# Biggest Sprawl



## Metropolitan (Sep 21, 2004)

tritown said:


> I'm still not sure we all agree on sprawl.


Yes we do.

And to prove you do this, there's nothing better than a zoom out










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Now some helicopter or plane photo shots :


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## TalB (Jun 8, 2005)

If you have ever seen the city of San Antonio from the air, it looks like a super suburb.


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

TalB said:


> If you have ever seen the city of San Antonio from the air, it looks like a super suburb.


I've been to San Antonio and I never see it as a large urban sprawl. I even find Houston much larger is we're talking about Texas cities.


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## LordMandeep (Apr 10, 2006)

Houston has a good downtown but not a tall builing in its suburbs.


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

LordMandeep said:


> Houston has a good downtown but not a tall builing in its suburbs.


Would you consider this downtown?


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## LosAngelesSportsFan (Oct 20, 2004)

EtherealMist said:


> I think NYC metro area is denser than LA's



For Metro's, LA is much Denser, something like 7000 per square mile for LA, SF and Toronto are also above NYC which came in at fourth at 5000 something. i dont remember the exact numbers.


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## I-275westcoastfl (Feb 15, 2005)

> Originally Posted by LordMandeep
> Houston has a good downtown but not a tall builing in its suburbs.





WANCH said:


> Would you consider this downtown?


Thats uptown not downtown and Houston has plenty of commercial areas with hirises scattered throughout the city.


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## Maroon Grown (Dec 22, 2004)

Australia's biggest sprawled city is Sydney. its probably half to three quarters the size of LA.

Melbourne and Brisbane follow respectively. We have low density houses on quarter acre blocks rather than high rise. 

Sprawl is becoming a big problem here as drive from the outer areas are reaching 60km and towns are merging. Eg Brisbane & Gold Coast (1.8 Mill & 500,000) or Sydney & Wooloongong (4 Million & 200,000)


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## Küsel (Sep 16, 2004)

TalB said:


> If you have ever seen the city of San Antonio from the air, it looks like a super suburb.


San Antonio has a very beautiful center, but from the tower you see that it's really like a small LA: I was impressed to see only a carpet of small houses... Of Houston I had more the impression the center is bigger and really dominant. Austin was a disappointment - very nice but extremly small center and then... just km of nothingness. I didn't believe it's a million city.

About Sydney: I alsways thought or had the impression Melbourne has the bigger sprawl for its pop, but maybe also because Sydney has vallies and sprawls star-shaped while Melbourne is more "compact" in shape.


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## Xusein (Sep 27, 2005)

PhillyPhilly90 said:


> Guys, I did a little thinkin' and yeah...I'd have to go with New York.
> 
> Just think about it...you got New York City. 309 sq. miles of urban setting.
> 
> ...


Someone gets it...New York sprawl is incredible. 

It's already going into Pennsylvania. If you read the Times, you'll see lots of ads about subdivisions there for relatively cheap. 

Technically, New York's sprawl goes as far northeast as Meriden (north of New Haven) which is about 15 miles from my apartment in Hartford.


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## MexAmericanMoose (Nov 19, 2005)

I-275westcoastfl said:


> Thats uptown not downtown and Houston has plenty of commercial areas with hirises scattered throughout the city.


lol. i think that he's asking the other guy if that looked like a "downtown" not that it was downtown.


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## greek_eagle (Jun 14, 2006)

Mekky II said:


> Athens metropolitan area : 427 km²
> Population : 3,738,734
> 
> Athens is one of less sprawled city in the world because of its landscapes around, and so one of densiest ... L.A sprawl is maybe 30 to 35 times bigger that Athens one.



The Athenian Basin covers some 1000 square miles and has sprawled over the mountains into the Mesogeion area..[where the airport has been built] ..that's to the east....down the coast to the south, once again over the mountains past the immediate north suburbs and it's periphery townships are bedroom communities in the neighboring counties. The population of Athens is not 3.7 mil. If these statistics were correct, Athens has not had any population change for some three decades. There is an ongoing debate as to the actual population of the Athen's CMSA. You see, in Greece whenever there is a census [years that end in 1 & 6 like Canada vs. USA 1 & 5] Athenians flock to their villages & towns that they are from or their parents are from to be counted. In this way, federal funds will be allocated to these otherwise dying villages and towns! And of course the Athenian Metro Area is not counted correctly. Because this year is a [semi] census year, political geographers and the like are part of the team that is estimating the region's population. At last count they knew the city had passed the six million mark but they were were not finished with their study. There are different ways to count a region's population..and to which city a smaller town may belong. For example the area of Southern Orange County California. If we take the town of San Clemente. It's close enough to be both San Diego's as well as Los Angeles' suburb. But whose is it? There are several ways of counting here...one way is by looking at the work force. You see where most of the people are going to work. Now if more than 25% work in one city, then it belongs to that city. In the case of San Clemente, over 25% do work in the Los Angeles CMSA, and therefore the city of San Clemente is counted towards the LA CMSA, and the Anaheim-Santa Ana-Fullerton Metro Area etc., The same thing applies here in Athens. No one should even consider making comparisons between European & North American cities. I mean, you have geographers in America that don't between West Coast cities and East Coast Cities. European cities are much more densely populated with smaller plots of land for more people. This is also visible in the cities of the east coast of N.America....therefore when you people living in very densely populated neighborhoods. As the west was populated the large tracts of land made it easier for people to have larger plots of land, larger home etc., and of course this often meant miles and miles from the city center. In Europe cities were more compact; many people living in a small area.....and the only way to go was up. This of course takes away the pleasure you can have, having your own yard to work in, play in, swim in, etc., and therefore Europeans started to spread...and a sprawl is now seen in most European capitals. This sprawl is nowhere as close to North American standards, but it is definitely big. 

Thus, LA is not the best city to compare other cities to. Especially Athens, Greece. If one were to study this city, and to see what the citizens have had to go through in the past two centuries; population exhanges etc. You must take history into consideration. The city not only had to deal with the population exchanges with Turkey, but also with the rural to urban migration that was the general characteristic of the poor rural Greek hinterland for many years. People poured into the city and exchanged plots of land for meager apartments [again by US standards eg sq. ft]. This went on until the mid seventies when the government could no longer allow the building codes of yesteryear; codes that were designed to assist villagers to come to the city and seek work, education etc. 

The city is now building out...and a decentralization program has been enacted and the city is sprawling. Though many of the ills of yesteryear's building codes will be visible for many generations to come. Freeways, highspeed train service, suburban rail etc., have made their mark in Greece and this denotes the directions the city/state is taking. Kind of the opposite of what Vancouver is doing. I mean you have a new city growing, and they don't want sprawl...they don't want to be [North] American!?!...they want to be Europeans! . :bash: ..in other words, they want to give up a nice bungalow, rancher or whatever they fancy, that is on a nice plot say some forty or fifty feet by 150? Or a quarter or half acre....that may be away from the downtown ...linked with a parkway or highway or freeway.....for a 600 sq. foot condo; no garden but a balcony!!! :bash: What the Europeans are dreaming of is what you guys in Vancouver are giving up? All because you don't want to have some sprawl and a couple of properly designed freeways instead of three lane in total [sad but true] causeways/bridges??? Anyhow, there is nothing wrong with sprawl [unless a treehugger can tell u otherwise; Potheads!!!] and having a nice piece of property with a home on it instead of living one on top of the other! The English even gave this "phenomenon" a name....."landlord"....)))) ! :bash: 

Land? Home? Yard? in the suburbs? vs matchbox homes that cost the same as monster homes in the suburbs ...some with pools?? 3-Lane Bridges and Highways [LOL] , Tree Huggers [& Pot Heads] ??

I think I've taken this discussion a different route partially but Vancouver's roads are my pet peave! As are those guys that are stuck in the 60's or politicians that used to be my teachers trying to make a name for themselves by knocking other cities. I've lived in many cities due to my work ...since my father was relocated to and from Vancouver...and one thing that I've seen is that there is no "business smarts" in the layout of Vancouver...as there is in TO....or American cities. Now that my work is in Europe, I see that this US style is mimicked here too. And it works. In Athens where I am now....the opening of the new Attiki Odos Tollway brought businesses and prosperity to once forgotten neighborhoods of Athens. New homes, schools, gyms, medical centers etc etc etc have been built to accomodate this boom. And that is not all. This is now being done in other parts of the city. It makes sense. Period. This doesn't mean that having a healthy city center isn't important-[I certainly would not like to see anymore city centers that are open from 8-4....or 5 on a Friday!!!...........but it is not the only thing! 

Now as far as LA being 30-35 times the size of Athens. The LA CMSA is a five county agglomeration. LA county is some 4,000 sq miles followed with the whole of Orange county and parts of Ventura, Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Basically, your number means that you mean LA is up to the Nevada state line. In other words, Los Angeles is a suburb of Las Vegas!


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## greek_eagle (Jun 14, 2006)

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LosAngelesSportsFan said:


> LA San Diego is not one metro area. LA City is not that large, in US Standards, However, the LA Metro is the Largest in Area becuase it include San Bernardino and Riverside, which have large populations, but have thousands of square miles of undevelopable land that is either Desert or Mountains from LA to the Nevada Border 250 miles away. The Urban area of the LA metro is densly built out up to the mountains and there arent many areas that have houses spread out on acres upon acres.


Los Angeles, the city of LA[3.9m] that is, is the second largest city in area[as well as population]...after O.C., OK. The metro area which consists of the consolidation of municpalities in five counties if I can remember correctly must some 10,000 + square miles[again if I can remember correctly that would be of the built up area]. It is not all of S'BDO county which is the largest in the US @ some 34,000 square miles [alone] and takes you to the NV/AZ state lines. The population of this CMSA is some 17.6 million [probably larger by now]. If we were to combine the five counties completely....we are talking about a city the size of the Indiana, Illinois or the like!


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## Paddington (Mar 30, 2006)

greek_eagle said:


> Los Angeles, the city of LA[3.9m] that is, is the second largest city in area[as well as population]...after O.C., OK. The metro area which consists of the consolidation of municpalities in five counties if I can remember correctly must some 10,000 + square miles[again if I can remember correctly that would be of the built up area]. It is not all of S'BDO county which is the largest in the US @ some 34,000 square miles [alone] and takes you to the NV/AZ state lines. The population of this CMSA is some 17.6 million [probably larger by now]. If we were to combine the five counties completely....we are talking about a city the size of the CT !


Actually there's a lot of cities with more land area than LA: Jacksonville, Juneau, Houston, Phoenix, etc.


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## greek_eagle (Jun 14, 2006)

Paddington said:


> Actually there's a lot of cities with more land area than LA: Jacksonville, Juneau, Houston, Phoenix, etc.




Again if I can remember correctly, the city of L.A. is some 484 sq.miles...but there are the unicorporated areas that fall under their jurisdiction and therefore bring up the total quite a bit more but I've lost all that info to be able to verify that...unless someone else can help....


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## Bartolo (Sep 20, 2004)

LA's CMSA includes all of San Bernardino County, which goes to the NV state line. They should change there layout and instead of MSAs and CMSAs being made up of whole counties, they should do the Canadian thing where they use municipalities. The Toronto CMA is made up of 25 different municipalities. The Region of Halton has Municipalities in both the Toronto CMA and Hamilton CMA. But anyways, what im trying to say is that the way the US Census Bureau does it, they create artifically high areas and populations in some cases, alas, LA, which has a very large area, but if u took the density it would be very low over the whole CMSA. Anyways im done, and i hope that made some sense.


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## Riton (Feb 8, 2006)

Bartolo said:


> They should change there layout and instead of MSAs and CMSAs being made up of whole counties, they should do the Canadian thing where they use municipalities.


