Lead Metropolis: the Five Densest Cities in America

5 years ago Travel

Recently an American economist crunched the numbers and determined the most dense urban areas in America--something that may be a bit of a misnomer, given our national reputation for sprawl and hourlong commutes.

the 5 densest cities in AmericaImage from NASA

Nevertheless, he had some shocking findings relating to location, geography, and public transportation.

5. Chicago, Illinois

Coming in as the fifth-densest city in America, and unsurprisingly so, given the excellent public transportation, which has allowed development to progress with a reasonable level of sprawl, is Chicago.

chicagoImage from StuckinCustoms on Flickr

The Windy City, charged with rebuilding itself after Mrs. O'Leary's cow kicked over a lantern and burned four square miles of the city in 1871, developed the urban core upwards, and later installed an elevated rail system as the centerpiece of Chigaco Transit Authority. The CTA, which runs 24 hours a day, is the second-largest transit system in the nation, and provided nearly 500 Million rides last year.

4. Honolulu, Hawaii

The fourth-densest city in the United States is, shockingly in Hawaii-- this Pacific paradise is shoehorned into some of the most difficult geography of any American city, in the low-lying areas on a mountainous island.

Honolulu, Hawaii

You can see in the above photo how the city is forced to contour around the natural obstacles to development-- the mountain on one side, and the ocean on the other. Kudos to the Hawaiians for not taking the Kentucky approach to things and simply blowing the top off of the mountain, or building out into the ocean like they do in Dubai.

3. Los Angeles, California

The third-densest city in America bucks its reputation. Long the poster child for urban sprawl, the reality of L.A. is simply that it's that big-- density EVERYWHERE doesn't make a city any less (or more) sustainably developed. The difference between Los Angelenos and the rest of the citizenry on this list is that L.A. has far more commuters on the road and not using mass transit.

Los Angeles, CaliforniaFrom Thomas Pintaric

See the smog? Imagine if they had good public transit. 2. San Francisco, California

Next on our hit parade is San Fransisco-- much like Honolulu, the SF-Oakland area has its hand forced by geography, and it also has an excellent rapid transit system-- the BART-- that enables a tightly-packed populous to move around as they would with automobiles in suburban areas.

San Francisco From Wikipedia user Nadavspi/info2

1. New York City

With geographic boundaries and public Transit becoming a theme on this list, it's probably shocking to no one that New York City is the star of this list-- bounded by multiple bodies of water (and New Jersey) and featuring the most extensive mass transit system of any American city, New York has long fostered the sort of environment where citizens don't even own cars. Of course, most still do, but it's possible not to, and a glimpse into our more easily sustainable future. 13383733581347027654.jpgFrom Trabajo Propio

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Comments

Old Comments

nathan says

Sep 7th, 2009 at 12am
Did anyone cite any refrences, or give any numbers to support their findings? Everyone just seems to talk about how dense LA is without backing up anything at all. Here is what you have to do to find city density Population / Miles squared There are only 3 cities in the USA with a population of over 10,000 and a density of more than 10,000 people to square mile. Sory guys but LA is not one of them. Any claim any other way is a poor attempt by someone that has not been to NYC, Chicago or Phili to talk again about southern cali. New York, Phili, Chicago http://factfinder.census.gov that is from the fed census, ill take it over your word

buddha says

Aug 18th, 2009 at 12am
i see like city also sea

Martin says

Mar 24th, 2009 at 12am
LA has the densest METROPOLITIAN area. This list is probably a 100% correct if you count the city boundaries. Like NYC would be Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island and Manhattan. Most people count long island and the other suburbs around NYC when they count it. NYC IS the densest city in the US... Stop whining

limousine service long island new york says

Jul 17th, 2008 at 12am
urbanization is very tempting..with all those high technology developments.. but kudos to those cities which still maintain their mountains or other elements of nature..

TP says

Apr 1st, 2008 at 12am
RE: M. Isensee I think BART has shaped SF immeasurably, despite the fact that many of the riders are from outside the City. If there were no BART system, there would be no way that SF would be able to be the economic center that it currently is for the Bay Area. A second Bay Bridge would have to have been constructed to get employees to their jobs and SF would be a much more car-centric, and less dense city, full of car parks and other supporting infrastructure. Since 1/2 of all commute trips come into SF via transit (mostly on BART), the space freed by the lack of cars has allowed the City to densify beyond what it would have without BART. Although I do agree that the City's policies do encourage the densification.

James says

Apr 1st, 2008 at 12am
And there I was expecting something like... 5) New York, NY 4) Hoboken, NJ 3) West New York, NJ 2) Paterson, NJ 1) Union City, NJ

Planner9 says

Apr 1st, 2008 at 12am
The author implies that Kentucky blows its own mountaintops off to accommodate development. He's got both the action and the agent wrong. The old strip mining sites sometimes are used for industrial development, but typically left with a few sad trees planted on them, definitely not urban sprawl. Further, Kentucky does not do this. Exploitative mining companies do this (albeit with the state's allowance). He's trying to be funny, I guess, but it comes off as flippant and insensitive, and obviously erroneous.

Mike Lewyn says

Mar 31st, 2008 at 12am
This is just silly. There is ample data refuting the notion that LA is as dense as NYC or Chicago. http://planetizen.com/node/21273 For those of you too busy to read the above link, the bottom line is: New York has a dense, walkable, transit-friendly core, and very low-density suburbs. By contrast, Los Angeles is about equally dense everywhere- which is to say, denser than a NYC suburb, but not dense enough to support really good transit service. Also, density alone does not make a city walkable. Other elements are diversity (mixed use as opposed to separation of uses) and design (narrower, more pedestrian-friendly streets as opposed to LA's six lane speedways).

rlb says

Mar 31st, 2008 at 12am
47% of the NYC population owns cars. That's less than most.

Brendan Crain says

Mar 31st, 2008 at 12am
It may be extensive, but the Chicago Transit Authority's service is far from excellent. Extreme delays, rising costs, mismanaged construction projects, and overcrowding chase away many would-be riders. We have the bones, but none of the muscle right now.