The following cities officially passed 500,000 in 1920

[Docere]

Or 1921 in the case of Canada.

An interesting list of a half dozen cities that officially entered the "half million club" at the same time.

Detroit 993,078
Montreal 618,506
Los Angeles 576,673
Toronto 521,893
Buffalo 506,775
San Francisco 506,676

Of course they had rather different growth trajectories. Detroit and LA were the interwar growth behemoths that passed 1 million in the 1920s (Detroit was practically there - it almost passed that threshold in 1920). Buffalo on the other hand just crept passed it; it really boomed in the 19th century.

For comparison, populations in 1900, 1910 and 1930.

1900

Buffalo 352,387
San Francisco 342,782
Detroit 285,784
Montreal (1901) 267,730
Toronto (1901) 208,040
Los Angeles 102,479

1910

Montreal (1901) 470,480
Detroit 465,766
Buffalo 423,715
San Francisco 416,912
Toronto (1901) 378,538
Los Angeles 319,198

1930

Detroit 1,568,662
Los Angeles 1,238,048
Montreal (1931) 818,517
San Francisco 634,394
Toronto (1931) 631,207
Buffalo 573,076

[Crawford]

LA's growth was incredible. Even when it was Buffalo-sized, it seemed likely LA was gonna be a big deal.

[Docere]

Between 1910 and 1930, Detroit increased by 237% and L.A. by 288%.

[kittyhawk28]

Originally Posted by Crawford

LA's growth was incredible. Even when it was Buffalo-sized, it seemed likely LA was gonna be a big deal.

By absolute numbers, LA was probably the fastest growing urban area in the English-speaking world between 1920-2020, growing from 1 million in 1920 to over 18 million in 2020.

By comparison, greater New York already had roughly 9 million people by 1920 (over 21 million by 2020), Chicago had roughly 3.5 million in 1920 (close to 10 million in 2020).

Precise statistics are hard to find for UK, Canada, Australia, but Toronto had over 0.5 million in 1920 (7 million in 2020), London already had over 7 million people in 1920 (close to 9 million in 2020), and Sydney had close to a million people in 1920 (over 5 million in 2020)

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by kittyhawk28

By absolute numbers, LA was probably the fastest growing urban area in the English-speaking world between 1920-2020, growing from 1 million in 1920 to over 18 million in 2020.

By comparison, greater New York already had roughly 9 million people by 1920 (over 21 million by 2020), Chicago had roughly 3.5 million in 1920 (close to 10 million in 2020).

Precise statistics are hard to find for UK, Canada, Australia, but Toronto had over 0.5 million in 1920 (7 million in 2020), London already had over 7 million people in 1920 (close to 9 million in 2020), and Sydney had close to a million people in 1920 (over 5 million in 2020)

London metro area has between 14-18 million depending on how you measure it. 9 million is the city proper only.

São Paulo is the Los Angeles of Latin America: it jumped from 500k in 1920 to 22 million today. Cities like Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro or Mexico City were already very large by the turn of the century. They were big, prestigious capitals while SP was only a fast growing industrial center.

SP would also make it to Docere’s list:

1900: 200k
1920: 500k
1940: 1.2 million

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by kittyhawk28

By absolute numbers, LA was probably the fastest growing urban area in the English-speaking world between 1920-2020, growing from 1 million in 1920 to over 18 million in 2020.

Only if you're excluding Africa and India.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Docere

Or 1921 in the case of Canada.

An interesting list of a half dozen cities that officially entered the "half million club" at the same time.

Detroit 993,078
Montreal 618,506
Los Angeles 576,673
Toronto 521,893
Buffalo 506,775
San Francisco 506,676

Of course they had rather different growth trajectories. Detroit and LA were the interwar growth behemoths that passed 1 million in the 1920s (Detroit was practically there - it almost passed that threshold in 1920). Buffalo on the other hand just crept passed it; it really boomed in the 19th century.

For comparison, populations in 1900, 1910 and 1930.

1900

Buffalo 352,387
San Francisco 342,782
Detroit 285,784
Montreal (1901) 267,730
Toronto (1901) 208,040
Los Angeles 102,479

1910

Montreal (1901) 470,480
Detroit 465,766
Buffalo 423,715
San Francisco 416,912
Toronto (1901) 378,538
Los Angeles 319,198

1930

Detroit 1,568,662
Los Angeles 1,238,048
Montreal (1931) 818,517
San Francisco 634,394
Toronto (1931) 631,207
Buffalo 573,076

Buffalo's growth was already beginning to slow by 1920. It's the only city on this list that never cracked the 600k population mark. Cincinnati and Minneapolis appear to be the only other two cities in North America that crossed 500k by 1950 but have yet to hit 600k.

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by Docere

Between 1910 and 1930, Detroit increased by 237% and L.A. by 288%.

If you are able to squint and ignore the climate differences, there are a lot of similarities between prewar LA and prewar Detroit. The character of Wilshire Blvd., Santa Monica, and the other big avenues in LA are really similar to Woodward and the others in Detroit. The old GM HQ and Fisher (https://www.fisherbuilding.city/) are very similar to the random big prewar buildings scattered outside of DT LA.

Originally Posted by Docere

Or 1921 in the case of Canada.

An interesting list of a half dozen cities that officially entered the "half million club" at the same time.

Detroit 993,078
Montreal 618,506
Los Angeles 576,673
Toronto 521,893
Buffalo 506,775
San Francisco 506,676

Cincinnati was over 500,000 unofficially by 1920 since the NKY cities had 150,000 + Cincinnati (then officially 401,000) already surrounded but never ended up annexing adjacent cities than 100 years later remain stubbornly independent. Incidentally, the doomed subway project traveled through two independent cities and failed to motivate them to join Cincinnati. When work stalled state law had changed and suddenly the city could no longer lever completion of the subway line to force annexation.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Buffalo's growth was already beginning to slow by 1920. It's the only city on this list that never cracked the 600k population mark. Cincinnati and Minneapolis appear to be the only other two cities in North America that crossed 500k by 1950 but have yet to hit 600k.