I think one reason for using counties as building blocks is that worker flow data is manily available in terms of counties. Also, many states do not have minor civil divisions (California is one of them). In these states, there are typically wide areas of unincorporated land. Still, for the Los Angeles metro area, using counties should not overestimate the population too much as most of the extra land is very sparsely inhabited anyway.


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## PhillyPhilly90 (Aug 12, 2005)

I am getting intimidated by Athens. I don't know how many people live in the Athens area. Some figures say 3 million. Emporis says 4.2 million, and some members in my family that live in Greece say Athens has around 4-5 million people. Athens has at least 3 million people in its dense sprawl, or maybe 4 or even 5 million people. Someone just mentioned urban Athens unofficially passed 6 million people! I'm starting to think only New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago have larger urban population than Athens. Actually I'm not even sure if Chicago has a larger urban population in its true urban nature than Athens. 

What is Athens true population? I heard its anywhere from 3-6 million people.


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## bob rulz (Oct 20, 2005)

PhillyPhilly90 said:


> I am getting intimidated by Athens. I don't know how many people live in the Athens area. Some figures say 3 million. Emporis says 4.2 million, and some members in my family that live in Greece say Athens has around 4-5 million people. Athens has at least 3 million people in its dense sprawl, or maybe 4 or even 5 million people. Someone just mentioned urban Athens unofficially passed 6 million people! I'm starting to think only New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago have larger urban population than Athens. Actually I'm not even sure if Chicago has a larger urban population in its true urban nature than Athens.
> 
> What is Athens true population? I heard its anywhere from 3-6 million people.


There's TONS of cities more than Athens. Mumbai, Jakarta, Seoul, Shanghai, Beijing, Tokyo, Osaka, Istanbul, Tehran, Lagos, Cairo, Rio de Janeiro, sao Paulo, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, London, Paris, Moscow, Bangkok...and that's just off the top of my head!


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

I-275westcoastfl said:


> Thats uptown not downtown and Houston has plenty of commercial areas with hirises scattered throughout the city.


Yes it's Uptown and there are some high-rises in this area. Just proving the point that Houston's skyscrapers is not all in downtown


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## bob rulz (Oct 20, 2005)

This is REAL urban sprawl...

(some of the pictures are bad quality; some are very outdated)

*California:*













































*Arizona:*


















*Utah:* 









*Colorado:*



























*Texas:*



























*Florida:* 


















(that's it, I'm switching to Google Maps; they're all in color...)


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## Küsel (Sep 16, 2004)

PhillyPhilly90: Athens is a good example of a non-sprawl metropolis. It's extremly compact as can be seen from the Akropolis, but it's an impressive sea of houses. Most asian cities are also very compact as Taipeii, Mumbai, Dacca, or even Beijing. Also look at other southern European cities - the tendency to sprawl is here recently but still are Barcelona, Rome or Madrid extremly dense. Athens pop is indeed somewhere around 4.2mio (about 15 years ago it tended to be about 3.6mio)


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## greek_eagle (Jun 14, 2006)

bob rulz said:


> There's TONS of cities more than Athens. Mumbai, Jakarta, Seoul, Shanghai, Beijing, Tokyo, Osaka, Istanbul, Tehran, Lagos, Cairo, Rio de Janeiro, sao Paulo, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, London, Paris, Moscow, Bangkok...and that's just off the top of my head!



"There's TONS of cities more than Athens. " ..........What???????? More What?
It doesn't make any sense. If you're talking about population say so ...but that is not what we were saying!


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## greek_eagle (Jun 14, 2006)

PhillyPhilly90 said:


> I am getting intimidated by Athens. I don't know how many people live in the Athens area. Some figures say 3 million. Emporis says 4.2 million, and some members in my family that live in Greece say Athens has around 4-5 million people. Athens has at least 3 million people in its dense sprawl, or maybe 4 or even 5 million people. Someone just mentioned urban Athens unofficially passed 6 million people! I'm starting to think only New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago have larger urban population than Athens. Actually I'm not even sure if Chicago has a larger urban population in its true urban nature than Athens.
> 
> What is Athens true population? I heard its anywhere from 3-6 million people.



Philly, As I now live in Athens, I am awaiting to see the new census figures that should be available at the end of the year. The City has an ongoing problem as I said in an earlier posting, as funds get allocated accordingly to counties [prefectures], cities, provincial towns, towns, & villages accordingly.
The first factor that is looked at is population. And of course this gives both cities and villages wrong population figures. For example my mom's birthplace now has "35" year round residents!!! Deadsville! Anyhow, in the books it's much larger as most go there to vote. They are counted there in the census etc. There is some good as the village has now a lot of weekend residents & summer residents. The roads leading to the village have been upgraded as well as better bus service now..etc. As far as Athens is concerned, your everyday person says 5 mil......politicians on tv often quote 6 mil as the population of the Athenian Basin or "Lekanopaidio". As far as Athens being quite compact...as someone said in a recent posting....the truth is that the immediate center of Athens is quite compact. The metro area even some 20 odd years ago had a lot of unicorporated territory that was of no use to builders for it was difficult to attain basic services...therefore to build would not have been worthwhile or financially logical. This territory ...not only here in Athens, but throughout Greece is now undergoing a major change and this since just last year....and much of this territory ..eg within the metro area..is now part of the incorporated territory. Builders, people looking for a nice plot of land to build a home...or those that were there but not officially counted towards the urban population are now all of a sudden part of the Athenian metro area. Hence, the population and the area of the city is currently undergowing growing pains and will be some time till we have stable stats.


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## bob rulz (Oct 20, 2005)

greek_eagle said:


> "There's TONS of cities more than Athens. " ..........What???????? More What?
> It doesn't make any sense. If you're talking about population say so ...but that is not what we were saying!


That's what was said. To quote PhillyPhilly90:



PhillyPhilly90 said:


> Someone just mentioned urban Athens unofficially passed 6 million people! I'm starting to think only New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago have larger urban population than Athens. Actually I'm not even sure if Chicago has a larger urban population in its true urban nature than Athens.


Therefore I responded by saying "off the top of my head, all of these cities have a larger urban population than Athens."

And it was my mistake that I said "there's TONS of cities more than Athens." I meant tons of cities more populated than Athens. My mistake, I accidentally left out a word.


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## greek_eagle (Jun 14, 2006)

bob rulz said:


> That's what was said. To quote PhillyPhilly90:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That's fine my friend....it's just that we were referring to the sprawl of cities.But, I thought I was the only person that jumped from one topic to another...[i have to get used to others doin' the same thing too]


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## PhillyPhilly90 (Aug 12, 2005)

Ofc there's tons of cities larger and more compact than Athens. I'm just saying...Greece is a small country and I underestimated all its cities. I visited many cities such as Thessaloniki (which is the 2nd largest in the country), Larisa, Trikala, Lamia...etc. All these cities weren't big...they were small compact cities. Thessaloniki wasn't that big either, just dense and long. But when I went to visit Athens, it was a whole different story. I was very impressed cuz it was so much bigger than I thought. It was like a sea of white apartments everywhere u looked. 

As I looked around Athens, I began to wonder..."Is my hometown Philadelphia bigger than this? Is Chicago even bigger than this? (by bigger, I mean more populated)" I know New York and Los Angeles are deff. bigger cuz they both have urban populations of over 10 million people. But I'm wondering how cities such as Chicago and Philadelphia compare to Athens. Philly has 1.5 million ppl and Chicago has 2.8 million ppl respectfully in a true environment with the addition of sprawling suburbs. While Athens can be up to 6 million people. It's hard to say who's "bigger" between Chicago/Philly or Athens when my family in Greece asks me.


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## HelloMoto163 (Aug 13, 2005)

berlin 2000:









2050:


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## bob rulz (Oct 20, 2005)

PhillyPhilly90 said:


> Ofc there's tons of cities larger and more compact than Athens. I'm just saying...Greece is a small country and I underestimated all its cities. I visited many cities such as Thessaloniki (which is the 2nd largest in the country), Larisa, Trikala, Lamia...etc. All these cities weren't big...they were small compact cities. Thessaloniki wasn't that big either, just dense and long. But when I went to visit Athens, it was a whole different story. I was very impressed cuz it was so much bigger than I thought. It was like a sea of white apartments everywhere u looked.
> 
> As I looked around Athens, I began to wonder..."Is my hometown Philadelphia bigger than this? Is Chicago even bigger than this? (by bigger, I mean more populated)" I know New York and Los Angeles are deff. bigger cuz they both have urban populations of over 10 million people. But I'm wondering how cities such as Chicago and Philadelphia compare to Athens. Philly has 1.5 million ppl and Chicago has 2.8 million ppl respectfully in a true environment with the addition of sprawling suburbs. While Athens can be up to 6 million people. It's hard to say who's "bigger" between Chicago/Philly or Athens when my family in Greece asks me.


You keep switching from the population of entire urban areas to the populations of just the city itself. If we're using city center here (Philly 1.5 million; Chicago 2.8 million) then Los Angeles only has about 3.8 million and New York 8 million, not 10 million for either of them. If we're using urban areas here (like, whole metropolitan areas) then Chicago is almost 12 million, and Philadelphia is almost 6 million, and New York and Los Angeles would be far more. In fact, the city center of Athens is only about 750,000 people, so you can't say that Athens is bigger than Philadelphia and Chicago is you're comparing Athens' metropolitan area to Philadelphia and Chicago's city centers.

And either way you're comparing Athens only to U.S. cities and then saying (I'm starting to think Athens is one of the biggest cities!) which implies that you mean in the world. I can think of tons of examples of cities bigger than Athens, of which I already stated.


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## cjav (Jun 24, 2006)

suprised that noone has mentioned the rotterdam-the hague area with like 3 million people pretty much one solid block except for delft in between rotterdam and the hague, the netherlands has strict city lines so even though rotterdam and the hague do not have many people their are many smaller cities with hundreds of thousands right beside it


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## chicagogeorge (Nov 30, 2004)

PhillyPhilly90 said:


> Ofc there's tons of cities larger and more compact than Athens. I'm just saying...Greece is a small country and I underestimated all its cities. I visited many cities such as Thessaloniki (which is the 2nd largest in the country), Larisa, Trikala, Lamia...etc. All these cities weren't big...they were small compact cities. Thessaloniki wasn't that big either, just dense and long. But when I went to visit Athens, it was a whole different story. I was very impressed cuz it was so much bigger than I thought. It was like a sea of white apartments everywhere u looked.
> 
> As I looked around Athens, I began to wonder..."Is my hometown Philadelphia bigger than this? Is Chicago even bigger than this? (by bigger, I mean more populated)" I know New York and Los Angeles are deff. bigger cuz they both have urban populations of over 10 million people. But I'm wondering how cities such as Chicago and Philadelphia compare to Athens. Philly has 1.5 million ppl and Chicago has 2.8 million ppl respectfully in a true environment with the addition of sprawling suburbs. While Athens can be up to 6 million people. It's hard to say who's "bigger" between Chicago/Philly or Athens when my family in Greece asks me.



