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.
The growth rate of Phoenix is astonishing... 60 years ago, it was a small town (yet capital) almost nobody knew with 100,000 inhabitants.
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.
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...
Quote from: Chris on July 19, 2010, 03:06:35 AM
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.
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.
Quote from: huskeroadgeek on July 19, 2010, 04:18:55 AMAir 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 (http://www.demographia.com/db-met1900.pdf)
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.
Quote from: Chris on July 19, 2010, 03:06:35 AM
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.
Without reliable water, I fail to see how Phoenix and Vegas (or LA for that matter) can be viable forever.
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.
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
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.
Quote from: Chris on July 22, 2010, 12:36:14 PM
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.
Quote from: Chris on July 22, 2010, 12:36:14 PM
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.
Quote from: codyg1985 on July 22, 2010, 02:24:55 PM
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!
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.
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.
Quote from: agentsteel53 on July 22, 2010, 02:36:15 PM
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."
Quote from: Stephane Dumas on July 22, 2010, 02:35:36 PMSomeone 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.
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?
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?
Quote from: TheStranger on July 22, 2010, 02:46:24 PM
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".
Quote from: agentsteel53 on July 22, 2010, 03:42:59 PMalso, where is the York/Boston sign from?
I thought that would be easy - just do the math :hmmm:
Anyway, it's here (http://maps.google.co.uk/?ie=UTF8&ll=43.315187,-70.605268&spn=0.024199,0.072098&z=15&layer=c&cbll=43.311796,-70.614357&panoid=uIGdLpbcImhqHItjRSt8dw&cbp=12,227.71,,2,-1.11) if you can't work it out.
Quote from: agentsteel53 on July 22, 2010, 03:45:39 PM
Quote from: TheStranger on July 22, 2010, 02:46:24 PM
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.
Quote from: agentsteel53 on July 22, 2010, 03:42:59 PM
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. ;)
As a point of comparison to the "metro LA/metro SD as one nearly complete single area", although metro Sacramento (Davis or Dixon as its westernmost point) and the Bay Area (Vacaville or Dixon as the northeasternmost segment) are adjacent to each other, neither area really comes across as one region. Likewise, while Stockton and Sacramento are the same distance from each other as San Francisco and San Jose, and share some TV network coverage, they don't really fit as one metro area either.
heh for some reason I totally forgot Maine is that close to Boston. I was thinking "there's no York, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, or even Connecticut"...
Quote from: Chris on July 22, 2010, 04:04:12 PM
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.
Cajon Pass is a brief gap in urbanization, and then north of Victorville there is some significant distance with absolutely no development before one gets into Barstow.
QuoteWill 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.
yep, only a few short gaps around Fallbrook. And yes, I consider Ventura to be part of the LA metro area - maybe even Santa Barbara but there's definitely a gap between the two.
This discussion reminds me of a fun fact I only realized recently:
Baltimore to Philadelphia is the same distance as San Francisco to Sacramento, yet the first listed corridor makes you go through three states!
and Boston to DC is about the same length as San Jose to Los Angeles.
Quote from: agentsteel53 on July 22, 2010, 05:50:26 PM
and Boston to DC is about the same length as San Jose to Los Angeles.
Actually, a bit longer - Boston-DC is 449 miles, about 15 miles longer than the distance from LA to SF via 101.
NYC-Philadelphia at 95 miles is another "same as Sacramento to SF" distance!
Quote from: TheStranger on July 22, 2010, 05:54:03 PM
Actually, a bit longer - Boston-DC is 449 miles, about 15 miles longer than the distance from LA to SF via 101.
okay, it's about 3% different. :pan: take some old 101 alignments, then!
Quote from: agentsteel53 on July 22, 2010, 06:00:58 PM
Quote from: TheStranger on July 22, 2010, 05:54:03 PM
Actually, a bit longer - Boston-DC is 449 miles, about 15 miles longer than the distance from LA to SF via 101.
okay, it's about 3% different. :pan: take some old 101 alignments, then!
The SF-LA distance via 80/580/5 is actually 381 miles, while SJ-LA via 101/152/5 at 340 miles is comparable to the Boston-Wilimington DE distance (348 miles).
Actually this brings up a good point: we hear all the talk of "megalopolis" areas, but how true is that concept? How large are the gaps in urbanization between the relative endpoints anyway?
I'll come up with some numbers in a bit...
For instance...
the northernmost area I consider "Bay Area" along 101 would be Novato, but the northernmost urbanized area in those far reaches would be Santa Rosa...so from Santa Rosa to Gilroy is 133 miles of urbanization (including Marin County, SF, San Mateo County, SJ).
Between Gilroy and the next truly urban area (Salinas) is 30 miles, followed by the Paso Robles/Atascadero area (107 miles).
Past Atascadero, the next urbanized grouping is San Luis Obispo (17 miles), then 12 miles to the south of SLO is the Pismo Beach/Arroyo Grande area, itself 16 miles to the north of Santa Maria.
From Santa Maria to the west edge of the Santa Barbara area (Goleta) is 62 miles; the final non-urbanized stretch from Carpinteria to Ventura is 18 miles.
In the 442 or so miles from Los Angeles to Santa Rosa, 262 of those miles along 101 are (relatively) rural, while 180 of them are urban (of which 133 of those miles are from Gilroy to Santa Rosa!)
---
In comparison, along the 449 miles from Boston to Washington...
the first rural-ish section might be on 95 north of 695 to about Newark, about 53 miles. Then the first few miles of the NJTP towards Camden (30 miles), followed by the segment of I-95 on the turnpike to East Brunswick (28 miles).
The final non-urban segment (along a routing involving 95-91-84-90) would be from Rockville, CT to Worcester, about 45 miles.
So 150 miles of rural pathway from Boston to Washington, slightly more than half as many on the Bay Area-SoCal corridor!
there are degrees to urban-ness. Salinas, Paso Robles, etc, are not particularly large towns, at least not compared to most of what you'll see on the Jersey Turnpike around Carteret and whatnot. And nothing compares to New York City!
It's important to note that what the government defines as a metropolitan area, and what most people would think of as being part of the metropolitan area aren't always the same thing. Sometimes a city might technically be in a larger city's metro area, but the residents of that city may not think of themselves in that way. The disucssion of what defines metro LA is an interesting one. In some sense, areas as far out as the Coachella Valley(Palm Springs-Indio), Victorville-Apple Valley and Ventura could be considered part of metro LA, even though they aren't part of the Los Angeles MSA(they are however part of the larger Los Angeles CSA). But then an area like the Antelope Valley(Lancaster-Palmdale) which is an all senses part of the Los Angeles MSA since it actually is in Los Angeles County is actually more separate from the city of Los Angeles itself than some areas further in distance because it is separated from LA by the San Gabriel Mountains.
Quote from: agentsteel53 on July 22, 2010, 06:43:51 PM
there are degrees to urban-ness. Salinas, Paso Robles, etc, are not particularly large towns, at least not compared to most of what you'll see on the Jersey Turnpike around Carteret and whatnot. And nothing compares to New York City!
Salinas is pretty big (about 148K) so comparable to Paterson and Elizabeth; however, Newark and Jersey City are in the 250-270K range - comparable to Chula Vista and Stockton in population!
The closest city to Newark, NJ (in terms of its codependence on a much larger neighbor) in California would be Long Beach...which is nearly at 500K.
Quote from: TheStranger on July 22, 2010, 07:03:53 PM
Salinas is pretty big (about 148K) so comparable to Paterson and Elizabeth; however, Newark and Jersey City are in the 250-270K range - comparable to Chula Vista and Stockton in population!
The closest city to Newark, NJ (in terms of its codependence on a much larger neighbor) in California would be Long Beach...which is nearly at 500K.
and what are the population densities of these various places? to me Salinas and San Luis Obispo and whatnot have always seemed a lot more spread out than, say, Paterson.
Quote from: TheStranger on July 22, 2010, 07:03:53 PM
Chula Vista
now there's a place I definitely don't consider to be its own city. It's a part of San Diego as far as I can tell.
Quote from: agentsteel53 on July 22, 2010, 07:05:51 PM
Quote from: TheStranger on July 22, 2010, 07:03:53 PM
Salinas is pretty big (about 148K) so comparable to Paterson and Elizabeth; however, Newark and Jersey City are in the 250-270K range - comparable to Chula Vista and Stockton in population!
The closest city to Newark, NJ (in terms of its codependence on a much larger neighbor) in California would be Long Beach...which is nearly at 500K.
and what are the population densities of these various places? to me Salinas and San Luis Obispo and whatnot have always seemed a lot more spread out than, say, Paterson.
This is where New Jersey trumps a lot of places (via the sheer amount of dense communities located near NYC)...Paterson for instance is only EIGHT square miles, while Salinas - with the same amount of people - is 22 square miles, more than twice as much land!
