# Urban Area Map Showcase



## spotila

daneo said:


> could you please do the Amsterdam / Randstad area and the Ruhrarea in Germany?


They will both take some time, but yep, it shall be done

edit: Chicago area updated to include Kenosha etc


----------



## spotila

Next, the largest city in the Caribbean, and the largest metro in Texas

*Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic*
City Population: 2,552,398
Metro Population: 3,512,391









*Dallas-Fortworth Metroplex, TX*
Dallas City Population: 1,197,816
Fort Worth City Population: 741,206
CSA Population: 6,805,275


----------



## aaabbbccc

I am loving this !!


----------



## Slartibartfas

I would love to see how Vienna (maybe including Bratislava) would compare to all these cities above...


----------



## spotila

Slartibartfas said:


> I would love to see how Vienna (maybe including Bratislava) would compare to all these cities above...


Consider it done (shortly )


----------



## Spookvlieger

Good job spotila!!!! I love this thread! I would be nice if you could do Brussels some time, But it's gonna be a pain the arse...Not because it's big or something, but just because It's really hard to see where it ends...


----------



## aaabbbccc

I would love to see 
Orlando Florida 
Paris France 
Casablanca Morocco 
Madrid Spain 
Tel Aviv Israel 
San Juan Puerto rico 
if you can , I have family in all these places and love them all 
great thread , keep up the great work


----------



## Spookvlieger

^^I think you should take a better look around if you like this thread so much...Paris in on the first page  Just under your first post in this thread wich happens to be the 3rd in the whole thread. How you could have missed it...


----------



## city_thing

Spotila, why haven't you posted your pictures of Australian and Kiwi cities yet? They're fantastic.


----------



## aaabbbccc

joshsam said:


> ^^I think you should take a better look around if you like this thread so much...Paris in on the first page  Just under your first post in this thread wich happens to be the 3rd in the whole thread. How you could have missed it...


hno: my dumb ass did not see this :bash:


----------



## Hebrewtext

aaabbbccc said:


> I would love to see
> Orlando Florida
> Paris France
> Casablanca Morocco
> Madrid Spain
> *Tel Aviv Israel *
> San Juan Puerto rico
> if you can , I have family in all these places and love them all
> great thread , keep up the great work


the largest urban area on the shores of the Mediterranean
11 million pop in 8000 sqm around the core city, and more.


----------



## aaabbbccc

wow that is impressive cool maps


----------



## Anderson Geimz

Hebrewtext said:


> the largest urban area on the shores of the Mediterranean
> 11 million pop in 8000 sqm around the core city, and more.


Delusional much?


----------



## spotila

Please keep it civil lads.



joshsam said:


> Good job spotila!!!! I love this thread! I would be nice if you could do Brussels some time, But it's gonna be a pain the arse...Not because it's big or something, but just because It's really hard to see where it ends...


Yea I was looking @ various Dutch and Belgian cities a few days ago, will be tricky, but I will be getting started on some soon.



city_thing said:


> Spotila, why haven't you posted your pictures of Australian and Kiwi cities yet? They're fantastic.


I'm glad you think so . There's a few in this thread, namely Auckland, Melbourne and Wellington. Some of the others need a touch up and created at the new zoom level, they will all be posted in time.


----------



## spotila

Ok, up next we have the city with the world's highest quality of life (also the first submission for this thread not made by me), and the fourth largest CSA in the United States. 

*Zurich, Switzerland* - _created by earthJoker_
City Population: 372,047
Metro Population: 1,615,000 (Based on various sources)









*Baltimore–Washington CSA, DC-MD-VA*
Baltimore City Population: 620,961
Washington D.C. Population: 601,723
CSA Population: 8,924,087


----------



## URB'MAN

Wow, excellent job Spotila!! I would like to see the three urban monsters of LatinAmerica: Mexico City, Sao Paulo and Buenos Aires


----------



## the spliff fairy

Guangzhou-Dongguan-Shenzhen?


The 3 cities are now contiguous, pop over 31 million (63-120 million CSA). If it's contiguous to Foshan too (not sure if it has yet), it would mean its the worlds 2nd biggest city 38 million, 1 million behind Tokyo). In turn if Foshan is with Zhaoqing, you'd be the first person tout le monde to declare it the new world's largest city, with proof.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_River_Delta


----------



## Isek

Hebrewtext said:


> the largest urban area on the shores of the Mediterranean
> 11 million pop in 8000 sqm around the core city, and more.


So you consider Tel Aviv as the core city of a urban area of 11 million? Dude, come down. :lol:


----------



## spotila

URB'MAN said:


> Wow, excellent job Spotila!! I would like to see the three urban monsters of LatinAmerica: Mexico City, Sao Paulo and Buenos Aires


Buenos Aires is done, you will see it soon, the others I am working on.



the spliff fairy said:


> Guangzhou-Dongguan-Shenzhen?
> 
> The 3 cities are now contiguous, pop over 31 million (63-120 million CSA). If it's contiguous to Foshan too (not sure if it has yet), it would mean its the worlds 2nd biggest city 38 million, 1 million behind Tokyo). In turn if Foshan is with Zhaoqing, you'd be the first person tout le monde to declare it the new world's largest city, with proof.


I've been asked to do this over at SSP also, I have begun on the PRD, but as you can imagine it will take me some time to finish. When done though, it will be amazing to look at.


----------



## spotila

Onward, the city that is birthplace of Xerox and Kodak, and Argentina's beautiful capital city

*Rochester, NY*
City Population: 210,565
Metro Population: 1,098,201









*Buenos Aires, Argentina*
City Population: 2,891,082
Metro Population (includes La Plata): 13,495,617


----------



## Bronxwood

gabrielbabb said:


> ^^ Mexico City's size is very small compared to NYC LOL


Really? Now I really need to see a comparison. Mexico City is usually mentioned as one of, if not the biggest on earth. 

Spotila, you'd make my day if you could somehow post these two cities together. Your work is well appreciated.


----------



## DarkLite

The sheer scale of metro areas in the United States is simply terrifying. I had no idea city regions around the world were rendered puny in comparison to the likes of LA, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Atlanta etc.
Excellent job spotila, this is the first time I have a realistic idea of city size comparisons. I know your list is long, but I would very patiently wait for a Madrid graphic


----------



## Wapper

Will we be able to see the image of LA again in the future?


----------



## ManRegio

Bronxwood said:


> Really? Now I really need to see a comparison. Mexico City is usually mentioned as one of, if not the biggest on earth.
> 
> Spotila, you'd make my day if you could somehow post these two cities together. Your work is well appreciated.


That's kind of a myth. What is real is that Mexico City is one of the most populated cities in the world. But in comparision with American Cities; Mexico City as same as the majority of Latin American cities, has a lot of density. Of course the urban sprawl exists, but it's not comparabe with its american counterparts. Other feature that makes Mexico City a very dense city is the fact that is in the middle of high mountains and hills, so its grow is limited by that. 

Regards.


----------



## the spliff fairy

DarkLite said:


> The sheer scale of metro areas in the United States is simply terrifying. I had no idea city regions around the world were rendered puny in comparison to the likes of LA, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Atlanta etc.
> Excellent job spotila, this is the first time I have a realistic idea of city size comparisons. I know your list is long, but I would very patiently wait for a Madrid graphic


American cities have alot of car-dependent low density sprawl, and are mainly suburbs with small centres, hence the blanketing effect. It would be great to compare the populations of Mumbai (18 million) or Seoul-Incheon (26 million), which are super dense with relatively small footprints, with a similar sized US footprint.


----------



## spotila

Triple C said:


> Now time to make some Turkish megalopolises (Istanbul-w/Marmara, Ankara, İzmir-Manisa, Adana-Tarsus-Mersin and my old hometown Kemer-Antalya-Serik.)


Certainly - on the list.



Bronxwood said:


> Spotila, you'd make my day if you could somehow post these two cities together. Your work is well appreciated.


When both cities are done I would be happy to. You might have to remind me though :lol:



Wapper said:


> Will we be able to see the image of LA again in the future?


Yes - on its way, non-autoresized this time



DarkLite said:


> I know your list is long, but I would very patiently wait for a Madrid graphic


It is indeed, but Madrid is definatly on it



the spliff fairy said:


> It would be great to compare the populations of Mumbai (18 million) or Seoul-Incheon (26 million), which are super dense with relatively small footprints, with a similar sized US footprint.


Agreed - I'm working on Seoul ATM so expect to see something along these lines soon


----------



## spotila

Next, a recreated Greater Los Angeles Area, which was removed earlier due to an automatic resizing issue with the image host.

*Los Angeles, CA*
City Population: 3,792,621
Metro Population: 17,786,419 (CSA, includes Long Beach, Riverside)


----------



## aaabbbccc

amazing work !! LA is a so huge


----------



## lafreak84

holy smokes! metro la is the size of my country! :lol: thank you spotila


----------



## shivtim

Fantastic work, Spotila! I'm really enjoying this thread.
I agree with some other posters that something in Korea or Japan would be neat to see. 
And maybe Portland (Oregon)?


----------



## Metro007

I thinks the US-cities are out of competition. There are just 3-4 bigger for the same amount of population as other ones ;-)


----------



## spotila

shivtim said:


> I agree with some other posters that something in Korea or Japan would be neat to see.
> And maybe Portland (Oregon)?


Yes you're right - something from Korea is coming 
______________

In the mean time, a quick comparison


----------



## Yuri S Andrade

^^
Los Angeles, although the densest urban area in the US, is HUGE! Massive!

And I'm loving the yellow maps!  Atlanta seems to be larger than Chicago. Unbelievable!


----------



## CCs77

Los Angeles is huge, of course, but I think the Sprawling Queen is Atlanta. Compared to Los Angeles is not much smaller, considering that Los Angeles is 17,7 Million vs 5,2 million of Atlanta.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us


----------



## CCs77

Atlanta (5,2 million) Vs Buenos Aires-La Plata (13,5 million) all Buenos Aires fits in half Atlanta, only the area of La Plata is left outside :nuts:









Shot at 2011-09-25

Atlanta Vs Paris (11,9 million) The entire Paris urban area fits inside Atlanta









Shot at 2011-09-25


----------



## Wapper

So Atlanta has the largest sprawl? Or are there even worse examples in the world?


----------



## lafreak84

Wapper said:


> So Atlanta has the largest sprawl? Or are there even worse examples in the world?


I read about that somewhere. Atlanta has the largest sprawl in US and is also most suburban city in the whole country.


----------



## spotila

As requested multiple times, a special surprise, up next we have the core of Canada's economy

*Golden Horseshoe, ON*
Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area Population: 6,539,700
Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo Population: 534,900 
St Catherines-Niagara CMA Population: 390,317 
Golden Horseshoe Population: ~8,500,000
_Please let me know if these statistics are outdated or incorrect. For simplicity purposes I am including Barrie in the total population_


----------



## spxy2

Nice work spotila.

Unfortunately we are comparing apples to pears here.
Mainly regarding the yellow maps which give no clue as to the density of an area and completely miss out the small urban areas around the denser cities of the world.

Really a two tier or more system works better when comparing urban areas.

This image for example is very misleading. A quick look on google maps shows large areas of very dense urban that spread like tentacles around paris that are just not coloured on this map, while even the most sparsely populated are gets coloured on atlanta.










The reality is more like this


----------



## Metro007

Thanks a lot for the comparaisons with Atlanta. The size of this city is very impressive. Compared to LA it has about the same size with a 3x smaller population. I think the main difference will be that this huge sprawl has on its border a very low density compared to L.A who will have a lot of big industries, highways etc. I never went to ATL but i think that there must be a lot of residential areas with little individual houses and less big city-infrastructures like in L.A. Is this correct?


----------



## Jonesy55

spotila said:


> Shouldn't be too far away
> 
> Indeed I can
> 
> What you're asking would take me weeks! I imagine all these cities will be done in time, at this stage the closest to completion would be Seoul-Incheon
> ______________________
> 
> Up next, the two most populous urban areas in the United Kingdom
> 
> West Midlands-Leicester
> West Midlands Population (Birmingham-Wolverhampton): 2,284,093
> Coventry City Population: 336,452
> Leicester City Population: 441,213
> West Midlands-Leicester Population: ~3,061,000
> 
> Greater London
> London City Population: 7,825,200
> Greater London Urban Area Population: 9,294,800
> 
> note: for the Greater London Urban Area Population I have used the commuter belt travel-to-work estimate.


Nice maps, but I think its stretching it to include Leicester in the same area as Birmingham/Coventry.

By that criterion you could put Manchester and Liverpool together too, which would be bigger.


----------



## ManRegio

I had thought that British cities, specially London would have more urban sprawl. I didn't think London was much smaller than Paris.


----------



## GENIUS LOCI

Infact it isn't


----------



## GENIUS LOCI

^^


spotila said:


> *Greater London*
> London City Population: 7,825,200
> Greater London Urban Area Population: 9,294,800
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _note: for the Greater London Urban Area Population I have used the commuter belt travel-to-work estimate._





spotila said:


> *Paris, France*
> City Population: 2,211,297
> Metro Population: 11,899,544


----------



## jeromeee

Could you do the Frankfurt-Rhine-Main Area?


----------



## Anderson Geimz

spxy2 said:


> Not quite true, these are attempts to show urban coverage.
> Dont confuse this with "block" urban coverage..which is easy to represent, and more broken up urban coverage which is much harder and time consuming to draw...
> 
> And it not a competition either, just representing data accurately...


Would you give it a rest already. These maps are beyond accurate in what they are trying to represent.


----------



## Jonesy55

ManRegio said:


> I had thought that British cities, specially London would have more urban sprawl. I didn't think London was much smaller than Paris.


The model for British cities tends to be loads of mid to high-density suburbia spreading from the city core, then a fairly well defined break into non-urban land with further expansion then leapfrogging into separate surrounding towns and replicating the pattern on a smaller scale.

You don't get the gradual 'fade-out' of US cities where lots get gradually larger and the gaps between them get gradually bigger.


----------



## GENIUS LOCI

^^
I would add something for Greater London (I don't know if they did the same in the other UK big cities), many many decades ago there was the institution of the Green Belt which stopped the sparwl.
Infact GL has the same sprawl than 70/80 years ago and about the same population.

But the metro area population increased outward the Green Belt, along some axis and with 'satellite' towns.

Paris sprawl, on the contrary, increased because there was not a Green Belt istitution, even if many green areas, as woods and forests, were preserved.
Even if generally Paris is more dense, in last decades increased a lot the areas with rowhouses and villas (as quite everywhere happened in Europe ) what helped to spread out the sprawl.

Anyway Paris and London are similare and comparable in term of soil consumption


----------



## lafreak84




----------



## GENIUS LOCI

I just noticed Paris map is not North oriented; it's axis is a bit inclined to the left


----------



## Wapper

For me, this is also a bit surprising. I thought that London would be quite a bit larger than Paris, but that doesn't seem to be true.


----------



## ManRegio

I see. My mistake. Paris and London have more or less an equivalent size. Considering the population of both cities, Paris has higher density than London. Is it my perception, or you can actually see this in Paris arms which emerge from the core city to the outer one and comparing with London counterparts.


----------



## Jonesy55

GENIUS LOCI said:


> ^^
> I would add something for Greater London (I don't know if they did the same in the other UK big cities), many many decades ago there was the institution of the Green Belt which stopped the sparwl.
> Infact GL has the same sprawl than 70/80 years ago and about the same population.
> 
> But the metro area population increased outward the Green Belt, along some axis and with 'satellite' towns.
> 
> Paris sprawl, on the contrary, increased because there was not a Green Belt istitution, even if many green areas, as woods and forests, were preserved.
> Even if generally Paris is more dense, in last decades increased a lot the areas with rowhouses and villas (as quite everywhere happened in Europe ) what helped to spread out the sprawl.
> 
> Anyway Paris and London are similare and comparable in term of soil consumption


Yes, there is green belt elsewhere.


----------



## TheMoses

ManRegio said:


> I see. My mistake. Paris and London have more or less an equivalent size. Considering the population of both cities, Paris has higher density than London. Is it my perception, or you can actually see this in Paris arms which emerge from the core city to the outer one and comparing with London counterparts.


I don't know that the population of Paris is larger. The figure given is for the Greater London Urban Area, which is not comparable to the Metro figure for Paris. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larger_Urban_Zones would seem to suggest the metro population of London is slightly larger. Also check the population density for the metro areas. London's is considerably higher than Paris's.


----------



## ManRegio

TheMoses said:


> I don't know that the population of Paris is larger. The figure given is for the Greater London Urban Area, which is not comparable to the Metro figure for Paris. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larger_Urban_Zones would seem to suggest the metro population of London is slightly larger. Also check the population density for the metro areas. London's is considerably higher than Paris's.


According to that Web Site, Paris are is much larger than London (12,079.87 vs 8,920 km2.). We don't see this difference in the maps spotila showed us.


----------



## TheMoses

With the different shapes it is very difficult to compare what areas are covered. But my point more is that the two population figures he gave were not comparable. For example Reading and Farnborough are included in the London map but neither is part of the Greater London Urban Area: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_London_Urban_Area. In fact the Greater London Urban Area on that map is just the central contiguous bit of red which I reckon is in fact smaller than the area covered in the Paris map. Having said that I have no idea if the Paris map is accurate.


----------



## som942

nice thread and interesting discussion.

What about the brazilian big cities?


----------



## ManRegio

TheMoses said:


> With the different shapes it is very difficult to compare what areas are covered. But my point more is that the two population figures he gave were not comparable. For example Reading and Farnborough are included in the London map but neither is part of the Greater London Urban Area: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_London_Urban_Area. In fact the Greater London Urban Area on that map is just the central contiguous bit of red which I reckon is in fact smaller than the area covered in the Paris map. Having said that I have no idea if the Paris map is accurate.


Understood. I agree with the fact that it is very difficult indeed to show the total and true area of a city, we just can draw our best effort, but there are always a lot of factors to consider and this variables are not the same in every city, especially if they have different patterns of development. 

I guess our best shot is to try to cover an area with considerable commuter rates not just density. The end of a city is where the commuter rates and density decrease in "X" percentage of the higher commuter rate and density. 

Regards.


----------



## lafreak84

ManRegio said:


> According to that Web Site, Paris are is much larger than London (12,079.87 vs 8,920 km2.). We don't see this difference in the maps spotila showed us.


Those are just borders. Larger territory doesn't necessarily mean larger population. If you look again, you'll see that London has more people living in a much smaller area than Paris.


----------



## ManRegio

lafreak84 said:


> Those are just borders. Larger territory doesn't necessarily mean larger population. If you look again, you'll see that London has more people living in a much smaller area than Paris.


Yes, That is what I was trying to say. On the spotila's maps; Paris and London seem more or less the same size. Then someone post that link from Wikipedia where Paris area is much larger than London and with a similar population (11 million). On the maps Paris looks with higher density than London. So, or the spotila's maps or wikipedia are wrong?. My guess is that perhaps London area is exxaggerated. 

Regards.


----------



## lafreak84

Wow, 5mil on a sprawl that size. Atlanta has to be the biggest village in the world. :lol: Thanks for those images. Can you do ATL vs Pearl River Delta?