Chicago's metropolitan area sprawl over 7000 sq miles with about 10 million people. That's roughly the size of Peloponisos and 95% of the entire population of Greece. Chicago's urbanized area has 8.4 million people (in 2000) with 2,123 sq miles (imagine almost 3/4's of Crete completely urban). I'm not sure what Athens metro is in sq miles but I know that their population is a little over 4 million officially (and if you count the illegal immigrant groups you can probably add another 500,000). Their urbanized area is 264 sq miles with 3.7 million people. Remember, urbanized areas and metropolitan areas are not the same. An urbanized area is a continuously built up area within the metropolitan area. In other words Athens is not even close in size to Chicago, neither is it to Philly. In fact in terms of size no European city is as large as Chicago when it comes to urban sprawl, but there are a couple (Moscow, London, and Paris) that have larger populations, (actually Paris is about equal). All are considerably more dense than Chicago. American cities (and metropolitan areas) occupy much more land than their European counterparts, but are also far less dense (with a few exceptions).



http://www.demographia.com/db-worldua.pdf


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## PhillyPhilly90 (Aug 12, 2005)

bob rulz said:


> You keep switching from the population of entire urban areas to the populations of just the city itself. If we're using city center here (Philly 1.5 million; Chicago 2.8 million) then Los Angeles only has about 3.8 million and New York 8 million, not 10 million for either of them. If we're using urban areas here (like, whole metropolitan areas) then Chicago is almost 12 million, and Philadelphia is almost 6 million, and New York and Los Angeles would be far more. In fact, the city center of Athens is only about 750,000 people, so you can't say that Athens is bigger than Philadelphia and Chicago is you're comparing Athens' metropolitan area to Philadelphia and Chicago's city centers.
> 
> And either way you're comparing Athens only to U.S. cities and then saying (I'm starting to think Athens is one of the biggest cities!) which implies that you mean in the world. I can think of tons of examples of cities bigger than Athens, of which I already stated.


Hmm...do u know how Philadelphia has 6 million people? The entire Delaware Valley (Philadelphia CMSA) has 6 million people. So you're telling me Philly is bigger when you are actually talking about the entire Delaware Valley vs Athens urban area? You are talking about over 10 counties vs one urban area? You see what I mean? It's bullshit.

Here's how you compare Philly and Athens...just look at some maps. Notice the urban areas are colored yellow...well for Philly, the urban area extends from Trenton to Delaware. If you calculate how many people live within the yellow colors (in other words, the urban area)...you will notice that the urban population of Philadelphia will not be as large as Athens. 

Metropolitan areas do not refer to urban areas, but commuting patterns.


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## PhillyPhilly90 (Aug 12, 2005)

chicagogeorge said:


> Chicago's metropolitan area sprawl over 7000 sq miles with about 10 million people. That's roughly the size of Peloponisos and 95% of the entire population of Greece. Chicago's urbanized area has 8.4 million people (in 2000) with 2,123 sq miles (imagine almost 3/4's of Crete completely urban). I'm not sure what Athens metro is in sq miles but I know that their population is a little over 4 million officially (and if you count the illegal immigrant groups you can probably add another 500,000). Their urbanized area is 264 sq miles with 3.7 million people. Remember, urbanized areas and metropolitan areas are not the same. An urbanized area is a continuously built up area within the metropolitan area. In other words Athens is not even close in size to Chicago, neither is it to Philly. In fact in terms of size no European city is as large as Chicago when it comes to urban sprawl, but there are a couple (Moscow, London, and Paris) that have larger populations, (actually Paris is about equal). All are considerably more dense than Chicago. American cities (and metropolitan areas) occupy much more land than their European counterparts, but are also far less dense (with a few exceptions).
> 
> http://www.demographia.com/db-worldua.pdf


I understand...but it's not a good way to measure it. The yellow colors in maps indicate urban areas like those in mapquest. If you look at Philadelphia area, the yellow area extends from Trenton, NJ along both sides of the Delaware River until it reaches Delaware. If you calculate it...you will get 2-3 million people. To me, it make sense. As for Chicago, it starts from Wisconsin all the way down to Gary and a little further. 










^^That's what I mean.


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## Greens! (Feb 13, 2006)

Does anyone notice that every city has "sprawl"? It differs by region and geography and is the choice of the local population. Basically it seems that any horizontal spread of a city, regardless of density, is considered sprawl.

My picks for cities with the LEAST DENSE DEVELOPMENT.

Atlanta
Charlotte
Raleigh


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## sk (Dec 6, 2005)

is there an internet site where we can find the city sizes in square kilometers?


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## bob rulz (Oct 20, 2005)

Well, in the case of what you're saying, where do you find official population figures for urban areas? How can you even know that? They would be rough estimates at best guess, especially for U.S. cities. I'm confused as to what you're saying. You're using just the city center for cities such as Philadelphia and Chicago, when I'm positive that it's continuous built-up urban area continues beyond their borders. And then you compare those city center figures to the entire urban population of the Athens area. I'm still confused as to your methodology here. Either way, Seoul in itself as a city has 10 million people (along with Sao Paulo, Shanghai, Mexico City...). You seem to be talking about population here. Are you still talking about total size still?


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## HelloMoto163 (Aug 13, 2005)

Europe: City, Metro/Urban Area
London 1579 km²
Rome 1.285,306 km²
Berlin 891,182 km², 5.370 km²
Hamburg 755,16 km² 
Madrid 607 km²
Warszawa 517,90 km²
Budapest 525 km²
Athens 427 km²
Vienna 414,65 km²
Munich 310,4383 km²
Birmingham 267,77 km²
Milan 182 km²
Paris 105,40 km², 14.518 km² 
Barcelona 100,4 km²

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der_gr%C3%B6%C3%9Ften_St%C3%A4dte_der_EU

Metroareas in Germany:

Berlin/Brandenburg 5.370 km²
Frankfurt/Rhein-Main:5.500 km²
Munich:5.500 km²
Nuremberg:10.000km²
Rhein-Ruhr:10.000 km²
Sachsendreieck(In Saxony):12.000 km²
Stuttgart:3.654 km²


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## PhillyPhilly90 (Aug 12, 2005)

bob rulz said:


> Well, in the case of what you're saying, where do you find official population figures for urban areas? How can you even know that? They would be rough estimates at best guess, especially for U.S. cities. I'm confused as to what you're saying. You're using just the city center for cities such as Philadelphia and Chicago, when I'm positive that it's continuous built-up urban area continues beyond their borders. And then you compare those city center figures to the entire urban population of the Athens area. I'm still confused as to your methodology here. Either way, Seoul in itself as a city has 10 million people (along with Sao Paulo, Shanghai, Mexico City...). You seem to be talking about population here. Are you still talking about total size still?


No, what I'm saying...the urban population figure for Philadelphia is over 5 million people while the metro is 6 million people according to the census. But urban Philadelphia does not have 5 million people...according this map below.










Notice the yellow colored areas indicate urban areas. This is what I mean. Notice that southern New Jersey isn't colored yellow because urban Philadelphia stops shortly after Camden. While the Philly CMSA (6 million people) includes the entire Delaware Valley, this is why I say Athens is larger in population than Philadelphia (urban areas, not city limits) because if you look at Greece and Athens, the yellow color indicating the Athens urban area has more people than the yellow color indicating Philadelphia urban area.










The picture above indicates the Chicago urban area. And looking at this pic...you can immediately say Chicago does not have anywhere near 8 million ppl.

That's why I'm saying Philadelphia does not have alarger urban population than Athens...and if Philly were placed in Europe or in Greece, Athens would be considered having a larger population.


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## Riton (Feb 8, 2006)

For U.S. urban areas, you can find populations (as of 2000) and areas here. Note that areas are given in square meters but density is given in persons per square mile. The U.S. Census Bureau defines an urban area as contiguous census block groups that have a minimum population density of 1000 per square mile. Philadelphia urban area has 5.1 million in 4,660 sq. km while Chicago has 8.3 million in 5,498 sq. km. The entire Periphery of Protevousis has a population of 3.9 million in 3,800 sq. km of which a significant portion of the land is not urban (although most of the population does reside in the urban area).


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## PhillyPhilly90 (Aug 12, 2005)

Ok...well what do those yellow colors indicate on that map I posted?


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## chicagogeorge (Nov 30, 2004)

Klas said:


> your pictures from american urban areas are cool ! can you post pictures of urban areas like Barcelona, berlin , athens and the RHINE Main and RHINE RUHR v ! ? please post it the SAME scale with theamerican urban areas when you can!



Those were not my maps Bay Area found them on the SSP forum sometime ago.

Here are some density statistic of a few major U.S. cities. I'm too lazy to convert miles into kilometers sorry.


*5 mile radius*

----------------------
Los Angeles (2075, LA county)
Population: 1182577
Land Area: 76.4798 sq miles
Population Density: 15462.6 people / sq mile



Chicago (3203, Cook county)
Population: 770384
Land Area: 46.8594 sq miles
Population Density: 16440.3 people / sq mile


New York (13, NY county)
Population: 1915593
Land Area: 54.8853 sq miles
Population Density: 34901.8 people / sq mile



*10 mile radius*
----------------------
Los Angeles (2075, LA county)
Population: 3449763
Land Area: 315.917 sq miles
Population Density: 10919.9 people / sq mile



Chicago (3203, Cook county)
Population: 2686858
Land Area: 177.305 sq miles
Population Density: 15153.9 people / sq mile



New York (13, NY county)
Population: 6391931
Land Area: 258.322 sq miles
Population Density: 24744 people / sq mile

*
15 mile radius*
----------------------
Los Angeles (2075, LA county)
Population: 5829483
Land Area: 729.043 sq miles
Population Density: 7996.08 people / sq mile


Chicago (3203, Cook county)
Population: 3873802
Land Area: 385.062 sq miles
Population Density: 10060.2 people / sq mile


New York (13, NY county)
Population: 10032731
Land Area: 534.633 sq miles
Population Density: 18765.6 people / sq mile


*
20 mile radius*

----------------------
Los Angeles (2075, LA county)
Population: 7840178
Land Area: 1053.18 sq miles
Population Density: 7444.27 people / sq mile



Chicago (3203, Cook county)
Population: 4770488
Land Area: 688.492 sq miles
Population Density: 6928.9 people / sq mile



New York (13, NY county)
Population: 12019933
Land Area: 913.364 sq miles
Population Density: 13160.1 people / sq mile


*30 mile radius*

----------------------
Los Angeles (2075, LA county)
Population: 10591874
Land Area: 2392.55 sq miles
Population Density: 4427.02 people / sq mile



Chicago (3203, Cook county)
Population: 6879365
Land Area: 1588.24 sq miles
Population Density: 4331.43 people / sq mile



New York (13, NY county)
Population: 14820904
Land Area: 2060.41 sq miles
Population Density: 7193.18 people / sq mile

*
40 mile radius*

----------------------
Los Angeles (2075, LA county)
Population: 12488819
Land Area: 3667.76 sq miles
Population Density: 3405.03 people / sq mile



Chicago (3203, Cook county)
Population: 8267630
Land Area: 2924.5 sq miles
Population Density: 2827.03 people / sq mile



New York (13, NY county)
Population: 16536460
Land Area: 3511.18 sq miles
Population Density: 4709.66 people / sq mile


*50 mile radius*

----------------------
Los Angeles (2075, LA county)
Population: 13826349
Land Area: 5526.85 sq miles
Population Density: 2501.67 people / sq mile


Chicago (3203, Cook county)
Population: 8855920
Land Area: 4911.24 sq miles
Population Density: 1803.2 people / sq mile



New York (13, NY county)
Population: 18125529
Land Area: 5484.53 sq miles
Population Density: 3304.85 people / sq mile


Source: factfinder.census.gov census tract data


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## jtownman (Jan 31, 2003)

DAMN thanks ChicagoGeorge. awesome statistics!


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## greek_eagle (Jun 14, 2006)

Here are some density statistic of a few major U.S. cities. I'm too lazy to convert miles into kilometers sorry.

Very Nice piece of work George! It is very easy to convert to kilometers as our friend from Cyprus had requested. All you do is multiply the miles by 2.6 and you get your square kilometers. 

From square kilometers to square miles multiply by 0.39 and you have square miles. 

This is just another of the problems when it comes to the statistics that is shared on this page. We often see the actual figure being misquoted square miles when the reader actually had read square kilometers. 