Newark actually has about as much square miles worth of land as Salinas, with 100K more people.
Quote from: agentsteel53 on July 22, 2010, 07:08:46 PM
Quote from: TheStranger on July 22, 2010, 07:03:53 PM
Chula Vista
now there's a place I definitely don't consider to be its own city. It's a part of San Diego as far as I can tell.
In that vein, would you associate San Mateo County and Marin County with San Francisco, or Santa Clara and Milpitas and Gilroy with SJ?
I don't think it's quite the same deal as areas that truly are identified with the core city (due to lack of incorporation + adjacent location), i.e. Paradise (next to Las Vegas) and Arden (next to Sacramento) which I noted earlier in their thread due to their non-use on mailing addresses.
Quote from: TheStranger on July 22, 2010, 07:16:17 PM
In that vein, would you associate San Mateo County and Marin County with San Francisco, or Santa Clara and Milpitas and Gilroy with SJ?
well, I tend to associate San Jose with San Francisco (though I really should be thinking about it the other way around!) so, to answer your question, yes.
same with Berkeley, Alameda, Hayward, etc all being Oakland to me. (but, strangely, I don't associate Oakland with San Francisco or San Jose despite the fact that you can get there via Fremont or Richmond or whatnot through unbroken heavy urbanization.
Quote from: agentsteel53 on July 22, 2010, 07:32:22 PM
Quote from: TheStranger on July 22, 2010, 07:16:17 PM
In that vein, would you associate San Mateo County and Marin County with San Francisco, or Santa Clara and Milpitas and Gilroy with SJ?
well, I tend to associate San Jose with San Francisco (though I really should be thinking about it the other way around!) so, to answer your question, yes.
same with Berkeley, Alameda, Hayward, etc all being Oakland to me. (but, strangely, I don't associate Oakland with San Francisco or San Jose despite the fact that you can get there via Fremont or Richmond or whatnot through unbroken heavy urbanization.
I tend to think of the Bay Area as three very closely-spaced urban cores (especially SF and Oakland) with a surrounding set of suburbs for each one, but making up their own region when combined...kinda like the relationship between Baltimore and Washington, or Wilmington/Philadelphia/Camden/Trenton.
LA is so massive that I have a very hard time really think of Orange County as anything other than a region codependent on LA's presence (same deal with Long Beach).
Interestingly, Toledo and Detroit are much more like Sacramento and Stockton: two closely-spaced urban cores that have NOT merged into one.
Quote from: TheStranger on July 22, 2010, 07:42:25 PM
I tend to think of the Bay Area as three very closely-spaced urban cores (especially SF and Oakland) with a surrounding set of suburbs for each one, but making up their own region when combined...kinda like the relationship between Baltimore and Washington, or Wilmington/Philadelphia/Camden/Trenton.
I wonder if we could compare with some Canadian cities? Toronto and Hamilton was once two closely-spaced urban cores but they seems to be merged into one and then some neighboorhing areas like St. Catherines, Barrie, Waterloo-Kitchener-Cambridge, Guelph, Brantford could be one day absorbed in the GTA. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Toronto_Area then if the urbanization continue to extend into the Niagara peninsula englobing Welland and Niagara Falls, we might have a "international megalopolis" composed of Toronto, Hamilton and Buffalo.
If Metro Detroit had included also the Canadian side of the Detroit-Windsor area, the population of the area is 6000000 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit%E2%80%93Windsor
Quote from: Chris on July 22, 2010, 12:36:14 PM
although one should not underestimate the growth in states as North Carolina and Georgia.
Almost a decade ago, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution had a story on how Charlotte, Atlanta and Birmingham could all meet and form one big metro called Charlantingham. Sounds far-fetched, but who knows?
Quote from: Chris on July 22, 2010, 03:21:24 PM
Quote from: Stephane Dumas on July 22, 2010, 02:35:36 PMSomeone 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.
Washington is also on the rebound. Their population is just a shade under 600K. I believe it went below that in the 90s.
San Francisco had a roller-coaster population rise and decline. The early 2000s saw the population to over 784K, only to go down to 773K, but now has gone up well over 800K. Any possible explanation for the rise and fall and rise again?
Quote from: Truvelo on July 22, 2010, 03:35:15 PM
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.
Not far-fetched at all. North of Tucson is Marana, which has almost tripled since 2000. Marana sits just south of rapidly-growing Pinal County, so it's very possible for Tucson and Phoenix will meet.
Quote from: golden eagle on July 23, 2010, 12:44:36 AM
San Francisco had a roller-coaster population rise and decline. The early 2000s saw the population to over 784K, only to go down to 773K, but now has gone up well over 800K. Any possible explanation for the rise and fall and rise again?
While SF is primarily built out, there is plenty of new infill development in the China Basin/South of Market areas, a good mix of commercial and residential. (Of course, some of it can also depend on how the population count is achieved, too...)
Quote from: golden eagle on July 23, 2010, 12:52:47 AM
Quote from: Truvelo on July 22, 2010, 03:35:15 PM
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.
Not far-fetched at all. North of Tucson is Marana, which has almost tripled since 2000. Marana sits just south of rapidly-growing Pinal County, so it's very possible for Tucson and Phoenix will meet.
I've never actually traveled on I-10 between Phoenix and Tucson, but it looks to me like there is still quite a bit of open area in between the two cities.
Quote from: huskeroadgeek on July 23, 2010, 01:19:27 AM
Quote from: golden eagle on July 23, 2010, 12:52:47 AM
Quote from: Truvelo on July 22, 2010, 03:35:15 PM
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.
Not far-fetched at all. North of Tucson is Marana, which has almost tripled since 2000. Marana sits just south of rapidly-growing Pinal County, so it's very possible for Tucson and Phoenix will meet.
I've never actually traveled on I-10 between Phoenix and Tucson, but it looks to me like there is still quite a bit of open area in between the two cities.
Well, it is (I've traveled it only once, back in 2003), but Marana is halfway between Tucson and Eloy, which I guess you call the "gateway" to metro Phoenix to the south. Depending on quickly Phoenix spreads out southward, it may not be too long before all the open country becomes urbanized.
Most "megalopolises" in the northeast will eventually occur through merger of existing urban areas. For example, you only need around 300,000 additional people to have a solid merger of the NYC and Philadelphia metropolitan areas. Statistically, it would let NYC metro grow by around 5 million, while the actual population growth is only a few hundred thousand people.
For example Houston or Dallas-Fort Worth won't merge with any other significant city, so their population growth is much more impressive in my opinion.
I wonder how the Miami (better: South Florida) metropolitan area will grow. It's basically wedged between a huge swamp and the sea. It can only grow north and south, but that would create unacceptable commuting distances, it is already around 110 miles north-south. While not very obvious, the same seems to be happening on the west coast of Florida between Citrus County and Naples.
Really, the whole I-4 corridor and then up I-95 to Jacksonville and down to Brevard County (if not farther down). Heck, let's just say all of Florida from I-75 eastward!
Quote from: Chris on July 23, 2010, 04:30:07 AM
Most "megalopolises" in the northeast will eventually occur through merger of existing urban areas. For example, you only need around 300,000 additional people to have a solid merger of the NYC and Philadelphia metropolitan areas. Statistically, it would let NYC metro grow by around 5 million, while the actual population growth is only a few hundred thousand people.
For example Houston or Dallas-Fort Worth won't merge with any other significant city, so their population growth is much more impressive in my opinion.
Houston and Galveston are already one. I could see Houston "moving east" towards Beaumont, Port Arthur, and Orange and in turn a westward movement of Lake Charles towards Texas by 2050. Hurricanes pending mind you.
Quote from: TheStranger on July 22, 2010, 02:46:24 PM
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.
What Columbus lacks to Cincy and Cleveland is a secondary city. Cincinnati has Hamilton, and even Dayton (and Northern Kentucky), while Cleveland has Lorain-Elyria and Akron-Canton. (Heck, as recently as the late 80s there was still the thought that one could see a megalopolis of Cleveland-Youngstown-Pittsburgh. Or so I was told in school back then)
Quote from: osu-lsu on July 23, 2010, 12:04:06 PM
Quote from: TheStranger on July 22, 2010, 02:46:24 PM
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.
What Columbus lacks to Cincy and Cleveland is a secondary city. Cincinnati has Hamilton, and even Dayton (and Northern Kentucky), while Cleveland has Lorain-Elyria and Akron-Canton. (Heck, as recently as the late 80s there was still the thought that one could see a megalopolis of Cleveland-Youngstown-Pittsburgh. Or so I was told in school back then)
For that matter, it really does seem as if that "secondary" city is what does prop up a metro area that extra little bit (i.e. Long Beach and Anaheim for Los Angeles, the North County area for San Diego, Henderson for Vegas, Scottsdale/Mesa/et al. for Phoenix).
