I think the trick is the "metro." I've never been to LA, but have lived in NYC proper and now out in the greater "metro" and this does seem plausible to me, dep

I think the trick is the "metro." I've never been to LA, but have lived in NYC proper and now out in the greater "metro" and this does seem plausible to me, depending on how the metro is defined. If you look at a satellite map of LA, everything is squeezed into the valleys, but west and north of NYC city limits at least there's a lot more room to spread out (LI is more constrained) so that even though it's dense compared to, say, Omaha, I can well believe it's less dense than the LA basin and surrounding valleys. I live about 13 miles west of the city as the crow flies, and its already suburban and not overly dense here, and just get more so west of here, still firmly within the metro.