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Most Isolated Major US City?

Started by webny99, December 09, 2024, 10:07:52 PM

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What is the most isolated major city/metro area in the 48 contiguous US states?

Spokane, WA
0 (0%)
Boise, ID
13 (32.5%)
Salt Lake City, UT
5 (12.5%)
Denver, CO
2 (5%)
Albuquerque, NM
3 (7.5%)
El Paso, TX
9 (22.5%)
Other (specify below)
8 (20%)

Total Members Voted: 40

hotdogPi

Quote from: bing101 on December 10, 2024, 10:47:19 AMCheyenne, Wyoming has to be up there for most isolated US city in the United States within the mainland.

Cheyenne is too close to Fort Collins and the cities in that area.

Quote from: Rothman on December 09, 2024, 10:40:11 PMNYC is the most isolated largest city.

I'm not sure why you're saying this. While accurate, nobody earlier in the thread tried to combine superlatives in this way, so it seems irrelevant.
Clinched

Traveled, plus
US 13, 50
MA 22, 35, 40, 53, 107, 109, 126, 141, 159
NH 27, 78, 111A(E); CA 90; NY 366; GA 42, 140; FL A1A, 7; CT 32, 320; VT 2A, 5A; PA 3, 51, 60, WA 202; QC 162, 165, 263; 🇬🇧A100, A3211, A3213, A3215, A4222; 🇫🇷95 D316

Lowest untraveled: 36


Bobby5280

#26
I think the NYC mention was a joke. The cluster of DC, Baltimore, Philadephia, NYC and all the miscellaneous other cities leading up to Boston amounts to the most NOT-isolated region of the 48 states.

Quote from: kernals12I'd say Las Vegas.

Las Vegas is 254 miles from Phoenix and 227 miles from San Bernadino (technically part of the LA megapolis). The Victorville area North of Cajon Pass has a modest cluster of small cities. Boise is a farther distance than that away from the nearest major population centers.

Quote from: QuillzAnchorage, AK

The poll said the mainland 48 states. Otherwise someone could say Honolulu.

JayhawkCO

#27
Quote from: webny99 on December 10, 2024, 08:03:14 AM
Quote from: Bobby5280 on December 09, 2024, 11:19:53 PMDenver isn't very isolated. Colorado Springs and Pueblo are to the South. Cheyenne is to the North and there is a lot of development along the I-25 corridor next to the Front Range.

I somehow didn't realize Colorado Springs was well over 500k (metro) on its own, or I probably wouldn't have even put Denver on the list.

If you include metro areas over 2 million though, Denver is the clear winner. It also could be argued that the entire Front Range is a CSA.

mgk920

I would agree on Denver.  There is not much anywhere around it.

Mike

SEWIGuy

Quote from: hotdogPi on December 10, 2024, 10:54:50 AM
Quote from: bing101 on December 10, 2024, 10:47:19 AMCheyenne, Wyoming has to be up there for most isolated US city in the United States within the mainland.

Cheyenne is too close to Fort Collins and the cities in that area.

Billings and Fargo are also twice the size of Cheyenne and arguably more isolated.


JayhawkCO

#30
I won't have time today, but it would be slightly more interesting maybe to do "most isolated" by population level.

50k+
100k+
250k+
500k+
1m+
2m+

mgk920

I agree with the OP's narrowing this poll to places in the contiguous 48 USA states, many consider Honolulu to be the most remote major city in the World.

Mike

Flint1979


Flint1979

Quote from: mgk920 on December 10, 2024, 11:29:38 AMI agree with the OP's narrowing this poll to places in the contiguous 48 USA states, many consider Honolulu to be the most remote major city in the World.

Mike
Well if it was the 50 states that would be the obvious answer. When I was thinking of one before I went with New Orleans I was thinking Honolulu but then was like not in the lower 48 so it wouldn't count, then I thought New Orleans, a city the French built between a big lake and a big river that floods all the time with not much around it. The lake makes you feel isolated, the vast swamps going east, west and south make you feel isolated. No locals are going to be walking along Bourbon Street or anything but I had some fun when I was there but could never live there I'd be bored to death and i don't think I'd like living in Louisiana in the first place.

hbelkins

Government would be tolerable if not for politicians and bureaucrats.

thspfc

Quote from: JayhawkCO on December 10, 2024, 11:14:09 AMI won't have time today, but it would be slightly more interesting maybe to do "most isolated" by population level.