----------



## Isek

^^

Isn't it that you get 5 million on the same area of Atlanta on nearly every place within "rural" regions like the Blue Banana.


----------



## Spookvlieger

^^I guess that's about right...leaving out that fact that the defenition of 'rural' is completely differend in Europe than in the USA 
In this study they say Atlanta had around 4300 km² of build up area in1990

Studies claim the region I live is still rural for a part (no big cities around, plenty of open space between the build up area like fields and small patches of forest), still there are around 2million people living around me in that same 4300km² as Atlanta.


----------



## DanielFigFoz

spotila said:


> Thanks! Already done Belfast, expect to see it posted shortly.


Thank you!


----------



## spotila

ManRegio said:


> Spotila. When you have a chance, could you do Mexican four largest cities?.


In time, sure.
_____________

It's good to see the comparisons there CCs77 - I hope you're using sound methods :lol:
When I completed Atlanta I compared it to Baltimore-Wash myself


----------



## spotila

In other news, I've fully overhauled the Paris Metropolitain area map. It is now oriented directly north like the other maps. At least 100 smaller towns and localities around the metro are now detailed. Any lastly, the vast majority of non-urban fields that were indicated as urban in the previous version are now not covered in red. Enjoy.

*Paris, France*
City Population: 2,211,297
Metro Population: 11,899,544









Also, I know there are a lot of you interested in Paris/London comparisons - so I created this as well.


----------



## CCs77

spotila said:


> It's good to see the comparisons there CCs77


I will continue to do them, although the heavy work is yours 

Watching your own comparison, I realize mine had an error with the scales, the map of Washington-Baltimore was to small so Atlanta looked oversized on it. Excuses to everybody

I erased both Washington - Atlanta maps of the previous post and I repost an Atlanta over Washington map here, now fixed:

Atlanta (5,2 million) over Washington-Baltimore (8,9 million)


Uploaded with ImageShack.us

The Atlanta-Chicago and Los Angeles-Miami maps are Ok.


----------



## Wapper

Thanks Spotila! The map of Paris looks more accurate now. London seems a little bit larger, but overall I think we can conclude that both cities have the same size.


----------



## Jonesy55

More nice maps! Any chance of the Ruhrgebeit and maybe Manchester-Liverpool area? kay:


----------



## lafreak84

Thanks for the Paris map again and Paris/London map. Re-sized Baltimore-DC is still smaller than Atlanta. :lol: That's one magnificent and unique sprawl. I also vote for (Leeds?-)Manchester-Liverpool map. We all appreciate your effort and we know that you get (too) many requests.


----------



## Jonesy55

I'd also be quite interested in Jakarta, no hurry though, 1600 today will be fine.


----------



## sebvill

I would like to see comparisons between Latin America largest in population:

Mexico City
Sao Paulo
Buenos Aires
Rio de Janeiro
Lima
Bogota
Santiago
Belo Horizonte
Caracas


----------



## Yuri S Andrade

spotila said:


>





spotila said:


>


Are they at the same scale?!?!?! Atlanta sprawl dwarfs both London and Paris. It's amazing!

P.S. I love the yellow maps!


----------



## spotila

Jonesy55 said:


> More nice maps! Any chance of the Ruhrgebeit and maybe Manchester-Liverpool area? kay:


Both on my list 



Jonesy55 said:


> I'd also be quite interested in Jakarta, no hurry though, 1600 today will be fine.


:lol: Jakarta is a real nightmare, expect it at some stage



Yuri S Andrade said:


> Are they at the same scale?!?!?! Atlanta sprawl dwarfs both London and Paris. It's amazing!


Yep, all yellow maps are the same scale as one another, as with the red maps.


----------



## SO143

Then why is London Underground/Metro/Subway ( 250 miles) the world's second biggest (after Shanghai) and Paris is only 132 miles? Does it mean Paris is much smaller no? Explain me!!! Please


----------



## Xpressway

Atlanta is MASSIVE!

I wonder how would Houston or Dallas look in those comparisons.


----------



## CCs77

SO143 said:


> Then why is London Underground/Metro/Subway ( 250 miles) the world's second biggest (after Shanghai) and Paris is only 132 miles? Does it mean Paris is much smaller no? Explain me!!! Please


Really? the length of the Metro system doesn't necessarily relates to the size of the City/Metro Area. Obviusly larger cities tend to have larger systems, but it's not like it is a rule. By now Madrid has a larger network than Paris, but Madrid is half its size. Buenos Aires is similar in size and population with Paris, yet Buenos Aires metro (or subte) is much smaller. The Metro of Santiago de Chile is Longest than Sao Paulo's Metro although Sao Paulo has 3X the population of Santiago. Also Santiago Metro is twice the lenght of Buenos Aires' metro but Buenos Aires has twice the population of Santiago.


----------



## PadArch

The metro system of Paris is almost entirely within the city proper, which on that yellow map would look tiny albeit in fact an 11km wide blob in the middle. They have a lot of stations in Paris though, but they are extremely close together (on average around 400m apart). The London metro is bigger because the city proper has much wider boundaries than Paris, which takes up most of the yellow area, and the London underground extends to most of that area (although when you get that far out the trains no longer run underground) with stations on average 1.25km apart. On the other hand, the RER system of Paris/IDF extends out a vast distance with stations on average 8km apart.

If you are surprised that Atlanta's sprawl is further than London's that is because the sprawl of London was halted almost 100 years ago by the Greenbelt laws. London hasn't really increased in size or population for about 100 years. The only increase you'll see in London now is density wise, unless they relax the planning laws (not a good idea).


----------



## Jonesy55

SO143 said:


> Then why is London Underground/Metro/Subway ( 250 miles) the world's second biggest (after Shanghai) and Paris is only 132 miles? Does it mean Paris is much smaller no? Explain me!!! Please


London's Underground goes right out to some of the farthest suburbs like Uxbridge or Heathrow airport or Upminster.










The Paris metro only really covers the city centre though, with most metro lines starting and finishing just outside the City of Paris boundary.










If you want to head out into the far suburbs you need to use the RER instead, shown below, the white blob in the middle is the city proper covered by the metro.


----------



## spxy2

interesting quote from google

"Google makes no claims as to the accuracy of the coordinates in Google 
Earth. These are provided for entertainment only and should not be 
used for any navigational or other purpose requiring any accuracy 
whatsoever. 
Google acquires imagery from many different sources with many 
different file formats, projections and spectral characteristics. All 
imagery sources are fused into a single global database with a 
proprietary format that has been developed for the specific purpose of 
streaming to our client software. "

http://groups.google.com/group/earth-free/browse_thread/thread/74c1d0a87e9978e1

of course they must be within some margin of error, but wouldn't go too far in assuming they are all to the same scale.


----------



## Isek

^^

Estimating population figures is even hard for an average German student. Maybe some percentage know the the population of the country as a whole but knowledge about city population is not very wide spread. The world view of the average German is, that even the bigger cities here are just small villages compared to the rest of the world. This is the result of the immense understatement regarding self reflection the German society was taught after WW2 and the following left liberal eco-society. IMO a thinking better than anything else but still somehow curious. 

The problem here on the board is that people try to manipulate the world view in order to match their egocentric or even nationalistic (in a smaller scale local-patriotic) aims.


----------



## spotila

Thanks for all the nice comments

Up next, just a singular map that I've been working on for a while, perhaps one of the most beautiful regions in the world

*San Francisco Bay Area, CA*
San Francisco City Population: 805,235
San Jose City Population: 945,942
Oakland City Population: 390,724
Bay Area Population: ~7,150,000


----------



## lafreak84

Damn, looks like there's no room left to sprawl.


----------



## Slartibartfas

Isek said:


> ^^
> 
> Estimating population figures is even hard for an average German student. Maybe some percentage know the the population of the country as a whole but knowledge about city population is not very wide spread. The world view of the average German is, that even the bigger cities here are just small villages compared to the rest of the world. This is the result of the immense understatement regarding self reflection the German society was taught after WW2 and the following left liberal eco-society. IMO a thinking better than anything else but still somehow curious.


But it is true by large after all. At least if you compare to many Asian cities or even the biggest European cities like London, Paris, Moscow and Istanbul. The only exceptions might be Berlin, Hamburg, Munich. The Ruhrgebiet is a metropolis but a very sprawled out with few of the attractions a regular metropolis of that size would commonly feature. 

But let's face it, a city with less than 1 mio inhabitants might be still a mid sized one but certainly not what in many other regions of the world would be considered large.

I would not limit this to Germany though, large parts of Europe are like that.


----------



## Wapper

Interesting map. The size of just SF is really modest for an American city.


----------



## Spookvlieger

^^SF old quarters are pretty dense and are not demolished like in the other cities. The way it should be...


----------



## spotila

A quick comparison


----------



## URB'MAN

opcorn:yeahh, finally more new images. long life to this thread and to our urban maps godness, Spotila


----------



## Nexis

When are you going to do the NYC region?


----------



## Metro007

I didn't know Toronto was so huge!

And: I've heard that in the USA San Francisco is considered as a small city. BUT! For comparaison: it would be the 3rd largest urban area (population) in Europe after London and Paris (without counting Moscow and Istanbul).

For me it is a very nice place to be! I love SFO !


----------



## Slartibartfas

Metro007 said:


> I didn't know Toronto was so huge!
> 
> And: I've heard that in the USA San Francisco is considered as a small city. BUT! For comparaison: it would be the 3rd largest urban area (population) in Europe after London and Paris (without counting Moscow and Istanbul).
> 
> For me it is a very nice place to be! I love SFO !


You are comparing apples and oranges there. Otherwise you'd have to include areas in Europe like the Ruhrgebiet which for example also more than 7 mio inhabitants. 

But it is true, the metropolitan area is really big for European standards, the municipality of San Francisco is not, it is rather average.


----------



## spotila

Nexis said:


> When are you going to do the NYC region?


I've completed most of it, but it's just such a big area - shouldn't be too far away in any case
___________________

In the mean time, a request from over @ SSP has lead to this


----------



## spotila

Well since you've already seen it in yellow form - The City of Trees, plus one of the worlds most famous planned cities

*Greater Sacramento, CA*
Sacramento City Population: 486,488
Greater Sacramento Population (includes Yuba): 2,461,780








_Note: Population figures are 2009 estimates, anyone have updated figures? Also, the area between Lincoln, Rocklin and Pilot Hill has some reasonably dense rural areas - making it very difficult to know what to shade and what not._

*Brasília, Brazil*
Brasília City Population: 2,557,000
Metro (Federal Capital) Populaiton: 3,599,000


----------



## Spookvlieger

Sacramento spreads so much east! Great job on Brasilia. Kinda sad that half of this red shaded area is made up of slums. There are much better cities in Brasil to make up a capital of such a nation. You can clearly see the on the map the difference between East and West. The East part are the slums.


----------



## Wapper

If I remember well, Brasilia's centre is supposed to have the shape of an airplane. I can see it, but you really have to know it to notice.


----------



## Yuri S Andrade

joshsam said:


> Sacramento spreads so much east! Great job on Brasilia. Kinda sad that half of this red shaded area is made up of slums. There are much better cities in Brasil to make up a capital of such a nation. You can clearly see the on the map the difference between East and West. The East part are the slums.


People shouldn't use the term "slum" so freely. Actually, there are very feel slums in Brasília. The western part (you said east but I think you meant west) is not covered by slums, but for lower-middle class (and some middle-class) neighbourhoods, with the whole infrastructure.


----------



## CCs77

Well some more comparisons. Detroit Vs Atlanta... Again??? :bash: and Vs Paris









Shot at 2011-10-24









Shot at 2011-10-24

And some others using the Bay Area. It's true The Bay Area is one of the densest in the US. The two main urban areas that comprise the Bay Area, San Francisco-Oakland and San Jose, are second and third most dense, respectively
(according with the US Census http://www.census.gov/geo/www/ua/ua2k.txt)

Here's the Bay Area with Atlanta (yes.... again :lol and with Miami









Shot at 2011-10-24









Shot at 2011-10-24


----------



## Resident

I love this thread. You know what would be cool, though. If when comparing cities it would be kind of nice to know where the city limits are in the yellow vs. red. I'm not asking anyone to do this, just saying that because I know Miami and it's immediate suburbs are very dense for U.S. standards. When comparing Miami and Paris it looks as though Miami is nothing but sprawl, when actually the sprawl is outside of the city proper and inner ring suburbs.


----------



## Avian001

*HEY!!!*

Where are the Twin Cities of Minneapolis-St.Paul???

The *3rd largest metro in America's Midwest* after Chicago and Detroit?? (And hell, _Two_ cities for the price of one!)

Larger than St. Louis, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee or Cleveland? Bigger than San Diego, Denver, Portland, Charlotte, or Austin? More massive than any Canadian city other than Toronto and Montreal?

And so delightfully "sprawlicious???":tongue2:


----------



## Fitzrovian

Anderson Geimz said:


> Sigh.
> 
> Visible on your map:
> -Tel Aviv: 1,227,000
> -Center: 1,770,200
> -Jerusalem: 910,300
> -PART OF South: let's be generous and say this adds another 500,000
> -PART OF Haifa: at most 250,000
> -PART OF Gaza: let's be generous and add 1 million
> -Less than 1/2 of the West Bank (2 million Israelis and Palestinians, incl east Jerusalem!): so add 1 million
> 
> Total:6,657,500
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geogra...as are very dense. But we already knew that.


----------



## Metro007

Great maps ! Thanks very much!

What about Berlin? And other german cities like Hamburg, Munich, Stuttgart...

Cheers
François


----------



## Spookvlieger

Yuri S Andrade said:


> People shouldn't use the term "slum" so freely. Actually, there are very feel slums in Brasília. The western part (you said east but I think you meant west) is not covered by slums, but for lower-middle class (and some middle-class) neighbourhoods, with the whole infrastructure.


I'm sorry. yes I meant west. And yes it looks like slums. I know it's a sensitive issue, especially people from Brazil feel stamped when the word slum is used in context of their country. Brasilia is just one Brazil city that happens to have a lot of slum like area's. There are much nicer cities in Brazil that could be it's capital.

I'm in detail talking about the area called Ceilândia. If I'm not mistaken, that's how an average Brazil slum looks like and it takes up a very big amount of red shade an the Brasilia map. Still 10x better than in some parts of Asia or Africa, but still a slum in my eyes.

Don't take it personal.

http://www.superbrasilia.com/sat/ceilandia1.jpg
http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/9356/314477350qi0.jpg
http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/5816/porgeorgegianni.jpg
http://i339.photobucket.com/albums/n444/e_amaral/DSC02970.jpg
http://i339.photobucket.com/albums/n444/e_amaral/DSC03827.jpg
http://i339.photobucket.com/albums/n444/e_amaral/DSC03832.jpg


----------



## old school

joshsam said:


> I'm sorry. yes I meant west. And yes it looks like slums. I know it's a sensitive issue, especially people from Brazil feel stamped when the word slum is used in context of their country. Brasilia is just one Brazil city that happens to have a lot of slum like area's. There are much nicer cities in Brazil that could be it's capital.
> 
> I'm in detail talking about the area called Ceilândia. If I'm not mistaken, that's how an average Brazil slum looks like and it takes up a very big amount of red shade an the Brasilia map. Still 10x better than in some parts of Asia or Africa, but still a slum in my eyes.
> 
> Don't take it personal.
> 
> http://www.superbrasilia.com/sat/ceilandia1.jpg
> http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/9356/314477350qi0.jpg
> http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/5816/porgeorgegianni.jpg
> http://i339.photobucket.com/albums/n444/e_amaral/DSC02970.jpg
> http://i339.photobucket.com/albums/n444/e_amaral/DSC03827.jpg
> http://i339.photobucket.com/albums/n444/e_amaral/DSC03832.jpg


I believe he was confusing "slum" with "favela"... They are not the same...
Slum is "cortico" in Portuguese...


----------



## Fitzrovian

First of all, I want to say great job to Spotila. I think the work you’ve put in has made an extremely valuable contribution.

Having said that, I do want to stick up for spxy2 just a little. I think that he’s on to something when he says:



spxy2 said:


> In these yellow maps for example, Manhattan would be coloured the same way as suburban atlanta, yet these are in no way comparable as urban settlements.


 
Everyone probably understands this, but it's a very important point that's worth repeating. The renderings show the extent of developed "footprint" (call it urban, suburban, exurban or whatever) but they tell you nothing about the nature and quality of that development. This is true in particular for US urban areas. The US Census Bureau defines any area with an average density of 1000/sq mile as "urban", and I am sure that much of the outer fringes of the US metro areas hover at - or slightly above - that level. Suffice it to say that any suburban area that is anywhere near those density levels has only a tenuous connection to what should be reasonably classified as urban terrain (at least in the way that most people outside of North America think of it). These are often heavily wooded areas without sidewalks or streetlighting that are closer -- in both density and atmosphere -- to rural than urban.

So while I am sure all these maps are accurate, and are useful for what they are, people need to keep in mind that the data they convey is fairly limited. Atlanta's footprint is indeed mind-boggling but 90% of it (if not more) is monotonous, extremely low-density sprawl, and it doesn't actually make the city _feel _big. Driving through 30 miles of that sprawl is not the same as driving through 30 miles of Tokyo or Mexico City (or even Miami for that matter). 

Now if we could take Spotila's red-colored maps and shade them to reflect varying levels of density, that would really be something. But that might be a project too daunting even for our hero Spotila.


----------



## Yuri S Andrade

^^
I don't know why people continue to bring this up. EVERYBODY knows Manhattan, Paris, Hong Kong, Tokyo are much denser than Atlanta's suburbs. We also understand the urban nature of each one of those. Another anoying thing is people disdaining Atlanta all the time. It's not my favourite city, but why all this bashing? Be sure there are plenty of endless monotonous place in Tokyo, Mexico City, São Paulo and other dense urban areas. The unbelievable tree canopy of Atlanta's suburbs are at least more pleasant and unique.

I agree density maps are interesting, but there are plenty of those everywhere. This thread is bringing something different.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



joshsam said:


> I'm sorry. yes I meant west. And yes it looks like slums. I know it's a sensitive issue, especially people from Brazil feel stamped when the word slum is used in context of their country. Brasilia is just one Brazil city that happens to have a lot of slum like area's. There are much nicer cities in Brazil that could be it's capital.
> 
> I'm in detail talking about the area called Ceilândia. If I'm not mistaken, that's how an average Brazil slum looks like and it takes up a very big amount of red shade an the Brasilia map. Still 10x better than in some parts of Asia or Africa, but still a slum in my eyes.
> 
> Don't take it personal.
> 
> http://www.superbrasilia.com/sat/ceilandia1.jpg
> http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/9356/314477350qi0.jpg
> http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/5816/porgeorgegianni.jpg
> http://i339.photobucket.com/albums/n444/e_amaral/DSC02970.jpg
> http://i339.photobucket.com/albums/n444/e_amaral/DSC03827.jpg
> http://i339.photobucket.com/albums/n444/e_amaral/DSC03832.jpg


It's not a sensitive issue. The thing is Ceilândia (and all the other _cidades satélites_ of Distrito Federal) is not a _favela_. Simple is that. It's a lower-middle class/lower class neighborhood. The average person in Brazil, rich or poor, wouldn't regard Ceilândia as a _favela_ and would be surprised if someone does.

