The largest cities in the U.S. (2009)

[golden eagle]

This list came out about a month or two ago. No changes within the top ten. I'll post the link to the Census report:

www.census.gov/popest/cities/tables/SUB-EST2009-01.csv

BTW, my hometown is #131.

[Chris]

The growth rate of Phoenix is astonishing... 60 years ago, it was a small town (yet capital) almost nobody knew with 100,000 inhabitants.

[TheStranger]

I know San Jose claims now to have a million inhabitants as of a year ago; I guess their #s are different from the federal census which hasn't caught up yet.

60 years ago, San Jose didn't even have 100,000 residents!

To put that in perspective, Sacramento broke the 100K mark some time in the 1930s (about 25 years before San Jose reached that milestone), and is now only half the size of San Jose in population.

[Chris]

How can infrastructure ever keep up with a population growth like that? The Phoenix, DFW and Houston metropolitan areas grew by 100,000 inhabitants every single year for like 30 years in a row...

[huskeroadgeek]

The growth rate of Phoenix is astonishing... 60 years ago, it was a small town (yet capital) almost nobody knew with 100,000 inhabitants.

Air conditioning is what made the explosive growth of Phoenix possible. The 1950s was when most homes began to be built with air conditoning and once that happened, it was much more tolerable of a place to live in the summer, and growth took off.

[Chris]

Yes A/C is a basic need in Phoenix. For example the last couple of days topped 110 F at Sky Harbor. Phoenix is said to be the hottest large city in the western hemisphere. I also noticed a lot of houses in the Phoenix area have white roofs to reflect the sunlight instead of absorbing it.

[J N Winkler]

Air conditioning is what made the explosive growth of Phoenix possible. The 1950s was when most homes began to be built with air conditioning and once that happened, it was much more tolerable of a place to live in the summer, and growth took off.

It seems obvious that refrigerant-based A/C would make Phoenix (and southern Arizona in general) habitable in the summer, but in reality I don't think it had that much effect on population growth.  Before refrigerant-based A/C was available, there was swamp cooling, which is highly efficient and effective in dry areas.  On a percentage basis, Phoenix had a very high growth rate well before refrigerant-based A/C became available (going back to at least 1900) and in fact the population grew faster in some years before refrigerant-based A/C technology existed than it has in any recent decade with modern A/C.

The general rule of thumb is that Phoenix's metropolitan area population doubles every 20 years.  This has been true for much of the past 50 years.  However, if you go back earlier than 1960, you see a few decades in which Phoenix's population has actually grown faster than this despite the lack of refrigerant-based A/C:

See Wendell Cox's county-based metropolitan area population figures taken from US Census returns going back to 1900

1900:  26,236
1910:  43,533 (more than 50% higher than the 1900 figure--so faster growth than doubling every 20 years, which implies 44% growth decade-to-decade)
1920:  105,706 (more than double the 1910 figure!)
1930:  173,051 (also more than 44% higher than 1920 figure)
1940:  215,034 (population growth considerably less than 44%--the Depression can probably be blamed for this; at the time the Arizona highway patrol was carrying out a "move them on out of state" policy with regard to the Okies and other economic migrants)
1950:  374,961 (well above 44% growth from 1940, and more than double 1930 figure)
1960:  726,183 (almost double--partly a result of the Baby Boom?)

There is probably a relationship of some kind between Phoenix's growth and the availability of A/C technology, but because of the prior availability of swamp cooling and other reasons, it is unlikely to be a simple one visible in gross population figures.  My theory is that at any given time, the US as a whole has a relatively small percentage of the population that is willing to tolerate the temperature extremes of southern Arizona without climatization.  In a counterfactual scenario where A/C was not available, Phoenix would have been able to attract most if not all of this fraction of the US population by becoming a really attractive place to do business, but then would have hit a ceiling on further growth because it wouldn't have been able to attract further population growth from people who feel they need what powered climatization offers (coolness in summer, warmth in winter).  Because A/C has been available and power is cheap in the US, Phoenix presumably did not hit such a ceiling.

The problem with this theory is that it assumes that, in desert heat, swamp cooling is a far inferior substitute to refrigerant-based A/C.  Swamp cooling is definitely inferior in places such as Kansas, where summers are generally much more humid than in Arizona, but I would not expect this to apply in Phoenix.  Another consideration is how far swamp cooling predates refrigerant-based A/C--I assume swamp cooling technology is at least several decades older (refrigeration has been around since the 1930's at least) but I am not really sure.

In any case, it is an interesting question.

In regards to ecological adaptation to the desert, xeriscaping is also encouraged.  It is actually fairly rare for a house in southern Arizona, especially a recently-built house, to have a lawn.  More usual is simulated desert pavement with (mature) cacti, paloverde, etc. for landscaping.  Theft of saguaro cacti for landscaping purposes is actually a major problem in Arizona.  Water supply is generally treated as a matter of hydraulic engineering, and in Arizona the situation is complicated by the fact that Indian tribes have a "harder" claim to water for agricultural purposes than is usually the case elsewhere in the West where cities, on the strength of their more intensive land use, can usually buy out agricultural water users.