 :cheers:


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## staff (Oct 23, 2004)

Riton,
It's not my job to determine where to "draw the line" or set a definition of a what a city really is. 
I'm simply showing that American cities are not comparable to European or Asian cities because of the way that they are built. The best definition we have today is the metropolitan area, but even those are completely different when it comes to definition - even within Europe (referring to the numerous London vs. Paris vs. Moscow threads), simply because different countries use different systems to measure and determine what a metropolitan area really is (France have their system, the UK have theirs and so on). 
It is impossible to do such comparission until there is a global standard of how to measure the population of metropolitan areas.

Thanks for proving my point though (the Athens contra Philadelphia example). 

bob_rulz,
I too think that the whole urban agglomeration should be counted into a city's population (the metropolitan area is the best definition, since it shows what immediate areas around a city that are totally dependent of it).
I'm not trying to bash Phoenix or Philadelphia - but they are simply "too big" in official numbers compared to European or Asian cities (or the Euro/Asian cities are too small).

Urban agglomeration maps to scale, made by SHiRO;

Chicago, United States (urban area pop. ~8 million? I'm not sure on this one).









Mexico City, Mexico (urban area pop ~20 million? Again, I'm not sure).









Imagine if the Mexicans would have lived like the Americans. Mexico city would have been a gigantic urban agglomeration that "melted" into other urban areas that are not even counted into the *metropolitan area* today, thus making not only the urban area huge, but the metropolitan area as well (both area- and populationwise). This is the case with North American cities today, and that's one reason why American cities show higher numbers of population than European cities, even though the European ones "obviously" are larger - not only in actual population but in atmosphere, vibrancy, larger city cores and so on.

Hong Kong S.A.R., China. Population of ~7 million in the combined areas on this map.









Just imagine how large the urban area would be - and what other urban areas, with the same population density (Shenzhen, Dongguan, Guangzhou and so on) it would be "melted" into, if the people in southern China would have lived like people in North America. The sheer thought of it is frightening.


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## Riton (Feb 8, 2006)

I think the point is that physical geography is a major factor determining the extent of sprawl. The US has a lot of flat, open land that tends to cause urbanization to spread to a much larger area (at the same time lowering density). In Hong Kong, geography limits how much the urban area can spread out and so it becomes very dense instead. If Hong Kong were in the US, it would look like a US city (large extent and relatively low density). If one talks about extent of sprawl, US cities will always be on top mainly because of geography.


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## Rapid (May 31, 2004)

chicagogeorge said:


> Thanks to Bay Area
> These maps are to scale, so you can get an idea of how large American cites are compared to other cities around the world that might be geographically restricted.
> Notice that U.S. urban areas are much larger in size but most of them are much less dense than other urban areas around the world. NYC and Los Angeles must be the largest urban sprawl on the planet. Chicago is also probably #3 when it comes to sprawl.


Those maps are decieving by land area and population density.


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## Saigoneseguy (Mar 6, 2005)

IMO, sprawls exist only in North American and South Persian Gulf countries.


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## Saigoneseguy (Mar 6, 2005)

Well maybe some more in Australia and South Africa.


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## chicagogeorge (Nov 30, 2004)

^
There is more room to grow outwards.


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## Metropolitan (Sep 21, 2004)

Doesn't those white and red maps actually show counties ? I find weird all those square borders.


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## PhillyPhilly90 (Aug 12, 2005)

staff said:


> Compared to what? European cities? Hell no.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


*Uhm...New York would walk over any city in Europe, in terms of urban area.*


Lol staff...NYC has a density of 26,000 ppl in an area of 300 sq. mi...and a population of 8.1 million ppl. And NYC does have dense suburbs (Newark, Jersey City, Paterson, Yonkers...etc)...and it would surprass at least 10 million people according to what you are saying. Lets make it clear...New York is larger than Moscow, London, Paris, and Istanbul by any means. In fact, very few Asian cities are larger than New York...Tokyo definitely and maybe a few more cities. So you could put NYC anywhere...it would still be one fo the biggest urban areas in the world (bigger than any in Europe).


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## chicagogeorge (Nov 30, 2004)

No, they represent urbanized (built up) areas. For example, Chicago's urbanized area spans all or part of 12 counties in 4 states (Il, Wis, Ind, and recently Michigan).


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## PhillyPhilly90 (Aug 12, 2005)

It would be interesting to find population estimates for the red colored urban areas.


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## Riton (Feb 8, 2006)

Metropolitan said:


> Doesn't those white and red maps actually show counties ? I find weird all those square borders.


The building blocks for census defined urban areas in the US are census block groups which often do have square borders.


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## chicagogeorge (Nov 30, 2004)

staff said:


> This is the case with North American cities today, and that's one reason why American cities show higher numbers of population than European cities, *even though the European ones "obviously" are larger - not only in actual population but in atmosphere, vibrancy, larger city cores and so on.*


Explain how European cities are obviouly larger in population? Even the assertion that European cities are always more dense is not entirely correct. Especially when compare to NYC. American cities occupy more land than there European counterparts. This llows for lower densities, but even if you take the amount of land that an American metropolitan area occupies and apply it to a European city, most of the time, you will still have more people in the American city.

Atmosphere vibrancy are all subjectve, though I would tend to agree in most cases with you.

*Here are some interesting statistics on urban core and suburban densities compared by nation.*
http://www.demographia.com/db-intlsub.htm

*Here is a graph of historical densites of L.A., NYC, Paris, and London. Notice the trend....*










*Hyper Densities in European and North American Cities *

New York City has a larger amount of hyper density than any European city; 134.29 sq km with an average density of 32,022 ppl per sq km.

Paris has 75.53 sq km with an average density of 26,234 ppl per sq km.

London has 1.92 sq km with an average density of 19,685 ppl per sq km.


http://www.demographia.com/db-hyperdense.htm



*Here are some more facts:*

*Urbanized areas. That is an area that is continuously built up; industrial, commercial, residential......*

London has 8.3 million people in 1623 sq km, with a density of 5100 pple per sq km. London and the rest of Southeast England (obviously not all urban) has 18,387,000 people in 17,075 sq km. giving it an average density of 1,077 ppl per sq km.
http://www.demographia.com/dm-lonarea.htm


Chicago has 8.3 million people in 5498 sq km, with an average density of 1500 pple per sq km.

Los Angeles has 11,789,000 people in 4320 sq km, with an average density of 2750 pple per sq km

New York City has 17,800,000 people in 8683 sq km, with an average density of 2050 ppl per sq mile.

Paris has 9,645,000 people in 2723 sq km, with an average density of 3550 ppl per sq km.

Istanbul has 9 million people in 1166 km, with an average density of 7700 ppl per sq km.

Moscow has 10,500,000 people in 2150 km, with an average density of 4900 ppl per sq km.

Athens has 3,685,000 people in 684 sq km, with an average density of 5400 ppl per sq km.


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## staff (Oct 23, 2004)

PhillyPhilly90,

First of all - have you actually read any of my post properly? If you haven't, please read again.

Have I even mentioned New York City as an example of the "American cities showing too high population figures"-statement? I wrote clearly in my post that New York City is obviously larger than most cities in Europe with a few exceptions. New York city is larger than Moscow and London - but it's not obvious. New York City has an official metropolitan area of just above 20 million, and London's official metropolitan is just below 20 million. That's not what I call "walk all over". Moscow doesn't seem to have an official defined metro area - but many claim that it is closer to 20 million as well. Probably the same for Istanbul. As for Paris - I haven't even mentioned it.

New York is definately *not* one of the examples to be used, because:
1. It has a larger population than any European city.
2. Its urban area is larger than any city in the world.
3. It's not built like the typical American city, which was my whole point.

So please - read my posts again - try to understand them, and come back again.


chicagogeorge,
As I've written above - I don't use New York City in this comparission because of it's obvious size, both in population and land mass. Neither is it an example of a "typical American city" since it's different in how its built, in vibrancy, urbanity and many other factors.

Metropolitan areas are defined in different ways in America and Europe (most countries within Europe have their very own definitions which makes it very hard to compare). If to apply the very generous American definition - a city also needs to be built like an American city, which no European city is (most European cities have relatively small urban agglomerations which are surrounded by green belts - and outside these green belts there are large satellite cities in which most of the population commutes to the main city in the metropolitan area).
Therefor it's virtually impossible to compare cities in North America with cities in Europe. That's what all of my posts have been about, and I hope you realise that now.

I guess this thread could be closed. We have the answer of the original topic - and the discussion we apparently are having (again), has been debated in numerous threads similar to this one over the past years. We always come to the same conclusion. 

Peace.


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## PhillyPhilly90 (Aug 12, 2005)

Well staff...how would Los Angeles look compared to European cities? It isn't dense like New York...but it is indeed one massive urban area. Where do you draw the line for Los Angeles? Well according to what you are saying...both New York and Los Angeles would surprass 10 million people.


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## staff (Oct 23, 2004)

PhillyPhilly90,
Yes, both of the cities surpass 10 million people. Both cities are very big. What is your point?


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## Riton (Feb 8, 2006)

PhillyPhilly90 said:


> Well staff...how would Los Angeles look compared to European cities? It isn't dense like New York...but it is indeed one massive urban area.


The urban area of Los Angeles has the highest average density of US urban areas. New York has a very dense core but a very large sprawl. See the second graph of this to see what I mean. Los Angeles is somewhat "packed in" by surrounding mountains. The Los Angeles urban area also contains several of the densest incorporated areas in the entire US. Los Angeles has the reputation for sprawl but New York does in fact have a larger extent of sprawl.


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## dANIEL2004 (Jan 7, 2005)

Any air pics of Athens?


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## Æsahættr (Jul 9, 2004)

Tokyo has ... dense sprawl. Apartment building/condo sprawl, not single-houses sprawl.


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## gonzo (Jul 30, 2006)

> Those maps aren't all to the same scale, look at the scale bars.


I _did_ look at the scale bars. Upon a second look there _does_ appear to be some minor variations in how they're displayed. The reason I assumed (and still do) that they were the same scale was because i got them off Mapquest which only offers "fixed" scales. For example, this would be the next possible view of Tokyo at the "5km" scale...












> Gonzo those maps seem weird because Tokyo's sprawl looks smaller than London's when in fact it's four times as large. They don't show all of NYC's sprawl and so little of Tokyo's.
> 
> Built-up areas of these cities as of 2005:
> NYC:3,363
> ...


I assume the criteria Mapquest uses to determine the area shaded in brown would be standard for all cities....perhaps then it represents something other than sprawl. :dunno:


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## AcesHigh (Feb 20, 2003)




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## treboy (Apr 14, 2006)

NewYorkCity metro area is indeed by far larger than tokyo's one.


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## Küsel (Sep 16, 2004)

But not the overbuild area!


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## brisavoine (Mar 19, 2006)

gonzo said:


> Detroit is the car capital of the world and _the_ model for sprawl as 84% of its Metro population live outside of the city limits.


Well, in Paris 82% of the Metro population live outside of the city limits.

Here you have a view where I marked the city limits in red.


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## ChicagoSkyline (Feb 24, 2005)

Here is part of chicago sprawl:runaway:
80 miles NW of chicago loop








while N-SE runs nearly 120 miles apart!


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## Küsel (Sep 16, 2004)

Don't forget Buenos Aires, the "Sao Paulo by the Sea" - Metro Pop ca. 13mio (same as Moscow)


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## ChicagoSkyline (Feb 24, 2005)

^^
Oh yea, can't forget about those twins...lol!
BTW, these metros came to mine for biggest sprawl: Chicago, NYC, LA, Tokyo, Rio, SP and BA! :cheers:


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## Jackhammer (Jun 28, 2005)

Tokyo does not have sprawl. It is a massive, densely packed metro. Look at the pictures below. How many detached single family dwellings do you see. You can pop out of the subway practically anywhere in the city and the view is the same - row upon row of multi-unit dwellings sometime inches apart. You want an example of sprawl go to Atlanta - it takes up about the same amount of space a Tokyo with a 20th of the population.