50k+
100k+
250k+
500k+
1m+
2m+
Off metro population

50k: Great Falls
100k: Missoula
200k: Lubbock
500k: Boise
1m: Salt Lake City
2m: Denver
5m: Phoenix

Without thinking about relative size or transportation efficiency, my gut reaction to the thread title was Salt Lake City.

bing101


webny99

Quote from: hbelkins on December 10, 2024, 01:21:12 PM
QuoteI'm going with New Orleans.

That was my thought as well.

If it wasn't for I-10, I-55, the Pontchartrain Causeway, and Baton Rouge, I could see the case for it.

ZLoth

Quote from: webny99 on December 09, 2024, 10:07:52 PMI got to thinking post-Thanksgiving how some cities/metro areas are highly accessible and drivable from a lot of the country while others require going well out of the way from just about anywhere.

Instead of "City", I would include the term "Metropolitan Area". There are many places which call themselves "cities", but are part of a bigger area.

Having said that, I would first look at cities in the mountain time zone as that is the least populated of the four time zones. With that, I'm going to go with Billings, Montana with a 2020 population of 117,116. If you look at the flight from Billings, it serves five Montana locations, plus Portland, Seattle, Salt Lake City, Phoenix/Mesa, Denver, Dallas, Chicago, and Minneapolis. As far as I know, Denver, Seattle, Dallas, and Chicago are hub airports, while Las Vegas is a non-hub but major destination where you could catch a connecting flight and lose money at the slots without leaving the airport.
Don't Drive Distrac... SQUIRREL!

JayhawkCO

#39
Quote from: thspfc on December 10, 2024, 01:25:27 PM
Quote from: JayhawkCO on December 10, 2024, 11:14:09 AMI won't have time today, but it would be slightly more interesting maybe to do "most isolated" by population level.

50k+
100k+
250k+
500k+
1m+
2m+
Off metro population

50k: Great Falls
100k: Missoula
200k: Lubbock
500k: Boise
1m: Salt Lake City
2m: Denver
5m: Phoenix

Without thinking about relative size or transportation efficiency, my gut reaction to the thread title was Salt Lake City.

Had more time than I thought today. So, another way to look at this is how far you need to drive to get to another metro area that's bigger than the one you're in. So, I broke those down into population groups:

100k-250k
Billings - 497 miles to Fort Collins
Grand Junction - 243 miles to Denver
Bismarck - 195 miles to Fargo
Farmington - 183 miles to Albuquerque
Yuma - 172 miles to San Diego

250k-500k
Lubbock - 322 miles to Albuquerque
Fargo - 235 miles to Minneapolis
Sioux Falls - 181 miles to Omaha
Laredo - 157 miles to San Antonio
Tri-Cities - 135 miles to Spokane

500k-1m
Albuquerque - 419 miles to Phoenix
New Orleans - 348 miles to Houston
Boise - 334 miles to Salt Lake City
Spokane - 279 miles to Seattle
El Paso - 266 miles to Albuquerque

1m-3m
Denver - 794 miles to Dallas
Salt Lake City - 421 miles to Las Vegas
Saint Louis - 297 miles to Chicago
Charlotte - 243 miles to Atlanta
Pittsburgh - 241 miles to Washington

I excluded crossing borders for this exercise, mostly only applicable to El Paso and Laredo.

(I thiiiink these are all accurate as I excluded looking at states where I assumed the correct answer wouldn't come from. I'm a little dubious on my 250k-500k numbers, but I'll look again tomorrow.)

TheStranger

Denver metro is about 580 miles from Kansas City metro, so slightly less  isolated than when measuring towards the Metroplex.  (SLC metro area is a bit over 1.2 million and is about 510 west of Denver)
Chris Sampang

Scott5114

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on December 10, 2024, 12:10:59 AM
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on December 10, 2024, 12:04:19 AMLas Vegas isn't on there but you would think it would be pretty high up there.

Barstow, Pahrump, Mesquite, Kingman, Bullhead City, Boulder City and St. George are all close enough to blunt the isolated feel. 

I don't know about that. Boulder City, sure. But there is a whole lot of nothing between there and both Kingman and Laughlin/Bullhead. Pahrump is far enough away, and requires summitting a mountain pass, that it doesn't really feel all that connected to Las Vegas.

I haven't done this myself, but I've heard that if you go to the top of the Strat after dark you can really tell how isolated Las Vegas really is. The whole valley is lit up, and then beyond that, pitch black in every direction for miles. Night satellite images (like this from https://www.nightearth.com/) also kind of show this:


uncontrollable freak sardine salad chef

Max Rockatansky

Quote from: Scott5114 on December 10, 2024, 06:01:17 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on December 10, 2024, 12:10:59 AM
Quote from: Roadgeekteen on December 10, 2024, 12:04:19 AMLas Vegas isn't on there but you would think it would be pretty high up there.