[agentsteel53]

The growth rate of Phoenix is astonishing... 60 years ago, it was a small town (yet capital) almost nobody knew with 100,000 inhabitants.

Vegas is even more astonishing.  70 years ago, the population of Vegas was under 10000.

[Brandon]

Without reliable water, I fail to see how Phoenix and Vegas (or LA for that matter) can be viable forever.

[huskeroadgeek]

Air conditioning isn't solely responsible for Phoenix's explosive growth beginning in the 1950s, but there are plenty of sources that cite it as the major factor. As one study called "The Phoenix Experiment" points out, the arrival of an air conditioned Motorola plant in the early 1950s(another factor itself in Phoenix's growth during the decade) increased the demand for air conditioned homes in the area. It also states that when the Federal Housing Authority accepted central air conditioning as part of its mortgages in 1957, installation really exploded. Phoenix was the fastest growing city in the country during the 1950s, growing by 311%. Air conditioning was also a factor in the growth of other cities such as Las Vegas and Houston.

[Stephane Dumas]

A slightly off-topic note, at some other forums; some peoples made some predictions for the largest cities in the US for 2050
http://www.city-data.com/forum/city-vs-city/640611-five-largest-u-s-cities-2050-a-8.html
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=183375

[Chris]

There is currently a trend of migrating to the south, so it would make sense the cities located in those areas will also experience a higher population growth. Phoenix will eventually run into water problems (if not already), so I think the best chances for population growth are within the Houston and DFW metropolitan areas, although one should not underestimate the growth in states as North Carolina and Georgia.

There is one major desert city that hasn't seen a Phoenix-like boom yet, and that is Albuquerque. I wonder how big Albuquerque will be in 2050. Denver also has almost unlimited space to grow (except to the west). I think northern U.S. metropolitan areas will soon max out and get into a decline. Most city propers (Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Cleveland, St. Louis, Detroit etc.) have maxed-out in the 1950's and won't return to significant growth because of changed demographics (more single person households) and limited space to expand. The only way such cities can still grow is by the annexation of surrounding communities, or if high-rise living suddenly becomes a major market.

[TheStranger]

Most city propers (Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Cleveland, St. Louis, Detroit etc.) have maxed-out in the 1950's and won't return to significant growth because of changed demographics (more single person households) and limited space to expand. The only way such cities can still grow is by the annexation of surrounding communities, or if high-rise living suddenly becomes a major market.

In the case of Detroit, not only has it maxed out, but it has shrunk by 50% since the 1950s, to the point it is now smaller than San Jose in population!  (To put it in context, Detroit had over 10 times as many people in the 1950s.)  However, the metro area still has several million, due to the migration into areas such as Oakland County and Ann Arbor...

Houston has benefitted mightily from rather facile annexation laws - more so than some seemingly nascent cities such as Las Vegas (of which the famous tourist areas such as The Strip tend NOT to be in city limits) or Sacramento (which, IIRC, had a 1974 referendum that failed regarding merging with the unincorporated areas of the county) where the largest unincorporated suburb of Arden (which uses Sacramento addresses, just like Las Vegas unincorporated areas like Paradise use Las Vegas addresses) has resisted annexation, and has had attempts in the last two years to become an independent city.  Also resisting annexation in recent years is the small town of Freeport about 10 miles south of downtown, adjacent to the Pocket and Meadowview neighborhoods.

Sacramento did annex the Perkins/College Greens area east of the university in the late 1950s, and the then-bankrupt city of North Sacramento in 1964.  They also have territorial rights to unincorporated areas in Natomas, just like Houston does with parts of Greater Katy.

[codyg1985]

There is one major desert city that hasn't seen a Phoenix-like boom yet, and that is Albuquerque.

How far away from Alburquerque is the New Mexico space port being built? That may cause a rise in growth there.

I agree with you Chris; I think that growth will continue to occur in the south and possibily the northwest, but I also think that it's important to realize that suburbs will have to redefine themselves in order to remain sustainable. The 1950's model where we all move out into the suburbs, have a cookie-cutter house, and a car or two is going to come to an end. I think there will be some infill and densification among suburbs, and we may also see once blighted areas be redeveloped. I think metro areas will continue to expand, but not at the pace that they have been expanding.

[agentsteel53]

The 1950's model where we all move out into the suburbs, have a cookie-cutter house, and a car or two is going to come to an end.

the sooner the better! 