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## staff (Oct 23, 2004)

Just check out SHiRO's maps of urban agglomerations around the world. 
They are all to scale and shows that New York has the largest urban area, followed by Tokyo and Los Angeles (in that order).

The thread, however, is about the biggest sprawl - and cities like Sao Paolo and Tokyo don't have much sprawl compared to the whole urban area's size. Most parts of the urban area contains urban expanse.

There are four different kinds of measurements for a city's size. Basically, non of them are useful tools to compare cities in different countries, since most countries use different standards:

*Municipalities/City Propers*
*Purely defined by political borders, and has nothing to do with the actual population of a city, urban area or metropolitan region.

*Totally useless when comparing cities, even within the same country (and still, this is probably the most common measurment when comparing cities - at least in Europe! hno.

*The biggest municipality/city proper in the world is Kalgoorlie in Australia.

*Examples of municipalities that don't reflect the actual population of the city (at least compared to other cities in the world) are those of London (very small city proper), Sydney (ditto) and Paris (referring to the excellent Paris aerial posted earlier in this thread).


*Urban areas/agglomerations*
*Contains everything that is the built up parts of the city - i.e. no rural areas.

*The definition of an urban area is different from country to country. Some countries require a certain amount of people/km2 (or sq. miles), and some countries require a minimum distance between the buildings to qualify as parts of the urban area. Therefor this is not a very good tool to use when comparing cities in different countries.

*The other reason why urban areas is not a good measurement is that cities in different parts of the world are of different city structure. Many European city cores are surrounded by a green belt, and outside this green belt there's big towns/cities that are totally dependent of the main city in the region. These satellite cities are not counted into the urban area since they are not connected to the main urban agglomeration. They still count in the metropolitan area (see below).

*The largest urban agglomerations in the world generally belong to cities in the United States, Australia and Canada (to some extent) - i.e. cities with large suburban sprawl that are built with the car in focus (Japanese cities are obviously a big exception - they are huge anyway!). 
The largest are New York, Tokyo, Los Angeles and Chicago (in that order).


*Urban expanses*
*The parts of urban areas that consist of dense, "inner-city like" build up. 

*This is a quite good measurement to calculate the population of the "actual city" - i.e. the population that doesn't live in detached family house miles away from anything that could be called "urban".

*American, Australian and Canadian (to some extent) cities generally show small population numbers when using this technique, due to the very small downtowns and huge areas of sprawl (there are of course exceptions here as well). On the opposite side - European and Asian cities generally show very high population numbers when using this technique since in many cases the whole urban agglomeration contains of dense built-up with urban characteristics.

*The largest urban expanse *by far* belongs to Tokyo. Other cities with huge urban expanses are the Brazilian, Chinese and Indian metropolises. These cities have typical "megacity" characteristics when seen from above - featuring a endless ocean of urban agglomeration.


*"Sprawl"*
*I don't think there's a good definition for the world sprawl, but at least on these forums the definition seems to be the parts of an urban area that contains detached family houses with very low density. 

*It's probably very hard to get numbers on these sprawl areas, but my guess is that the world's biggest sprawl belongs to an American or Canadian city - maybe Chicago or Toronto (considering that the whole urban areas of these cities are huge, yet their downtowns are very small in comparission - ie. a very large area contains this low density sprawl).


*Metropolitan Areas*
*A large population center consisting of a large city and its adjacent zone of influence, or of several neighboring cities or towns and adjoining areas, with one or more large cities serving as its hub or hubs (wikipedia).

*Cities that are not connected can still belong to the same metropolitan area if a population large enough in one of the cities commute to the other city, for example. Typical examples of this are the metropolitan areas of London (~10 (?) million urban area - 18 million metropolitan area) and Frankfurt (0,6 million (?) urban area - 5 million metropolitan area) - both cities surrounded by a green belt, and outside this green belt are satellite cities that are totally dependent on the main city of the metropolitan area.

*Arguably the best way to compare city populations within a specific country.

*Probably the best way, but still not a good way, to compare cities in different countries. Different countries use different definitions, just like when it comes to urban areas.

*The largest metropolitan area (thus the "largest city") by population in the world is Tokyo, with around 35 (?) million inhabitants. 

*The largest metropolitan area by land size/area of probably that of Los Angeles.

--------

I hope this helps. And yeah, I apologize for my terrible skills in the English language. 
And please tell me if you think some of the info needs to be corrected. This could maybe be some kind of "sticky" post for future reference (and to help new forumers with the definitions of urban areas, metro areas and so on) - it needs to be written in better English though. 

EDIT: Oh, and it would be interesting if someone could do a list of the largest cities in every category.


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## brisavoine (Mar 19, 2006)

staff said:


> *The biggest municipality/city proper in the world is Kalgoorlie in Australia.


According to Wikipedia, the land area of Kalgoorlie is 95,288.5 km² (36,791 sq. miles). That's pretty large. In comparison, the largest municipality in France is Maripasoula (French Guyana) whose land area is "only" 18,360 km² (7,089 sq. miles). It may be the largest municipality in the European Union, but I'm not sure (Kiruna, Sweden, would come very close, but it's hard to find exact figures).



staff said:


> Typical examples of this are the metropolitan areas of London (~10 (?) million urban area - 18 million metropolitan area) and Frankfurt (0,6 million (?) urban area - 5 million metropolitan area)


Well, the actual figures are:
- London: 8.5 million in the urban area, 12 to 14 million in the metropolitan area (depending on sources)
- Frankfurt: 1.5 million in the urban area, 5.2 million in the Rhein-Main metropolitan area (this is a very very generous definition of the metro area made by the German government)


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## staff (Oct 23, 2004)

Thanks for the info, brisavoine.
I think I read some .pdf file made by the GLA (Greater London Authority?), stating that London's metropolitan area has 18 million people.
Well, it's all about definition anyway, I guess London's metropolitan population would be different if applying the United States method (MSA?) or the French one (INSEE?).


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## brisavoine (Mar 19, 2006)

Oh, THAT pdf file... It's important to understand that the GLA is a political entity aiming at promoting London. That's its job. It is not a scientific or statistical agency. It's a bit as if the New York City Hall published a paper claiming that the entire Northeastern USA belong to the metro area of New York. Better stick to figures published by researchers and statistical offices.


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## staff (Oct 23, 2004)

^^
Ah, I thought they were the official statistics bureau or something like that.
I stand corrected.


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## SE9 (Apr 26, 2005)

That's incorrect. The London promotion organisation is 'Visit *LONDON*' http://visitlondon.com/. I don't know where you got the idea that www.london.gov.uk was a London promotion site?

The GLA deals heavily in statistics, and has little if nothing to do with London promotion. 

(The Greater London Authority comprises of the mayor and a separately elected Assembly - the London Assembly. They deal in London issues eg. crime, population, culture etc.)

The GLA's website is an informative website, showing releases like the latest planning decisions etc. discussing London's issues, problems and solutions.

The GLA is a tier of regional government.... like a London Government, with the mayor as Prime Minister, and the assembly as ministers.

They are an statistics agency in the sense that they are *tied in with the Office for National Statistics*, and *have a Data Management Section*.

If you look at the page of publications below, you will see that the GLA handles heavily in statistics from Crime to Population:

http://www.london.gov.uk/gla/publications/



Here's an example of the statistics on the site:

*London's changing population*
_DMAG Briefing 2005-39, December 2005_

London is one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the world. Over recent decades the demography of London has altered considerably and is currently still rapidly changing. This briefing provides analysis of the changing population of London, and compares the differences in ethnic group concentrations between 1991 and 2001. There is a focus on ethnic diversity at ward level *using Simpson’s diversity index*, which compares the ethnic diversity of young people by ward with the population overall and looks at change between the last two censuses. Finally, the report aims to identify whether there are any areas in London that demonstrate ethnic segregation.

http://www.london.gov.uk/gla/publications/factsandfigures/dmag-briefing-2005-39.pdf


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## Küsel (Sep 16, 2004)

brisavoine said:


> According to Wikipedia, the land area of Kalgoorlie is 95,288.5 km² (36,791 sq. miles). That's pretty large. In comparison, the largest municipality in France is Maripasoula (French Guyana) whose land area is "only" 18,360 km² (7,089 sq. miles). It may be the largest municipality in the European Union, but I'm not sure (Kiruna, Sweden, would come very close, but it's hard to find exact figures).


I think Kiruna is half Switzerland with about 21'000km2 and Inari, SF is about 16'000. These must be the biggest on the European Continent.


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## SHiRO (Feb 7, 2003)

brisavoine said:


> Oh, THAT pdf file... It's important to understand that the GLA is a political entity aiming at promoting London. That's its job. It is not a scientific or statistical agency. It's a bit as if the New York City Hall published a paper claiming that the entire Northeastern USA belong to the metro area of New York. Better stick to figures published by researchers and statistical offices.


Wrong. In fact the 18 million figure is the ONLY official figure for a metro area for London.
If you use the same method the US Census uses on American cities on London, you indeed get a figure of 18 million.

Were you to use municipalities instead of counties (US Census uses counties), London is still well over 14 million.


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## SE9 (Apr 26, 2005)

staff said:


> Thanks for the info, brisavoine.
> I think I read some .pdf file made by the GLA (Greater London Authority?), stating that London's metropolitan area has 18 million people.
> Well, it's all about definition anyway, I guess London's metropolitan population would be different if applying the United States method (MSA?) or the French one (INSEE?).


Here's a publication which may help you see where the figure of 18 million was drawn up.

This is from the 'regional planning guidance for the south east', which is a *government department*

http://www.go-se.gov.uk/gose/docs/171301/311174/RPG9March2001.pdf

Some maps and figures from the above presentation that appear on some GLA publications. These maps may help you understand how this figure was achieved, and what area is defined:





























There are many more maps...

I recommend reading the *South East Plan*

http://www.southeast-ra.gov.uk/southeastplan/

This was submitted to the government on * 31 March 2006*


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## SE9 (Apr 26, 2005)

Under the *context* section of the PDF, you will find this:

http://www.go-se.gov.uk/gose/docs/171301/311174/RPG9March2001.pdf
(regional planning guidance for the south east) 
part of http://www.southeast-ra.gov.uk/southeastplan/ (the south-east plan)











The GLA then used this research in their study on the 'London Plan'... a plan for the development of London and the region.


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## staff (Oct 23, 2004)

^^
They are made from original urban area maps, and resized to scale.
There was a big thread about it over at SSP, and SHiRO posted all his maps there (and other forumers contributed with theirs).


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## Klas (May 16, 2005)

*whats up with the ruhr and london /paris metro= ?*

whats up with the metro of rhine ruhr (incl. duesseldorf , cologne , essen and bonn) , with london and paris metro all around 11 milion inhabitans ! ...


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## brisavoine (Mar 19, 2006)

What do you mean?


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## Crispy (Mar 31, 2006)

Sprawl is an extremely bad thing, as it eats up farm land, makes commuting times long and traffic heavy, eats up vast amounts of energy getting to and fro, contributes to global warming and air pollution because of all the cars on the road, and makes mass public transportation almost impossible because of the great distances and the relatively few people per distance traveled. Also, it contributes to crime, as no one is nearby to help. No doubt about it, the US wins by a mile on this one, and Los Angeles is probably the worst of the lot.