Not sure if Elk Grove and Roseville really fit the definition for Sacramento, though most of the new development has been in those two suburbs as of late.
I'm thinking a megaloposis could form from DFW to San Antonio along the I-35 corridor. San Antonio and Austin are growing toward each other and Austin is growing toward Killeen, Temple and Waco.
There's also one forming along the Gulf Coast from Baton Rouge to Fort Walton Beach. But just like the Houston-to-Lake Charles corridor, the risk of hurricanes could blow it (no pun intended) away.
It would be really interesting to see Oklahoma City and Tulsa grow into one another, but I don't see it happening. Oklahoma City seems to grow in every direction but northeast; once you get on the Turner Turnpike urbanization comes to a dead stop (do the tolls and lack of interchanges make development less lucrative? There's no access to the "outside world" until Wellston, so there's no reason to build alongside the turnpike.)
If any sort of shitty "megalopolis" develops in Oklahoma (it is in Oklahoma so you know it'll be sort of a disappointment as megalopoli go), it'd probably be more along the lines of OKC—Lawton, since you have Chickasha in the middle there to facilitate the connection. From Chickasha, the chain would go Amber-Bridge Creek-Newcastle-Oklahoma City (barring the development of some new town along the corridor). Of course you also have the challenge of tolls and lack of access here, too.
Quote from: Scott5114 on July 23, 2010, 01:36:28 PM
It would be really interesting to see Oklahoma City and Tulsa grow into one another, but I don't see it happening. Oklahoma City seems to grow in every direction but northeast; once you get on the Turner Turnpike urbanization comes to a dead stop (do the tolls and lack of interchanges make development less lucrative? There's no access to the "outside world" until Wellston, so there's no reason to build alongside the turnpike.)
What's the geography like in the northeast area? I get the sense that in California, the lack of a true SF-LA megalopolis is mostly geographically influenced (lots of hills and a few big grades left on 101, the Grapevine along 5); for the areas that seem "easy" to develop but haven't, those tend to be too far for commutes and too valuable still as farmland (I-5 between Route 99 in Wheeler Ridge and I-205 in Tracy).
In that vein, the Route 99 corridor isn't really a "megalopolis" of Bakersfield-Fresno-Stockton-Sacramento despite the large size of all four communities, due to the continuing prevalence of large-scale farming in the Valley (thus explaining why Sacramento-Stockton is not one metro area).
Here's a nice little graphic from Wikipedia that shows some of the areas where growth has coalesced:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MapofEmergingUSMegaregions.png
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaregions_of_the_United_States
According to that methodology, half of Europe would be one megaregion. In my opinion, it means nothing, just some stuff for people who like meaningless numbers.
The MSA definitions are already flawed because it calculates metro size based on the county subdivision. Some MSA's have several counties with one population center, where the other 80% of the area is rural, especially an issue when you're comparing the area of an MSA to another.
Especially on this side of the pond, people like to say; "look, Dallas is more than half the size of the Netherlands yet has only 6 million inhabitants, typical American waste of space".
While if you look closer, you'll see half or more of the DFW MSA area is rural.
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg186.imageshack.us%2Fimg186%2F5585%2Fdfw.jpg&hash=c8241ebe2521e74720fa79fd4d501d7bcda1d964)
Population densities:
Collin County: 862 / sq mi
Dallas County: 2,691 / sq mi
Delta County: 8 / sq mi
Denton County: 689 / sq mi
Ellis County: 119 / sq mi
Hunt County: 39 / sq mi
Johnson County: 205 / sq mi
Kaufman County: 34 / sq mi
Parker County: 124 / sq mi
Rockwall County: 334 / sq mi
Tarrant County: 1,990 / sq mi
Wise County: 21 / sq mi
In my opinion, anything under 500 people / sq mi can hardly be considered urban. That leaves us a 4-county core of the metropolitan area.
Quote from: Chris on July 24, 2010, 05:04:46 AMDallas is more than half the size of the Netherlands yet has only 6 million inhabitants, typical American waste of space
One of the reasons for this is the much larger lots houses are built on in the US, particularly the more recent subdivisions. Europe, in contrast, has more smaller properties. In Holland there's also a much higher proportion of apartments in the cities than houses. Chris may know the exact figure but a very rough estimate of somewhere like Rotterdam may be as high as 1 house for every 9 apartments. In this scenario there's a much higher population density for any given area of land. An extreme example may be an upmarket subdivision on the edge of a large US city with large McMansions that each sit on the same area of land as a single apartment block in a Dutch city that houses 200 families.
Most Dutch live in rowhouses, also in the cities. Only the older neighborhoods around the city center are typically 3 - 4 story apartments, generally inhabited by immigrants and low-income households. High-rise living is certainly not a large proportion in the Netherlands, as it is for example in eastern Europe. Most high-rises are social housing with loads of unemployed people and is generally seen as the least attractive housing in the Netherlands.
However, housing is generally expensive in the Netherlands, don't be surprised if you have to pay $ 400,000 for a 20 x 25 feet 3-story rowhouse with a 6 feet front yard and a 30 feet backyard... Detached homes are only affordable to the upper class. American-size detached homes are generally around $ 800,000 - 1 million in the Netherlands.
How are metro areas configured in New England? In the rest of the U.S., they're grouped by counties and parishes. However, you may have more than one metro in the same county in New England.
Quote from: golden eagle on July 24, 2010, 07:05:08 PM
How are metro areas configured in New England? In the rest of the U.S., they're grouped by counties and parishes. However, you may have more than one metro in the same county in New England.
Some whole counties are used while others are split up by townships. Counties as a whole in New England have less importance than they do in other parts of the country-in Connecticut and Rhode Island they function as little more than geographic designations.
I was thinking of the largest cities of several states that could be in danger of losing that title and let me see what you think or if there may be others to add:
Alabama: Birmingham's population keeps dropping, but Mobile is back on the rise after a steady decline. Montgomery also has its rises and falls. There's around 28k-population difference between Montgomery and Birmingham. However, Huntsville has been growing faster than any other major urban area in Alabama. I think they'll overtake Mobile in with ten years (if not before then), Montgomery not too long after that, then even Birmingham. It may be possible that Montgomery overtakes Birmingham first and then Huntsville.
Tennessee: Memphis' population has risen since 2000, but that was mainly because of annexation. However, the numbers have been steadily declining since then. Nashville has risen above 600K for the first time. I think it's possible within ten years that Nashville will overtake Memphis.
Utah: Could it be possible that surburban West Valley City (125K) could get ahead of parent city Salt Lake City (183K)? That may could end up being the first suburb to be larger than the parent city, at least in modern times.
In Kentucky, had Louisville not merged with Jefferson County, Lexington would've been the largest city a while back.
Down the road, it may be possible for Little Rock (191K) to be surpassed by Fayetteville (77K). Little Rock is growing, but Fayetteville has been growing at a faster pace. In Mississippi, it may take a few decades, but Southaven (45K and one of the state's fastest-growing cities) could end up being bigger than Jackson (175K and declining).
In most other states, the population between the largest and second-largest city is so huge that it would take several generations for the second-largest to surpass the largest. I don't see Tucson bigger than Phoenix anytime soon or Fort Wayne bigger than Indianapolis. Even Grand Rapids won't be bigger than Detroit in my lifetime and Detroit has been falling like a rock!
Quote from: golden eagle on July 25, 2010, 02:27:34 PM
Utah: Could it be possible that surburban West Valley City (125K) could get ahead of parent city Salt Lake City (183K)? That may could end up being the first suburb to be larger than the parent city, at least in modern times.
Virginia Beach is also much larger than Norfolk.
Quote from: Chris on July 25, 2010, 02:50:04 PM
Quote from: golden eagle on July 25, 2010, 02:27:34 PM
Utah: Could it be possible that surburban West Valley City (125K) could get ahead of parent city Salt Lake City (183K)? That may could end up being the first suburb to be larger than the parent city, at least in modern times.
Virginia Beach is also much larger than Norfolk.
Good point-that's actually probably the first case of a suburb becoming larger than the main city. Virginia Beach is such an integral part of the Hampton Roads area that it's kind of forgotten now that Norfolk was for a long time the main city in the area and the largest city in the state. Virginia Beach grew partially by its location and partially by annexation-it orginally was an unincorporated area from the early 20th century and was later incorporated as a small independent city in 1952, but increased its population greatly when it merged with surrounding Princess Anne County in 1963. It has continued to grow since that time due to its favorable location.
Some other relatively recent changes in largest city status:
Florida: Jacksonville was the largest city in the early part of the 20th century but was pased up by Miami in the 1940 census. Jacksonville regained the title in the 1970 census after it combined with surrounding Duval County and will likely continue to hold it for a long time as it is well ahead of any other city in the state.
