4 ms·

>SF is the second highest density city in the US. This isn't even close to being true. It's likely only true if you only count cities with populations over a

by grardb 10y ago

>SF is the second highest density city in the US. This isn't even close to being true. It's likely only true if you only count cities with populations over a certain amount. Please see my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12754395 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12754395

dasil003 10y ago
Anything outside the tri-state area?
- grardb 10y ago
  It cuts the list shorter, but still not quite second place: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population_density https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...
  - thesmallestcat 10y ago
    Can you say that with a straight face after reading that list? Let's just look at the populations, no names: 11,176 66,455 49,708 50,005 4,724 8,175,133 23,594 2,406 27,395 69,781 6,707 7,137 23,805 20,832 58,114 75,754 34,399 53,926 362 146,199 805,235 Now guess which ones are central cities in their respective MSAs. Excluding those, guess which ones aren't part of the NYC or LA areas. Let's do ourselves a favor and exclude Poplar Hills, Kentucky (362). There's one city left, it's part of the Boston area (which is the next densest large city after SF), and you guessed it, Somerville has a subway with a separate light rail extension under construction. The only outlier is Sunny Isles Beach, FL (20,832), in the Miami area. And Miami? It's just after Philly, all known dense cities. So yea, it's NYC, then SF, minus a couple pockets of LA. And these are all dense places that need subways. It takes a special sort of something to claim, as the top comment did, that SF is not dense enough to warrant a subway, let alone massive large-scale investment in all modes of mass transit as NYC has.
dionidium 10y ago
City-to-city comparisons suffer from all sorts of problems, not the least of which is that cities are defined according to their own historical, arbitrary borders that are practically meaningless when talking about actual issues. Consider that NYC covers 302.6 sq/mi to SF's 46.69, which means that NYC isn't merely double the density, it's double the density over a much, much larger area. This is why most serious comparisons are conducted at the level of the MSA (which would fold every one of the cities you're putting ahead of SF in density into a larger metro). Often, when laypeople compare cities, they're thinking about the MSA while quoting numbers they've found for cities-proper. That's why nobody in this conversation is thinking about Guttenberg, NY (and why mentioning it is almost a non sequitur).
- grardb 10y ago
  I totally agree with you re: meaningless comparisons. However, I think the MSA comparison is pretty flawed as well. For example, the Los Angeles metro area has a higher density than both NYC's and SF's (which is higher than NYC's), but it's obvious – to me at least – that in reality, considering only areas that most people would agree are remotely close to being in/near "the city," the density order of these three would be more like: 1) NYC 2) SF 3) LA. But yeah, at the end of the day, I'm mostly being pedantic :)

by grardb 10y ago

dasil003 10y ago

Anything outside the tri-state area?

grardb 10y ago
It cuts the list shorter, but still not quite second place: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population_density https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...
- thesmallestcat 10y ago
  Can you say that with a straight face after reading that list? Let's just look at the populations, no names: 11,176 66,455 49,708 50,005 4,724 8,175,133 23,594 2,406 27,395 69,781 6,707 7,137 23,805 20,832 58,114 75,754 34,399 53,926 362 146,199 805,235 Now guess which ones are central cities in their respective MSAs. Excluding those, guess which ones aren't part of the NYC or LA areas. Let's do ourselves a favor and exclude Poplar Hills, Kentucky (362). There's one city left, it's part of the Boston area (which is the next densest large city after SF), and you guessed it, Somerville has a subway with a separate light rail extension under construction. The only outlier is Sunny Isles Beach, FL (20,832), in the Miami area. And Miami? It's just after Philly, all known dense cities. So yea, it's NYC, then SF, minus a couple pockets of LA. And these are all dense places that need subways. It takes a special sort of something to claim, as the top comment did, that SF is not dense enough to warrant a subway, let alone massive large-scale investment in all modes of mass transit as NYC has.

dionidium 10y ago

City-to-city comparisons suffer from all sorts of problems, not the least of which is that cities are defined according to their own historical, arbitrary borders that are practically meaningless when talking about actual issues. Consider that NYC covers 302.6 sq/mi to SF's 46.69, which means that NYC isn't merely double the density, it's double the density over a much, much larger area. This is why most serious comparisons are conducted at the level of the MSA (which would fold every one of the cities you're putting ahead of SF in density into a larger metro). Often, when laypeople compare cities, they're thinking about the MSA while quoting numbers they've found for cities-proper. That's why nobody in this conversation is thinking about Guttenberg, NY (and why mentioning it is almost a non sequitur).

grardb 10y ago
I totally agree with you re: meaningless comparisons. However, I think the MSA comparison is pretty flawed as well. For example, the Los Angeles metro area has a higher density than both NYC's and SF's (which is higher than NYC's), but it's obvious – to me at least – that in reality, considering only areas that most people would agree are remotely close to being in/near "the city," the density order of these three would be more like: 1) NYC 2) SF 3) LA. But yeah, at the end of the day, I'm mostly being pedantic :)