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## Troopchina (Oct 7, 2005)

AndySocks said:


> Do you people have no idea what sprawl is? That's not sprawl. The densest parts of most American cities don't even come close to being that dense. Come to America and see what sprawl is. It's an utter nightmare. You'll wonder what the hell the American Dream is all about, and how so many idiots are convinced they live in a wonderland.
> 
> Welcome to America:
> 
> ...


Respect. Finally a decent post. 

I do even see any ground for the arguement. Euro and american cities are completely different in it's essence (with some exceptions, NYC being one).

All those pictures shown of Paris is not sprawl.


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## Bond James Bond (Aug 23, 2002)

[shameless plug]
If anyone wants to see some mega-pics of American sprawl, be sure to visit my thread here:
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=383911
[/shameless plug]


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## illmatic774 (Jul 20, 2005)

the sad thing is about Detroit, is that most of its suburbs don't even contribute to sprawl, its just a few giant blobs that **** it up for everybody. It's the likes of Livonia, Troy, Sterling Heights, Auburn Hills (All around 6x6 miles), and the stupid ass townships that contribute to almost all of the sprawl.

Go to Google Earth. You can see that almost all of Downriver is quite dense. SW of the city is too (Dearborn, Dearbown Heights, Inkster, Taylor, Westland, Southgate, Redford twp, Garden City etc.).

Most of Metro Detroit handles it quite well. Its just a ceratin few that spoils the bunch.


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## Svajoklis (Oct 29, 2005)

You can travel for hours in Japan (at very high speeds!) and see nothing but ugly sprawl - the only place where there isn't sprawl is in the mountains and far north, and the Kansai and Greater Tokyo areas are huge and completely covered in buildings, and between them there's almost continuous habitation. That said, it's still much denser than the kind of sprawl you get in America, as land prices are very high and most people tend to live in small apartments rather than detatched bungalows.

In Europe, I would say London is the worst, as there are large suburbs of semi-detached houses with small gardens, as opposed to e.g. Paris and Moscow where most of the suburbs are full of high-rise tower blocks.


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## Kiss the Rain (Apr 2, 2006)

Svajoklis said:


> You can travel for hours in Japan (at very high speeds!) and see nothing but ugly sprawl - the only place where there isn't sprawl is in the mountains and far north, and the Kansai and Greater Tokyo areas are huge and completely covered in buildings, and between them there's almost continuous habitation. That said, it's still much denser than the kind of sprawl you get in America, as land prices are very high and most people tend to live in small apartments rather than detatched bungalows.
> 
> In Europe, I would say London is the worst, as there are large suburbs of semi-detached houses with small gardens, as opposed to e.g. Paris and Moscow where most of the suburbs are full of high-rise tower blocks.


Its not that bad, the japanese can make their buildings beautiful if they want, but they just can't be bothered.
Still id much rather live in a dense, vibrant japanese community then in a ugly american sprawl where everyone are isolated in their pitying little house and cars.


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## The Cebuano Exultor (Aug 1, 2005)

*@ Svajoklis*

Greater Tokyo and the Kansai Urban Region might have big sprawls but at least they are dense and ecclectic. American sprawls might seem beautiful superficially but they lacks character and vibe.

I would rather live in a dense Tokyo neighborhood than even a *mansion-suburb* (i.e. Bel-Air) in America anyday. These neighborhoods are a walk or a bicycle away from a train station. Greater Tokyo, with an efficient, effective, excellent and extensive urban railway network would allow you to go downtown without wasting a gallon of oil (and subsequently lessens air pollution). Greater Tokyo's suburbs, indeed look hideous aesthetics-wise due to it's endless and repetitive stretch of box-like apartments but at least the Japanese live in *real* communities (as in community, in every sense of the word) rather than the empty and alienating-feel of the American suburbs. Who cares if they live in these boring apartments...American *single-house lot suburbs*, moreso, are boring and repetitive. 

I mean, look at those American suburbs...they're devoid of vibrance. Moreover, the extremely long distance of these suburbs from their respective city centers as well as the lack of public transport makes car-oriented lifestyle a necessity which is basically resource-wasteful and/or environmentally irresponsible. These suburbs in America are a summation of everything that is wrong about America's excessive consumption habits and environmentally unsustainable development patterns.

However, I don't entirely blame it [America's excessive suburbanization and exurbanization] on the *American Culture* and/or the *"American Dream"*. I also blame it on the per capita land area of America. The U.S. simply has too much habitable land area (and flatlands, at that) so that they could sprawl more than any large populous country on Earth. Perhaps, if the Japanese or the Europeans had the same land per capita as the Americans, then they would most probably have the same consumption habits and development patterns as the United States.


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## Crispy (Mar 31, 2006)

The Cebuano Exultor said:


> Greater Tokyo and the Kansai Urban Region might have big sprawls but at least they are dense and ecclectic. American sprawls might seem beautiful superficially but they lacks character and vibe.
> 
> I would rather live in a dense Tokyo neighborhood than even a *mansion-suburb* (i.e. Bel-Air) in America anyday. These neighborhoods are a walk or a bicycle away from a train station. Greater Tokyo, with an efficient, effective, excellent and extensive urban railway network would allow you to go downtown without wasting a gallon of oil (and subsequently lessens air pollution). Greater Tokyo's suburbs, indeed look hideous aesthetics-wise due to it's endless and repetitive stretch of box-like apartments but at least the Japanese live in *real* communities (as in community, in every sense of the word) rather than the empty and alienating-feel of the American suburbs. Who cares if they live in these boring apartments...American *single-house lot suburbs*, moreso, are boring and repetitive.
> 
> ...




Don't agree completely with this statement. Canada, which is larger than the US and which has only one-tenth the population of the US, has far more density than does the US, and Brazil, which is a little smaller than the US and with considerably fewer people, has cities that are among the most dense on earth. Sorry, US, you must take the discredit of have the world's worst sprawl by a considerable margin, although NYC is an exception to this rule.


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## sogod (Jul 12, 2004)

The Cebuano Exultor said:


> I would rather live in a dense Tokyo neighborhood than even a *mansion-suburb* (i.e. Bel-Air) in America anyday. These neighborhoods are a walk or a bicycle away from a train station. Greater Tokyo, with an efficient, effective, excellent and extensive urban railway network would allow you to go downtown without wasting a gallon of oil (and subsequently lessens air pollution). Greater Tokyo's suburbs, indeed look hideous aesthetics-wise due to it's endless and repetitive stretch of box-like apartments but at least the Japanese live in *real* communities (as in community, in every sense of the word) rather than the empty and alienating-feel of the American suburbs. Who cares if they live in these boring apartments...American *single-house lot suburbs*, moreso, are boring and repetitive.


The hideous expanses of suburbia in Japan here is no more (or less) *real* than American suburbia. Just because you can walk or bike to a station does not mean you neighbors know your name or care about you MORE than if you lived in an American suburb. The community aspect is just the same (or less, since things are so rushed and regimented). AND if you want to compare populations based on feelings of emptiness and alienation, I suggest you dont use Japan as your ideal.  We both know they have a serious problem here, probably signifigantly more so than our suburban youth. 

In fact, probably the only real communities are (very) small towns or villages in the countryside (of any country). Cities, especially big ones, are the anti-community.


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## degnaw (Jul 4, 2006)

Crispy said:


> Don't agree completely with this statement. Canada, which is larger than the US and which has only one-tenth the population of the US, has far more density than does the US, and Brazil, which is a little smaller than the US and with considerably fewer people, has cities that are among the most dense on earth. Sorry, US, you must take the discredit of have the world's worst sprawl by a considerable margin, although NYC is an exception to this rule.


^^yeah, I think I mentioned that earlier (or may not have) actually it was in the "sprawl festival" thread.

A lot of people are saying LA is king of sprawl, but I read somewhere that it is one of the densest metro areas in the US... and according to google earth, its a lot denser than here

I read in the newspaper that a housing development was rejected because it exceeded 1.8 units per acre... *sigh*


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## The Cebuano Exultor (Aug 1, 2005)

*@ Crispy*

That is precisely why I said "...they could sprawl more than any *large populous* country on Earth." 

I used the words *large* as in large in land area.
I used the words *populous* as in large in population.

Therefore, your analysis on why I gave my rationale, that it is because of the U.S.'s large habitable (and flatlands, at that) land area that attributed to American cities tending to sprawl so much, is wrong since Canada has obviously smaller *habitable* land area.

*ANALYSIS ON CANADA*

*Canada Has Smaller Habitable Land Area*
Although Canada has also a large track of land much of it is unhospitable, perhaps, unhabitable for long periods of time. On the other hand, much of the contigious United States is basically habitable. Even the desserts of Nevada are slowly turning lush green (i.e. Las Vegas Metro) and, thereby, more hospitable for human habitation than are Canada's permafrost northern landscapes (i.e. tundras and taigas).

*Canada Has a Smaller GDP (PPP) per Capita Than the U.S. * 
I also believe that housing patterns also depends on your per capita GDP (PPP). Since basically an average American is richer than his Canadian counterpart, it is simply more possible for Americans to have larger and more spacious homes and lots.

*Canada Has, In Fact, Smaller Land Area Than the U.S.*
Although in an official list Canada is the second largest country after Russia in terms of total area, it would be placed fourth on a total *land area* list as most of its total land area is water. The list would be more like: Russia, China, U.S. and then Canada.

*ANALYSIS ON BRAZIL*

Oh yeah, I forgot about Brazil. But please do give me a chance to give an analysis on why Brazil's development patterns are so dense as opposed to sprawly America. 

*Brazil Has Significantly Lesser GDP (PPP) per Capita Than the U.S.*
Yes, Brazil has also a large total area and/or total land area. It even has more land area than the contigious United States. But the most probable reason why Brazilian cities are extremely dense is that people live in apartment buildings since it is *cheaper* and more practical, on their part, than owning a suburban house and/or "suburban castle". Furthermore, Brazilians have fewer automobiles per capita than do the Americans. Moreover, Brazil's public transportation network is similarly, or more, less developed as America's. Therefore, it would be greatly disadvantageous for them to live in far flung suburbs and/or exurbs.

*Brazil Has a Bigger Gap Between the Rich and Poor Than Does the U.S.*
Moreso, Brazil's huge gap between the rich and poor enable a very few elite to live very luxurious lives in suburbs while a great majority live in apartment blocks close to the citi center. Since there are much fewer rich or higher middle-income people in Brazil than in the United States, it is just only fitting that the U.S. would have larger suburban communities than does Brazil. This is in the asumption that Brazilian suburbs are economically accesible only for the rich and higher middle-income people.

*CONCLUSION:*
It is best that everyone should look at things objectively. In this case, one should not blame entirely on a certain culture their development patterns because it would be quite unfair, on their part. It is best to analyze why it is so and not outright complaining which or what country has the worst sprawl. Don't get me wrong, I hate sprawl myself...but I wish everyone would not be judgemnetal on culture but, rather, critical on the causes as to why the culture is as it is.

Cheers :cheers:


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## gonzo (Jul 30, 2006)

> Canada Has, In Fact, Smaller Land Area Than the U.S.


That's _very_ interesting. What's your source?


> it is simply more possible for Americans to have larger and more spacious homes and lots.


A tiny apartment in manhattan can cost more than a large estate in up-state New York.

There's hardly a considerable difference between Canada and the US. This is a typical Canadian residential area...


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## The Cebuano Exultor (Aug 1, 2005)

*@ gonzo*

Yeah, it's true. Canada is the second largest country in the world after Russia in terms of total area. But it would be fourth after the Russian Federation, the People's Republic of China, and the United States of America when you only country the total *land* area. Try using the CIA World Factbook Website. 