About Brasília, I agree. I'm not a big fan either. The cities in São Paulo state and Southern states are much better in almost every respect.

Anyhow, that's how a typical cidade satélite looks like: http://maps.google.com.br/maps?hl=p...109324&spn=0.008557,0.013218&t=k&z=17&vpsrc=6

That's how a _favela_ looks like: http://www.google.com.br/search?tbm...569l0l2798l6l5l0l0l0l0l604l1503l2.3-1.0.2l5l0, http://maps.google.com.br/maps?hl=p....24737&spn=0.008188,0.013218&t=k&z=17&vpsrc=6

HUGE difference, well appreciated for people who live in those kinds of environment. Unless income, consume, paved roads and sanitation are not important. The definition of _favela_ sometimes is a little bit gray. But clearly that's not the case here.

And I don't take things personal. I just can't agree (and no one else) Ceilândia and the other _cidades-satélites_ are _favelas_ whereas they are obviously not.


----------



## Fitzrovian

Yuri, take it easy pal. I wasn't bashing Atlanta. I am sure it's lovely. And in fairness, the same could be said of many other urban areas in the US (and elsewhere). However, the purpose of the thread as i understood was to illustrate and compare the "urban spread" of various cities. My point was that (a) some of the low density suburban sprawl can hardly be called "urban" and (b) without understanding the nature of development no meaningful comparisons can really be drawn between different cities.


----------



## old school

Yuri S Andrade said:


> ^^
> I don't know why people continue to bring this up. EVERYBODY knows Manhattan, Paris, Hong Kong, Tokyo are much denser than Atlanta's suburbs. We also understand the urban nature of each one of those. Another anoying thing is people disdaining Atlanta all the time. It's not my favourite city, but why all this bashing? Be sure there are plenty of endless monotonous place in Tokyo, Mexico City, São Paulo and other dense urban areas. The unbelievable tree canopy of Atlanta's suburbs are at least more pleasant and unique.
> 
> I agree density maps are interesting, but there are plenty of those everywhere. This thread is bringing something different.
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> 
> 
> It's not a sensitive issue. The thing is Ceilândia (and all the other _cidades satélites_ of Distrito Federal) is not a _favela_. Simple is that. It's a lower-middle class/lower class neighborhood. The average person in Brazil, rich or poor, wouldn't regard Ceilândia as a _favela_ and would be surprised if someone does.
> 
> About Brasília, I agree. I'm not a big fan either. The cities in São Paulo state and Southern states are much better in almost every respect.
> 
> Anyhow, that's how a typical cidade satélite looks like: http://maps.google.com.br/maps?hl=p...109324&spn=0.008557,0.013218&t=k&z=17&vpsrc=6
> 
> That's how a _favela_ looks like: http://www.google.com.br/search?tbm...569l0l2798l6l5l0l0l0l0l604l1503l2.3-1.0.2l5l0, http://maps.google.com.br/maps?hl=p....24737&spn=0.008188,0.013218&t=k&z=17&vpsrc=6
> 
> HUGE difference, well appreciated for people who live in those kinds of environment. Unless income, consume, paved roads and sanitation are not important. The definition of _favela_ sometimes is a little bit gray. But clearly that's not the case here.
> 
> And I don't take things personal. I just can't agree (and no one else) Ceilândia and the other _cidades-satélites_ are _favelas_ whereas they are obviously not.


Yes, as I said he called them "slums" not "favelas." As you know, there is a big difference. These are, as you pointed out, low income areas whose residents probably work in the formal economy. However, to him, who likely lives on "whisteria lane" (a homogeneous, area of Mc Mansions with little exposure to low income inner city areas), the area looks like a "bairro pobre cheio de barracos e corticos..."


----------



## CCs77

Fitzrovian said:


> First of all, I want to say great job to Spotila. I think the work you’ve put in has made an extremely valuable contribution.
> 
> Having said that, I do want to stick up for spxy2 just a little. I think that he’s on to something when he says:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Everyone probably understands this, but it's a very important point that's worth repeating. The renderings show the extent of developed "footprint" (call it urban, suburban, exurban or whatever) but they tell you nothing about the nature and quality of that development.


Although it is not explicitly shown, it is somehow implicit. If you put Paris next to Atlanta for example, and you say that Paris has twice the population of Atlanta although Atlanta is like twice the extension of Paris, it is implicit that the urban structures of those two cities are very diferent, even if you don't exactly how. From then, there is much to say, as it is also true that a single urban area is never homogenous within itself. These maps are an abstraction (maps always are) I agree that it is also interesting to examine more detailedly those urban structures, but in this case the maps pretend nothing more than make an abstraction of an urban area, presenting it as whole thing, to show the extension of it with some implicit characteristics. 



Fitzrovian said:


> This is true in particular for US urban areas. The US Census Bureau defines any area with an average density of 1000/sq mile as "urban", and I am sure that much of the outer fringes of the US metro areas hover at - or slightly above - that level. Suffice it to say that any suburban area that is anywhere near those density levels has only a tenuous connection to what should be reasonably classified as urban terrain (at least in the way that most people outside of North America think of it). These are often heavily wooded areas without sidewalks or streetlighting that are closer -- in both density and atmosphere -- to rural than urban.


Well yes and no. All the urban areas in the US, bigger and smaller ones, all of them have that form of urban development called generically as "suburbs" some of them are denser and some could have a very low density. But even when they have very low density and from street level could look like a rural area as you said, the people living in that houses commute to work to other part of the city, maybe in the downtown or in a suburban office complex or a factory or any other urban job, they are linked to a city and form part of it. 

Take for example this image of google earth in the New York area, specifically Purchase, Village of Harrison, Westchester County.









Shot at 2011-10-25


And this photo at street level on that same area, taken from panoramio. It looks very rural indeed. (the icon of this photo is at the upper-right corner of the google earth image)









Shot at 2011-10-25

The plots and the houses are very big, some of them are like 2 acres or 1 hectare, similar to the size of an entire city block, so the density is very, very low. They have lots of trees, big gardens with swimming pools and tennis courts, obviusly very rich people live there, maybe CEOs or VPs of some large corporation, or big brokers from Wall Street, that could as well, be living in a penthouse on the Fifth Avenue of Manhattan. Obviusly none of them are farmers, no one cultivates the land, raises livestock or does any other rural activity, they are rich people from the city, but the density is very low, and the atmosphere is indeed very countryside like, so, what would you say is that area, urban or rural?



Fitzrovian said:


> So while I am sure all these maps are accurate, and are useful for what they are, people need to keep in mind that the data they convey is fairly limited. Atlanta's footprint is indeed mind-boggling but 90% of it (if not more) is monotonous, extremely low-density sprawl, and it doesn't actually make the city _feel _big. Driving through 30 miles of that sprawl is not the same as driving through 30 miles of Tokyo or Mexico City (or even Miami for that matter).
> 
> Now if we could take Spotila's red-colored maps and shade them to reflect varying levels of density, that would really be something. But that might be a project too daunting even for our hero Spotila.


----------



## woutero

I would not use density for the distinction between urban and rural, but would look at the primary land use. In this example, the land is used for residential purposes (homes and yards) and supporting purposes (school, baseball field), so I would call it urban. It is developed for the same purpose as a dense suburb or even the Manhattan Upper East Side. The purpose is the same, the form is different. For me, the distinction should be in the function (land use).


----------



## spxy2

CCs77

you make some assumptions, 
1. people understand what the map are representing, forgetting these maps can accesses by people with no knowledge of the urban make up of the various cities of the world...

2.people in "rural" areas of europe are somehow different to the people that inhabit the suburbs of large US cities, they are not.
The population of villages and towns around large European cities do all the same things as those who inhabit extended suburbs of the US.
They largely commute to the cities to work, they don't farm.


----------



## spotila

Avian001 said:


> *HEY!!!*
> Where are the Twin Cities of Minneapolis-St.Paul???


See below!



Metro007 said:


> Great maps ! Thanks very much!
> What about Berlin? And other german cities like Hamburg, Munich, Stuttgart...


Thanks. All on my list~
____________________

New map time! Up next, the beautiful Twin Cities, and one of the world's most populous metropolitain areas

*Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MI-WI*
Minneapolis City Population: 382,578
Saint Paul City Population: 285,068
Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington MSA Population: 3,317,308








_Note: I have decided on using MSA as opposed to CSA for this map - primarily because the CSA includes St Cloud, many empty miles from the core of the urban region. The CSA including St Cloud has a population of 3,604,460_

*Metropolitan São Paulo, Brazil*
São Paulo City Population: 11,244,369
Região Metropolitana de São Paulo Population: 22,433,448
_Greater São Paulo Population (not entirely within map): 27,640,577 _








_Note: For this map I have used the Metropolitan region as defined here: http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Região_Metropolitana_de_São_Paulo
This is because the Greater São Paulo area extends a huge distance north and east, and frankly is out of the scope of my maps. The even larger São Paulo state has a population of 41,252,160_


----------



## Yuri S Andrade

^^
Your figures come from the official São Paulo Metropolitan Area. The picture, however, fits perfectly with _my_ definition of it, including the neighbouring Santos, Jundiaí, Atibaia and São Roque areas. I came up with the following population:



Yuri S Andrade said:


> (...)
> 
> *Regiões Metropolitanas* e *Aglomerados Urbanos*:
> 
> *-------------------- 2010 ---------- 2000 ---- Cresc. % 2000/2010*
> 
> 1 - São Paulo (SP) --- 22.433.448 --- 20.279.627 --- 10,62%
> 
> (...)


And the definition with 60 and something municipalities (39 in the official):



Yuri S Andrade said:


> *Composição das RMs/AUs*:
> 
> (...)
> 
> *São Paulo (SP)* --- Araçariguama, Arujá, Atibaia, Barueri, Bertioga, Biritiba-Mirim, Bom Jesus dos Perdões, Cabreúva, Caieiras, Cajamar, Campo Limpo Paulista, Carapicuíba, Cotia, Cubatão, Diadema, Embu, Embu-Guaçu, Ferraz de Vasconcelos, Francisco Morato, Franco da Rocha, Guararema, Guarujá, Guarulhos, Ibiúna, Itanhaém, Itapecerica da Serra, Itapevi, Itaquaquecetuba, Itariri, Itupeva, Jandira, Jarinu, Jundiaí, Juquitiba, Louveira, Mairinque, Mairiporã, Mauá, Mogi das Cruzes, Mongaguá, Nazaré Paulista, Osasco, Pedro de Toledo, Peruíbe, Pirapora do Bom Jesus, Praia Grande, Poá, Ribeirão Pires, Rio Grande da Serra, Salesópolis, Santa Isabel, Santana de Parnaíba, Santo André, Santos, São Bernardo do Campo, São Caetano do Sul, São Lourenço da Serra, São Paulo, São Roque, São Vicente, Suzano, Taboão da Serra, Vargem Grande Paulista e Várzea Paulista
> 
> (...)


P.S. How are you liking to shade Brazilian cities? Much easier, isn't it?



-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------





Fitzrovian said:


> Yuri, take it easy pal. I wasn't bashing Atlanta. I am sure it's lovely. And in fairness, the same could be said of many other urban areas in the US (and elsewhere). However, the purpose of the thread as i understood was to illustrate and compare the "urban spread" of various cities. My point was that (a) some of the low density suburban sprawl can hardly be called "urban" and (b) without understanding the nature of development no meaningful comparisons can really be drawn between different cities.


Sorry, mate! I used you as an example but your post were fairly "normal". the problem was some other guys few pages ago dragging about Atlanta not being Paris.




old school said:


> Yes, as I said he called them "slums" not "favelas." As you know, there is a big difference. These are, as you pointed out, low income areas whose residents probably work in the formal economy. However, to him, who likely lives on "whisteria lane" (a homogeneous, area of Mc Mansions with little exposure to low income inner city areas), the area looks like a "bairro pobre cheia de barracos e corticos..."


Yes, I thought he could be using the word with a more "English" meaning, but in his reply he kind used "slums" and "_favelas_" as synonyms. And that's why I think it's important to draw a line between a _favela_ and a low income or lower-middle class neighbourhood. They're worlds apart. Anyhow, as our friend, upper and middle-class Brazilians hardly ever go to those lower-middle class areas. To favelas, never. 

P.S. _Bairro_ (which is the Portuguese word for neighbourhood) is a masculine noun, but you used the feminine form of the adjective _cheia_ (full). The correct would be _cheio_, the masculine. But please guys, don't correct my English! It would take a whole thead for it.


----------



## spotila

It certainly is :lol:

I'll update with that population figure


----------



## Yuri S Andrade

^^
Spotila, could you keep making the yellow maps? 

It would be nice to see Mexico City, São Paulo and Buenos Aires together and also comparing them with an American city.

------------------------------------------------------



CCs77 said:


> Detroit Vs Atlanta...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Shot at 2011-10-24
> 
> (...)


Atlanta is the Queen of Sprawl, but watch out for Detroit! Motor City is massive!


----------



## Wapper

Interesting to see the coastline near Sao Paulo. It looks like the belgian coast.


----------



## old school

Yuri S Andrade said:


> ^^
> Your figures come from the official São Paulo Metropolitan Area. The picture, however, fits perfectly with _my_ definition of it, including the neighbouring Santos, Jundiaí, Atibaia and São Roque areas. I came up with the following population:
> 
> 
> 
> And the definition with 60 and something municipalities (39 in the official):
> 
> 
> 
> P.S. How are you liking to shade Brazilian cities? Much easier, isn't it?
> 
> 
> 
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Sorry, mate! I used you as an example but your post were fairly "normal". the problem was some other guys few pages ago dragging about Atlanta not being Paris.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Yes, I thought he could be using the word with a more "English" meaning, but in his reply he kind used "slums" and "_favelas_" as synonyms. And that's why I think it's important to draw a line between a _favela_ and a low income or lower-middle class neighbourhood. They're worlds apart. Anyhow, as our friend, upper and middle-class Brazilians hardly ever go to those lower-middle class areas. To favelas, never.
> 
> P.S. _Bairro_ (which is the Portuguese word for neighbourhood) is a masculine noun, but you used the feminine form of the adjective _cheia_ (full). The correct would be _cheio_, the masculine. But please guys, don't correct my English! It would take a whole thead for it.


Thanks, I forgot in my rush; long time without speaking Portuguese. I made the change...


----------



## Fitzrovian

CCs77, thanks for the thoughtful reply, and thanks for the pictures. You hit the nail on the head. Of course, as is often the case, the issue is where to draw the line. 

As to your question, I would say that area is somewhere in-between but closer to rural than urban. "Rural" is actually a misnomer because, as you pointed out, it implies agricultural activity. You used the word countryside, which is better. To me though the relevant question is not where the residents work but what are the development and infrastructural characteristics of a given area. According to your rationale, two areas that look and feel roughly the same (and have similar densities) should be classified as urban or rural depending on the employment profile of the residents. That does not make sense to me.

I want to make an important distinction here because obviously not all suburbs are created equal. Take most of the suburbs in Southeast Florida, for example, which are very urbanized and have all the characteristics of an urban environment. On the other end of the spectrum you've got areas like Purchase or some parts of Fairfield county or New Jersey. Very low population density, heavily wooded, dark, quiet and sleepy hamlets... There's a world of difference. Is it accurate to call them both "urban" and sweep both under the same classification of "urban spread"? 

The other issue here is consistency. Spotila's approach seems to have been to shade red all the way until you basically hit open fields and, beyond that, only focus on substantial size population centers. Take his map of London for example. Northwest of Watford it looks like you've got nothing until you hit Bovingdon. What happened to Sarratt, Bucks Hill, Chipperfield, Belsize, etc. ? The destinction seems to be that those areas are not contuguous with London (or each other), but what is so magical about contiguity if it's not supported by density?


----------



## Fitzrovian

woutero said:


> I would not use density for the distinction between urban and rural, but would look at the primary land use. In this example, the land is used for residential purposes (homes and yards) and supporting purposes (school, baseball field), so I would call it urban. It is developed for the same purpose as a dense suburb or even the Manhattan Upper East Side. The purpose is the same, the form is different. For me, the distinction should be in the function (land use).


I agree with much of this, however I still wouldn't call this area urban. Suburban or exurban maybe, but not urban. The question still remains then whether it's useful to sweep these types of low density suburban developments under the same classification as truly urban areas.


This is what Wikipedia says in the article on "Urban area": "An *urban area* is characterized by higher population density and vast human features in comparison to areas surrounding it. Urban areas may be cities, towns or conurbations, but the term is not commonly extended to rural settlements such as villages and hamlets."

I would argue that some of the areas being marked in red actually consist of villages and hamlets and are included in the urban spread only because they are contiguous. But contiguity alone can not transform a low density area into an urban one.


----------



## Jonesy55

When does a village become a town?


----------



## spotila

Yuri S Andrade said:


> ^^
> Spotila, could you keep making the yellow maps?
> 
> It would be nice to see Mexico City, São Paulo and Buenos Aires together and also comparing them with an American city.


Indeed - here is one I have prepared earlier - the 3 cities you mentioned I will combine for you in the future.
_________________


----------



## spotila

Up next, two of the most densely population metropolitain areas on the planet. The fact these two metros fit so many people in such a small space is just incredible.

*Brazzaville-Kinshasa, Rep. Congo-Dem. Rep. Congo*
Brazzaville City Population: 1,500,000
Kinshasa City Population: 10,076,099
Brazzaville-Kinshasa Conurbation Population: 11,576,099








_Note: There are areas around both cities that appear to be built up environment - they are in fact dense(ish) rural plots. The compactness of this metropolitain region is simply astounding, with areas holding up to 62,120 people per square km (Bumbu, for example)._

*Karachi, Pakistan*
Metro Population: 13,460,000-18,000,000 (varying statistics)


----------



## Spookvlieger

Great job spotile! Theyr are indeed very small for their population!

Another city wich really is just out of size for its population is Salt Lake City. The metro area is just 1million and the city itself around 190.000. Still the area it swallows is huge. From N to S is around 150km long and at its widest point from W to E is around 30km. Pretty crazy.


----------



## Yuri S Andrade

^^
Very cool maps! These cities are indeed very dense. One important factor is the number of people living in the same household. Probably it's very high in these two urban areas. In Brazil, for example, it plunged from 3.8 in 2010 to 3.1 in 2010. Huge for such short period of time. Northeastern/northern cities are much denser, which could be in part explain by the larger number of people living in the same house.

Two things:

--- Why is so difficult to get right the Indian subcontinent cities population figures?

--- I like Léopoldville much better than Kinshasa. There is even a match: Brazzaville-Léopoldville.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Joshsam, in this 150 km you probably included the whole Salt Lake City CSA (Ogden) and also Provo, which is a MSA on its own. Together, the area's population is *2,271,696* (2010 Census). Still impressive, though.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


I liked those Asian maps by d''b. The Asian urban layout is so distinct that sometimes are hard to make sense of them. BTW, why there are so many blue roofs in Chinese cities?