Kansas: Not a change in largest city status since Wichita has been and appears likely to continue to be the largest city in the state for a long time to come, but Overland Park has gone from not existing before 1960 to now being the 2nd largest city in the state.
Louisiana: Population shifts due to Hurricane Katrina were thought at one time likely to allow Baton Rouge to pass up New Orleans as the largest city in the state for the first time, but recent estimates indicate that probably won't be the case when the 2010 Census figures come out.
Missouri: St. Louis was long the largest city in the state, probably since statehood, but was passed up by Kansas City sometime in the early 80s(St. Louis was only barely ahead of Kansas City in the 1980 Census)
Nevada: Reno was the largest city in Nevada until Las Vegas passed it up sometime in the 1950s.
Ohio: Cleveland was long the largest city in Ohio until Columbus passed it up sometime in the 1980s.
Virginia: As noted above, Norfolk was long the largest city in the state until passed up by Virginia Beach in the early 1980s(Norfolk was only barely ahead of Virginia Beach in the 1980 Census)
West Virginia: Huntington and Charleston have traded for the title a few times. Huntington was the largest city for most of the 20th century until Charleston won the title in the 1960 Census. Then Huntington won it back in the 1970 Census but Charleston won it back again in the 1980 Census and has held it since (pending the 2010 Census-the two cities are very close in population).
Wyoming: Cheyenne had been the largest city in the state until Casper passed it up in the 1980 Census, but Cheyenne won the title back in the 1990 Census, held it in the 2000 Census and appears likely to continue to hold it in the 2010 Census.
I was not aware that Virginia Beach was a suburb.
When I was living in Georgia, the chairman of the Gwinnett County Commission had came up with the idea of the city of Gwinnett. Basically, take all the unincorporated areas of the county and make it one big city. Were that to happen now, it'd be bigger than Atlanta. I doubt this would ever come to fruition, but at least something to think about.
While I did note that many states have quite a large gap between the largest and second-largest city, what will be interesting to see a shuffling at other positions. For instance, how long will Tucson hang up to #2 in Arizona before getting passed by cities like Mesa or even over up-an-coming locales like Chandler and Gilbert? In Texas, Dallas is now the third-largest city in the state, but could it get passed by by Austin or could Austin be outpaced by Fort Worth or El Paso? In Illinois, Rockford was sent down to #3 after getting passed by Aurora, but Naperville and Joliet could send Rockford down to #5 before too long.
Virginia Beach wouldn't be considered a suburb of Norfolk now, but it certainly would have been before its fast growth began in the 1960s/1970s.
Interesting comment about Gwinnett County-there have been a couple of other proposals that would have changed rankings in other states. In 2002, the San Fernando Valley portion of Los Angeles voted to secede from the rest of the city, but it was a non-binding vote and the LA City Council refused to support the idea. Had it passed, the new city would have become probably the 3rd largest city in the state, just behind San Diego and definitely among the 10 largest in the country. Similar to the Gwinnett County proposal was one that a member of the Kansas State Legislature proposed back in 2006 to merge the governments of all of the cities in Johnson and Wyandotte Counties-most of the Kansas portion of metro Kansas City-into one large city. Such a city would far surpass Wichita as the largest city in the state and be in the top 20 largest cities in the country. The proposal got very little support however and is unlikely to ever happen.
Speaking as someone who lives here, Virginia Beach is most certainly a suburb.
While it may be home to the region's two tallest buildings, and may be the most populous, at least 95% of the land area consists of low-density development, and quite a bit of the southern portion of the city is still rural. In contrast, Norfolk has large areas of medium- and high-density development, and most of its low-density areas are still a lot denser than Va Beach because they are older. I can't think of a single area of the city that was only recently developed. Additionally, if you look at traffic patterns the majority of traffic is going westbound on I-264 in the morning and eastbound in the evening... the interstates are built favoring traffic from Va Beach to the Naval Base in Norfolk and downtown Norfolk.
Due to the whole nature of development in Hampton Roads, however, it's not really a good example to use of typical city structure. There are 7 urban cores in the region.
Now that I think about it, there was a proposal in the mid-90s to consolidate all of Harrison County, MS. The new city (can't remember the name) would've made it the largest city in Mississippi (this was at least a decade before Katrina).
There has been some talk about Memphis and Shelby County consolidating. I found a Commercial-Appeal article (http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2009/aug/18/merger-getting-a-push-again/) about it. Seems like the suburbs are more against it. But even if Memphis and Shelby merge and, for example, Germantown and Collierville stay independent, a consolidated Memphis-Shelby County would put it around 750K at the least. It would make it a little harder for Nashville to overtake.
Going back to state rankings, Ann Arbor is now the fifth-largest city in Michigan (having passed Flint) and is within a hair's breath of beating out Lansing at #4. I'm really surprised Ann Arbor isn't larger than it is, given the University of Michigan is there. With all the bigger cities falling, Ann Arbor has been somewhat steady in its population.
Quote from: deathtopumpkins on July 25, 2010, 10:31:25 PM
Speaking as someone who lives here, Virginia Beach is most certainly a suburb.
While it may be home to the region's two tallest buildings, and may be the most populous, at least 95% of the land area consists of low-density development, and quite a bit of the southern portion of the city is still rural. In contrast, Norfolk has large areas of medium- and high-density development, and most of its low-density areas are still a lot denser than Va Beach because they are older. I can't think of a single area of the city that was only recently developed. Additionally, if you look at traffic patterns the majority of traffic is going westbound on I-264 in the morning and eastbound in the evening... the interstates are built favoring traffic from Va Beach to the Naval Base in Norfolk and downtown Norfolk.
Due to the whole nature of development in Hampton Roads, however, it's not really a good example to use of typical city structure. There are 7 urban cores in the region.
Since you live there, I can't dispute what you say. It's just that to outsiders like myself, we would think that Norfolk would be the suburb to Virginia Beach.
Quote from: golden eagle on July 25, 2010, 11:27:30 PMIt's just that to outsiders like myself, we would think that Norfolk would be the suburb to Virginia Beach.
hah, outsiders like me are happy if the entire thing sinks into the sea ...
Quote from: agentsteel53 on July 25, 2010, 11:28:55 PM
Quote from: golden eagle on July 25, 2010, 11:27:30 PMIt's just that to outsiders like myself, we would think that Norfolk would be the suburb to Virginia Beach.
hah, outsiders like me are happy if the entire thing sinks into the sea ...
Trust me, that would make some locals happy too! :-D Sure would me.
I guess by some of the best defintions of a suburb, Virginia Beach still would be considered a suburb: low-denisty development and primarily residential. We may always think of suburbs as necessarily being smaller than the "main city", but I guess there is nothing in the definition that makes that a necessity. There are even some main cities that resemble suburbs themselves-I've heard Fresno, CA described as one large suburb, and having been there before, there is some truth to it-it has an unusually small urban core for the size of the city and most of the city stretches out for miles in low-density development. Fresno also has only one city-Clovis that could really be considered a suburb of it.
Ultimately, I think, it's irrelevant to determine exactly what places count as "suburbs" in the Hampton Roads area precisely because, as was previously mentioned, there are many urban cores. Even Virginia Beach has a downtown, judging from Google Earth.
It's also dependent on the local administrative boundaries. In most urban areas, the suburban population exceeds the urban city proper population (sometimes by many times).
That said, most urban cores are also mainly suburban outside the central district. For example Phoenix, Dallas or San Diego.
QuoteSpeaking as someone who lives here, Virginia Beach is most certainly a suburb.
Speaking as someone who lived *IN* Virginia Beach for 3.5 years, I would agree. The only possible exception would be the Oceanfront, which has largely been developed for a century now.
QuoteI can't think of a single area of the city that was only recently developed.
Some of the areas along the eastern part of Ocean View Ave (US 60), towards where Ocean View becomes Shore Dr, were torn down and empty for many years until they started getting (re?)developed over the past 5-10 years.
And aside from that exception, you won't. In part because of the "nature of development" of Hampton Roads you alluded to later. Both Chesapeake and modern-day Virginia Beach were created in 1963 in no small part to counter Norfolk's annexation and expansion. Residents of then-Norfolk County, and then-Princess Anne County preferred creating their own independent city over being annexed by Norfolk. And the then-existing town of South Norfolk voted to become part of Chesapeake.
So Norfolk has pretty much remained the same as far as land size and development for close to 50 years.
QuoteDue to the whole nature of development in Hampton Roads, however, it's not really a good example to use of typical city structure. There are 7 urban cores in the region.
Concur.
QuoteTrust me, that would make some locals happy too! Sure would me.
