Lead Metropolis: the Five Densest Cities in America
Wed, Mar 26, 2008
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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.
Image 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.
Image 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.
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.
From 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.
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.
From Trabajo Propio
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» So Slow I’m Watching Fox Sports What’s Required: Progress in the Commonwealth Says:
March 26th, 2008 at 8:44 pm[...] is my other project, for those of you that haven’t been around a long time– writing for Environmental Graffiti. Today I explore the densest cities in [...]
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L.A. is Dense. So is Metro. | Los Angeles Metblogs Says:
March 27th, 2008 at 8:57 pm[...] reporting the rankings, Environmental Graffiti had this to say: The third-densest city in America bucks its reputation. Long the poster child for [...]
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Real Hartford » Blog Archive » Boxing Day Special: Getting Rid of Useless Arguments Says:
December 26th, 2008 at 7:33 pm[...] leading. New York is only a few places behind, but New York City, the most populated and most densely populated city in the United States, is right over the Connecticut border. NYC is also, no surprise, a leader [...]
March 31st, 2008 at 3:03 pm
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).
March 31st, 2008 at 3:13 pm
47% of the NYC population owns cars. That’s less than most.
March 31st, 2008 at 4:27 pm
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.
March 31st, 2008 at 6:02 pm
I think the writer confuses the issue a number of times. The City of LA may be within the top 5 U.S. cities in terms of density, but most people think of LA as the entire county and extending into adjoining much less dense cities/counties.
And I think that BART has little to do with the density of SF. BART has a total of 8 transit stops serving the city. It moves people from the suburbs into the city to work, which does allow for far less parking in the city core, but I think city policies have far more to do with the design of the city than does BART.
March 31st, 2008 at 6:20 pm
RE: Mike Lewin.
LA is a very new metropolis.. the fact is that many if not all Transit Rich cities have had many decades if not entire centuries to mature. In relative terms, LA is doing a stellar job… after all it had to get this bad before it will get any better.
March 31st, 2008 at 7:27 pm
RE: M. Isensee
Actually if the authors had focused on metropolitan area density rather than density within city limits, as you seem to suggest, LA would have come out as #1 rather than #3. As M. Lewyn points out, LA suburbs are generally more dense than NY suburbs. This is do to the lack of groundwater in So-Cal. In NY, outside the city you can get a one-acre plot of land, go well-and-septic and have “country living” in the suburbs. In So-Cal, centralized water systems are absolutely required, putting a lower-limit on density at about 4-6 homes per acre except for the very wealthy.
What this proves is that the relationship between sprawl and density is much more vexed than commentators looking for a quick headline would prefer. When you drive from the center of New York outwards, you leave a very dense, walkable center and quickly reach areas that resemble “countryside” although they are actually bedroom suburbs. When you do the same in LA, you leave a medium density center with few walkable areas and pass by housing tracts for hours. Which one is sprawl?
March 31st, 2008 at 8:05 pm
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.
March 31st, 2008 at 9:32 pm
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
April 1st, 2008 at 12:00 am
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.
July 17th, 2008 at 9:09 am
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..
March 24th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
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
August 18th, 2009 at 9:25 am
i see like city also sea
September 7th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
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