

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by ChiSoxRox

One more data dump.

Top counties by weighted density


New Orleans was a pleasant surprise!

Was there a weighted population density done for cities only? I might've missed it, but would be interesting to see.

[ChiSoxRox]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Was there a weighted population density done for cities only? I might've missed it, but would be interesting to see.

Alas no city proper list. The Census query tool I'm using (linked like 20 pages back, when we started the 20k ppsm lists) does not have a municipality filter.

The Cook County dissection in my past few posts is aiming to get the Chicago city tracts by trimming off the townships one by one, and there are a few other cities (Boston, Minneapolis, perhaps Detroit) that have straightforward boundaries and can be extracted.

But cities with complex boundaries like Houston probably can't be mapped neatly to tracts to hand calculate, and then Los Angeles has both complex borders as well as the sheer scale of selecting that many tracts. I would like to know LA city's density, but without the subdivision grouping of Cook County to break up the process into manageable chunks, I don't see how to do LA without taking the map and pulling tract, by tract, by tract. LA city is likely around 1100 tracts, and that would be a task.

In theory, pulling LA County apart city/CDP by city/CDP should work, continuing until the remnant is LA city.

[ChiSoxRox]

I've chopped up Cook County successfully.



Chicago.......21,235.2
Cicero.......16,700.1
Berwyn.......15,919.5
Oak Park.......13,318.4
Evanston.......11,847.3
Norwood Park.......7,866.6
Proviso.......7,415.0
Leyden.......7,260.8
Maine.......7,009.5
Niles.......6,665.9
Calumet .......6,146.3
Worth.......5,943.9
Palatine.......5,468.9
Wheeling.......5,436.1
Elk Grove.......5,237.4
Schaumburg.......5,094.8
Lyons .......4,953.4
Stickney.......4,875.4
River Forest.......4,755.4
Hanover.......4,705.1
Thornton.......4,629.1
Riverside.......4,424.0
New Trier.......4,231.2
Northfield.......3,614.1
Palos.......3,609.9
Bremen.......3,422.2
Orland.......3,360.0
Rich.......2,917.8
Bloom.......2,719.8
Lemont.......1,877.7
Barrington.......900.2
Bremen.........3,422.2
Orland.........3,360.0
Rich.........2,917.8
Bloom.........2,719.8
Lemont.........1,877.7
Barrington.........900.2

The census tracts don't always quite map to the boundaries, and Norwood Park has some tract border gore with Chicago. But the area left over for the city of Chicago totals 2,745,830, only 558 people shy of the city's actual number.

Probably tomorrow I'll pull Boston out of Suffolk County, MA and compile a list with the stand alone cities, Chicago, and Boston. Then I'll look into Seattle, since King County suburbia is such a stark contrast. Perhaps this weekend, I'll take on the LA effort.

[Steely Dan]

^ once again, excellent work!

and no surprises with the top 5, who stand-out from the rest of the list by quite a bit:

1. Chicago.......21,235.2
2. Cicero.......16,700.1
3. Berwyn.......15,919.5
4. Oak Park.......13,318.4
5. Evanston.......11,847.3

- gap -

6. Norwood Park.......7,866.6
7. Proviso.......7,415.0
8. Leyden.......7,260.8
9. Maine.......7,009.5
10. Niles.......6,665.9

and so on



the city is the obvious density alpha, followed by the 3 west side bungalow belt burbs and evanston as the the two most "city like" areas in the burbs that managed to evade city annexation attempts.




sidenote: i didn't know the township that is comprised of enclaved burbs Norridge and Harwood Heights is called "Norwood Park". there is also an official City of Chicago Community Area due north of that area that is also named "Norwood Park". Norwood Park the Community Area is not part of Norwood Park the Township, and vice-versa. confusing.

[ChiSoxRox]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

sidenote: i didn't know the township that is comprised of enclaved burbs Norridge and Harwood Heights is called "Norwood Park". there is also an official City of Chicago Community Area due north of that area that is also named "Norwood Park". Norwood Park the Community Area is not part of Norwood Park the Township, and vice-versa. confusing.

Yeah, that whole area is a tangle of city and tract lines. Although, the enclaves wind up lower in density (6k-8k) than the surrounding city neighborhoods (10k and up) aside from an industrial tract, so that weird little pop out helps raise Chicago's number.