----------



## GENIUS LOCI

Actually I just checked Salt Lake City area by google maps and doesn't look that extensive to me


----------



## Spookvlieger

Yuri S Andrade said:


> ^^
> 
> Joshsam, in this 150 km you probably included the whole Salt Lake City CSA (Ogden) and also Provo, which is a MSA on its own. Together, the area's population is *2,271,696* (2010 Census). Still impressive, though.


Yes, I looked for Ogdon to Provo. Looks like one continious urban area...

@GuinisLoci. I still think it is. Look at the immage below, It's twice the height as spotila's map (200km) and the within the red area's are build-up. It's 150km long and 30km wide at one point. I think that's crazy for such a small city compaired to others.

http://i975.photobucket.com/albums/ae232/joshsam1808/ogdon.jpg

To compaire for you, Paris is rougly 50km wide and Milan including the cities of Arsizio and Seregno would hardly get you to 40km wide.


----------



## Brown_Eastern

.....


----------



## d'.'b

thank you @yuri..
I'm also interested in the urban plan of a city... I hope we can also post maps with visible street layout..


----------



## spotila

As I mentioned early in the thread, if you guys are going to post maps of your own city, please provide a link rather than posting the image. Both Salt Lake City and Kuala Lumpur are on my list and mostly finished.

Cheers


----------



## ManRegio

spotila said:


> As I mentioned early in the thread, if you guys are going to post maps of your own city, please provide a link rather than posting the image. Both Salt Lake City and Kuala Lumpur are on my list and mostly finished.
> 
> Cheers


What about Mexico City? Is it coming up next?. 

Regards.


----------



## Spookvlieger

Fixed my post spotila, It was just to state my point and it's not my city


----------



## Harry

woutero said:


> I'm not really sure I understand what point you think I'm trying to make. I was just pointing out that 40 miles outside of London you happen to be in Maidstone and Reading. Commuter towns, but detached from contiguous London sprawl.


I think you need to be careful with the description of 'commuter town', which could be construed by some (and particularly those from outside the UK) who might think that, for example, Reading's primary function is to provide London with workers. I do not have any figures to hand but while many people do commute from Reading to London, I would hazard a guess that they constitute no more than 5% of the working population.

Reading is a town with its own life and its own economy - although its links to London are obviously important. Train travel to London costs in the region of £4,000 per annum - and the _vast_ majority of Reading residents will work in Reading and its satellite towns. I think it is important not to overstate the extent of travel/commuting patterns when trying to define a city's 'metro' area.


----------



## woutero

^^ My earlier posts say just that. 

You are quoting my response to a response to a response of someone wondering where there would be more commuters to the central cities: 40 miles outside central London or 40 miles outside Downtown Philadelphia.


----------



## spotila

Up next, a modern city on the Persian Gulf and a massive bi-national metro

*Kuwait City, Kuwait*
City Population: 151,060
Metro Population: 2,380,000









*San Diego–Tijuana Bi-National Conurbation*
San Diego City Population: 1,301,617
San Diego Metro Population: 3,095,313
Tijuana Metro Population: 1,784,034
San Diego–Tijuana Conurbation Population: 5,105,768


----------



## Wapper

Interesting to compare a Mexican and an American town.


----------



## Mike____

some map of the flemish diamond.. look how bad our urban planning is..


----------



## spotila

In the interim between more maps, here is a ..special edition of sorts.
Enjoy









_edit: West Midlands should be around 2.6-2.7 million, not 2.2_


----------



## Yuri S Andrade

^^
It's just surreal! You can fit all those cities inside Atlanta's sprawl!


----------



## Anderson Geimz

Amazing map!

Not sure if all the population stats are correct though.

Metro Manila alone is 11,500,00 and that map shows a lot more than just Metro Manila (which is quite confusingly not the metro area of Manila but rather the amalgated city like Toronto or Greater London)

Karachi seems a bit low as well.

West Midlands should be closer to 3 million. Coventry is clearly visible but is not include in the West Midlands population figure.

Santiago however seems a bit high.



Again, nice work!!! (I love the yellow maps!)


----------



## spotila

Anderson Geimz said:


> Amazing map!
> 
> Not sure if all the population stats are correct though.
> 
> Metro Manila alone is 11,500,00 and that map shows a lot more than just Metro Manila (which is quite confusingly not the metro area of Manila but rather the amalgated city like Toronto or Greater London)
> 
> Karachi seems a bit low as well.
> 
> West Midlands should be closer to 3 million. Coventry is clearly visible but is not include in the West Midlands population figure.
> 
> Santiago however seems a bit high.


Yea Manila is always tricky - no one seems to really know where Metro stops and Greater begins.
If you look at earlier map of Karachi you'll see I stated the population as "13,460,000-18,000,000 (varying statistics)" - again, they don't really know where their city stops and metro begins it seems.
West Midlands you're right, it should be around 2.6-2.7 million.
Santiago is straight from their wiki?


----------



## CCs77

spotila said:


> Yea Manila is always tricky - no one seems to really know where Metro stops and Greater begins.
> If you look at earlier map of Karachi you'll see I stated the population as "13,460,000-18,000,000 (varying statistics)" - again, they don't really know where their city stops and metro begins it seems.
> West Midlands you're right, it should be around 2.6-2.7 million.
> Santiago is straight from their wiki?


Well, for Manila it is very well defined what "Metro Manila" is 








Shot at 2011-11-06








Shot at 2011-11-06
So in your map the limits of Metro Manila would be roughly marked by the red lines like this








Shot at 2011-11-06

Obviously, what would be more difficult to estimate is the population inside the cropped rectangle. According to Wikipedia, Greater Manila spills into the neighboring provinces of Laguna, Cavite, Rizal, Bulacan, Pampanga and Batangas, but that area exceeds by large the area inside of the rectangle. Maybe by researching the municipalities that are more or less inside the rectangle.

For Santiago, Wikipedia says that Metropolitan Region of Santiago has approximately 7 million people, but again it covers a much large area. 
I think that the yellow area includes approximately the population of Santiago Province (4,728,443 inh by 2002) plus the comunas of San Bernardo (246.762 by 2002) and Puente Alto (702.948, 2008 estimate) so the population shown in the map would be roughly 5,7 million, maybe a little more than 6 million considering some population increase.


----------



## staff

Spotila,

Just a little note-- if you ever decide to do a Copenhagen map, then please include the Swedish side of the metropolitan area as well!


----------



## dars-dm

Moscow?!


----------



## Crash_N

Kanto region VS Pearl delta?


----------



## spotila

staff said:


> Spotila,
> 
> Just a little note-- if you ever decide to do a Copenhagen map, then please include the Swedish side of the metropolitan area as well!


^For sure
___________

Keep up the guesses guys - maps aren't far away now


----------



## spotila

Well times up lads - I expected more guess but what the hey.
*And the winner is... * young mister *brickell* over @ SSP for his guess of Mumbai

So brickell - choose your city: either your home town OR a city of your preference.

Thus, to the maps! One of the most populated metropolitan areas on earth, and Brew City

*Mumbai Metropolitan Region, India*
City Population: 12,478,447
Metropolitan Region Population: 18,414,288 - 19,635,521 (varying statistics)









*Greater Milwaukee, WI*
City Population: 594,833
CSA Population: 1,751,316


----------



## Spookvlieger

Haha Bombay fits 18 milllion in the same space as Milwaukee  crazy!

Shame I missed the request thing. Anyway, just hope the Flemish diamond will pass by here some day despite its big defragmentation!

Great work spotila!


----------



## julesstoop

^^I suppose you mean 'fragmentation'.


----------



## spotila

Indeed he does. For everyone's information, the winner of the quick little competition has chosen *Rome* as the next city, expect to see it in a couple of days, along with another mighty(ish) region


----------



## megacity30

spotila said:


> Well times up lads - I expected more guess but what the hey.
> *And the winner is... *young mister *brickell* over @ SSP for his guess of Mumbai
> 
> So brickell - choose your city: either your home town OR a city of your preference.
> 
> Thus, to the maps! One of the most populated metropolitan areas on earth, and Brew City
> 
> *Mumbai Metropolitan Region, India*
> City Population: 12,478,447
> Metropolitan Region Population: 18,414,288 - 19,635,521 (varying statistics)


m)) Fabulous map, Spotila! 

*This urban area map shows the entire contiguous densely-populated urban area of Mumbai containing around 20 million people*.

This map also shows a part of its metropolitan region such as Rasayani. However, *there are some towns in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region that are not shown in this map* such as the towns of Raigad district (Alibag, Pen, Khopoli, Kasara, Karjat etc) and some towns in Thane district (Palghar, Boisar, Tarapur etc).

As per the 2001 Census of India, 
Urban Area population of Mumbai: 16.5 million
Metropolitan Area population, i.e. population within MMRDA (Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority) limits: 17.8 million

As per the 2011 Census of India,
Urban Area (adjoining Municipal Corporations and Municipal Councils) population: 20.7 million

Metropolitan Area population, i.e. population within MMRDA limits: 22.4 million

An interesting read regarding this is at:
http://www.newgeography.com/content/002172-the-evolving-urban-form-mumbai


----------



## megacity30

*Urban areas of China and India are highly under-represented here*

As per the 2010 Census and UN official statistics, the urban area (cities' and towns') population of China is 665.57 million.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization_in_the_People's_Republic_of_China)

As per the 2011 Census of India, the urban area (cities' and towns') population of India is 377.1 million

(http://censusindia.gov.in/2011-prov-results/paper2/data_files/india/paper2_at_a_glance.pdf

http://censusindia.gov.in/2011-prov-results/paper2/data_files/India2/1. Data Highlight.pdf)

*The combined urban area population of China and India is over 1042.67 million!!*

The entire population of Europe (including Russia and Turkey) plus the population of the 50 states of the USA is *1028.37 million only*.

*Therefore, there are more urban residents living in China and India than the entire population of Europe (including Russia and Turkey) and the USA combined...*

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA


Isn't it obvious the number of urban area maps of China and India are grossly under-represented in this thread?!!

:bash:

Spotila, please do justice here!


----------



## spotila

But Chinese cities are so haaaaaard :lol:


----------



## megacity30

spotila said:


> But Chinese cities are so haaaaaard :lol:


:nono:

You have already done the biggest, most controversial and complex urban area in China - Zhusanjiao.

If someone can chart this territory of the 21st Century's urban areas, it's already you.

This is fertile ground; there are 85 major urban areas containing over a million people in China and 53 major urban areas containing over a million people in India.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_the_People's_Republic_of_China_by_population

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_populous_metropolitan_areas_in_India


----------



## URB'MAN

at least publish maps of Delhi and Kolkata in India and Yangtze river delta and Beijing in China. I'm content with those ones:cheers:


----------



## gabrielbabb

It would be nice if you compare latinamerican cities mexico, buemnos aires. rio and sao paulo with some american or european city


----------



## ..Polkator..

EXCELLENT WORK :cheers:


----------



## spotila

ok ok, lots of requests. Maybe I should quit my job, then I'd have time to do them all :lol:


----------



## oliver999

spotila said:


> But Chinese cities are so haaaaaard :lol:


:cheers::cheers:


----------



## Metro007

Spotila,

One question: how do you scale the maps to the same size, since Google-Maps uses different zoom-scales? Are you calculating the length of each pixel and try to enhance or reduce them to the same size as the other maps? Are you sure that the scales always fit 100% together?

Best regards
François


----------



## spotila

Hey Metro - please be aware I use Google Earth, not Google maps, where all the imagery is scaled to fit the latitude and longitude grid on a spherical base. Thus, at a singular zoom level (in my case, 100.00km), the 'camera' is always of equal distance from the earth. There are a few extra ways I confirm measurement accuracy, but this is the primary one, and I can assure you the scales fit 100%.


----------



## anakngpasig

^^ btw, how do you lock the zoom level to 100km?


----------



## chicagogeorge

Along the Lake Michigan shoreline Chicago and Milwaukee's metros are connected.


----------



## tim1807

nice.


----------



## Metro007

spotila said:


> Hey Metro - please be aware I use Google Earth, not Google maps, where all the imagery is scaled to fit the latitude and longitude grid on a spherical base. Thus, at a singular zoom level (in my case, 100.00km), the 'camera' is always of equal distance from the earth. There are a few extra ways I confirm measurement accuracy, but this is the primary one, and I can assure you the scales fit 100%.


OK thanks, so now i understand better ;-)


----------



## spotila

anakngpasig said:


> ^^ btw, how do you lock the zoom level to 100km?


Ah you cannot lock the zoom level, but you can alter the zoom level intervals so you don't always end up at the same level each time you zoom in and out. It's easy enough to get within 0.05km of 100.



chicagogeorge said:


> Along the Lake Michigan shoreline Chicago and Milwaukee's metros are connected.


I might do a map later to illustrate this as best I can, similar to the map you posted


----------



## megacity30

chicagogeorge said:


> Along the Lake Michigan shoreline Chicago and Milwaukee's metros are connected.


 :sad2: where is the image?


----------



## Spookvlieger

^^copy paste link into your search bar and it will appear...


----------



## spotila

Up next, our competition winners choice, and The Peg

Plus, I have a couple of huge maps coming up

*Rome Metropolitan Area, Italy*
City Population: 2,705,317
Metro Population: 3,693,124









*Winnipeg, MB*
City Population: 633,451
Metro Population: 694,668


----------



## Federicoft

Thanks for the Rome map.
In the area you've highlighted there should be ~3.9 or 4 million inhabitants.


----------



## chicagogeorge

megacity30 said:


> :sad2: where is the image?


Sorry I uploaded it here it is...


----------



## julesstoop

^^ What do the colors of the built-up areas represent? A timescale or population density perhaps?


----------



## spotila

I would definitely say the different colours are a representation of time. Red being old, getting newer as getting bluer.


----------



## chicagogeorge

julesstoop said:


> ^^ What do the colors of the built-up areas represent? A timescale or population density perhaps?


Red shows population decline, blue shows population gains.. Basically it outlines the fact that Chicago is decentralizing and sprawling out of control.


----------



## Spookvlieger

^^It shows that the US isn't doing much to keep their cities in good shape. All cities on that map show the same process....
According to that map, Detroit will be even more death in a few years....


----------



## chicagogeorge

joshsam said:


> ^^It shows that the US isn't doing much to keep their cities in good shape. All cities on that map show the same process....
> According to that map, Detroit will be even more death in a few years....


The attraction to suburban living is to strong. More space, bigger homes, usually much better schools.... Even I moved my family to the suburbs after living in the city for 36 years.


From 2000 to 2010:


----------



## Spookvlieger

hno: I don't understand. they should forbid cities to expand even more...


----------



## LtBk

I don't think the maps are to be trusted cause they are from website owned by Joel Kotkin, who is known to be strongly pro auto-centric suburbia and dislikes urbanity and mass transit in general.


----------



## URB'MAN

^^I can`t find the map on his website. Maybe isn't a trusty source as you said, but do you know in which period of time is based that map?


----------



## Metro007

spotila said:


> Up next, our competition winners choice, and The Peg
> 
> Plus, I have a couple of huge maps coming up
> 
> *Rome Metropolitan Area, Italy*
> City Population: 2,705,317
> Metro Population: 3,693,124


It's very stunning how small Rome is! It must be one of the smallest capital cities of all major countries... But the density must be huge for 2,7 Mio. people, almost like an asian city...crazy!


----------



## De Klauw

^^I don't think so. Wahsington DC e.g. is only a fourth of Rome.

BTW: I wouldn't consider a place with 3 million inhabitants a small city.


----------



## Metro007

De Klauw said:


> ^^I don't think so. Wahsington DC e.g. is only a fourth of Rome.
> 
> BTW: I wouldn't consider a place with 3 million inhabitants a small city.


I was not talking about the population but about the size (area). I think the urban area of washington is 5-6 x larger.


----------



## Fitzrovian

Federicoft said:


> I've checked some sources and your figures about the population within the GRA are correct - apparently mine were outdated.
> The area is not though. The area within the GRA is 582 sq km, and the population is 2,167,000 inhabitants, thus a density of 3700/sq km.
> 
> I took the figures from here.
> Don't know if you can read Italian but even if you can't I think you will find interesting data. Scroll from page 10 onwards.


I don't read Italian, but I'll take your word for it. 582 sq km still seems rather generous though. MapsGoogle indicates the radius within the GRA is 11 to 12 km (diameter 23-24 km)... so simple math tells us total area should be no more than 450 sq km. That gives us a density of 4800/sq km which I suspect is closer to reality. And I note that even within the GRA there is a ton of empty space (far more than within the Madrid or Berlin city limits).

Edit: It's possible that the first study I linked to counted only the developed area within the GRA which would provide a more accurate picture of the residential density.


----------



## Wunderknabe

Federicoft said:


> Yep, the Rome municipality includes lots of open space and non-urban parks, perhaps more than the other cities I've mentioned. I made that comparision to have an immediate idea of what we were talking about, it wasn't anything scientific.
> 
> Besides, even Berlin or Madrid have their share of unused land inside the municipal borders, which in many cases effectively reduce the density of the urban fabric, so it's hard to make consistent comparisions.


Just to add:

Berlin City Borders Area: 891,85 km² 
of that: Green spaces+Water: 386,58 km² (=43,4%)
urban-space: 505,27 km² (=56,6%)

So the pop.density of the build-up-city is 6809/km² (instead of 3857).


----------



## Seattlelife

BearCave said:


> Houston is HUUUUUUGE!!!


That's EXACTLY what I said when I saw the photo. I remember flying into Houston one summer night about 10 years ago. I couldn't believe how far the lights of the metro area stretched!


----------



## spotila

Some interesting discussion chaps
Alas, it is time for a couple of maps!

An Australian conurbation that stretches over 200km, and a map that has been requested multiple times, just too see what it looks like :lol:

*Sunshine Coast-Brisbane-Gold Coast, QLD*
Sunshine Coast Population: 251,081
Brisbane City Population: 2,043,185
Gold Coast Population: 591,473
South East Queensland Coast Population: ~2,900,000









*Chicago-Milwaukee Conurbation*
Milwaukee Metro Population: 1,751,316
Chicago Metro Population: 9,804,845
Conurbation Population: ~11,600,000
_notes: 
- Chicago's map is also much updated, removing a lot of greenfields that were previously shaded, and overall more accurate
- This map should show (as many have asked) the relationship between Milwaukee and Chicago. As you can see, along the coast the urban fabric is mostly unbroken, but inland there is a lot of green space.
- Another interesting note - Milwaukees CBD is actually 22km (13.6 miles) west of Chicago's.
- North to South this map is roughly 230km (142 miles)_


----------



## anakngpasig

^^ what a sprawl


----------



## chicagogeorge

Dralcoffin said:


> At the current rate, about eighteen more years (Chicago lost 200,000, Houston gained 150,000, for a net "narrowing" of 350,000 people, and there is still 596,000 people between them).
> 
> _However_, Houston is getting close to sprawled out unless the city goes annexing more land, while Chicago demographically seems to be leveling out. The past decade saw the vast housing projects come down, which alone dumped about 200,000 people out of the city. So I feel Chicago will hold steady or perhaps even start gaining people again, while Houston will start leveling off. Houston is still going to catch Chicago, but I feel it will be thirty years or even more until it happens.