On your point about the price difference being oblivious/minimal/insignificant between a tiny Manhattan apartment and a suburban home, I say that it is because housing prices and/or living expenses differ in Brazil. 

Since Manhattan Island epitomizes prime realty, it is only fitting that a studio apartment in or near Midtown or Downtown would be expensive. Why is Manhattan considered as prime realty? It is because manhattan is the heart of American finance. It's importance and significance to the American economy is so great that it would be very strategic and equally accesible-friendly for a businessman to live on top or near the financial center of the U.S. 

Here's another reason why America's suburbs sprawl so much, like there is no tomorrow, which I forgot to mention it in my previous post and yes I got it from your comments. I believe in what your saying that the high cost of space pressures Americans to look for cheaper houses in the suburbs and exurbs. However, one must realize that living further out of the city center entails once transportation cost to rise, though not significantly (in the United States setting).

Meanwhile, in Brazil or in the Philippines (my home country) the masses (or the general populous of these two developing nations) flock to the city center while the filthy rich or the higher-income middle class live in gated communities (and sometime echoing the same suburban patterns as America, though less excessive and sprawly in nature). This is so generally because they find job opportunities all centered in the city center and being closer to the city center gives them easier access to their respective jobs without the hassles and the transportation costs of commuting far distances. 

*CONCLUSION:*
There are three factors which caused America's great suburbanization and exurbanization which consequently led to the endless sprawling cities that dot America. These are:

1. *Housing Prices*
There, probably, is no difference living in downtown apartments and suburban houses in terms of living cost. There is a balanced out in housing cost per square feet and transportation cost. Note that the bad side of suburban living is the higher transportation cost while the bad side to dowtown habitation is the higher housing cost per square feet.

2. *Ultra-Developed Country*
The United States is an exceptional country with an extraordinary economy. In terms of the per capita basis, it has the highest GDP (PPP) in the world (and not GDP Nominal/Market Exchange Rates). Although, one can be fooled by this illusion due to the fact that there is a very large income gap between the rich and poor. However, it is important to note that despite the very large wealth gap, even lower-income families have more than enough to buy/own an automobile. Given this premise plus the low lending rates relative to income, it is much more practical for Americans to live in less hectic and less expensive (in terms of housing prices) environments like the suburbs and the exurbs because they have the means of personal transportation via automobiles. On the other hand, developing nations do not share the same living standards and/or similar living cost dilemmas with America. While America's living cost dilemma is that: the further you are from the city center the cheaper is the housing prices but the higher is the cost of transportation due to long commuting distances, the dilemmas for developing nations like Brazil is that: the further you go in the city, the more expensive is the housing price and/or rent per square feet of space but with significantly lesser living cost due to a significantly lower transportation cost. The significance is so great that it would offset, and thereby make more enticing for human habitation the downtown areas rather than the suburbs, by a big margin the higher cost per square footage of rent and/or the like. Why is it *significantly* less transportation costly to live in the suburbs? It is because owning an automobile in Brazil is still significantly out of reach for much of the population. Moving out to the suburbs or exurbs means that automobile-ownership is a must. The impending cost of owning an auto would turn-off possible chances for a family looking to move to much *more habitable living environment* in the suburbs.

3. *There is just too much flat habitable land to sprawl.*
The United States has, in fact, more *habitable land* than any other country in the world. Why is this...? Well, Australia is mostly rocky desert. Now the U.S. has large tracks of desert too but, see, they are not as harsh as the ones in Australia. Canada simply has fewer *land* area than the U.S. that is suitable for long periods of human habitation. The northern lands of Canada are just too cold. Russia has similar reasons with Canada in that Russia vast hinterlands are just too cold for long periods of human habitation. Brazil has semi-tropic and tropic landscapes. Yes, weather is not a problem here. But the thick jungles of the Amazon is. Given that Brazil is still a developing nation it is simply stupid to raze the Amazon and build their suburban neighborhoods there since it would be too difficult and too costly which is unlike the less thickly grown land mass of the U.S. where it is easier to level and make way for housing projects suburban-style. Mainland China, though having more total *land* area than any country except Russia is too mountainous. Furthermore, China's western terrain is covered in very, very cold and dry deserts. So that the large bulk of its population is concentrated on its eastern coast. The eastern part of China is simply not enough to allow such grandiose suburban developments American-style.

*************************************************************

I'm sorry if my post is too long. Its just that I don't know any other way to explain it clearly and specifically enough than this. Anyway, if you put through the effort in reading the post, I owe you much gratitude. Thanks. 

Cheers :cheers:


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## elfabyanos (Jun 18, 2006)

Why the argument over what type of urban developmaent counts as sprawl? All of it that constitutes the city is the sprawl of the city. All the buildings/overbuilding that make a conurbation is the sprawl, no more no less. Same as the coffee i just spilt on the table. All of it is sprawling.
Jumping from garden to warehouse to office block to shop you can go in a straight line in London for 40 miles. This would suggest a much bigger urban sprawl than some of the statistics suggest, which makes me extremely dubious of the whole excercise as I know its much bigger than is being supposed and I know nearly everywhere else is so much bigger than london including about 10 US cities alone,about 10 chinese ones and thats just for starters.
I do believe we have a healthy debate here and I do believe we can come up with a way to actually define this and work it out for all cities and then compare. This should be our mission! Well maybe.
My two pennies on parks and greenery - if its there and remaining there solely for the recreational purposes of the urban dwellers all around it (and isn't just undeveloped countryside) then it is part of urban fabric. Meaning it is not sprawl but it binds the actual sprawl on either side of it as presumably if the park wasnt protected it would have been built on,instead developers had to go a bit further before building.
Aaaaaaaaanyway,
Tokyo or NYC,
And to be purely inflammatory,in response to the beginning of this thread, it is not Athens. You can see the other side of athens. Its not that far. Try see the end in any of the pics for the other cities. You couldn't. In nyc the curvature of the earth would stop you let alone the pollution.


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## gonzo (Jul 30, 2006)

Thanks for your post Exultor.


> Try using the CIA World Factbook Website


Canada edges the US in this respect according to the CIA World Factbook...https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/fields/2147.html


> Canada simply has fewer land area than the U.S. that is suitable for long periods of human habitation


No doubt about it!  


> Given that Brazil is still a developing nation it is simply stupid to raze the Amazon and build their suburban neighborhoods there since it would be too difficult and too costly


I don't think they're leveling 20 football fields a minute because deforestation is uneconomical. In that respect, I think Brazil is a contender for most land suitable for human habitat....I agree though that it would be stupid and irresponsible.


> Since basically an average American is richer than his Canadian counterpart, it is simply more possible for Americans to have larger and more spacious homes and lots.


I think the sprawl has less to do with homes and lots being larger and more spacious (since suburban houses aren't necessarily more expensive than downtown apartments) and more to do with a larger number being able to live outside the reach of public transit (which you have pointed-out comparing to Brazil), namely because of cheap fuel. 

Btw, I think your conclusion factors #1 and 2 express essentially the same arguement...More American's can cover the higher transportation costs of suburban living than can other people in their own countries. Yes?

anyway...
Thanks again and Cheers


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## gonzo (Jul 30, 2006)

Correction-


> Canada edges the US in this respect according to the CIA World Factbook...https://www.cia.gov/cia/publication...ields/2147.html


According to the CIA World Factbook (albeit an american source) the _US_ edges _Canada_ in this respect...for some reason I was looking at the first category (combined total).

...Apologies.


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## degnaw (Jul 4, 2006)

The Cebuano Exultor said:


> *Canada Has Smaller Habitable Land Area*
> 
> *Canada Has a Smaller GDP (PPP) per Capita Than the U.S. *


Canada has plenty of habitable land area; if Toronto was in the US it would be sprawled all the way to london and St catharines, but the land is currently filled with farms. this is mainly an assumption, but I assume that there is more habitable land per capita in Canada (and in my opinion, Cincinnati, OH is less habitably than Edmonton because its too HOT here)

There are expeptions to the smaller gdpcap, most notably, alberta, where they also have 5.8 unit/acre "suburbs"

I also read somewhere that suburbs are built in layers, to meet generational demands. This is how Cincinnati was built (inner layer for new familes, then another layer (blue ash, sharonville) for the next generation, then another (westchester, mason) for the next, and so on


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## weava (Sep 8, 2007)

Kansas City, MO is the most sprawled city in the USA
The area in the 1st picture is ENTIRELY inside city limits of KC,MO proper, they just sprawl out and build neighborhoods anywhere with no overall city planning









sprawl on the kansas side of the metro









notice the large undeveloped area the city just sprawled around, that area doesn't have convenient freeway access so the area got built around









very low density suburban area


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## poshbakerloo (Jan 16, 2007)

^^^ The thing with suburbs like that is that they are perfect places to bring up families and they look pretty


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## Xpressway (Dec 2, 2006)

A large city isn't necessarly a sprawled city.

My vote wouldn't go to any latinamerican city, probably the most sprawled city is somewhere in the U.S or Australia.

Buenos Aires or Sao Paulo aren't even close to being sprawled compaired to Los Angeles, California or Miami, Florida. (metro areas)(and there's more sprawled cities than those two in the U.S).


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

Xpressway said:


> A large city isn't necessarly a sprawled city.
> 
> My vote wouldn't go to any latinamerican city, probably the most sprawled city is somewhere in the U.S or Australia.
> 
> Buenos Aires or Sao Paulo aren't even close to being sprawled compaired to Los Angeles, California or Miami, Florida. (metro areas)(and there's more sprawled cities than those two in the U.S).


Cities like Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo, Shanghai or Tokyo have "urban sprawls". That mean that the cityscape and lifestyle has more of an urban feel within these areas unlike the suburban feel that Australian or US cities have including New York.

On the other hand. LA has a massive suburban sprawl. The city does have a "defined" urban core but on the other hand has a small downtown unlike other major US cities.


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## mvictory (Jul 27, 2009)

I just read the first couple of pages but i found it funny what Europeans call urban sprawl. They don't know how good they have it. 
The city with the most urban sprawl for its size has to be in USA or Aus. Possibly Perth?


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

mvictory said:


> I just read the first couple of pages but i found it funny what Europeans call urban sprawl. They don't know how good they have it.
> The city with the most urban sprawl for its size has to be in USA or Aus. Possibly Perth?


Perth's urbanity and sprawl is interesting the fact that the city is *isolated* compared to other Australian cities.


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## Ribarca (Jan 28, 2005)

Manila has massive sprawl. The city goes in all directions with almost only low rise houses without much planning. The big issue are the high end gated communities all over the city that take up acres of space with very low density. Even in central areas. Golf courses only aggravate this.

Ironically there are almost no public parks around the city. Only the rich have their private green.


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## jabroni (Mar 24, 2011)

Manila-X said:


> On the other hand. LA has a massive suburban sprawl. The city does have a "defined" urban core but on the other hand has a small downtown unlike other major US cities.


What? What major city in the US has no downtown? Also LA is somewhat contained by the ocean and the mountains and its sprawl is more dense than most cities in the US. I don't think it's the worst. See those aerial pictures of Kansas City above and compare that to aerial pictures of LA.


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

Ribarca said:


> Manila has massive sprawl. The city goes in all directions with almost only low rise houses without much planning. The big issue are the high end gated communities all over the city that take up acres of space with very low density. Even in central areas. Golf courses only aggravate this.
> 
> Ironically there are almost no public parks around the city. Only the rich have their private green.


The high-end gated communities are mostly concentrated in the southern and eastern sections of central Metro Manila where most CBDs are located. This includes Makati, The Fort, Ortigas, San Juan and the eastern sections of Quezon City.

Though the majority of structure are low-rise homes and commercial buildings, the city does have a large number of mid to high-rise buildings.