Here are the stand alone cities we have now. I like how Philly, Chicago, and DC all land at the same number, suggesting there's a natural density number an American urban core will settle on without the physical constraints of NYC or SF (or the sheer population pressure of NYC).

New York, NY…...65,299.0 ppsm
San Francisco, CA…...33,572.5
Boston, MA…...27,437.4
Philadelphia, PA…...21,935.1
Chicago, IL.......21,235.2
Washington, DC…...20,642.9
(Arlington, VA…...19,960.8) - effectively a city
Alexandria, VA…...15,708.3
Baltimore, MD…...11,333.0
Denver, CO…...8,889.4
New Orleans, LA…...7,189.8
St. Louis, MO…...6,834.8
Richmond, VA…...6,413.2
Norfolk, VA…...5,858.9
Virginia Beach, VA…...4,873.8
Anchorage, AK…...3,852.2

Plus the NYC boroughs:
Manhattan…...108,042.0
Bronx…...72,874.9
Brooklyn…...60,275.6
Queens,…...46,619.3
Staten Island…...15,079.8

In the "NYC is ridiculous" department: Chicago, DC, and Philadelphia all land right at 40% of the weighted density of Queens.

Also technically the city of Honolulu is the entire county: 12,581.9. But the CDP for urban Honolulu is probably a better comparison.

Edit: Boston was very quick.

[RST500]

Asian growth by cities in the 2010s from recent census.

New York City:
China - 84,400
India - 68,175
Bangladesh - 50,562
Uzbekistan - 12,860
Pakistan - 8,424

San Francisco:
India - 70,580
China - 34,080
Afghanistan - 12,187
Vietnam - 9,043
Nepal - 6,446

Los Angeles:
China - 78,724
Philippines - 27,324
India - 25,615
Iran - 10,888
Afghanistan - 4,002

Dallas/Fort Worth:
India - 73,631
China - 27,996
Nepal - 17,041
Philippines - 11,361
Pakistan - 8,609


Seattle/Tacoma:
China - 49,739
India - 48,321
Philippines - 6,133
Pakistan - 5,358
Vietnam - 4,196

Houston:
India - 29,395
Philippines - 17,743
China - 16,304
Vietnam - 15,740
Iraq - 11,347

Washington DC:
India - 31,094
China - 20,349
Afghanistan - 16,388
Pakistan - 7,600
Vietnam - 6,246

San Jose:
China - 50,250
India - 45,224
Vietnam - 10,663
Taiwan - 4,393
Philippines - 2,923


Chicago:
India - 21,757
China - 20,029
Pakistan - 8,963
Jordan - 6,037
Japan - 5,504


Atlanta:
India - 43,042
Vietnam - 15,558
China - 8,537
Iraq - 5,919
Philippines - 2,956

Boston:
China - 38,779
India - 20,799
Bangladesh - 3,210
Philippines - 3,131
Vietnam - 2,959


Philadelphia:
India - 23,336
China - 16,252
Pakistan - 6,195
Philippines - 3,403
Bangladesh - 1,693


Riverside:
China - 20,751
Philippines - 12,295
India - 5,837
Vietnam - 4,514
Syria - 3,533

Detroit:
India - 20,958
Bangladesh - 13,596
Iraq - 13,405
Lebanon - 5,136
Yemen - 4,006

Minneapolis/St. Paul:
India - 12,205
Thailand - 4,618
Laos - 3,339
Burma - 2,295
Philippines - 2,127


San Diego:
China - 10,471
India - 10,332
Vietnam - 7,410
Philippines - 5,043
Korea - 4,320

Phoenix:
India - 27,895
Philippines - 10,631
Iraq - 3,486
Burma - 2,716
Vietnam - 1,939

Baltimore:
Nepal - 6,359
India - 6,203
China - 2,476
Pakistan - 1,887
Bangladesh - 1,729


Sacramento:
Afghanistan - 15,242
India - 14,389
China - 13,823
Vietnam - 10,008
Philippines - 4,916

Austin:
India - 22,031
China - 5,388
Iraq - 2,467
Nepal - 1,936
Iran - 1,844

Las Vegas:
Philippines - 21,707
China - 5,626
Vietnam - 4,474
India - 3,056
Japan - 1,746