Barstow, Pahrump, Mesquite, Kingman, Bullhead City, Boulder City and St. George are all close enough to blunt the isolated feel. 

I don't know about that. Boulder City, sure. But there is a whole lot of nothing between there and both Kingman and Laughlin/Bullhead. Pahrump is far enough away, and requires summitting a mountain pass, that it doesn't really feel all that connected to Las Vegas.

I haven't done this myself, but I've heard that if you go to the top of the Strat after dark you can really tell how isolated Las Vegas really is. The whole valley is lit up, and then beyond that, pitch black in every direction for miles. Night satellite images (like this from https://www.nightearth.com/) also kind of show this:




Depends on how high up you are.  The thing that sells me on Vegas not being so desolate anymore is the evening glow present from the metro area at night in Death Valley.  Pahrump is probably contributing much of that light pollution also.

Scott5114

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on December 10, 2024, 06:04:07 PMDepends on how high up you are.  The thing that sells me on Vegas not being so desolate anymore is the evening glow present from the metro area at night in Death Valley.  Pahrump is probably contributing much of that light pollution also.

Wouldn't that mean that it's Death Valley that isn't as isolated anymore, not Las Vegas?
uncontrollable freak sardine salad chef

Max Rockatansky

#44
Quote from: Scott5114 on December 10, 2024, 06:12:01 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on December 10, 2024, 06:04:07 PMDepends on how high up you are.  The thing that sells me on Vegas not being so desolate anymore is the evening glow present from the metro area at night in Death Valley.  Pahrump is probably contributing much of that light pollution also.

Wouldn't that mean that it's Death Valley that isn't as isolated anymore, not Las Vegas?

Why not both?  If you asked me this in 2001 I would have agreed.  When I was running a work circuit between Vegas-Laughlin-Bullhead-Kingman circa 2011-2013 things has definitely become more civilized in the Mojave Desert.  None of my excursions back to the area have left me feeling like the area is all that isolated anymore. 

Then again, I don't feel like any of these cities being is "truly remote."  I haven't made a poll selection nor thought of a 500k metro I think was worthy of submitting. 

webny99

The reason I didn't put Las Vegas on the list - it probably would have been next up had I added more choices - was because it's 6 hours or less to Phoenix and most of SoCal, both of which are massive population centers. So if you're looking at total population within a 6-8 hour drive, it's upwards of 30 million. Compare that with Boise or El Paso, where you're looking at a quarter of that or less.

Bobby5280

New Orleans was mentioned earlier. The Crescent City might be physically isolated in terms of geography (surrounded by a lot of water and swamp land). But it isn't far from other significant population centers. Houston is a pretty good haul (347 miles), but Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Lake Charles and Beaumont are in between. Gulfport-Biloxi, Mobile, Pensacola and Destin aren't far to the East.

JayhawkCO

Quote from: Bobby5280 on December 10, 2024, 09:24:17 PMNew Orleans was mentioned earlier. The Crescent City might be physically isolated in terms of geography (surrounded by a lot of water and swamp land). But it isn't far from other significant population centers. Houston is a pretty good haul (347 miles), but Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Lake Charles and Beaumont are in between. Gulfport-Biloxi, Mobile, Pensacola and Destin aren't far to the East.

A better measure might be "how far to a metro of the same size or at least 50% of the size". If I get around to it tomorrow, I'll try to figure it out.

CNGL-Leudimin

Good thing the OP restricted this to the 48 contiguous states, otherwise I'd have said Honolulu. I don't think one can get more isolated than that :bigass:.
Supporter of the construction of several running gags, including I-366 with a speed limit of 85 mph (137 km/h) and the Hypotenuse.

Please note that I may mention "invalid" FM channels, i.e. ending in an even number or down to 87.5. These are valid in Europe.

ZLoth

#49
I would have to say that the City of Lost Wages... I mean Las Vegas.... is NOT an isolated city metropolitan area. With 2,336,573 residents, it is very populated. For a non-hub airport, it has flights from even Korea, Japan, and several Europenan countries. I-15 is a major route through that city. There are plenty of entertainment opportunities. It just feels isolated because of the distance between cities.

If someone asks me if I had a choice between living in Vegas or Billings, I would say Vegas first. I would look at Billings as a getaway destination though.
Don't Drive Distrac... SQUIRREL!



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