Minneapolis metro area has always been doing ok that I didn't stop to think on how bad it declined. They'll never reach the 600k and it's actually far away to reach the 500k once again.

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

Cincinnati was over 500,000 unofficially by 1920 since the NKY cities had 150,000 + Cincinnati (then officially 401,000) already surrounded but never ended up annexing adjacent cities than 100 years later remain stubbornly independent.
partly as an annexation lever but those cities (St. Bernard and Norwood) never joined. They never contributed to the expense of building the system but were going to enjoy all of the benefits.

From the ones in the list, I guess it's the only one with a metro area back then. For the others city proper was basically the whole area. San Francisco could be it considered, but as it was physically separated from Oakland, I guess it's ok to treat it as a single city.

Even though I always favour metro areas for comparisons, for this thread I guess city proper is more appropriated due the symbolism of the mark. Back then no one would bother to look for metro area numbers specially as it was a very new concept.

[MolsonExport]

what are the Dark Horse boomtowns of tomorrow in North America? Not the ones that are already growing at rapid clips (e.g., Dallas, Toronto), but those that are just appearing on the radar, poised for sustained rapid growth? What are the Austins of tomorrow?

[Docere]

Montreal Island and Metro Toronto, 1901-1951:

Montreal Island

1901 360,838
1911 554,761
1921 724,205
1931 1,003,868
1941 1,116,800
1951 1,320,232

Metro Toronto

1901 238,080
1911 409,925
1921 611,443
1931 818,348
1941 909,928
1951 1,117,470

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

what are the Dark Horse boomtowns of tomorrow in North America? Not the ones that are already growing at rapid clips (e.g., Dallas, Toronto), but those that are just appearing on the radar, poised for sustained rapid growth? What are the Austins of tomorrow?

In this new age of worldwide shrinking population, I don't think we'll have boomtowns anymore, at least not of the same size and order of magnitude we had during the 19th/20th century.

------------------------------------------------------

Aside São Paulo, I looked for other cities around the world and I came up with only three that reached 500k in the 1920's: Copenhagen, Rotterdam and Lisbon.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by Yuri

In this new age of worldwide shrinking population, I don't think we'll have boomtowns anymore, at least not of the same size and order of magnitude we had during the 19th/20th century.

I am inclined to agree, but there may still be a few, here and there, that make out like bandits but only at the expense of other metros or the hinterlands.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

DC - 1940

DC grew quite quickly between 1930 and 1950 due to the New Deal and WWII expansion of the federal government. Maybe that's why it feels fairly "suburban" in city limits, this was the early automobile era.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

I am inclined to agree, but there may still be a few, here and there, that make out like bandits but only at the expense of other metros or the hinterlands.

Probably, but I guess they would be smaller/unimportant areas. We won't have, for instance, another Los Angeles growing from 100k (1900) to 16 million in (2000) or a Detroit from 280k (1900) to 4.5 million (1970).

I guess it's more like to see a reverse of well established trends: New York metro area has grown faster than Los Angeles for the first time ever on the past decade, something unimaginable. Or Boston metro area growing faster than the US for the first time since the 19th century. And of course, the race to Downtowns/Inner Cities reversing a trend that's been present pretty much since the invention of cities.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by Yuri

Aside São Paulo, I looked for other cities around the world and I came up with only three that reached 500k in the 1920's: Copenhagen, Rotterdam and Lisbon.

So the Netherlands didn't do a decennial census until after 1950. Looks like the prior census in Rotterdam in 1920 was conducted in 1899.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by Docere

So the Netherlands didn't do a decennial census until after 1950. Looks like the prior census in Rotterdam in 1920 was conducted in 1899.

I guess it's estimates, but they seem reasonable.

Essen and Frankfurt-Offenbach (but it's not one city) reached the mark in the 1920's.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Yuri

Aside São Paulo, I looked for other cities around the world and I came up with only three that reached 500k in the 1920's: Copenhagen, Rotterdam and Lisbon.

Havana, Cuba is likely to have crossed 500k between 1910 and 1920. According to Wikipedia the city's population in 1907 was 297,159 and 728,500 by 1931. I can't find an official count between then.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

If you are able to squint and ignore the climate differences, there are a lot of similarities between prewar LA and prewar Detroit. The character of Wilshire Blvd., Santa Monica, and the other big avenues in LA are really similar to Woodward and the others in Detroit. The old GM HQ and Fisher (https://www.fisherbuilding.city/) are very similar to the random big prewar buildings scattered outside of DT LA.

There are definitely many similarities between the two cities of the developed built from the late 1920s and to roughly 1950. About 98% of the city of Detroit was built prior to 1950, so there really is no postwar Detroit. Los Angeles had plenty of room within its city limits to have both a pre-war and post-war version of the city.

Originally Posted by Yuri

Minneapolis metro area has always been doing ok that I didn't stop to think on how bad it declined. They'll never reach the 600k and it's actually far away to reach the 500k once again.

Yes, it's not just Minneapolis. Of 18 cities that reached 500k in population by 1950 only Los Angeles and Houston did not experience a steep population decline in the decades after. I believe that New York City and San Francisco are the only two of the other 16 cities that set new population highs after their periods of decline. Even darling cities like Boston and Washington, D.C., are still quite a ways off from hitting their mid century peak populations.

[Docere]

The city of Minneapolis just passed 500,000 in 1950 but only stayed there for one census.