Portland, OR:
China - 8,853
India - 5,783
Korea - 3,816
Philippines - 3,482
Vietnam - 1,591



Charlotte:
India - 19,551
China - 5,993
Vietnam - 3,837
Philippines - 2,388
Indonesia - 2,168


Indianapolis:
Burma - 9,078
India - 6,183
China - 1,256
Philippines - 955
Japan - 880


Orlando:
China - 7,645
Vietnam - 5,620
India - 4,217
Philippines - 3,291
Pakistan - 2,045


Denver:
India - 9,492
China - 4,703
Vietnam - 1,864
Nepal - 1,488
Iraq - 1,450


Raleigh:
India - 15,556
China - 3,310
Nepal - 1,400
Vietnam - 883
Philippines - 581


Columbus, OH:
India - 15,034
China - 7,492
Nepal - 3,630
Jordan - 1,508
Philippines - 1,069


Miami/Fort Lauderdale:
Israel - 4,226
Bangladesh - 3,534
Pakistan - 3,408
Vietnam - 2,701
India - 2,202


Tampa:
India - 10,522
China - 4,329
Philippines - 2,551
Nepal - 2,289
Pakistan - 1,520

St. Louis:
China - 4,821
India - 4,776
Philippines - 1,905
Vietnam - 1,472
Syria - 984

Cincinnati:
India - 6,688
China - 3,393
Nepal - 1,260
Jordan - 374
Iran - 249


San Antonio:
India - 4,429
Philippines - 3,468
Iraq - 2,383
Afghanistan - 1,985
China - 1,957


Nashville:
India - 5,428
Iraq - 2,803
China - 1,912
Burma - 1,846
Korea - 1,286


Milwaukee:
India - 4,903
Burma - 2,978
China - 1,633
Thailand - 1,605
Saudi Arabia - 1,082


Kansas City:
India - 4,133
Burma - 2,262
China - 1,655
Thailand - 1,426
Iraq - 1,150


Salt Lake City:
India - 3,729
China - 1,716
Philippines - 1,183
Vietnam - 1,081
Iraq - 975



Oklahoma City:
Vietnam - 3,403
China - 1,579
India - 1,578
Pakistan - 590
Laos - 307


Providence:
India - 5,573
China - 2,729
Japan - 289
Pakistan - 239
Taiwan - 156



Fresno:
India - 5,198
Yemen - 847
China - 824
Philippines - 552
Pakistan - 377


Des Moines:
Burma - 2,294
India - 2,045
Iraq - 968
Philippines - 856
Thailand - 811


Omaha:
Burma - 2,347
India - 1,789
Thailand - 1,760
Nepal - 1,382
Philippines - 379


Richmond:
India - 5,490
Afghanistan - 1,024
Philippines - 983
Pakistan - 911
Vietnam - 862


Grand Rapids:
India - 1,655
China - 1,437
Burma - 1,288
Laos - 1,019
Philippines - 947


Hartford:
India - 7,943
China - 1,954
Sri Lanka - 531
Bangladesh - 463
Nepal - 150


Buffalo:
Bangladesh - 2,055
Iraq - 1,620
Burma - 1,415
Thailand - 704
Pakistan - 646

Jacksonville:
Philippines - 2,560
India - 2,285
China - 2,092
Burma - 1,677
Iraq - 1,162

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by ChiSoxRox

I like how Philly, Chicago, and DC all land at the same number, suggesting there's a natural density number an American urban core will settle on without the physical constraints of NYC or SF (or the sheer population pressure of NYC).

To be fair to Chicago and Philly, the main reason they fall quite a bit behind SF and Boston in WPD is because they are MUCH larger in land area, and thus contain much more significant swaths of lower density street car suburbia, where detached SFH's dominate, within their borders (the "bungalow belt" in Chicago and whatever its equivalent is in Philly).

Chicago - 227 square miles
Philly - 134 square miles
Boston - 48 square miles
San Francisco - 47 square miles


If you carved out the densest 48 square miles of Chicago and Philly and recalculated their WPD's, they would no doubt both rise into the Boston/SF realm.

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by ChiSoxRox

Edit: Boston was very quick.

Yeah, not much else in Suffolk County!