That's only because you live on the Peninsula, not the Southside... :)
QuoteNow that I think about it, there was a proposal in the mid-90s to consolidate all of Harrison County, MS. The new city (can't remember the name) would've made it the largest city in Mississippi (this was at least a decade before Katrina).
Definitely the largest in land area. At the time of the proposal, though, Jackson was still slightly more populated than Harrison County. That has changed since the 2000 census...even with Hurricane Katrina, Harrison County is more popluated, based on Census Estimates.
What is the benefit of having so many suburbs? Is there anything to be gained from Lenexa, Shawnee, and Leawood existing independent of Olathe and Overland Park? Seems like redundancy in government to me.
Quote from: Scott5114 on July 26, 2010, 11:03:18 AM
What is the benefit of having so many suburbs? Is there anything to be gained from Lenexa, Shawnee, and Leawood existing independent of Olathe and Overland Park? Seems like redundancy in government to me.
I know in metro Sacramento, several of the suburbs basically incorporated for the purposes of retaining local tax revenue from regionally-oriented businesses like malls and car dealerships, I want to say Citrus Heights did exactly that, and Arden is looking to do to the same should it incorporate.
Some of the LA-area suburbs incorporated to resist Los Angeles's annexation policies in the early part of the 20th century (when LA was taking advantage of its Owens Valley water supply to expand outward from the downtown core), while others incorpoated specifically to protect local businesses (the cities that were founded as dairy communities i.e. La Palma/Cerritos, or today's cities of Industry and Commerce).
Quote from: Scott5114 on July 26, 2010, 11:03:18 AM
What is the benefit of having so many suburbs? Is there anything to be gained from Lenexa, Shawnee, and Leawood existing independent of Olathe and Overland Park? Seems like redundancy in government to me.
more specifically, is there any benefit to having all of those existing independently of Kansas City?
Quote from: agentsteel53 on July 26, 2010, 11:25:13 AM
Quote from: Scott5114 on July 26, 2010, 11:03:18 AM
What is the benefit of having so many suburbs? Is there anything to be gained from Lenexa, Shawnee, and Leawood existing independent of Olathe and Overland Park? Seems like redundancy in government to me.
more specifically, is there any benefit to having all of those existing independently of Kansas City?
Well now you're getting into the very specific of why suburbs exist...in fact, why places incorporate in the first place. The simple answer is, places want to be able to localize services, ostensibly in the name of better quality for local residents. For example, people in my suburban town pay higher property taxes in order to fund better schools.
Quote from: yanksfan6129 on July 26, 2010, 11:40:57 AM
Well now you're getting into the very specific of why suburbs exist...in fact, why places incorporate in the first place. The simple answer is, places want to be able to localize services, ostensibly in the name of better quality for local residents. For example, people in my suburban town pay higher property taxes in order to fund better schools.
in that case, five suburbs are just as good as three. Lenexa wants to be separate from Kansas City
and Olathe.
that said, San Diego (as one example) is a very sprawling city with a lot of implicit suburbs - say, La Jolla, that are very different from downtown, but somehow are not their own incorporated communities.
Quote from: agentsteel53 on July 26, 2010, 11:44:39 AM
that said, San Diego (as one example) is a very sprawling city with a lot of implicit suburbs - say, La Jolla, that are very different from downtown, but somehow are not their own incorporated communities.
La Jolla has its own zip code and can use "La Jolla, CA" postal addresses - the ONLY part of San Diego that has this distinction!
However, the area has been part of the incorporated city of San Diego since the 1850s. It's slightly different from the prevalence of suburban names within the City of Los Angeles (most of which were former independent communities) i.e. San Pedro, Van Nuys, Hollywood, etc.
Quote from: TheStranger on July 26, 2010, 11:49:53 AM
La Jolla has its own zip code and can use "La Jolla, CA" postal addresses - the ONLY part of San Diego that has this distinction!
here I thought other neighborhoods could do this too. For example, I used to live in Pacific Beach and when I gave my zip code (92109) to various websites, they auto-completed it to "Pacific Beach, CA" as opposed to "San Diego, CA". (Hell, some websites claimed ambiguity and asked me if I meant San Diego 92109 or Pacific Beach 92109!)
Quote from: agentsteel53 on July 26, 2010, 11:53:17 AM
Quote from: TheStranger on July 26, 2010, 11:49:53 AM
La Jolla has its own zip code and can use "La Jolla, CA" postal addresses - the ONLY part of San Diego that has this distinction!
here I thought other neighborhoods could do this too. For example, I used to live in Pacific Beach and when I gave my zip code (92109) to various websites, they auto-completed it to "Pacific Beach, CA" as opposed to "San Diego, CA". (Hell, some websites claimed ambiguity and asked me if I meant San Diego 92109 or Pacific Beach 92109!)
You know, I'm not sure, Wiki claims La Jolla is the only one but then I keep thinking San Ysidro does this as well.
I guess most suburbanites don't feel like paying taxes for the big city problems.
Quote from: Chris on July 26, 2010, 12:03:34 PM
I guess most suburbanites don't feel like paying taxes for the big city problems.
And consequently, this is why certain cities have tried hard to annex their surrounding counties, with some level of success in the midwest/South (Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Louisville, Nashville).
Quote from: TheStranger on July 26, 2010, 11:49:53 AM
Quote from: agentsteel53 on July 26, 2010, 11:44:39 AM
that said, San Diego (as one example) is a very sprawling city with a lot of implicit suburbs - say, La Jolla, that are very different from downtown, but somehow are not their own incorporated communities.
La Jolla has its own zip code and can use "La Jolla, CA" postal addresses - the ONLY part of San Diego that has this distinction!
However, the area has been part of the incorporated city of San Diego since the 1850s. It's slightly different from the prevalence of suburban names within the City of Los Angeles (most of which were former independent communities) i.e. San Pedro, Van Nuys, Hollywood, etc.
The postal service uses different boundaries that don't follow city boundaries. There are many neighborhoods in Los Angeles that retain their own postal addresses too-like all 3 of the ones mentioned here plus others. The postal service occasionally will even create a pseudo-city just for the purposes of postal addresses. The many suburbs of Kansas City in Johnson County-discussed above comes up here too. The suburbs in northern Johnson County, including part(but not all) of Overland Park are collectively designated by the postal service as "Shawnee Mission, KS". The name has some other uses too-it's the name of a lake, a park, a major road(Shwnee Mission Parkway) and a school district(all the high schools in the area are named Shawnee Mission with a directional designation). But it is not a separate city and nobody would ever say they are from Shawnee Mission, KS, although occasionally someone unfamiliar with the situation will use this designation as the hometown of a person or business in the area.
Quote from: yanksfan6129 on July 26, 2010, 11:40:57 AM
Well now you're getting into the very specific of why suburbs exist...in fact, why places incorporate in the first place. The simple answer is, places want to be able to localize services, ostensibly in the name of better quality for local residents. For example, people in my suburban town pay higher property taxes in order to fund better schools.
That's what is going on here in Orlando. Residents of the east side do feel like they are not getting enough when it comes to services so there is sporadic talk of them incorporating.....they do have their own free "community newspaper" The East Orlando Sun ;) If they did incorporate, that area would automatically become the second largest city in Orange County.
Quote from: yanksfan6129 on July 26, 2010, 11:40:57 AM
Quote from: agentsteel53 on July 26, 2010, 11:25:13 AM
Quote from: Scott5114 on July 26, 2010, 11:03:18 AM
What is the benefit of having so many suburbs? Is there anything to be gained from Lenexa, Shawnee, and Leawood existing independent of Olathe and Overland Park? Seems like redundancy in government to me.
more specifically, is there any benefit to having all of those existing independently of Kansas City?
Well now you're getting into the very specific of why suburbs exist...in fact, why places incorporate in the first place. The simple answer is, places want to be able to localize services, ostensibly in the name of better quality for local residents. For example, people in my suburban town pay higher property taxes in order to fund better schools.
Some suburbs are like that. Others got their start as completely separate towns and cities from the main city. For example, a fair percentage of Chicago suburbs started as farm towns along the railroad tracks. Suburbs such as Downers Grove, Hinsdale, Elmhurst, Wheaton, etc, got their start as rail stops for farmers. Others started due to the proximity to a river such as Naperville, Plainfield, Aurora, Joliet, etc. Very few of Chicago's suburbs got their start as auto suburbs such as Bolingbrook, Homer Glen, etc.
It's rather interesting to look at a map of Chicagoland and note how most development is still concentrated along the rail lines with suburbs growing perpendicular to the rail lines.
Quote from: agentsteel53 on July 26, 2010, 11:44:39 AM
Quote from: yanksfan6129 on July 26, 2010, 11:40:57 AM
Well now you're getting into the very specific of why suburbs exist...in fact, why places incorporate in the first place. The simple answer is, places want to be able to localize services, ostensibly in the name of better quality for local residents. For example, people in my suburban town pay higher property taxes in order to fund better schools.
in that case, five suburbs are just as good as three. Lenexa wants to be separate from Kansas City and Olathe.