You are correct, it will probably be 30 years before the city of Houston overtakes the city of Chicago. Mind you the *city* of Chicago is a "mere" 227.2 sq mi (588.4 km2) compared to the *city* of Houston which is a giant at 579 square miles (1500 km2) :nuts:


Though in terms of metropolitan area population, even with Metro Houston explosive growth rate, it will be at least until 2040 before they come close to Metro Chicago, and by then Milwaukee's metro (and Rockford) will have merged with Chicago adding an additional 2.3 million people.


----------



## chicagogeorge

LtBk said:


> I don't think the maps are to be trusted cause they are from website owned by Joel Kotkin, who is known to be strongly pro auto-centric suburbia and dislikes urbanity and mass transit in general.


The data is taken from US Census. It is accurate. I know a lot of people on this forum don't like Kotkin, but he isn't just making the numbers up.


Look, the fact is, that suburban population growth between 2000-2010 even out paced the 1990s!



> Joel Kotkin , a writer who specializes in demographic issues, says that* the 2010 census figures show that during the past decade just 8.6 percent of the population growth in metropolitan areas with more than a million people took place in city cores. The rest took place in the suburbs*, which are home to more than 6 in 10 Americans.
> 
> *The 8.6 percent is even lower than in the 1990s when the figure was 15.1 percent.* New York City did better than the national average, getting 29 percent of the growth in the metropolitan area, but that was down from 46 percent in the 1990s. Of the 51 metropolitan areas with more than 1 million residents, only three — Boston, Providence, and Oklahoma City — saw their core cities grow faster than their suburbs. And the growth is hardly the mono-dimensional suburbia of hoary stereotype.
> 
> In 1970 nearly 95 percent of suburbanites were white, Mr. Kotkin writes. Now minorities constitute over 27 percent of the nation’s suburbanites.


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/weekinreview/12burbs.html





Chicago is sprawling worse than ever. It is irrelevant that the downtown Chicago saw strong population growth when the remainder of the city core is bleeding out people like a shotgun wound
































> Inner Suburbs: As in New York and Seattle, *Chicago’s inner suburbs grew slowly.* The inner suburbs include the part of Cook County that is outside the city of Chicago as well as Lake County, Indiana (home of Gary), which shares the city of Chicago's eastern border. The inner suburbs added fewer than 30,000 residents and grew only one percent.
> 
> *This suggests some limitations to the newly developing mantra that has inner suburbs will be the locus of future growth *although there are scattered inner suburbs in other cities (such as Hoboken, New Jersey) that did see growth. Perhaps the old mantra, about people returning to the city from which they had never come was finally quashed by the realities of the 2010 census.
> 
> Outer Suburbs: The outer suburbs, which include the remaining counties of the metropolitan area, grew at a rate of 16.5 percent, actually grew faster than the national average of approximately 10 percent. The outer suburbs added more than 500,000 people. The largest growth, 175,000 was in Will County, to the south, one of the five “collar counties” that used to define the boundaries of the metropolitan area. McHenry County, the most distant of the collar counties added 100,000. The fastest growth was in far suburban and also southern Kendall County, which more than doubled in population.


and jobs are the key issue which more and more are being located outside the city. The future is the outer suburbs.




> Dispersing Employment: Chicago's dispersion extends to employment. Despite having the second strongest central business district in the nation (after Manhattan), *jobs are rapidly decentralizing. *Last year the Downtown Loop Alliance reported that private sector employment in the Loop fell 20 percent during the last decade. Overall, the downtown area of Chicago now represents approximately 10 percent of regional employment, barely half the percentage of Manhattan or Washington, DC.
> 
> American community survey data from 2009 indicates the total employment in the North West corridor along Interstate 90 has at least as much employment as downtown Chicago. This corridor, anchored by the edge city (Note 4) of Schaumburg, is typical of emerging suburban centers around the nation. Only two percent of workers in this corridor use transit for commuting.
> 
> Another corridor, along Interstate 88 (anchored by Lisle and Aurora) has at least two thirds the employment of downtown, with only one percent commuting by transit. The North Shore corridor encompassing parts of northern Cook County and Lake County is of similar size to the Interstate 88 corridor and has a larger transit work trip market share of five percent.
> 
> Downtown, on the other hand, has the third largest transit work trip market share in the nation, following Manhattan and Brooklyn. In 2000, 55 percent of people working downtown (the larger downtown including the Loop, north of the River and adjacent areas to the west and south) commuted by transit. This illustrates the strength of transit for providing access to the largest, most dense downtown areas in contrast to dispersed suburban areas.
> 
> *Perhaps more telling, the number of jobs and resident workers (the “jobs-housing” balance) in the city of Chicago are converging toward equality.* According to American community survey data, there are 1.1 jobs in the city of Chicago for each working resident. This is substantially less, for example, than Washington (2.6), Atlanta (2.0), Boston (1.7), San Francisco (1.4) and Baltimore (1.4).
> 
> On the other hand, two of the three large suburban corridors have higher ratios of jobs to workers than the city of Chicago. The Interstate 88 corridor has 1.3 jobs per worker, while the North Shore has approximately 1.5 jobs per worker. The Interstate 90 corridor has slightly more jobs than workers. These data indicate that Chicago is well on the way to a more evenly distributed employment pattern that has become more common around the nation.


http://www.newgeography.com/content/002346-the-evolving-urban-form-chicago


only 20 of the 77 communities in Chicago gained population! And aside for the downtown area, most gains were quite minimal. 


I take it Chicago will barely be above 2.5 million by 2020, with maybe half of the black population Chicago had in 1980..... if trends continue.... and given the fact that the Hispanic growth almost stopped these last 10 years in the city, I could imagine the Hispanic population will be seeing a net loss this coming decade, and the city's population could be under 2.5 million. Christ.... 


The NIPC is probably scartching their heads having no idea what to do. They predicted 3.26 million in the city by 2030. :nuts:

http://www.cmap.illinois.gov/



and this is a scary thought.... if not for the recession things could have been worse. :bash:




> *Chicago and Cook County’s declines would have been bigger if not for the worst recession since the Great Depression*, said Kenneth Johnson, a former professor at Loyola University Chicago who studies the region as a demographer at the University of New Hampshire.
> 
> Recession Effect
> 
> “The recession had the effect of freezing people in place due to their reluctance to try to sell homes or change jobs because of the difficult economic situation,” he said.
> 
> The Chicago metropolitan area grew 4 percent during the decade and is now home to 9.7 million, Johnson said.
> 
> While Chicago’s suburbs grew, *Illinois’s population increased just 3.3 percent*, the ninth-lowest rate among states and less than any of its bordering states. Nationwide population growth was 9.7 percent during the decade.


http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-...herits-shrinking-population-census-shows.html


----------



## spotila

Up next, a couple of requested maps (I know it's been a long time, maps take ages)
We have the world's highest capital city, and the legendary Big Easy

*La Paz, Bolivia*
City Population: 877,363
Metro Population: 2,364,235









*New Orleans MSA, LA*
City Population: 343,829
MSA Population: 1,235,650 (does not include Hammond)


----------



## CCs77

chicagogeorge said:


> The data is taken from US Census. It is accurate. I know a lot of people on this forum don't like Kotkin, but he isn't just making the numbers up.
> 
> Look, the fact is, that suburban population growth between 2000-2010 even out paced the 1990s!
> 
> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/weekinreview/12burbs.html
> 
> Chicago is sprawling worse than ever. It is irrelevant that the downtown Chicago saw strong population growth when the remainder of the city core is bleeding out people like a shotgun wound


And you can say something similar of Detroit, for example.
The population of the city core decreasead from 951,270 in 2000 to 713,777 in 2010, (a 237,493 loss) and the Metro area also decreased from 4,441,551 in 2000 to 4,296,250 in 2010 (145,301 less)
A basic mathematic operation tells that even when the Metro area lost population, the suburbs still had a net gain of 92,192 people (237,493 - 145,301) So the urban area must be expanded in order to accommodate those "new" 92,192 people (even when in fact the total population contracted) The situation is worse if it is considered that even some traditional inner suburbs are contracting too, like Pontiac ( 59,515 in 2010, down from 66,337 in 2000 and from its 1970 peak 85,279) Southfield ( 71,758 in 2010, down from 78,322 in 2000) or Warren ( 134,056 in 2010, down from 138,247 in 2000)
In the past period (1990-2000) the population of the Metro area increased, so the growth of the suburbs was greater: Detroit proper 1,027,974 in 1990 a loss of 76,704 by 2000. Metro Detroit 4,266,654 in 1990 an increase of 174,897 by 2000. Total gain of the suburbs 251,601 (174,897 + 76,704)


----------



## GENIUS LOCI

Fitzrovian said:


> I don't read Italian, but I'll take your word for it. 582 sq km still seems rather generous though. MapsGoogle indicates the radius within the GRA is 11 to 12 km (diameter 23-24 km)... so simple math tells us total area should be no more than 450 sq km. That gives us a density of 4800/sq km which I suspect is closer to reality. And I note that even within the GRA there is a ton of empty space (far more than within the Madrid or Berlin city limits).
> 
> Edit: It's possible that the first study I linked to counted only the developed area within the GRA which would provide a more accurate picture of the residential density.


Here a satellite pic of Rome within GRA.


----------



## Spookvlieger

New Orleans looks suprisingly small. I had the feeling it was much bigger...Thanks for the maps!


----------



## DanielFigFoz

Doesn't Rome go outside the GRA towards the sea?


----------



## Metro007

joshsam said:


> New Orleans looks suprisingly small. I had the feeling it was much bigger...Thanks for the maps!


Well, i would not call it small. Just small for an american-city perhaps yes ;-)


----------



## spotila

Gentlemen, in the interim before more cities - a quick little project I whipped up.
Using a historical map of London from 1807, I've managed to identify the old city boundaries and integrate them with my standard London map. I enjoyed doing this and may do something similar for other areas in the future. Enjoy.

The historical map I used: Click

A close up view of the old city, superimposed upon my original map









The same, but at my standard zoom level of 100.0km









Original London Map - Click


So what'd'ya think?


----------



## GENIUS LOCI

DanielFigFoz said:


> Doesn't Rome go outside the GRA towards the sea?


Yup... as you can clearly see by spotila's map.

I posted just the area within the GRA ring road because we were debating about soil consumption within this area to estabilish how dense Rome is in its densest part


----------



## woutero

The 1807 map of London is pretty cool. London had just passed the 1 million population mark. Would be interesting to compare density with something similar in the current world.


----------



## Yuri S Andrade

^^
How tiny London was! The density must have been crazy. What's the size of the area? Another interesting feature is how the City was in the very centre of it. Probably it's taken few more decades for the West End to become more central.

P.S. Spotila, don't forget about the yellow maps! And Londrina-Maringá as well...


----------



## Jonesy55

Yes. Westminster seems to be right on the edge of the urban area there.


----------



## Fitzrovian

Very interesting. This corresponds pretty well to Zone 1 except for the west London neighborhoods around Hyde Park which, susprisingly, were still not developed entering the 19th century. 

Interesting that the entire urban area was only about 4 miles across as late as 1807 despite the myth that London has been a sprawling city for centuries. I guess the perception of what is considered "sprawling" today vs. 200 yrs ago is quite different...

Edit: this map also illustrates how the "West End" got its name.


----------



## Fitzrovian

GENIUS LOCI said:


> Here a satellite pic of Rome within GRA.


Thanks, Genius Loci. As I said, a LOT of empty space even within the GRA. And once you move outside of it then forget about it... we are talking about densities of below 300/sq km (less than the density of England).


----------



## spotila

Up next, a couple more requested maps (see, I am getting to them all eventually)

*Greater Hamburg, Germany*
City Population: 1,792,129
Greater Hamburg Population: 2,600,000
Hamburg Metropolitan Region Population: 4,300,000 (see notes)








_Notes: The Hamburg Metropoliatan Region as defined *here* is a massive area covering much of Northern Germany, and not within the scope of my maps. I chose a roughly estimated Greater Hamburg area based on a likely commuter area. Feel free to give me an educated estimate of the population within the map._

*Charlotte-Gastonia-Salisbury CSA, NC-SC*
Charlotte City Population: 731,424
Charlotte CSA Population: 2,574,787








_Notes: The population figures used are 2008, any updated figures would be appreciated._


----------



## nedolessej197

sacramento would be cool to look at. (sorry if it's been done!)


----------



## Isek

spotila said:


> Up next, a couple more requested maps (see, I am getting to them all eventually)
> 
> *Greater Hamburg, Germany*
> City Population: 1,792,129
> Greater Hamburg Population: 2,000,000+
> Hamburg Metropolitan Region Population: 4,300,000 (see notes)


The population of Hamburg plus the suburbs that are directly connected to the city is 2,600,000. If you refer to the 500 m distance criteria you get a number for the agglomeration or urban area of 3,100,000.


----------



## spotila

nedolessej197 said:


> sacramento would be cool to look at. (sorry if it's been done!)


It has, check the first page of the thread for the list of cities


----------



## Metro007

Thanks a lot for Hamburg !


----------



## ManRegio

spotila said:


> It has, check the first page of the thread for the list of cities


any chances of getting Mexico City, anytime soon?. It would be great if we can make a comparision with Sao Paulo and Buenos Aires. 

Regards!


----------



## Zach759

I think you should do Kansas City, if you would be so willing?


----------



## nedolessej197

spotila said:


> It has, check the first page of the thread for the list of cities


cool, thanks! looks great


----------



## spotila

ManRegio said:


> any chances of getting Mexico City, anytime soon?. It would be great if we can make a comparision with Sao Paulo and Buenos Aires.
> 
> Regards!


Won't be too far away - getting so many requests that it's hard to keep up (like the one below :lol



Zach759 said:


> I think you should do Kansas City, if you would be so willing?


Almost done.


----------



## spotila

New map time!

Up next, a truly stunning capital city, and the gateway to Scandinavia

*Ottawa, ON*
City Population: 812,129
Metro Population: 1,130,761









*Copenhagen-Malmö Metropolitan Area, Denmark/Sweden* 
Copenhagen City Population: 548,443
Copenhagen Metro Population: 1,930,260
Malmö City Population: 300,515
Malmö Metro Population: 658,704
Copenhagen-Malmö Metro Population: 2,588,000
_Øresund Region Population: 3,783,158_


----------



## staff

:cheers1:


----------



## kjetilab

I've tried to make a Copenhagen - Malmö map myself, but your is by far superior to mine:master:


----------



## brisavoine

I made this file showing the population density in and around Paris at the 1968 census and at the 2008 census. It shows the progress of urbanization in 40 years.

Note that the INSEE statistically defined metropolitan area of Paris (12.1 million inhabitants in 2008) is smaller than the area shown here. The area shown here contained 13.9 million inhabitants in 2008.

Also: I have indicated the 2 commercial airports of Paris in 1968 (Le Bourget and Orly), and the 3 commercial airports of Paris in 2008 (CDG, Orly, and Beauvais).


----------



## spotila

Must be time for new maps!
Up next, the biggest city on Africa's east coast, and one of the most expensive cities in which to live

*Durban Metropolitan Area, South Africa*
City Population: 3,468,086
Metro Population: 4,500,000









*Greater Oslo Inner Circle, Norway*
City Population: 611,491
Greater Oslo Inner Circle Population: 896,057
_Greater Oslo with Outer Circle Population (includes Moss and Drammen: 1,442,318)_








_Notes: There's something strange about the satellite imagery in this area which makes the map look blury, quite unfortunate. The Circles I refer to in the population stats are from here: Click. The reason I've chosen to exclude the outer circle is because of how sparse the development is in the area, and essentially is not part of the city. _


----------



## spotila

*The next maps are up to you!*

Ok guys, in the run up to some more maps this weekend, I'm running a little competition of sorts. 

*Here's what you do: *
- Pick any 3 (or 2 if you like) cities that have _already been posted_ (from the list below). 
- The winners will have their chosen cities created in one of the yellow comparison maps you guys enjoy so much. 
- There will be *three* yellow maps created, and any requests posted before midnight Thursday (GMT+0) will be eligible. 
- Winners will be chosen at random. Posts are taken from both SSC and SSP, and please only one per person 

Pick away!

Anchorage, Atlanta, Auckland, Belfast, Birmingham, Brasília, Brisbane-Gold Coast, Buenos Aires, Buffalo, Cairns, Calgary, Cape Town, Caracas, Casablanca, Charlotte, Chicago, Copenhagen-Malmö, Dallas-Fort Worth, Denver, Detroit, Dublin, Durban, Edmonton, Golden Horseshoe, Hamburg, Havana, Houston, Indianapolis, Karachi, Kinshasa-Brazzaville, Kuwait, La Paz, Las Vegas, Lausanne-Geneva, London, Los Angeles, Madrid, Manila, Melbourne, Miami, Milwaukee, Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Montreal, Mumbai, New Orleans, Oslo, Ottawa, Paris, Pearl River Delta, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Port-au-Prince, Portland (OR), Quito, Randstad, Rhine-Ruhr, Riyadh, Rochester, Rome, Sacramento, Santiago, Santo Domingo, San Antonio, San Diego-Tijuana, San Francisco Bay Area, São Paulo, St. Louis, Sydney, Tallinn, Townsville, Tulsa, Tunis, Vancouver, Washington-Baltimore, Wellington, Winnipeg, Zurich


----------



## Yuri S Andrade

^^
Love these games! 

Chicago-Milwaukee, Detroit and Toronto


----------



## ManRegio

Chicago - Milwaukee, Los Angeles and Dallas - Forth Worth. 

Regards.


----------



## earthJoker

Zürich
Hamburg
Copenhagen


----------



## Jonesy55

Kinshasa-Brazzaville, Quito, Melbourne


----------



## Stupor Mundi

Vancouver, Buenos Aires, Cape Town.


----------



## spotila

Keep them comin lads. Just posting on the new page so no one misses out ~
___________

*The next maps are up to you!*

Ok guys, in the run up to some more maps this weekend, I'm running a little competition of sorts. 

*Here's what you do: *
- Pick any 3 (or 2 if you like) cities that have _already been posted_ (from the list below). 
- The winners will have their chosen cities created in one of the yellow comparison maps you guys enjoy so much. 
- There will be *three* yellow maps created, and any requests posted before midnight Thursday (GMT+0) will be eligible. 
- Winners will be chosen at random. Posts are taken from both SSC and SSP, and please only one per person 

Pick away!

Anchorage, Atlanta, Auckland, Belfast, Birmingham, Brasília, Brisbane-Gold Coast, Buenos Aires, Buffalo, Cairns, Calgary, Cape Town, Caracas, Casablanca, Charlotte, Chicago, Copenhagen-Malmö, Dallas-Fort Worth, Denver, Detroit, Dublin, Durban, Edmonton, Golden Horseshoe, Hamburg, Havana, Houston, Indianapolis, Karachi, Kinshasa-Brazzaville, Kuwait, La Paz, Las Vegas, Lausanne-Geneva, London, Los Angeles, Madrid, Manila, Melbourne, Miami, Milwaukee, Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Montreal, Mumbai, New Orleans, Oslo, Ottawa, Paris, Pearl River Delta, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Port-au-Prince, Portland (OR), Quito, Randstad, Rhine-Ruhr, Riyadh, Rochester, Rome, Sacramento, Santiago, Santo Domingo, San Antonio, San Diego-Tijuana, San Francisco Bay Area, São Paulo, St. Louis, Sydney, Tallinn, Townsville, Tulsa, Tunis, Vancouver, Washington-Baltimore, Wellington, Winnipeg, Zurich


----------



## Spookvlieger

Rhine-Rurh, Pearl River Delta, Randstad


----------



## Zach759

New Orleans, St. Louis


----------



## DarkLite

Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo


----------



## Dimethyltryptamine

Brisbane-Gold Coast, Golden Horseshoe, Melbourne

Sort of similar in their conurbations.