[ChiSoxRox]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

To be fair to Chicago and Philly, the main reason they fall quite a bit behind SF and Boston in WPD is because they are MUCH larger in land area, and thus contain much more significant swaths of lower density street car suburbia, where detached SFH's dominate, within their borders (the "bungalow belt" in Chicago and whatever its equivalent is in Philly).

Ah, very true. I was struck by how similar Chicago and Philadelphia turn out, in both regular and weighted density, but probably just coincidence then.

Another border adjustment thought is where Boston would land if you made the city limits more centered on downtown. West Roxbury is still in the city, but is below 5k in density. If you swapped that out for Cambridge/Somerville, Boston probably makes a run at San Francisco's number.

The joy of city limits, where Jacksonville is twice the population of Atlanta.

[ChiSoxRox]

I pulled King County, WA to try and extract Seattle. Checking the map to see what tract numbers are in Seattle: CT 1, CT 2, CT 3...

Turns out, sorting by the tract number, the city of Seattle is separated out already! The highest tract number in Seattle is 121, the lowest in King County outside the city is 201.

Weighted densities for cities proper
New York, NY…...65,299.0 ppsm
San Francisco, CA…...33,572.5
Boston, MA…...27,437.4
Philadelphia, PA…...21,935.1
Chicago, IL.......21,235.2
Washington, DC…...20,642.9
Arlington, VA…...19,960.8
Alexandria, VA…...15,708.3
Seattle, WA…...15,249.3
Baltimore, MD…...11,333.0
Denver, CO…...8,889.4
New Orleans, LA…...7,189.8
St. Louis, MO…...6,834.8
Richmond, VA…...6,413.2
Norfolk, VA…...5,858.9
Virginia Beach, VA…...4,873.8
Anchorage, AK…...3,852.2

Plus the NYC boroughs:
Manhattan…...108,042.0
Bronx…...72,874.9
Brooklyn…...60,275.6
Queens,…...46,619.3
Staten Island…...15,079.8

Seattle city…...15,249.3
King County…...7,971.2
Seattle MSA…...6,146.3
Seattle CSA…...5,300.3

[benp]

Can you provide a clarification again on what constitutes weighted density in your calculations? I tried going back in the thread and I can no longer find how it is defined.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by ChiSoxRox

The joy of city limits, where Jacksonville is twice the population of Atlanta.

Yep.

It's why I have long maintained that WPD for Urban Areas is likely the closest we'll ever get to an apples-to-apples density comparison for US cities. None of the arbitrariness of city limits, and none of the absurdity of the MSA county mash-up game.

UA's ain't perfect either, but we ain't never gonna get perfect.

[ChiSoxRox]

Originally Posted by benp

Can you provide a clarification again on what constitutes weighted density in your calculations? I tried going back in the thread and I can no longer find how it is defined.

Weighted population density is defined as the sum of the products of population (n) and density (ρ) for a tract, normalized to the entire population (N),

i.e. WPD = Σ (n*ρ) / N

Put another way, it is summing up the population of each tract (n) weighted by that tract's share (f) of the total population

WPD = Σ (n*f)

With the census tract numbering from Seattle in mind, I checked Los Angeles. 1031, 1732, 2309, ah the pattern doesn't hold. Wait, Beverly Hills is in the 7000s, Long Beach tracts are 57xx, and so on. What happens if I sum up the 1xxx and 2xxx tracts for Los Angeles County? Those seem to map to LA city limits! The total population in those tracts is 3,898,921. The city of Los Angeles is 3,898,747. Those tracts combined are less than 200 people away! A typical tract is 3k-4k people or so, so that cannot be a coincidence. I've checked the edges of LA city limits, and the 1xxx/2xxx tracts map to the city of Los Angeles! I've cracked the numbering code!

Edit - Turns out that depends on the city. For example, San Diego does not follow the self-partitioning pattern.

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
Philadelphia, PA…...21,935.1
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
Milwaukee, WI…...9,506.5
Denver, CO…...8,889.4
New Orleans, LA…...7,189.8
St. Louis, MO…...6,834.8
Richmond, VA…...6,413.2

[KevinFromTexas]

So, does anyone have the link for the city, county, and metro 2020 numbers? I'll add them to the first post of the thread for easy access...

[mhays]

I think I'm addicted to this thread. Thanks for the fantastic info.