Same reason we have 50 states. Same reason there are all those countries in Europe. More feifdoms so people can think they are in charge of their lives instead of being part of the "nameless mass in the city."
That and De Facto segregration. Black folks cause property values to drop. :poke: (I am being sarcastic there. I do NOT support that philosophy)
Quote from: osu-lsu on July 26, 2010, 11:16:41 PM
Quote from: agentsteel53 on July 26, 2010, 11:44:39 AM
Quote from: yanksfan6129 on July 26, 2010, 11:40:57 AM
Well now you're getting into the very specific of why suburbs exist...in fact, why places incorporate in the first place. The simple answer is, places want to be able to localize services, ostensibly in the name of better quality for local residents. For example, people in my suburban town pay higher property taxes in order to fund better schools.
in that case, five suburbs are just as good as three. Lenexa wants to be separate from Kansas City and Olathe.
Same reason we have 50 states. Same reason there are all those countries in Europe. More feifdoms so people can think they are in charge of their lives instead of being part of the "nameless mass in the city."
That and De Facto segregration. Black folks cause property values to drop. :poke: (I am being sarcastic there. I do NOT support that philosophy)
Good on that last sentence because you were gonna have a fight on your hands. ;)
oh, white folks cause property values to drop too. ever hear of a company called Goldman Sachs?
Quote from: Scott5114 on July 26, 2010, 11:03:18 AMWhat is the benefit of having so many suburbs? Is there anything to be gained from Lenexa, Shawnee, and Leawood existing independent of Olathe and Overland Park? Seems like redundancy in government to me.
It can, but in practice I think the biggest problem is lack of coordination in land use planning (which can lead to sprawl). Small suburbs often try to keep their overhead on public services small by economizing on administrative facilities, sometimes even to the point of failing to maintain records in a professional way. The Kansas City
Star reported years ago that the city clerk of Countryside, Kansas (with a population of about 150 people) kept the city records in his garage. Years ago I received a parking ticket from the City of Santa Monica, California, and the return address on the ticket was in Tustin. "City Hall" in many suburbs (including Surprise, Arizona) is a small storefront in a strip shopping center.
Edit: Additionally, especially in the Midwest, many smaller cities have infrastructure work on their street systems planned, designed, and supervised by the state DOT through its local assistance program rather than through their own engineering staffs or through consultants they retain. A substantial proportion of KDOT's lettings in any given month, for example, is local assistance work of this kind.
Quote from: J N Winkler on July 27, 2010, 03:56:30 AM
Small suburbs often try to keep their overhead on public services small by economizing on administrative facilities
One notable form of this in California is the use of county services post-incorporation, as noted here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_city
Quote from: golden eagle on July 27, 2010, 12:33:37 AM
Quote from: osu-lsu on July 26, 2010, 11:16:41 PM
That and De Facto segregration. Black folks cause property values to drop. :poke: (I am being sarcastic there. I do NOT support that philosophy)
Good on that last sentence because you were gonna have a fight on your hands. ;)
I just hope, I won't have a fight in my hands either if I mention black flight, there was a Dallas-Morning News article from June about it at http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/education/stories/060610dnmetblackflight.1bffbc6.html
due to the public school system and in Detroit due to crime and the city council, from this article from the Wall Street Journal http://online.wsj.com/article/NA_WSJ_PUB:SB10001424052748704292004575230532248715858.html
Quote from: agentsteel53 on July 27, 2010, 12:35:14 AM
oh, white folks cause property values to drop too.
They're called rednecks.
There are many factors that influence property values and I would say that racial prejudice, or more commonly the expectation of racial prejudice within the real estate marketplace, is of diminishing importance. Demographers used to observe a "block-busting" effect where, for example, a given city block would remain white until a certain percentage of blacks moved in, and then whites would flee and the block would become completely black within a short period of time. But in this day and age, I don't think you would observe this effect in neighborhoods where houses are affordable only to middle-class professionals (whether they are white or black). Other concerns that are very common for house buyers are transiency, the age profile of the neighborhood, the obligations imposed by homeowners' associations in post-1980 developments, etc. Taking a few examples:
* Many homebuyers don't want to be in a neighborhood which has a lot of elderly people. That often implies that houses will be sold, carelessly and in a hurry, when the elderly owners have to move into care homes, and the buyer could very well be (say) a Vietnamese immigrant who wants to use the property to house 16 people, or run a laundry.
* Other homebuyers don't want to be in a neighborhood, even an affluent one with plenty of families with children, where changes in ownership are frequent. "Flipping" of houses works against social bonding and promotes anomie, and the children can easily grow up into tearaway teenagers who engage in vandalism and petty theft.
* Quite a few homebuyers don't want to be in subdivisions which have apartment buildings or other types of rental housing which, for reasons of market position, tends to be characterized by short lets. That kind of housing is typically associated with rootless people who live month to month, sometimes paycheck to paycheck, have no interest in building equity in land let alone social capital, and bring in all sorts of problems ranging from drugs to weapons.
* For reasons which Wikipedia says are indirect consequences of the Clean Water Act, it is almost impossible to buy into a new residential housing development without also becoming a member of a homeowner's association. Such associations are covered by the law of contract and since most states have been slow to regulate the provisions that can be included, they are often turned into platforms for building totalitarian microstates. Years ago I made several trips to a mostly-built-out subdivision to check out one of the last unbuilt plots of land. My car was elderly but not, at that time, visibly decrepit. Nevertheless residents in one house stopped in the middle of the street as I was parking on one of my visits, and very conspicuously wrote down my license plate number.
These are, of course, all sorts of communities and neighborhoods where these prejudices don't hold. And, let us be frank, prejudices are what they are. But they are very hard to get rid of because people in general feel they give them a strategic advantage, and reduce decision-making costs, in what in the USA is a very complex and often frightening real-estate marketplace requiring significant commitments of money and social capital.
Quote from: J N Winkler on July 28, 2010, 06:27:11 AM
There are many factors that influence property values and I would say that racial prejudice, or more commonly the expectation of racial prejudice within the real estate marketplace, is of diminishing importance.
[...]
* Quite a few homebuyers don't want to be in subdivisions which have apartment buildings or other types of rental housing which, for reasons of market position, tends to be characterized by short lets. That kind of housing is typically associated with rootless people who live month to month, sometimes paycheck to paycheck, have no interest in building equity in land let alone social capital, and bring in all sorts of problems ranging from drugs to weapons.
Hate to burst your clean white bubble, but this reason is in fact racist. White people don't want to move near rental housing because typically, more blacks are found in rental housing vs. owned homes. (Says I, who lives in a rental unit - but in this part of NJ, ethnicity varies by town more than dwelling group, and in that case, white people won't move to a black town and vice versa.)
Quote from: AlpsROADS on July 28, 2010, 08:04:03 AM
Hate to burst your clean white bubble, but this reason is in fact racist. White people don't want to move near rental housing because typically, more blacks are found in rental housing vs. owned homes. (Says I, who lives in a rental unit - but in this part of NJ, ethnicity varies by town more than dwelling group, and in that case, white people won't move to a black town and vice versa.)
Not necessarily. Just because rental housing has more minorities than non-rental housing (which is entirely location dependent BTW - it isn't true here in my part of Florida), that doesn't necessarily make the desire to avoid living near rental housing racist. Correlation != causation. There are enough reasons other than race to want to avoid apartment complexes or other rental units that I don't think its a valid conclusion.
At least here in Florida, renters are very transient. The Section 8 housing in particular has higher levels of (drug-related) crime, even the ones that are predominantly white. Even in single-family detached homes, rental homes are usually poorly cared for and the tenants make worse neighbors in my experience.
My particular neighborhood is very diverse. I have a nice house with a pool on a big lot. Crime is non-existent. It's a mix of blue-collar families. young professionals, and retirees (of all races and backgrounds). There are always kids out playing, and everyone is very friendly. I know a few coworkers who would never consider moving down near me because it's "dangerous". They prefer to pay more to live on tiny lots in small cookie-cutter houses behind a gate. I think that would be a more fitting example of modern racism with regard to housing.
Quote from: AlpsROADS on July 28, 2010, 08:04:03 AMHate to burst your clean white bubble, but this reason is in fact racist. White people don't want to move near rental housing because typically, more blacks are found in rental housing vs. owned homes. (Says I, who lives in a rental unit - but in this part of NJ, ethnicity varies by town more than dwelling group, and in that case, white people won't move to a black town and vice versa.)