[Stephane Dumas]

It all depends of some other factors like gentrification. Some parts of Brooklyn are now "in", even Newark in New Jersey, we see the tide turning around.
We could expect some upper Midwest cities like Omaha, Nebraska, Wichita in Kansas or Des Moines in Iowa to grow as part of the "Silicon Prairie".  Btw, does El Paso could be classifield as a desert city?

Someone mentionned at http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showpost.php?p=4832867&postcount=6 then St.Louis population had increased since 2000

There some areas who are a sleeping giant who could awaken, with the gas shales in the Northeast, around the Great Lakes and the High Plains.  

[agentsteel53]

is there a ranking of the largest "cities as we think of them" which normalizes against which place has the most facile annexation laws?  for example, I tend to think of Scottsdale, Tempe, Mesa, etc all as being Phoenix - similarly, Pasadena, Torrance, Riverside, etc are all Los Angeles to me.  

[TheStranger]

is there a ranking of the largest "cities as we think of them" which normalizes against which place has the most facile annexation laws?  for example, I tend to think of Scottsdale, Tempe, Mesa, etc all as being Phoenix - similarly, Pasadena, Torrance, Riverside, etc are all Los Angeles to me.  

I thikn this would be a perfect comparison of metro areas to city proper:  i.e.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities_in_the_United_States vs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_United_States_Metropolitan_Statistical_Areas and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_United_States_Combined_Statistical_Areas

The question then becomes more subjective when areas beyond the core city and county are considered: is Riverside really "metro Los Angeles?"  Orange County I often consider as part of metro LA though there is a distinct cultural difference between LA and Orange Counties; likewise, northern New Jersey and southwestern Connecticut are very tied into the NYC metro area though they have somewhat of their own identity.

The Bay Area is divided into two metro areas IIRC (San Jose, SF-Oakland) that create one combined statistical area; IMO, SF is the cultural focal point, but SJ the economic center of the region.

Columbus is the largest city proper in Ohio, but because it has annexed much of its suburban area, it only ranks as the 3rd largest metro area in the state.


Louisville, KY recently merged with suburbs within Jefferson County (in fact, the whole county outright) to create a much larger city proper, yet with some independent communities managing to be both part of the new Greater Louisville, and still "seperate." 

[Chris]

Someone mentionned at http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showpost.php?p=4832867&postcount=6 then St.Louis population had increased since 2000

An increase of 6,000 people in 8 years after a 50,000 loss in the previous 10 years and a ~500,000 loss in the preceding 50 years. Apparently, St. Louis has hit rock bottom. I don't think cities can empty out forever. Gentrification may turn the tide, but it will never reach pre-1970 levels.

[Truvelo]

What an interesting thread.

I read somewhere that Phoenix and Tucson will become one giant metropolis soon. With growth rates of 50% every 20 years it can't be too long before it happens.

How long will it be before the whole country is one big city with the exception of mountainous terrain like the Rockies?

[agentsteel53]

I doubt the great plains will ever become similar to the Boston-to-Washington metro corridor.  Hell, even western Massachusetts is very different from eastern Massachusetts and I see it staying that way.

also, where is the York/Boston sign from?

[agentsteel53]

is Riverside really "metro Los Angeles?"  

I tend to think so.  I consider "metro LA" extending all the way out to Indio, though you can make the argument that Redlands is the last town before a desert section on 10 and 60.

hell, if it weren't for Camp Pendleton, Tijuana would be "metro Los Angeles".

[Truvelo]

also, where is the York/Boston sign from?

I thought that would be easy - just do the math

Anyway, it's here if you can't work it out.

[Chris]

is Riverside really "metro Los Angeles?"  

I tend to think so.  I consider "metro LA" extending all the way out to Indio, though you can make the argument that Redlands is the last town before a desert section on 10 and 60.

I never really understood why the U.S. Census bureau considers Los Angeles and Riverside/San Bernardino as separate MSA's. They're fully integrated and the Inland Empire is/was just an overflow area for people in search of affordable housing. Now that the Inland Empire is also almost completely urbanized, it continues all the way to Indio, and across the San Gabriel Mountains along I-15 corridor to Barstow. Will it ever stop? Who knows. Eventually the San Diego and Los Angeles metropolitan areas will grow together along the I-15 corridor. It's almost there already. I think you can even consider Ventura/Oxnard to be part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area.

[Stephane Dumas]

I doubt the great plains will ever become similar to the Boston-to-Washington metro corridor.  Hell, even western Massachusetts is very different from eastern Massachusetts and I see it staying that way.

I agree, maybe only some small "Megalopolis" like Lincoln-Omaha, San Antonio-Austin, Denver-Fort Collins at the Foothills. However some argued then we might see the Chicagoland extending north to Milwaukee.

Btw, someone mentionned at http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?p=4896270 then it's almost 50 years then Jane Jabobs published her book, "The Death and Life of Great American Cities". Just imagine "what if" an updated edition appear and could include Phoenix, LV for example.