3 ms·

In this article small towns are counted as ‘urban’, including areas with 2500 people. The main point of the article is the metric used to get 70% is not really

In this article small towns are counted as ‘urban’, including areas with 2500 people. The main point of the article is the metric used to get 70% is not really what we think of as a urban city but anything from tiny towns to big cities. The real ‘city-folk’ number of downtown-dwellers is much much smaller, they suggest around half of total ‘urban’ dwellers.

mulmen 7y ago
> There are officially two types of urban areas: “urbanized areas” of 50,000 or more people and “urban clusters” of between 2,500 and 50,000 people. For the 2010 count, the Census Bureau has defined 486 urbanized areas, accounting for 71.2 percent of the U.S. population. The 3,087 urban clusters account for 9.5 percent of the U.S. population. Maybe I misread that but I parsed it as ~70% of people live in “Urbanized Areas” which have populations over 50,000.
- falcolas 7y ago
  50,000 people is still a relatively tiny city. As I noted separately, my town qualifies, and we don’t have public transportation (and rightly so: there’s too much space and nothing to transport people to).
- medymed 7y ago
  I agree. What’s really weird is that for example downtown Dallas has a population of 10-11k people, with a density of 7,690 per square mile. That number feels almost rural compared to here in Manhattan at 66,940 per sq mile.
- melq 7y ago
  I grew up in a town with nearly double that in population, and if you didn’t have a car you were screwed. Barely any public transportation to speak of besides an inadequate amount of bus routes that ran far too infrequently. Most of the major shopping and commercial areas don’t even have sidewalks on the streets. Only the relatively small downtown area could be considered pedestrian friendly and that area provides very few jobs comparatively.
  - mulmen 7y ago
    I grew up in a town that is actually on the list of urban areas at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_urban_areas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_urban_ar... and is much like you describe but it does have a (very limited) public transit system. By my understanding of "Urban Area" it is possible to have a town over 50,000 people that is not an Urban Area. https://www2.census.gov/geo/pdfs/reference/GARM/Ch12GARM.pdf https://www2.census.gov/geo/pdfs/reference/GARM/Ch12GARM.pdf

mulmen 7y ago

> There are officially two types of urban areas: “urbanized areas” of 50,000 or more people and “urban clusters” of between 2,500 and 50,000 people. For the 2010 count, the Census Bureau has defined 486 urbanized areas, accounting for 71.2 percent of the U.S. population. The 3,087 urban clusters account for 9.5 percent of the U.S. population. Maybe I misread that but I parsed it as ~70% of people live in “Urbanized Areas” which have populations over 50,000.

falcolas 7y ago
50,000 people is still a relatively tiny city. As I noted separately, my town qualifies, and we don’t have public transportation (and rightly so: there’s too much space and nothing to transport people to).
medymed 7y ago
I agree. What’s really weird is that for example downtown Dallas has a population of 10-11k people, with a density of 7,690 per square mile. That number feels almost rural compared to here in Manhattan at 66,940 per sq mile.
melq 7y ago
I grew up in a town with nearly double that in population, and if you didn’t have a car you were screwed. Barely any public transportation to speak of besides an inadequate amount of bus routes that ran far too infrequently. Most of the major shopping and commercial areas don’t even have sidewalks on the streets. Only the relatively small downtown area could be considered pedestrian friendly and that area provides very few jobs comparatively.
- mulmen 7y ago
  I grew up in a town that is actually on the list of urban areas at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_urban_areas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_urban_ar... and is much like you describe but it does have a (very limited) public transit system. By my understanding of "Urban Area" it is possible to have a town over 50,000 people that is not an Urban Area. https://www2.census.gov/geo/pdfs/reference/GARM/Ch12GARM.pdf https://www2.census.gov/geo/pdfs/reference/GARM/Ch12GARM.pdf