Racist? As realjd says, perhaps in some contexts, but as a generalization I would say no. I had in mind a couple of specific examples within easy walking distance of my parents' house, including the apartment complex where my aunt lived for several years (in the late 1970's) before she bought her first house. A few months ago someone in an apartment there thought he would show his gun in the middle of an out-of-control drinking party, and as a result two people were wounded (fatally, I think), and police and EMS had to be called. Meanwhile, in my parents' subdivision, which is less than a mile to the west, three burglaries were enough to trigger establishment of an active Neighborhood Watch. The person who looks after my parents' block is, in fact, a nurse at Wesley Medical Center who lives four doors down and is black.
The Wichita
Eagle no longer notes the ethnicity of people involved in reported crimes unless that is a direct factor in the crime itself. Since the
Eagle is my sole source for the incident at my aunt's former apartment complex, I can only guess at the ethnicity of the people involved. Wichita is however fairly similar to NJ in that ethnic composition varies by neighborhood (and, to an extent, income) rather than type of land tenure. Since west Wichita is mostly white, I am pretty confident the people involved in the incident were white.
So, yes, I would say that race is not as important a factor as it used to be. What was the case back in the 1950's when race was still a big deal, and is still the case today, is that people are very sensitive to any signs of lack of self-control on the part of potential new neighbors. That is associated less with skin color today and more with education and income group. To the extent that it is fuelled by prejudice, the suspicion itself is questionable as a matter both of morality and social policy, but people can't be expected unilaterally to pursue social justice with what is, for them, generally their biggest single investment.
Quote from: realjd on July 28, 2010, 09:43:43 AMMy particular neighborhood is very diverse. I have a nice house with a pool on a big lot. Crime is non-existent. It's a mix of blue-collar families. young professionals, and retirees (of all races and backgrounds). There are always kids out playing, and everyone is very friendly. I know a few coworkers who would never consider moving down near me because it's "dangerous". They prefer to pay more to live on tiny lots in small cookie-cutter houses behind a gate. I think that would be a more fitting example of modern racism with regard to housing.
Out of interest, was your subdivision built pre-1980?
We have the same syndrome in Wichita too, but usually it takes the form of retreat to a suburb (e.g. Goddard or Maize) rather than a gated community. There is a very distinctive patter that goes with it too. "Why are my children doing Black History Month things at school instead of reading, writing, and 'rithmetic?" It sounds reasonable on the surface but in reality it is a dog whistle.
Quote from: J N Winkler on July 29, 2010, 03:46:51 AM
Out of interest, was your subdivision built pre-1980?
We have the same syndrome in Wichita too, but usually it takes the form of retreat to a suburb (e.g. Goddard or Maize) rather than a gated community. There is a very distinctive patter that goes with it too. "Why are my children doing Black History Month things at school instead of reading, writing, and 'rithmetic?" It sounds reasonable on the surface but in reality it is a dog whistle.
My house was built in 1980, but it's one of the older ones in my particular neighborhood. I don't live in a subdivision though. My city, Palm Bay, was a General Development Corporation city. GDC bought up huge tracts of land, divided it up into 1/4 acre lots, then build roads. They then went and sold these lots to northerners. There aren't any subdivisions really because the whole city was intended to be essentially one subdivision. They would promise water and sewer connections to a block whenever 2/3 of the block had been built out, then proceeded to only sell just under 2/3 of the lots on any given block. As a result, you'll have some of the older parts of town with still vacant lots and a mix of housing ages.
My particular neighborhood is one of the older ones in the city. It's almost fully built out now, but it's a mix of older homes like mine (including a few really crappy GDC-built homes from the 60's), and newer homes built in the past few years.
I think the other thing that turns off some yuppie-types is the same thing that attracted me to Palm Bay in the first place - the fact that there are no HOA's and no deed restrictions.
GDC went out of business in (I think) the early 90's. The City of Palm Bay is still trying to fix some of the things they did poorly and cheaply. My house has city water, but large parts of the city are still on wells. They're rapidly working to expand the city water system to more areas. Most of the city is still on septic systems and not sewers (which is fine by me - septic is significantly cheaper). GDC didn't plan through streets or commercial areas, so it is extremely hard to get around parts of the city, and what ended up being the major roads are all lined with houses. GDC built the roads too thin, so Palm Bay can't just repave, they actually have to destroy the old road and rebuild it to a normal, maintainable thickness. The major roads are all in good condition, but it's a slow and expensive process to replace some of the residential streets.
There are a number of other GDC cities in Florida. Port Charlotte, Port St. Lucie, Port St. John, and Deltona were all GDC towns from what I remember.
In the far SW corner of Palm Bay, there's still about 200 miles of paved, named streets built by GDC that are completely vacant. It's like a maze out there. There's no street signs, but someone spray-painted arrows leading out onto the pavement at some of the intersections. It's patrolled by the police, but there's still a lot of shenanigans that go on out there. It's a creepy place.
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=27.941185,-80.700932&spn=0.056414,0.109863&t=h&z=14
Sorry for the long winded, off-topic reply, but your simple question about my subdivision wasn't quite that easy to answer! :cool:
Quote from: J N Winkler on July 29, 2010, 03:43:05 AM
Neighborhood Watch.
what is the point of this sort of thing? I'd imagine people would be looking out for would-be criminals out of their own self interest anyway, making the set of signs superfluous. Is there also signs up for "this neighborhood puts on pants in the morning"?
Quote from: Truvelo on July 22, 2010, 03:58:16 PM
Quote from: agentsteel53 on July 22, 2010, 03:42:59 PMalso, where is the York/Boston sign from?
I thought that would be easy - just do the math :hmmm:
Anyway, it's here (http://maps.google.co.uk/?ie=UTF8&ll=43.315187,-70.605268&spn=0.024199,0.072098&z=15&layer=c&cbll=43.311796,-70.614357&panoid=uIGdLpbcImhqHItjRSt8dw&cbp=12,227.71,,2,-1.11) if you can't work it out.
I just drove past the York/Boston sign last week! Its just south of Portland, ME on I-95.
Quote from: agentsteel53 on July 29, 2010, 11:18:34 AMwhat is the point of this sort of thing? I'd imagine people would be looking out for would-be criminals out of their own self interest anyway, making the set of signs superfluous. Is there also signs up for "this neighborhood puts on pants in the morning"?
I am not actually aware of any studies into the effectiveness of Neighborhood Watch organizations. Based on my parents' experience, I think the main benefit is actually sharing of information: Neighborhood Watch addresses gaps in people's knowledge both of technique and events. Police officers go to Neighborhood Watch groups and give presentations on how better to secure houses against burglary; when a neighborhood is persistently targeted by thieves, information above and beyond "Always lock your doors and windows" becomes more valuable than is otherwise the case. When another house gets raided by burglars, the information diffuses that much more quickly through the neighborhood (because a contact network has developed as part of the organization) and that is a reminder to others that they need to be on their guard. Eventually, at least in theory, the thieves realize the neighborhood is a "hard target" and move on to easier pickings.
It may also have the effect of making vigilantism appear like a less attractive way of dealing with a burglary problem. From the standpoint of society as a whole, this is advantageous because it is cheaper at the margin to let thieves take what they want and then claim on insurance than to risk serious injury (either to the homeowner or to the thief) trying to stop the theft. (For the same reason, the standard advice is not to resist carjackings or muggings.) At some point there has to be a response to theft through collective action, otherwise mobile private property becomes uninsurable, but society is generally still better off if that response is monopolized by individuals who are trained to confront thieves and have the legal capacity for responsible use of violence.
Neighborhood watch meetings are also a good way for neighbors to meet who otherwise wouldn't. Once you're aware of who is supposed to be in a neighborhood, it's easier to spot people that aren't. Also, some groups arrange for someone to drive around the neighborhood each night just looking for anything out of the ordinary. That way they'd notice something like an open gate, a strange car, or something like that and be able to call the police.
It's worth noting that neighborhood watch groups are not police, are not necessarily armed, and are trained to not confront criminals. Here in Florida though, since much of the population carries firearms anyway, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that many neighborhood watch patrols are at carrying so they can at least defend themselves even if they won't try to apprehend a criminal.
Quote from: realjd on July 29, 2010, 10:10:06 AM
There are a number of other GDC cities in Florida. Port Charlotte, Port St. Lucie, Port St. John, and Deltona were all GDC towns from what I remember.
Now I know why Deltona is extremely shoddy.....and why they will never have a four-lane road within the city.
My parents were part of both a neighborhood watch and a homeowner's association at different times. They seemed about the same (although the big topic at the HOA was normally road maintenance, since the HOA owned its roads and the NWA was in a city so it didn't).
Quote from: realjd on July 29, 2010, 10:10:06 AM
In the far SW corner of Palm Bay, there's still about 200 miles of paved, named streets built by GDC that are completely vacant. It's like a maze out there. There's no street signs, but someone spray-painted arrows leading out onto the pavement at some of the intersections. It's patrolled by the police, but there's still a lot of shenanigans that go on out there. It's a creepy place.
