The figure for the wider metro region probably includes a ton of undeveloped land in the LA mountains all the way out to Palmdale/Lancaster, which will skew thi

The figure for the wider metro region probably includes a ton of undeveloped land in the LA mountains all the way out to Palmdale/Lancaster, which will skew things quite a bit since those areas are very low density. I would definitely include neighboring cities in the LA basin when discussing LA as a whole though. The cities in the SGV, south bay, and gateway cities are very much a part of LA even if they're not within city limits.