----------



## eeee.

Zürich, Dublin, Rome


----------



## Federicoft

Paris, Randstad, Rome


----------



## hseugut

*obviously ..*

Paris, Buenos Aires, New York


----------



## oliver999

shanghai urban eara,where highrises reaches.photo by unknown person(only IP) http://tieba.baidu.com/p/1243547129?pid=14776396301&cid=0#14776396301
1563 square KM


----------



## oliver999

beijing 1268 square KMs,photo by unknown person(only IP) http://tieba.baidu.com/p/1243547129?pid=14776396301&cid=0#14776396301


----------



## oliver999

Guangzhou 700 square KMS,photo by unknown person(only IP) http://tieba.baidu.com/p/1243547129?pid=14776396301&cid=0#14776396301


----------



## oliver999

shenzhen 661 ,photo by unknown person(only IP) http://tieba.baidu.com/p/1243547129?pid=14776396301&cid=0#14776396301


----------



## spotila

hseugut said:


> Paris, Buenos Aires, New York


Ah I don't think you read the instructions :lol:. Only cities from the list above are eligible (i.e. not New York, yet )

Oliver999 - please provide links rather than images (as requested in my opening post ) - also Guangzhou and Shenzhen I've already done (see Pearl River Delta map)


----------



## megacity30

*Pearl River Delta, Sao Paulo, Manila*


----------



## oliver999

spotila said:


> Ah I don't think you read the instructions :lol:. Only cities from the list above are eligible (i.e. not New York, yet )
> 
> Oliver999 - please provide links rather than images (as requested in my opening post ) - also Guangzhou and Shenzhen I've already done (see Pearl River Delta map)


thanks for reminder,it's done. waitting for your pic


----------



## spotila

Last chance to put in a reqest gentlemen, just over 5 hours before the winners are chosen


----------



## Harry_Harry

Rome, Paris, Los Angeles


----------



## spotila

Okie dokie lads,* the winners have been chosen* by assigning all eligible posts a number, and using a random number generator to pick the winners.

Stay tuned later today for the winners, and the maps!


----------



## Spookvlieger

:banana:


----------



## spotila

Alrighty, our first winner, the honorary *ManRegio* from SSC, with a map of his choice below~
Remember, all yellow maps are of identical scale










Stay tuned for the second and third winners


----------



## Spookvlieger

delete


----------



## oliver999

if you want to view chinese city ,suggest you use "sogou" map, more clear,more lately,compair:
the Bund
google earth:








sogou map


----------



## Spookvlieger

^^Thanks for the advice


----------



## ManRegio

Thanks Spotila. I had the feeling that I was gonna win. . 

Chicago seems much more sprawled than LA who might be the densest american city. On the other hand, Dallas FW is the clear image of Southeastern american super sprawled city. 

Regards.


----------



## spotila

Time for our second winner
This time victory goes to *Streamliner* from SSP for his Pacific Rim Cities choice










Third and final winner coming up


----------



## Bronxwood

Manila is incredibly small! How can a city with that population fit in so many people in such a small area? Is that even healthy?

I missed the deadline but it would have been interesting to see pearl river delta alongside LA and Chicago rather than Dallas-Forth worth.


----------



## spotila

And lastly, time for winner number three
The lucky winner is *Harry_Harry* from SSC, enjoy your map Sir.










Thanks to everyone who entered, had quite a few requests in the end. If you didn't win don't worry, I will be doing more yellow maps soon and using everyones choices as a guide.

As I said a few days back, stay tuned for more big maps coming up.


----------



## city_thing

^^ LOL at how big LA is compared to Rome and Paris. It's absolutely huge!


----------



## Metro007

Bronxwood said:


> Manila is incredibly small! How can a city with that population fit in so many people in such a small area? Is that even healthy?


I'm not sure about that. Manila isn't much smaller than Paris. There are american cities that are just huge ;-)


----------



## aaabbbccc

Bronxwood said:


> Manila is incredibly small! How can a city with that population fit in so many people in such a small area? Is that even healthy?
> 
> I missed the deadline but it would have been interesting to see pearl river delta alongside LA and Chicago rather than Dallas-Forth worth.


I have seen worst , try Cairo , I have been there , people are everywhere like a can of sardines in fact worst than that , it is amazing the number of people you can fit in a small area


----------



## Metro007

aaabbbccc said:


> I have seen worst , try Cairo , I have been there , people are everywhere like a can of sardines in fact worst than that , it is amazing the number of people you can fit in a small area


Yes and another example: Hong Kong !


----------



## ManRegio

spotila.. I have one question. ¿Have you ever made a map of Los Angeles and San Diego?. They seem to be almost integrated just like Chicago - Milwaukee or How far are they?

Regards.


----------



## Harry_Harry

Thanks a lot, Spotila!


----------



## Dralcoffin

ManRegio said:


> spotila.. I have one question. ¿Have you ever made a map of Los Angeles and San Diego?. They seem to be almost integrated just like Chicago - Milwaukee or How far are they?
> 
> Regards.


A Marine base, Camp Pendleton, takes up about 15 miles/25 kilometers of land between the edges of the two cities' sprawl. 

You can see the gap well on Google Maps


----------



## NickABQ

Spotila! 

I've been silently following this thread since the beginning, great work mate!

I have a couple requests if you ever get to them, I'm patient.

Would love to see the Gauteng Mega region. From Soshanguve in the north and Deneysville in the south, from Etwatwa in the east to Westonaria and Carltonville in the west!

Also the metro Albuquerque region, from Belen in the south to Bernalillo in the north, Edgewood in the east to Laguna in the west. Som parts are lowish density, but still would be interesting. Or combined with Santa Fe-Espanola-Los Alamos for a CSA. 

Also question, it seems that some parts of Durbans suburbs would be massively difficult, I tried something similar myself once and got supremely frustrated because of the spatial settlement pattern of places like Cele and Iqadi. Did you feel like these places weren't urban enough? They're tough for sure!

Great job and cheers!


----------



## dars-dm

When are you going to create Moscow map?


----------



## spotila

ManRegio said:


> spotila.. I have one question. Have you ever made a map of Los Angeles and San Diego?


I haven't, but I can. Stay tuned.



NickABQ said:


> Would love to see the Gauteng Mega region.
> 
> Also the metro Albuquerque region


Both are on the list to do, stick around and you will see them 



NickABQ said:


> Also question, it seems that some parts of Durbans suburbs would be massively difficult, I tried something similar myself once and got supremely frustrated because of the spatial settlement pattern of places like Cele and Iqadi. Did you feel like these places weren't urban enough? They're tough for sure!
> 
> Great job and cheers!


Yea you're not wrong - some areas around Durban were some of the hardest I've had to deal with. It's difficult, but spend enough time and you'll generally get a good result. It becomes very hard to tell what is, by definition, urban, so sometimes best guess is the only option.



dars-dm said:


> When are you going to create Moscow map?


Moscow is well on the way, it's much larger and more fragmented than I initially thought. Coming though, baby steps.


----------



## Xpressway

spotila said:


> Moscow is well on the way, it's much larger and more fragmented than I initially thought. Coming though, baby steps.


Can't wait for this!


----------



## spxy2

city_thing said:


> ^^ LOL at how big LA is compared to Rome and Paris. It's absolutely huge!


er the yellow Paris area is mostly actual city while LA is mostly suburban, not the same thing, but of course coloured the same way on these maps...for whatever reason


----------



## Federicoft

These maps show the built-up areas in each city. They are consistent with each other and they are useful for a comparision. Nobody's saying urbanization patterns and density are the same throughout the world.


----------



## spxy2

Federicoft said:


> These maps show the built-up areas in each city. They are consistent with each other and they are useful for a comparision. Nobody's saying urbanization patterns and density are the same throughout the world.


yes but thats how viewers tend to interpret them.

Also as I said before this style of maps favours evenly spread out less dense suburban areas and doesn't represent denser broken up areas very well.

They are not consistent there is a lot missing on that paris map for example...the whole area around it is populated by towns and villages, which are often not shown, while in the LA area as soon as you leave the suburbs there is almost nothing there...also using google maps the Paris one is slightly too small by about 10%....


----------



## Dralcoffin

spxy2 said:


> yes but thats how viewers tend to interpret them.
> 
> Also as I said before this style of maps favours evenly spread out less dense suburban areas and doesn't represent denser broken up areas very well.
> 
> They are not consistent there is a lot missing on that paris map for example...the whole area around it is populated by towns and villages, which are often not shown, while in the LA area as soon as you leave the suburbs there is almost nothing there...also using google maps the Paris one is slightly too small by about 10%....


Then feel free to make your own shading. If Spotila took the care to differentiate specific levels of density, the Los Angeles megasprawl would have taken a year to complete.


----------



## Blackpool88

I think everybody knows that the maps don't represent density, maybe some sort of GIS map showing colour-coded density would serve this purpose better but give Spotila a break these maps are really interesting and time-consuming to make and he's only doing it for our enjoyment. They aren't bullet proof but they are really really impressive. Keep up the good work!


----------



## Sarcasticity

Metro007 said:


> I'm not sure about that. Manila isn't much smaller than Paris. There are american cities that are just huge ;-)


But Manila is much smaller than Paris. Manila is really a small city. But people confuse Metro Manila, which many people call it, with Manila the city itself.


----------



## eeee.

*Urban agglomeration density (/km2)*
(random examples, source: Wikipedia, citypopulation.de)

Dacca	14609
Jakarta	3830
Paris	3640
Lima	3009
Cairo	3000
Taipei	2884
Tokyo	2629
São Paulo	2503
Mexico City	2461
Rome	1850
Bogotá	1824
Rio de Janeiro	1808
Vienna	1744
Bangkok	1569
Guangzhou	1370
Berlin	1305
Puebla	1293
The Ruhr	1167
Hamburg	1163
Frankfurt	1121
Zurich	1105
Budapest	1101
Pretoria	1079
Toronto	991
Montreal	922
Vancouver	852
Xi'an	824
New York	777
Shenyang	554
Chicago	444
Philadelphia	426
Miami	426
Sydney	385
Boston	381
Cleveland	368
Washington	357
San Francisco	331
San Diego	290
Houston	266
Dallas	261
Atlanta	249
Orlando	213
Los Angeles	206
Seattle	182
Minneapolis	174
Pittsburgh	172
New Orleans	146
Denver	93
Fresno	53


----------



## Stupor Mundi

Milan: 7,351 / km2.


----------



## eeee.

Stupor Mundi said:


> Milan: 7,351 / km2.


No, 2095.


----------



## Stupor Mundi

eeee. said:


> No, 2095.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milan (the right box)

Perhaps you're right if you talk about the metropolitan area.


----------



## eeee.

Probably I do...


----------



## Yuri S Andrade

spxy2 said:


> er the yellow Paris area is mostly actual city while LA is mostly suburban, not the same thing, but of course coloured the same way on these maps...for whatever reason


Oh my God! Not this again...


----------



## spotila

I have visions of spxy writing to Rand McNally and telling them the shading of metro areas on their maps don't show variations in density :lol:
_____________

Time for a couple more maps don't you think?

*Communauté métropolitaine de Québec, QC*
City Population: 491,142
Communauté métropolitaine de Québec Population: 715,515








_Notes: There are tiny parts of the metro community of Quebec outside the boundaries of this map, but they are little more than hamlets, some quite a distance from the city._

*Greater Athens, Greece*
City Population: 655,780
Greater Athens Population: 3,074,160
Athens Larger Urban Zone Population: 4,013,368


----------



## woutero

Great maps again. Would be interesting to compare Athens to other European cities. It looks a bit a-typical for a European city. Not as 'scattered' as most European cities, and it looks pretty dense.


----------



## Spookvlieger

^^Athens is a constant sprawl of white appartment blocks of lets say between 5-15 stories high. When I see areals of the city i'm always amazed!

for nice pics: http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=198896


----------



## spotila

Plus a little gift for the Canadians among us.


----------



## Isek

joshsam said:


> ^^Athens is a constant sprawl of white appartment blocks of lets say between 5-15 stories high.


15 stories are quite rare in Athens! I think the majority of buildings that cover the area has 3 to 5 stories (still insane!) while Athens and its adjacent cites have a massive cores with buildings mainly in between 8 and 10 sometimes 12 stories.


----------



## spotila

Just a single mega-map today, one that has been requested a few times, the home of the 'Northerners'.

*Liverpool-Greater Manchester-West Yorkshire-Sheffield Conurbation*
Greater Manchester Urban Area Population: 2,629,400
Liverpool Urban Area Population: 816,216
West Yorkshire Urban Area Population(Leeds/Bradford): 1,499,465 
Sheffield Urban Area Population: 640,720
Blackpool Urban Area Population: 261,088
North West England Agglomeration Population: ~7,478,000








_Notes: Most of the population figures are based on the 2001 census. Any update figures would be appreciated.
For the Agglomeration population I used the following urban areas combined: 
Greater Manchester Urban Area, Liverpool Urban Area, West Yorkshire Urban Area, Sheffield Urban Area, Birkenhead Urban Area, Preston Urban Area, Blackpool Urban Area, Wigan Urban Area, Warrington Urban Area, Burnley/Nelson, Blackburn/Darwen, Southport/Formby_


----------



## Spookvlieger

^^Great work spotila!


----------



## Blackpool88

Wow great map! Really interesting how the River Mersey floodplain cuts a huge swathe through the urban fabric of South Manchester.


----------



## spotila

It's been a while, but new maps are here.
Next up, two of the most important cities in the history of human civilization.

*Baghdad, Iraq*
Metropolitan Area Population: 7,216,040









*Istanbul, Turkey*
City Population: 8,803,468
Metro Population: 13,255,685








_Notes: The metro population above is referencing Istanbul Province Here, which includes a lot of rural areas to the west. There is also a small portion of the urban area (Gebze) technically not part of Istanbul Province, thus the stated population may be lower than it should._


----------



## Spookvlieger

Great Baghdad map! Didn't notice it was so circular before. 

Btw both istandbul and baghdad, that a small place for 8 million people to live in!


----------



## Metro007

megacity30 said:


> We really shouldn't go beyond Belgium because there are international borders there that restrict daily commuting. For example, could an Italian or South Asian foreign worker, or even a Belgian commute daily between the Netherlands and Brussel without being stopped or checked for documents?


Yes he can! Never heard about the european community? ;-)


----------



## kevi

megacity30 said:


> Am afraid your logic is flawed.
> Spotila's urban area maps are accurate but not complete in a a real sense for both London and Chicago. However, please don't take my word for it- let's examine them both objectively:
> 
> Both maps do show the official metropolitan areas of London and Chicago as follows-
> 
> I.
> 
> (Reference: http://www.demographia.com/dm-lonarea.htm)
> 
> London (as per 2001 Census) contained *13.945 million people in an area of 6279 sq miles (overall density: 2221 people / sq mile)!*
> 
> (Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago)
> 
> Chicago (as per 2010 Census) contains *9.461 million people in an area of 10,874 sq miles (overall density: 870 people / sq mile!*
> 
> Also, there is an interesting thread in this forum on "weighted density of metropolitan / urban areas" which means the actual population density people live at when dividing the official area into census tracts. While most of Chicago's wouldn't change much (as the majority experience very low density), London's would increase nearly three-fold, making it
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *five times denser (using weighted density) than Chicago*.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> At the same time, residential and commercial establishments are spread out substantially more in Chicago than in London; i.e. the suburban sprawl of Chicago extends over considerably more area than the much denser urban area of London surrounded by dense peppering of urban areas.
> 
> The dense peppering of urban areas around London's urban core has, therefore, substantially higher overall (and weighted) population density than Chicago's low-density continuous sprawl.
> 
> 
> II.
> Ok, that being said, the main problem we have here is the actual metropolitan areas of Chicago and London today are larger than their official ones (please refer to my thread
> http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=1448974).
> 
> I believe the actual metropolitan areas should be used for comparisons rather than the official ones.
> 
> The actual London metropolitan area today is shown in the satellite image below, *containing 21.1 million people (as per 2001 Census) in 16,100 sq miles (density: 1311 people / sq mile)* covering all of Southeast England and a part of East England):
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If Spotila were to map the complete metropolitan area of London, we would find the
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *urban area map for London is much larger than Chicago's urban area map.*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> III.
> Keeping this in perspective, even if we consider the Chicago metropolitan area has now merged with the Milwaukee metropolitan area, not officially, but looking at the suburban contiguity and commuter links, we add another 500 sq miles. *The Chicago - Milwaukee metropolitan area* would still contain (as per 2010 Census) *11.2 million people in an area of 11,400 sq miles (density: 983 people / sq mile).*
> 
> *The actual London metropolitan area is 4600 sq miles larger than the Chicago - Milwaukee metropolitan area and still considerably more dense!!*


OK got it. London is 5 times more dense than Chicago and it's urban area footprint is larger as well.

For a while there I was sure American cities would win the Urban Area Showcase contest - but of course, as usual, the Europeans are superior. Congratulations.


----------



## megacity30

kevi said:


> OK got it. London is 5 times more dense than Chicago and it's urban area footprint is larger as well.
> 
> For a while there I was sure American cities would win the Urban Area Showcase contest - but of course, as usual, the Europeans are superior. Congratulations.


Appreciate your feedback, Kevi, but I must confess your logic confuses me.

When did a larger urban area footprint translate into being superior? 

With London's massive green belt included and a metropolitan population nearly twice Chicago - Milwaukee's, it's no wonder we see London has a larger urban area footprint.

Try comparing metropolitan areas with similar population instead.

Both Greater Los Angeles - San Diego and the London commuter belt contain about 21 million people.

Urban Area Footprint

The London Commuter Belt (including its massive green belt): *16,100 sq miles*

Greater Los Angeles - San Diego(including its expansive mountain range and the sparsely-populated eastern portion of Riverside and San Bernardino Counties): *38,479 sq miles*


----------



## Scraper Enthusiast

How about an Atlanta overlaid with Dallas-Fort Worth?

How about an Atlanta overlaid with Houston?

How about an Atlanta overlaid with Denver?

It'd also be interesting to see Atlanta & Seattle/Tacoma/Olympia.