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=27.941185,-80.700932&spn=0.056414,0.109863&t=h&z=14
What sort of shenanigans? Urbane stuff like people having parties out in the sticks or something more sinister?
The conversation has strayed quite a bit from its original intent, so let me kinda get it back that way. One question I do have is is it harder for independent cities like St. Louis and many cities in Virginia to annex land to grow?
Quote from: golden eagle on July 30, 2010, 11:23:57 PM
The conversation has strayed quite a bit from its original intent, so let me kinda get it back that way. One question I do have is is it harder for independent cities like St. Louis and many cities in Virginia to annex land to grow?
In the case of St. Louis, in the 1890s it separated from its county in order to have less area needing management - something that came back to haunt it (but could have not been foreseen at the time) when the suburbs became more affluent once developed in the 1940s and 1950s.
(Philadelphia actually had the opposite happened, when it consolidated very early on in its history to take full control of the entire namesake county - resulting in a situation like, say, Houston where much of the region's population still lives in the now-expanded core city.)
Quote from: golden eagle on July 30, 2010, 11:23:57 PM
The conversation has strayed quite a bit from its original intent, so let me kinda get it back that way. One question I do have is is it harder for independent cities like St. Louis and many cities in Virginia to annex land to grow?
The city of St. Louis can't grow in terms of land area because it is completely surrounded by St. Louis County. The independent cities in Virginia are in a slightly different situation-it sounds as though they can annex portions of their surrounding counties, but it apparently is very controversial. There was a moratorium on such annexations that is expiring this year and has not apparently yet been renewed.
Quote from: Scott5114 on July 30, 2010, 10:00:48 PM
What sort of shenanigans? Urbane stuff like people having parties out in the sticks or something more sinister?
Yes, there's a lot of teenagers who go out there and have parties, bonfires, and that sort of stuff, but there's more than just that. There are a number of burnt-out cars out there. Supposedly back in the 80's and 90's, drug cartels would land drug planes out there at night, and local stories say that the cartels would also dump bodies in the canals and swamps out there. Those may just be urban legends, but I wouldn't want to be out there at night to find out.
During the day, it's used by dirt bikers, model plane flyers, as a launching ground for huge home-made rockets, and often by local defense companies to do radio testing. It's harmless, but still a little creepy.
Quote from: realjd on July 29, 2010, 10:10:06 AM
GDC bought up huge tracts of land, divided it up into 1/4 acre lots, then build roads. They then went and sold these lots to northerners.
Don't like Palm Bay? What's wrong with it? It's beautiful, it's rich, it's got HUGE.....tracts of land!
My parents were two of those northerners. They ended up taking an absolute bath on the deal.
My guess for the next census 2020, the top ten would look like:
1. New York City, NY (possibly almost reaching 9 million)
2. Los Angeles, CA (> 4 million)
3. Houston, TX
4. Chicago, IL
5. Dallas, TX (maybe nearing 2 million)
6. Phoenix, AZ
7. San Antonio, TX
8. San Diego, CA
9. San Jose, CA
10. Austin, TX (fourth Texas city to enter the one million club)
I think by 2020, it'll be a battle for the #3 spot, but I'd love to see Houston get it. Austin hitting a million is wishful thinking on my part, but it's not out of reach for 2020. Less than 80 miles separate San Antonio from Austin, and just maybe they might be combined CSA (perhaps approaching 6 million by 2020).
It's also kind of surreal to see that my South Texas cities (Laredo and Corpus Christi) aren't that far behind some of the once mighty cities of St. Louis, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, etc.....maybe even surpass them by the next census. The Brownsville/McAllen MSA's combine for almost 1.2 million.
Los Angeles is already at 4.1 million according to the California Department of Finance. Illegal immigrants are probably underestimated in official census figures.
I think Houston will eventually pass Chicago, but not that quickly. Maybe 2030 at the earliest. I see Phoenix being larger than Dallas and will be that way for some time to come.
Am I correct in assuming that Philadelphia will not have a million people, or just not enough to be in the top ten? And what about Jacksonville and Fort Worth?
Quote from: golden eagle on August 09, 2010, 06:20:00 PM
Am I correct in assuming that Philadelphia will not have a million people, or just not enough to be in the top ten?
Looking at Wikipedia, Philly has stayed over a million since 1890 (though from 1920-1970 the population hovered, and sometimes surpassed 2 million) and has flatlined in the 1.5-1.6 million range since.
Chicago has been declining for decades now, dropping from 3.6 million in 1950 to 2.85 million 2008, with only a (temporary?) increase in the 2000 Census. Redevelopment in Chicago may halt the decline. The difference between Houston and Chicago is currently 600,000 people. In the last 20 years, Houston has grown by approximately 30,000 people per year. If we assume Chicago's population would stagnate, but not decline significantly, Houston will pass Chicago in 20 years, or in 2030 at the current rate.
However, it should be noted there has been a massive migration from the north to the south. Maybe Houston's growth will accelerate once the recession is over. It should also be noted Houston is surrounded by unincorporated communities. If Houston will manage to annex some of them, the growth will be much larger. Especially to the north of Houston, between the city proper and the Harris County line, there are probably a few 100,000 people living.
Harris County has a population of just over 4 million people. If we subtract Houston and incorporated suburbs, that means approximately 1.5 million people are living in unincorporated areas within Harris County. I'm not familiar with Houston's history of annexations. At least the potential is there.
Quote from: Chris on August 10, 2010, 12:02:39 PM
However, it should be noted there has been a massive migration from the north to the south. Maybe Houston's growth will accelerate once the recession is over. It should also be noted Houston is surrounded by unincorporated communities. If Houston will manage to annex some of them, the growth will be much larger. Especially to the north of Houston, between the city proper and the Harris County line, there are probably a few 100,000 people living.
Harris County has a population of just over 4 million people. If we subtract Houston and incorporated suburbs, that means approximately 1.5 million people are living in unincorporated areas within Harris County. I'm not familiar with Houston's history of annexations. At least the potential is there.
Houston has quite a bit of territorial rights even now in Harris County (and has been an annexation machine for years), particularly around Greater Katy and the Woodlands.
http://houstonstrategies.blogspot.com/2005/08/annexation-and-city-county.html
http://www.huffmanarea.com/news/2005_2007_annual_plan.pdf
www.houstontx.gov/planning/Annexation/annexation.html
One notable example where the annexation process did NOT go well:
http://www.bizjournals.com/houston/stories/1996/11/25/editorial6.html
In response to that, The Woodlands is planning to incorporate as a seperate community from Houston:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Woodlands,_Texas#Incorporation
Now in comparison (to provide a California example), the last time Sacramento successfully annexed territory (beyond its rights to the Natomas area where Arco Arena, several major shopping areas, and the airport are - though the airport is not presently in city limits) was 1964 when they subsumed the former incorporated city of North Sacramento; the oddly-shaped Fruitridge Pocket has been difficult to add to the city limits due to jurisdictional lack of clarity, while Arden-Arcade has tried to strike out on its own and has proposed becoming an independent community. The small town of Freeport was slated to be annexed earlier in this decade but got voted down by residents in that area.
Apparently, in Texas law, any city above 100K can have an extraterritorial jurisdiction:
http://www.texasbest.com/houston/geograph.html
Quote from: golden eagle on August 09, 2010, 06:20:00 PM
I think Houston will eventually pass Chicago, but not that quickly. Maybe 2030 at the earliest. I see Phoenix being larger than Dallas and will be that way for some time to come.
Am I correct in assuming that Philadelphia will not have a million people, or just not enough to be in the top ten? And what about Jacksonville and Fort Worth?
Philadelphia's doing all right, thank you very much. We're not going to drop below a million any time soon.
Philadelphia's decline has leveled off in recent decades, even reaching a small growth in the last decade. However, it should be noted Philadelphia is now at 1910 level.
I'm well aware of it. And we're not the first city in the US to register a net loss of populaton over a century - I think there were cities that lost people between 1900 and 2000 (Saint Louis, perhaps?)
Lower population does not always equate to decline: there are neighborhoods here where houses that in the late 19th century were tenements with many families in them are now multi-million-dollar houses with a single family (or couple, or individual) living in them. The portion of Philadelphia known as Center City (the area that fell within the pre-1854 city limits) had a population of 120,000 in 1850 and far less now. But it's a better place to live (adjusting of course for the different living standards of different time periods).
I assume someone has posted this upthread, but just in case:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_cities_in_the_United_States_by_population_by_decade
Here's a FAQ on Texas's Municipal Annexation Act of 1963:
http://www.tml.org/legal_pdf/2008AnnexCheatSheet.pdf