Thanks


----------



## chicagogeorge

Trying to use a common standard between world metro areas is difficult. Density levels will almost always be much lower here in the US than in say Europe (minus Russia) since we have much more open land to devour.




megacity30 said:


> Keeping this in perspective, even if we consider the Chicago metropolitan area has now merged with the Milwaukee metropolitan area, not officially, but looking at the suburban contiguity and commuter links, we add another 500 sq miles. *The Chicago - Milwaukee metropolitan area* would still contain (as per 2010 Census) *11.2 million people in an area of 11,400 sq miles (density: 983 people / sq mile).*
> 
> *The actual London metropolitan area is 4600 sq miles larger than the Chicago - Milwaukee metropolitan area and still considerably more dense!!*



Chicago is continuously connected to Milwaukee via the lakeshore, but there is still about a 20-30 miles stretch of open space in western Kenosha and Racine Counties that separate the two metro areas. 


Here is an urbanized area map of the Chicago/Milwaukee region. 










_Officially_ we can't merge into a single CSA until our commuter patterns go up.. I predict 30 years.




megacity30 said:


> Both Greater Los Angeles - San Diego and the London commuter belt contain about 21 million people.
> 
> 
> Greater Los Angeles - San Diego(including its expansive mountain range and the sparsely-populated eastern portion of Riverside and San Bernardino Counties): *38,479 sq miles*



The L.A. region will not be able to merge with the San Diego region because of the military base that separates the two, and some of the mountains to the east of the base which are protected from development. I will say that the L.A. sprawl monster is trying really hard to make that happen.


----------



## megacity30

chicagogeorge said:


> Trying to use a common standard between world metro areas is difficult. Density levels will almost always be much lower here in the US than in say Europe (minus Russia) since we have much more open land to devour.
> Chicago is continuously connected to Milwaukee via the lakeshore, but there is still about a 20-30 miles stretch of open space in western Kenosha and Racine Counties that separate the two metro areas.
> Here is an urbanized area map of the Chicago/Milwaukee region.
> _Officially_ we can't merge into a single CSA until our commuter patterns go up.. I predict 30 years.
> The L.A. region will not be able to merge with the San Diego region because of the military base that separates the two, and some of the mountains to the east of the base which are protected from development. I will say that the L.A. sprawl monster is trying really hard to make that happen.


"More open land to devour" cannot be a reason to have the world's most sparsely populated metropolitan areas in the USA.

China, Russia and Canada have more open land to devour, but contain much denser metropolitan areas. 
Climate could be one reason and not "more land to devour"- it is more efficient to have higher density in cold climate due to hydro (electricity) costs, commute costs (clearing snow off highways, daily commute time wasted due to wintry conditions, waiting for public transit etc). 
You can see this trend even within the USA- generally, cities in northern USA are denser than those in the southern parts. This is observed across all population ranges, ranging from small dense towns in New England to New York City (including rbanized regions of New Jersey).

We already have suburban contiguity between Chicago - Kenosha CSA and Milwaukee - Racine MSA, along Highway-32 and University of Wisconsin - Parkside campus. Please zoom in satellite view to discover this.

In the following thread, we've attempted to create a global standardized definition for metropolitan areas / urban areas; the suburban contiguity combined with unrestricted inter-commuting is sufficient to render Chicago-Milwaukee a single metropolitan area.

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=1448974

Similarly, if all that separates the built-up sprawl of Los Angeles area (San Clemente in this case) and the San Diego area (Oceanside in this case) is Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton (where no further development is allowed in any case), both areas are completely contiguous.

Also, the LA CSA is contiguous with the SD MSA along a second route as well. Fallbrook and Vista (in the San Diego urban area) are contiguous with Rainbow and Temecula. Temecula, for instance, is in Riverside County and is already a part of the official LA CSA.
So there leaves no room for doubt that we have a Los Angeles - San Diego Metropolitan Area.


----------



## memph

Metropolitan area and Urban area aren't the same though, even if LA and San Diego have contiguous urbanized land, metropolitan areas are based on commuting patterns, so you can have more than one metropolitan area within a single urban area. I also wouldn't say that cities in the Southern USA are less dense than those in the Northern USA.

In Europe, the Southern cities in countries like Spain, Italy and Greece are quite dense while those of Germany, England and Scandivania are not so dense.


----------



## megacity30

memph said:


> Metropolitan area and Urban area aren't the same though, even if LA and San Diego have contiguous urbanized land, metropolitan areas are based on commuting patterns, so you can have more than one metropolitan area within a single urban area.


Yes, metropolitan area is not equal to urban area.
So do we agree, then, that LA CSA - San Diego CSA is one contiguous urban area now? 

That's why I'd call it a hyper-city: an urban area containing over 20 million people.




> I also wouldn't say that cities in the Southern USA are less dense than those in the Northern USA.
> In Europe, the Southern cities in countries like Spain, Italy and Greece are quite dense while those of Germany, England and Scandivania are not so dense.


True, I wouldn't generalize, but it is more usually the case in the USA. Europe is quite different, and it's like comparing apples to oranges.
How would you explain that the world's most sparsely populated metropolitan areas are usually located in the USA?


----------



## memph

Frankly I don't know whether I would consider SD and LA one urban area... Would there be contiguous development between SD and LA if Pendleton didn't block development? I'm not familiar enough to tell but for instance I wouldn't consider Naples-Fort Myers and Miami a single urban area just because the everglades are in the way.

As for density, by either average land density or weighted by population, the densest urban areas in the USA are in the NE, SW and Chicago:
http://www.austincontrarian.com/austincontrarian/2008/03/weighted-densit.html

The least dense are in the SE (minus Miami, incl Texas) and Midwest (minus Chicago).

As for why the USA has the least dense cities, I would say it's partly government policy decisions, partly the fact that they grew a lot in the automobile era, partly that the USA is wealthy enough to afford sprawled out lifestyles and larger homes.


----------



## megacity30

memph said:


> Frankly I don't know whether I would consider SD and LA one urban area... Would there be contiguous development between SD and LA if Pendleton didn't block development? I'm not familiar enough to tell but for instance I wouldn't consider Naples-Fort Myers and Miami a single urban area just because the everglades are in the way.


:lol: I like your sense of humor here.

However, the LA CSA is contiguous with the SD MSA along a second route as well. Fallbrook and Vista (in the San Diego urban area) are contiguous with Rainbow and Temecula. Temecula, for instance, is in Riverside County and is already a part of the official LA CSA.

Oh, and on a global scale, many countries do regard adjoining military installations / cantonments as a part of their metropolitan area.
A globally standardized definition should consider likewise.



> As for density, by either average land density or weighted by population, the densest urban areas in the USA are in the NE, SW and Chicago:
> http://www.austincontrarian.com/austincontrarian/2008/03/weighted-densit.html
> 
> The least dense are in the SE (minus Miami, incl Texas) and Midwest (minus Chicago).
> 
> As for why the USA has the least dense cities, I would say it's partly government policy decisions, partly the fact that they grew a lot in the automobile era, partly that the USA is wealthy enough to afford sprawled out lifestyles and larger homes.


That's well-researched; I got to agree you convinced me on this particular point.
This would explain the sparsely populated metropolitan areas in the US.

Wouldn't you agree, though, that climate has something to do as well? As an example, Canada's cities and even their suburbs are far denser than most US metropolitan areas even though they are equally wealthy. Or do we subject Government policy as being the sole reason for this? Hard to believe that though...


----------



## staff

memph said:


> partly that the USA is wealthy enough to afford sprawled out lifestyles and larger homes.


I don't see the connection between sprawl and wealth (with the possible exception of developing countries where the rich tend to want to live in mansions secluded from the crowded, dirty and often poor dense areas. In some of the most wealthy and developed places on earth it is more desirable to live in central downtown locations in apartments rather than in the sprawl-burbs.

I would rather say that rather than wealth, the reason for most (close to all) US families living in the suburbs is that many of the downtowns and their surroundings are crime-ridden and downright dangerous places to raise a family. This is of course a situation created by government policy in the first place, so it might go under your first point. The wealth=suburbs connection is a dated one, more applicable to the mid-1900s when the situation in the US (and many other Western countries) was more similar to now-developing nations.


----------



## chicagogeorge

megacity30 said:


> "More open land to devour" cannot be a reason to have the world's most sparsely populated metropolitan areas in the USA.
> 
> China, Russia and Canada have more open land to devour, but contain much denser metropolitan areas.
> Climate could be one reason and not "more land to devour"- it is more efficient to have higher density in cold climate due to hydro (electricity) costs, commute costs (clearing snow off highways, daily commute time wasted due to wintry conditions, waiting for public transit etc).



China has 1.3 billion people, and arable land is not a luxury that they can afford losing to development, still I'm sure the suburbs of Beijing or Shanghai are less dense then the central city. I would be interested in seeing the density levels in Moscow's suburbs today.

As far as I know, Canadian cities and metro areas are not _that_ different than those in the US. Los Angeles is as dense as Toronto in it's urbanized area, NYC, San Fran, Chicago have higher density levels within their city limits.

The two urban areas have almost identical population densities, at 7068 and 7040 persons per square mile respectively (2,729 and 2,718 per square kilometer). 
























> You can see this trend even within the USA- generally, cities in northern USA are denser than those in the southern parts. This is observed across all population ranges, ranging from small dense towns in New England to New York City (including rbanized regions of New Jersey).


This might more to do with when the cities began to grow instead of climate. Northern cities had a lot of their growth pre automobile so density levels at their core are high. Cities in the south have grown post 1950's and also, land annexation is more open policy in southern cities which is why Houston, Phoenix, and Atlanta have city limits much larger than say Chicago or Detroit, and even NYC is small in comparison.

The usage of "urbanized areas" is my favorite method to gauge how large a city is. A metropolitan area includes not only the urban area, but also satellite cities plus intervening rural land that is socio-economically connected to the urban core city.













> We already have suburban contiguity between Chicago - Kenosha CSA and Milwaukee - Racine MSA, along Highway-32 and University of Wisconsin - Parkside campus. Please zoom in satellite view to discover this.
> 
> In the following thread, we've attempted to create a global standardized definition for metropolitan areas / urban areas; the suburban contiguity combined with unrestricted inter-commuting is sufficient to render Chicago-Milwaukee a single metropolitan area.
> 
> http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=1448974
> 
> Similarly, if all that separates the built-up sprawl of Los Angeles area (San Clemente in this case) and the San Diego area (Oceanside in this case) is Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton (where no further development is allowed in any case), both areas are completely contiguous.
> 
> Also, the LA CSA is contiguous with the SD MSA along a second route as well. Fallbrook and Vista (in the San Diego urban area) are contiguous with Rainbow and Temecula. Temecula, for instance, is in Riverside County and is already a part of the official LA CSA.
> So there leaves no room for doubt that we have a Los Angeles - San Diego Metropolitan Area.



I see your point for both examples, Chicago/Milwaukee and LA/San Diego are contiguous, but I'm still inclined to believe that the area between Kenosha and Racine for Chicago/Milwaukee, and the area to the east of Camp Pendleton between LA and San Diego are too sparsely populated to be considered a "metro" area at this time. Furthermore, the term metropolitan implies that the two cities are also inter-connected with each other by employment or other commerce. 





















I don't think a strong case can be made for either regions just yet. We may have Chicago-Milwaukee and LA-San Diego urbanized area by definition in a few years, and with the same measurement NYC and Philadelphia are also urbanized. 

In fact, the Northeast Corridor is pretty much urbanized from Boston down to D.C. There are over 45 million people living on 15,000 sq. mi. of mostly urbanized land


----------



## Nexis

its 55 Million not 45 Million...


----------



## the spliff fairy

chicagogeorge said:


> China has 1.3 billion people, and arable land is not a luxury that they can afford losing to development, still I'm sure the suburbs of Beijing or Shanghai are less dense then the central city.


Actually the suburbs of those cities are where all the newcomers are housed in stacks and stacks of new highrises. Beijing has a historic lowrise centre and progressively denser, taller and more modern rings radiating out from there, Shanghai has a skyscraper centre and very dense rings again.

green, lowrise centre in the foreground, gets progressively denser the further you get out:










check out the horizon:











Shanghai: 

Highrise centre, highrise suburbs:


----------



## chicagogeorge

^^

Nice pictures. I understand that in many urban areas around the world slums and high density low income areas are located outside the city center, but I assumed that there were low density suburbs (maybe well to do).


I also thought this read was interesting:



> *HOW CHINA’S MEGACITIES HAVE AVOIDED PROBLEMS OF OTHER DEVELOPING CITIES*
> 
> by Adam Mayer 04/30/2011
> 
> Urbanist media can’t seem to get enough of the megacity these days. Much of the commentary surrounding this topic is disconcertingly celebratory about these leviathans despite such phenomena as overcrowding, high levels of congestion and sprawling slums.
> 
> Yet absent from most of the commentary is any mention of cities in China. This is perhaps due in large part to the lack of serious social problems in comparison to its developing city counterparts in other countries. If a megacity is defined as a city with a population of more than 10 million, then China is home to 5 megacities: Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Dongguan. As the country continues to urbanize, more Chinese cities are bound to join the ranks of these megacities.
> 
> How has China been able to avoid the pitfalls facing other developing megacities? No one is denying that Chinese cities don’t have problems including unequal income distribution, pollution and growing traffic congestion. Yet China’s megacities seem to have largely avoided social dangers such as violent crime, disease and slum proliferation that plague urban areas of other developing countries.
> 
> How have China’s cities avoided these issues?
> 
> *1. Construction of New Housing Units*
> 
> Western media continues to bawl over the amount of new residential construction in China, calling it the ”biggest bubble ever.” I have pointed out before how this might be an overestimation of the problem and that the housing market is actually more stable than many think. One thing is clear: the ample construction of new housing units in cities across China remains the essential component leading the way in the country’s development. The ability to provide modern accommodations for millions of aspiring urban dwellers has also directly prevented the proliferation of slums and large-scale shantytowns.
> 
> *2. Development of Public Transportation*
> 
> The ability to move efficiently through an urban area is paramount to opportunity and quality of life. When one thinks of megacities such as Jakarta or Mexico City, automobile gridlock often comes to mind. Beijing might have its traffic problems as well, but China’s development of public transportation, including extensive underground subway networks, ensures citizens will have other options to move around besides motor vehicles. The more connected by different forms of a transportation a city is, the more opportunity people have to live where they want and have access to a wider geographic range of job options.
> 
> *3. Land-Use and Zoning Flexibility*
> 
> The often-overlooked reality of zoning and land-use regulations plays a much greater role in the shaping the character of megacities then it is given credit for. Mumbai’s draconian 1.33 floor-to-area ratio (FAR) throughout most of the city means that it is limited to construction of low-rise buildings,leading to the growth of overcrowded sprawling slums. Chinese cities, in contrast, allow for high FAR, promoting construction of high-rise buildings that leave room for ample green space.
> 
> Furthermore, Chinese cities are not limited by ”urban growth boundaries” and allow development to occur on newly annexed land outside of traditional urban cores. Even traditionally ”dense” cities like Shanghai and Hong Kong allow for new development outside of their traditional centers: the Pudong New Area in Shanghai and the New Territories in Hong Kong are huge areas that are still largely underdeveloped when compared to their respective downtown areas.
> 
> Critically, these nominally suburban or even “exurban” expansions are not mere bedroom community; they are frequently attached to areas of intense commercial, industrial and technical development. In many cities, including Chengdu, where I reside, most of the new economic growth takes place in such communities.
> 
> *4. Providing Economic Incentives with Special Trade Zones*
> 
> As China enters its third decade of rapid development, competition is heating up between its cities for domestic and foreign investment. The winners will ultimately be cities that are most business friendly and offer incentives like tax breaks to companies looking to set up operations. Many of China’s cities have gone about this by establishing special ‘economic and trade zones’, usually outside of traditional urban cores. As a matter of fact, one of new China’s most economically successful cities, Shenzhen, largely started as a ‘Special Economic Zone’ (SEZ). Special economic and trade zones that are not actual cities, but part of a larger city, thrive because they usually built on more affordable land on urban peripheries, opening up more investment for construction of state-of-the-art manufacturing and R&D facilities.
> 
> *5. Willingness to Learn from Outside Experts*
> 
> When it comes to political issues at the Central Government level, it is clear that China does not want to be told how to run its country by outside diplomats and foreign policy experts. Yet at the municipal level, Chinese government and business leaders are earnestly open to listening to experts in planning and development from outside its borders. One only needs to take a look at the countless architecture and urban planning practices from the West, Singapore and even Taiwan who currently work in China. This open exchange of ideas taking place is what allows best practices to come to fruition.


http://www.newgeography.com/content...have-avoided-problems-other-developing-cities


----------



## spotila

Sorry I haven't posted any new maps in a while, been very busy and working on a separate project also. New maps coming soon though.

Also I much appreciate you guys keeping this discussion going, and also keeping it civil.


----------



## staff

chicagogeorge said:


> ^^
> 
> Nice pictures. I understand that in many urban areas around the world slums and high density low income areas are located outside the city center, but I assumed that there were low density suburbs (maybe well to do).


There are low(er) density detached housing in Shanghai, not necessarily on the very outskirts of the city though. However, from 2007 or so, low density developments are essentially banned in the Shanghai municipal due to the space constraints. I believe Regency Park in Pudong was the last one of these low-rise developments to be built.


----------



## NorthWesternGuy

OMG... Dhaka...


----------



## spotila

Finally a couple of *new maps!*

Up next, a curious international metropolitan area, and the 'Pearl of the Danube'.

*Calexico–Mexicali, CA / Mexico*
_Special thanks to NorthWesternGuy for this map (I made a few changes myself)_
Calexico City Population: 38,572
Mexicali City Population: 689,775
Calexico–Mexicali Metropolitan Area Population: ~1,000,000









*Budapest Metropolitan Area, Hungary*
Budapest City Population: 1,733,685
Budapest Metropolitan Area Population: 2,551,247
_Budapest Commuter Area Population: 3,274,284_


----------



## Metro007

Thanks Spotila for both cities! Very interesting.


----------



## kjetilab

Hebrewtext said:


> some 10 million live up to 1 hour drive time around Tel Aviv .


How can that be the case when there only lives 7.825 million (wikipedia) in the entire state of Israel?

Is the border crossings between Israel and Gaza/West Bank/Lebanon of such an nature that a 1 hour commute is realistic?


----------



## Metro007

Hebrewtext said:


> some 10 million live up to 1 hour drive time around Tel Aviv .


Very dense in that case! Like Randstad or Ruhr...


----------



## Metro007

Fitzrovian said:


> 3.3m is high. That must include Ashdod, Netanya and Modi'in which are in fact entirely separate cities (though the commute rates may still be quite high). A more realistic figure for the urban area would be 2.5m to 2.7m. That includes half a dozen 100K+ towns and another half a dozen 50k to 100K towns surrounding Tel Aviv. These are satellite towns more than "suburbs" and there is very high density maintained throught the urban area, as can be seen from the night shot.


Yes...But I can't judge it since i never was there. For "just" the "urban area" Wikpiedia says 1,2 Mio. And it's always difficult to know how the definition of the "metro area" is, since it seem to be a very dense area (so where to stop...). Whatever it's a city i would like to visit once, having heard nice things about it! ;-)


----------



## Jayplay

When does the long awaited NYC map arrive Spotila? 
Untill now, your maps are really awesome


----------



## Fitzrovian

Metro007 said:


> Yes...But I can't judge it since i never was there. For "just" the "urban area" Wikpiedia says 1,2 Mio. And it's always difficult to know how the definition of the "metro area" is, since it seem to be a very dense area (so where to stop...). Whatever it's a city i would like to visit once, having heard nice things about it! ;-)


1.2m is very restrictive. That must include only Tel Aviv District, leaving out several large towns (Rishon, Petah Tikva, etc.) with which there is urban contiguity.


----------



## Hebrewtext

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

the central and Tel Aviv districts counts some 3.2 million

one can add Ashdod and other towns of the southern district 
as more from the Jerusalem ,Haifa and Judea & Samaria districts. (the chart shows only Israeli pop. without Palestinian pop.)


----------



## Hebrewtext

kjetilab said:


> How can that be the case when there only lives 7.825 million (wikipedia) in the entire state of Israel?
> 
> Is the border crossings between Israel and Gaza/West Bank/Lebanon of such an nature that a 1 hour commute is realistic?


+4 million Palestinians

driving time from Gaza to TA is less than 1 hour. (and even less from the west bank).
today the border is closed (politics), but till some 15 years ago Palestinians did commute daily to work or to shop.


----------



## julesstoop

*Taken from ISS, by André Kuipers:*

Most of the Netherlands and Flanders, a considerable part of Rhein-Ruhr and the urbanised region around Lille in Northern France. I estimate that we're looking at the dwellings of somewhere around 30 million people in total on this picture. Especially 'weird' are the large greenhouse areas in the Netherlands (those overexposed bits near the middle). I estimate the scale of the picture to be about 300-350 km from the left edge to the right edge.


----------



## NorthWesternGuy

kjetilab said:


> How can that be the case when there only lives 7.825 million (wikipedia) in the entire state of Israel?


----------



## [email protected]

julesstoop said:


> *Taken from ISS, by André Kuipers:*
> 
> Most of the Netherlands and Flanders, a considerable part of Rhein-Ruhr and the urbanised region around Lille in Northern France. I estimate that we're looking at the dwellings of somewhere around around 30 million people in total on this picture. Especially 'weird' are the large greenhouse areas in the Netherlands (those overexposed bits near the middle). I estimate the scale of the picture to be about 300-350 km from the left edge to the right edge.
> 
> http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7031/6769497883_52be277d64_o.jpg


One can clearly see the difference in the type of urbanization between Belgium and the Netherlands. The border between West Flanders and Zeeland is striking, with ribbon development on the southern side and empty fields and well-defined cities on the northern side.


----------



## julesstoop

Indeed. I also get the impression that the metros of Antwerp and Brussels are actually similar in size. 

Somewhat to my surprise, dutch cities - besides having more well defined borders compared to their flemish counterparts - seem more poly-centric.


----------



## woutero

Last night André Kuipers took another picture of The Netherlands from the ISS. All of the country is covered, except the South of Limburg province.










Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/astro_andre/6805342995/


----------



## essenze

Now, that's a crowded country!


----------



## the spliff fairy

Blue Banana, largest, densest stretch of urbanity in the world


----------



## spotila

Finally some new maps for you guys.

Before we get to that however, I must ask the readers of this thread for a favour.

I am in desperate need of 3 or 4 *more contributors* to help create these maps. I can't offer you much other than being recognised for your efforts, but that's enough isn't it? There are so many cities to do, and quite frankly I don't have the time to dedicate myself like I would like.
If you are interested, drop me a PM, and any training required will be given.
Much appreciated to anyone who puts their hand up 

Anyway - on to the maps!

Up next, an update on an older map, and 'The City of Mountains'

*Las Vegas Valley, NV*
_Updated and with much greater accuracy than before_
City Population: 583,756
Metro Population: 1,951,269








_The older map if you want to see the progress: http://i.imgur.com/Ib3Cz.jpg_

*Greater Monterrey, Mexico*
_Thanks once again to NorthWesternGuy for providing this map _
City Population: 1,130,960
Metropolitan Area Population: 4,080,329


----------



## Hebrewtext

42-45 million pop.

Tel Aviv - Beirut ~200 km


Qairo -Beirut ~550 km , 120 million



Uploaded with ImageShack.us


----------



## spotila

Jayplay said:


> When does the long awaited NYC map arrive Spotila?
> Untill now, your maps are really awesome


Thanks 

Soon my friend, soon. The place is so freakin big.


----------



## SASH

Hebrewtext said:


> 42-45 million pop.
> 
> Tel Aviv - Beirut ~200 km
> 
> 
> Qairo -Beirut ~550 km , 120 million
> 
> 
> 
> Uploaded with ImageShack.us


You like to make everything bigger than it is. (By numbers)
You know what a really big thing is? So many people in your surroundings who hate each other and can't live with each other normaly!


----------



## Hebrewtext

SASH SCF said:


> You like to make everything bigger than it is. (By numbers)
> You know what a really big thing is? So many people in your surroundings who hate each other and can't live with each other normaly!


those are the figures face it.

who need peace? , we live the longest on earth.


----------



## ManRegio

spotila said:


> Finally some new maps for you guys.
> 
> Before we get to that however, I must ask the readers of this thread for a favour.
> 
> I am in desperate need of 3 or 4 *more contributors* to help create these maps. I can't offer you much other than being recognised for your efforts, but that's enough isn't it? There are so many cities to do, and quite frankly I don't have the time to dedicate myself like I would like.
> If you are interested, drop me a PM, and any training required will be given.
> Much appreciated to anyone who puts their hand up
> 
> Anyway - on to the maps!
> 
> Up next, an update on an older map, and 'The City of Mountains'
> 
> *Greater Monterrey, Mexico*
> _Thanks once again to NorthWesternGuy for providing this map _
> City Population: 1,130,960
> Metropolitan Area Population: 4,080,329


That's my city. Thanks Spotila. I tried to do it sometimes but it was very tricky because of the mountains and the urban spread through the south that lose density as it advances to Santiago and you never find a spot to decide where the city ends. The sam happens to the north and east, its very tricky I guess. 

Regards.


----------



## tim1807

^^ Good idea, I want to know too.


----------



## Metro007

joshsam said:


> This needs a bump. I want to try and make Brussels-Ghent-Antwerp. But I have no idea how to do the shading?


I have started Brussels more than 1 year ago and had to give it up because the density around Brussels is too high and urban areas never stop! That means it needs a lot of work. If you are interested i can send you the Google-Earth-File i already made, so that you can continue working on it.

Cheers
Metro


----------



## Spookvlieger

Metro007 said:


> I have started Brussels more than 1 year ago and had to give it up because the density around Brussels is too high and urban areas never stop! That means it needs a lot of work. If you are interested i can send you the Google-Earth-File i already made, so that you can continue working on it.
> 
> Cheers
> Metro


I would be very gratefull if you could send me the file!  I know the area is really hard and build up area's continue to across much of Belgium but I think I know where I can actually draw the line based on the knowledge I have of my own country 

Furthermore I'll be using natura viewer 2000 wich comes in really handy! Click on the layer: corine land cover. The map data dates back from 2006 but I think is still pretty accurate


----------



## Metro007

Hi Johsam

I will send you the file. Please write me a PM if i forget it (right now i can't send it...). It's a file for Google Earth.

Cheers
Metro


----------



## Spookvlieger

In the meanwhile I'm busy I found something. This map dates back form 1990. I can tell you allready there is more build up area now, I can also tell you that my map won't be as accurate as this one because It's just impossible to do all the line developments you see here. Though I'm doing my best and think I will be able to include 90% of them


----------



## Metro007

This density is just amazing!


----------



## Swede

Aaronj09 said:


> agreed, and I'd also like to see Stockholm


Try this thread: 
Nordic & Baltic urban map showcase


----------



## Spookvlieger

is that a copy thread of this one?


----------



## Swede

It is not. It is inspired by this one and tries to do a similar thing.


----------



## spotila

Hey all - still here, just a little something as a test I threw together

Kind of going for a false-colour type deal

You can see Sydney fits quite nicely into Port Phillip


----------



## Yuri S Andrade

Spotila is back! Looking forward to new maps.


----------



## null

East Asian Urban Centers @ Night (2013)

The YRD cities are getting incrediblely HUGE:


----------



## 009

nice typhoon there too lol


----------



## spotila

And northern India - few hundred million there I would say


----------



## lowenmeister

The strange thing is that the more heavily populated "eastern" half of northern India(Bihar,West Bengal,eastern Uttar pradesh) is much darker than the western part.


----------



## CNB30

Someone should do NEW YORK CITY!!!


----------



## I(L)WTC

Buenos Aires








http://eqmiyg.bay.livefilestore.com...j02XR7wtrNOqd08g/buenos-aires-argentina-p.jpg








http://k37.kn3.net/taringa/2/9/6/0/8/8/5/vampirosagrado/D21.jpg?7775








http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Aglomerado_Gran_Buenos_Aires.png


----------



## spotila

CNB30 said:


> Someone should do NEW YORK CITY!!!


I've done a lot of work on it. As you can imagine it's one of the, if not the largest metro areas on earth, so there is many hours needed to complete. 

I'm struggling to find time to invest in these maps, especially as there is little gain for me beyond showcasing them here, but it will be done eventually.


----------



## Blackpool88

spotila said:


> I've done a lot of work on it. As you can imagine it's one of the, if not the largest metro areas on earth, so there is many hours needed to complete.
> 
> I'm struggling to find time to invest in these maps, especially as there is little gain for me beyond showcasing them here, but it will be done eventually.


You should make a book about them, you can discuss density and population and trends over time - I'd buy it!


----------



## Absinte

Could you make a Rio de Janeiro area? Thank you


----------



## NOMAD€

GENIUS LOCI said:


> Visto che si postano immagini satellitari per fare confronti, _let's take a closer look_
> 
> *Milano*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *Roma*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *Napoli*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Facciamo anche un po' gli sboroni
> 
> *Parigi*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *Londra*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *N.B.*: le immagini postate sono tutte alla stessa scala


A really interesting comparison post by GENIUS LOCI.

Biggest italian urban/metropolitan areas plus Paris and London.

*All images are at the same scale*.


----------



## SirAce

As I was saying up here. No sense of humor in Milan


----------



## spaceworks

Please make a map of Jakarta, Indonesia.


----------



## GENIUS LOCI

I just wanted to post this aerial view of Milan, from city center looking North, to show how urban area looks like



by www.milanofoto.it


----------



## cooldog77

NOMAD€ said:


> A really interesting comparison post by GENIUS LOCI.
> 
> Biggest italian urban/metropolitan areas plus Paris and London.
> 
> *All images are at the same scale*.



...ed infatti MILANO rimane "paesotto" che finisce subito in campagna. Alta densita', ma piccola piccola. La piu' piccola.


----------



## cooldog77

Se si osa dire che Milano non e' la capitale del continente europeo e la piu' grande megalopoli mai costruita, vieni messo in galera e forse pure decapitato


----------



## nicko_viteh

Ma chè cosa dice?









:troll:


----------



## SirAce

Cooldog77 maybe you didn't notice but this is actually an international thread. 
I guess that using English language would be more appropriate


----------



## GENIUS LOCI

LOL


----------



## NOMAD€

:rofl:


----------



## GENIUS LOCI

Back on topic, I tried to make a map with Milan continuos built up area, the most accurate that I can

I arbitrarily limited the area NORTH and NW because the continuos urbanization doesn't allow to have a clear end

Here it is http://mapfrappe.com/index.html?show=37165


----------



## NOMAD€

GENIUS LOCI said:


> Back on topic, I tried to make a map with Milan continuos built up area, the most accurate that I can
> 
> I arbitrarily limited the area NORTH and NW because the continuos urbanization doesn't allow to have a clear end
> 
> Here it is http://mapfrappe.com/index.html?show=37165


Amazing job GL! kay:

I just would have included also some suburbs southwest which are almost contiguous, the Groane Park and its small suburbs around it and specially there are many other suburbs which should have been included north around Malpensa airport towards east but as you said the continuous urbanization has a tricky shape to be determined accurately.


----------



## Chrissib

cooldog77 said:


> ...ed infatti MILANO rimane "paesotto" che finisce subito in campagna. Alta densita', ma piccola piccola. La piu' piccola.


Come se dice in italiano "totally wrong"?


----------



## spotila

Hi everyone - sorry it's been so long and no new maps have been created. I haven't forgotten, and I know a lot of my older ones are outdated. 
It will happen, in time.

In the mean time, I've worked on something else for a little bit:

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=1898285


----------



## cooldog77

SirAce said:


> Cooldog77 maybe you didn't notice but this is actually an international thread.
> I guess that using English language would be more appropriate


Hey buddy. thanks for letting me know : )
It is much easier for me to write in English as it's my first language (I live in Hollywood but my parents are Italian).


----------



## cooldog77

NOMAD€ said:


> Amazing job GL! kay:
> 
> I just would have included also some suburbs southwest which are almost contiguous, the Groane Park and its small suburbs around it and specially there are many other suburbs which should have been included north around Malpensa airport towards east but as you said the continuous urbanization has a tricky shape to be determined accurately.


There is no continuous built-up area in Milan, as it's surrounded by green fields a few minutes away from the historic center of the city. It is rather a small town, but very practical (in a few square miles you can find almost everything).


----------



## cooldog77

NOMAD€ said:


> A really interesting comparison post by GENIUS LOCI.
> 
> Biggest italian urban/metropolitan areas plus Paris and London.
> 
> *All images are at the same scale*.


Let us see the reality of the urban constructed area according to Google Maps (Rome is actually even more built towards the sea neighborhoods). *There's no need for any more words as the images speak on their own:*


----------



## cooldog77

NOMAD€;130691993 said:


> Demographia is about Urban Areas (not Metropolitan Areas) as written everywhere when you open the link, and as the title of this thread hints.


You mean the URBAN area made up by a million other cities that are capitals of provinces in Italy? You mean 8,000,000 people that include residents of Switzerland? 
LOL. Now THAT makes sense ---- riiiiiight :cheers:
If that's Milan's urban area I am Santa Claus. They should rather call it the *Swiss-Lombardic-Venetian-Emilian Megalopolis* *; )*


----------



## GENIUS LOCI

Are you suggesting I designed a wrong map as continuous built up area in Milan stops way before I put it?

Show me exactly where, to make me focus with satellite pictures where I mistook and fix the map. Thank you


----------



## GENIUS LOCI

cooldog77 said:


> You mean the URBAN area made up by a million other cities that are capitals of provinces in Italy? You mean 8,000,000 people that include residents of Switzerland?
> LOL. Now THAT makes sense ---- riiiiiight :cheers:
> If that's Milan's urban area I am Santa Claus. They should rather call it the *Swiss-Lombardic-Venetian-Emilian Megalopolis* *; )*


Milan urban area is not 8 mio. That could be a wider metro area (even if Milan metro area proper is more between 6 and 7 mio IMO )

Urban area is about 4 mio 

I don't understand why you're that sarcastic, if Lombardy alone got more than 10 mio inhabitants. You probably should leave LA to go to check before stating such things, Santa


----------



## Dane1102

So is Santa coming to the town for real?


----------



## GENIUS LOCI

The (little) town is Milan apparently


----------



## cooldog77

GENIUS LOCI said:


> Milan urban area is not 8 mio. That could be a wider metro area (even if Milan metro area proper is more between 6 and 7 mio IMO )
> 
> Urban area is about 4 mio
> 
> I don't understand why you're that sarcastic, if Lombardy alone got more than 10 mio inhabitants. You probably should leave LA to go to check before stating such things, Santa


Hey buddy. I live in a city of 14 million people and I lived in small-town Milan for a year. I think I know just a bit more about this stuff than what you may think.
I gave you the maps, and it's as clear as day:
*A city of only 1.3 million people cannot be the center (and surely NOT THE ONLY center) of a metro area of 8 million people (and an urban area of 6-7 million).
*
I hope you're kidding, pal : )


----------



## GENIUS LOCI

Ok, guy. You're just trolling or can't read English


----------



## julesstoop

cooldog77 said:


> *A city of only 1.3 million people cannot be the center (and surely NOT THE ONLY center) of a metro area of 8 million people (and an urban area of 6-7 million).
> *


Why not? It's not particularly uncommon. A few examples: Washington D.C. has about 700.000 inhabitants (city proper) yet over 6 million in its metropolitan area. Paris: 2,2 million city proper, 10 million+ urban and 12 million+ metro.


----------



## Chrissib

Or Manila, 1.6 million inhabitants with well over 20 million in the metro area. Manila is even one of the rare cases having a suburb (Quezon city) that is larger than the core city.

One can argue though whether it's more appropriate to view all of Metro Manila as the city and only the municipalities outside that region as suburbs. Metro Manila has a surface of 639 km², roughly similar to NYC or the 23 wards of Tokyo.


----------



## NOMAD€

Or Santiago De Chile, Lima, Buenos Aires and so on.


----------



## SirAce

Well, anyhow all the last examples are more similar to a development urban expansion like Paris or London. 
A dominant center from the symbolic and economic point of view surrounded by a growing number of municipalities totally linked to the first one and that without their center they wouldn't exist or develop over the village status.
Let's say also Rome is basically a similar case.

As for Milan this is true just for the immediate near ring, more or less 4 million inhabitants.
The larger metropolitan area is more alike to a system of connected and interdependent cities, like in the Ruhr or the circle Netherland megalopolis. 

Cities like Pavia, Bergamo, Novara, Como even Monza, have been independent and autonomous from Milan for centuries and only recently started to deepen a stronger interdependency with the larger center, though maintaining their own economy, welfare, transportation and so on. If Milan would disappear tomorrow, the other cities would just continue to exist without big changes. Obviously the same cannot be said for Mexico City, Santiago, London, Rome or Paris.


----------



## NOMAD€

:rofl:


----------



## SirAce

NOMAD&#128;;130906854 said:


> :rofl:


? Are u trolling like your twin brother cooldog?


----------



## NOMAD€

No, I was rofling hard.


----------



## SirAce

NOMAD&#128;;130917138 said:


> No, I was rofling hard.


Good you get fun with nothing.


----------



## NOMAD€

You are too modest.


----------



## SirAce

NOMAD€ said:


> You are too modest.


Actually I was referring to your ability to laugh at yourself. I'm quite modest, I know.


----------



## SirAce

Thanks to Felis, he found this quite interesting map.



felis said:


>


----------



## NOMAD€

SirAce said:


> Actually I was referring to your ability to laugh at yourself. I'm quite modest, I know.


Actually I was rofling about the very divertent post I read before my :rofl:


----------



## Blackpool88

SirAce said:


> Thanks to Felis, he found this quite interesting map.


Interesting graphic - strange that he called it Bradford instead of Leeds!


----------



## LUCAFUSAR

Chrissib said:


> Come se dice in italiano "totally wrong"?


Si dice: "sei un coglione".


----------



## cooldog77

GENIUS LOCI said:


> Ok, guy. You're just trolling or can't read English


Hahaha! Dude, your English sounds a bit "prosciut milanes" to me.


----------



## cooldog77




----------



## NOMAD€

Cooldog77 photoshopped the data/map (once again).

Source:
http://www.cittasostenibili.it/html/Scheda%2016/Scheda_16.htm


----------



## spotila

I know it's been many years, but here's something a little more modern. Please enjoy:


----------