There are golf-courses within the city mostly in Midtown.

There are small sections of public parks mainly Luneta, Paco Park and La Mesa Ecopark. The later though is all the way in the suburbs.

SCROLL->>>


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

jabroni said:


> What? What major city in the US has no downtown? Also LA is somewhat contained by the ocean and the mountains and its sprawl is more dense than most cities in the US. I don't think it's the worst. See those aerial pictures of Kansas City above and compare that to aerial pictures of LA.


I'm not saying LA's downtown is the worst but it is a small downtown for such a large city. At least in the area *defined* as downtown. 

On the other hand, LA's city core is huge from DT LA to Hollywood, the areas south of Hollywood Hills, Wilshire, Beverly Hills, West LA including West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Century City and Westwood all the way to Marina Del Rey / Santa Monica.


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## poshbakerloo (Jan 16, 2007)

mvictory said:


> I just read the first couple of pages but i found it funny what Europeans call urban sprawl. They don't know how good they have it.
> The city with the most urban sprawl for its size has to be in USA or Aus. Possibly Perth?


I think it depends on which European country you look at. UK and Ireland cities have a lot of sprawl. The difference is that they don't have loads of urban freeways running around them. London has a lot of older sprawl but Glasgow has a lot and its growing...

I can't really say its a bad thing when you have a lot of space like USA and Canada but in the UK it does cause problems as the population density is a lot higher...
*
Glasgow...*


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## LosAngelesSportsFan (Oct 20, 2004)

Manila-X said:


> Cities like Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo, Shanghai or Tokyo have "urban sprawls". That mean that the cityscape and lifestyle has more of an urban feel within these areas unlike the suburban feel that Australian or US cities have including New York.
> 
> On the other hand. LA has a massive suburban sprawl. The city does have a "defined" urban core but on the other hand has a small downtown unlike other major US cities.


LA may have sprawl, but its not worse than NY's or Chicago's. Also, LA's downtown is one of the largest in the US and the urban core is very very large.


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## poshbakerloo (Jan 16, 2007)

LosAngelesSportsFan said:


> LA may have sprawl, but its not worse than NY's or Chicago's. Also, LA's downtown is one of the largest in the US and the urban core is very very large.


What is with all the...Worse than, bad, awful etc!

Theres a lot of happy people living in that sprawl!


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

LosAngelesSportsFan said:


> LA may have sprawl, but its not worse than NY's or Chicago's. Also, LA's downtown is one of the largest in the US and the urban core is very very large.


As with the case of LA, downtown is more a name than an actual downtown as in where most of the city's residents go to for their commercial needs.

On the other hand, Downtown LA is still the primary central business district of this city.


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## jabroni (Mar 24, 2011)

poshbakerloo said:


> What is with all the...Worse than, bad, awful etc!
> 
> Theres a lot of happy people living in that sprawl!


That's great except that suburban sprawal destroys the natural landscape and wastes resources. They're also cultural dead zones. I grew up in a small town that was surrounded by farms and forests and in the course of my life I saw it swalllowed up by suburban sprawal and yes it is bad and awful.


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## poshbakerloo (Jan 16, 2007)

jabroni said:


> That's great except that suburban sprawal destroys the natural landscape and wastes resources. They're also cultural dead zones. I grew up in a small town that was surrounded by farms and forests and in the course of my life I saw it swalllowed up by suburban sprawal and yes it is bad and awful.


Its bad if you don't live in it and you see it being built around you. But some all the people who live in it. They must like it, which is why there is so much demand for it. Leafy suburbs and manicured lawns always look nice...


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## Northsider (Jan 16, 2006)

LosAngelesSportsFan said:


> LA may have sprawl, but its not worse than NY's or Chicago's.


In fact isn't LA's sprawl the densest in the country?

EDIT: I read a few posts above and this was already mentioned.


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## Northsider (Jan 16, 2006)

poshbakerloo said:


> ^^^ The thing with suburbs like that is that they are perfect places to bring up families and they look pretty


"Perfect" in _what_ way? 

Safe? Most suburbs anyhow...there's some truly ghetto and unsafe suburbs out there.

House size? Sure, if that's important to you.

Nature? Well, I have parks, forest preserves, and the Lake nearby to my Chicago home...no need to suburbs in that regard.

Education? Depends on what school you go to.

Cost? Well, look at a transportation vs land cost graph. Suburbs have cheap land, but you make up for it by driving everywhere.

Pretty? Not to me...they all look the same and boring.

Culture? Not much to be had in the suburbs you are talking about.

Amenities? Again, the city has the concentrations of amenities.

Infrastructure? Suburbs strain infrastructure and make it expensive.


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## weava (Sep 8, 2007)

Northsider said:


> Cost? Well, look at a transportation vs land cost graph. Suburbs have cheap land, but you make up for it by driving everywhere.
> .


living downtown is more expensive in every way from what I've experienced, you have to pay to park, groceries are more expensive than in the suburbs, gas stations are more expensive, there are no wal-marts/best buys/etc so you still have to drive on a regular basis. I am personally moving from a downtown location to a suburban area next month because its cheaper for a nicer/newer place so I think cost is a major factor in why many people chose the suburbs over an urban/downtown area. Unless you also work downtown, its just not worth it.


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## Northsider (Jan 16, 2006)

weava said:


> living downtown is more expensive in every way from what I've experienced, you have to pay to park, groceries are more expensive than in the suburbs, gas stations are more expensive, there are no wal-marts/best buys/etc so you still have to drive on a regular basis.


In "every way"? All of your gripes center around the car. 'nuff said. In a proper urban environment you don't need to park, pay for gas, or need a walmart because you can simply walk to a neighborhood store to get what you need. This is mostly true around the world.

You have to remember it's a lifestyle change. People try to fit their suburban way of thinking in the urban environment. It just doesn't translate that well. I'm 28 and haven't owned a car in my life.

No offense, but a city like KC (M or K) isn't really an urban environment like I'm talking about. It's basically suburban in form with a downtown. Of course you'd move to the suburbs.


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## Marcanadian (May 7, 2005)

I know a lot of people who live in the suburbs, particularly my Aunt, who hates the idea of city living. She hates the noise, the crowds, and how expensive it is. When I argued that at least I could walk to the grocery store, bank, movie theatre, bookstore, or basically anything I want in my neighbourhood she scoffed at me and said "I can walk to the gas station!" 

I'm sure if given the opportunity to buy a house in the city that is the same size and cost of a house in the suburbs, most people would choose city life. But it's nearly impossible to find a house in Toronto proper for anything lower than $400,000. So they move out to the suburbs and commute to work mostly by car, but some thankfully take commuter rail or bus. Still, it's not a pleasant experience to walk to the grocery store across a massive parking lot just to buy a bag of milk in the suburbs - suburbs are designed for the car. I can walk to my convenience store that's literally two minutes away and get a bag of milk.


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## weava (Sep 8, 2007)

Northsider said:


> In "every way"? All of your gripes center around the car. 'nuff said. In a proper urban environment you don't need to park, pay for gas, or need a walmart because you can simply walk to a neighborhood store to get what you need. This is mostly true around the world.
> 
> You have to remember it's a lifestyle change. People try to fit their suburban way of thinking in the urban environment. It just doesn't translate that well. I'm 28 and haven't owned a car in my life.
> 
> No offense, but a city like KC (M or K) isn't really an urban environment like I'm talking about. It's basically suburban in form with a downtown. Of course you'd move to the suburbs.


There is a grocery store downtown KC that I can and do walk to but it doesn't change the fact that its more expensive than walmart even when you factor in the gallon of gas wasted by driving.


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## poshbakerloo (Jan 16, 2007)

Living in a city is fine when you're young with out a family. Sure a lot of families do live in cities but a lot of inner city schools have inner city problems! In general the suburbs are a haven for the middle classes. Driving places isn't that bad either...I like driving


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## Northsider (Jan 16, 2006)

weava said:


> There is a grocery store downtown KC that I can and do walk to but it doesn't change the fact that its more expensive than walmart even when you factor in the gallon of gas wasted by driving.











Simplify maaaan


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## Northsider (Jan 16, 2006)

> I know a lot of people who live in the suburbs, particularly my Aunt, who hates the idea of city living. She hates the noise, the crowds, and how expensive it is. When I argued that at least I could walk to the grocery store, bank, movie theatre, bookstore, or basically anything I want in my neighbourhood she scoffed at me and said "I can walk to the gas station!"


The problem is, when people think "city" they think skyscrapers, traffic, cars honking all day, crowded sidewalks...

...that's not how all neighborhoods in the city are. My neighborhood has a lot of single family houses (admittedly expensive), lots of families with children, close to rail transit, close to every amenity. It's this idea that "the city" means either "downtown" or "the ghetto" and turns many people off that bothers me. Not many people realize there are nice neighborhoods within the city that offers the urban experience without being "loud and crowded".

Bah, doesn't matter though, I feel like I have this debate every 6 months. Live where you want, but don't cry to me when gas is 10 bucks/gallon.


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## intensivecarebear (Feb 2, 2006)

Northsider said:


> The problem is, when people think "city" they think skyscrapers, traffic, cars honking all day, crowded sidewalks...
> 
> ...that's not how all neighborhoods in the city are. My neighborhood has a lot of single family houses (admittedly expensive), lots of families with children, close to rail transit, close to every amenity. It's this idea that "the city" means either "downtown" or "the ghetto" and turns many people off that bothers me. Not many people realize there are nice neighborhoods within the city that offers the urban experience without being "loud and crowded".
> 
> Bah, doesn't matter though, I feel like I have this debate every 6 months. *Live where you want, but don't cry to me when gas is 10 bucks/gallon.*


Amen


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## Hia-leah JDM (May 7, 2007)

Xpressway said:


> Buenos Aires or Sao Paulo aren't even close to being sprawled compaired to Los Angeles, California or Miami, Florida. (metro areas)(and there's more sprawled cities than those two in the U.S).


Other than being stretched out along the coast, Miami doesn't sprawl a whole lot because of the Atlantic Ocean and the Everglades.

In Miami Dade County there is an urban development boundary . This is what sprawl in Miami is like.


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## Suburbanist (Dec 25, 2009)

Something everybody should take notice in these discussions is that different people not only (1) have difference preferences in terms of certain objective factors related to housing, but (2) also a different set of factors by which they evaluate each housing experience.

(1) is easy to understand: height, for instance - some people will prefer living close to ground, others, as high as possible in multi-story buildings. Same goes for traffic (of whatever type) in the street - some love a busy street, others want the quietest possible place. Yet we could tell about homogeneity: some people like to live among others that are of similar lifestyles as them - students who love the dorm halls, families who love places where 80% of nearby households are also families with kids -, others will find that boring and want a place with different people around. 

In any cases, discussions in (1) are easy to frame. The problem on SSC and most urban planning serious discussions is to ignore (2). Some people just don't care at all for factors that are extremely important for others when judging how good a place is to live - or not -.

As examples, some people just don't care one dime about "walkability". It is not a factor because, regardless of where they live, they will center their mobility around the car. Other people don't care (I'm an example of that) at all, not a single neuron, about how much "character" a place has, in the sense of having an own identity or own long-time stores or meeting places people can relate to. Another group will not spend a minute worrying about whether you have, and how much you have, private space for leisure (gardens/pools). 

It is rather patronizing, IMO, from urban planners to "force" choices on people who don't care about certain aspects of their housing choices as to "make them care about" by means of inducing "changing of lifestyle". It's rather a social engineering program IMO.

Last two pages on this thread, this was shown clearly: one guy thinks downtown cities are more expensive on a per-area basis (which is true), and other argue that in central areas there is no need for a car (which might be true, depending on the city). The problem is that the two forumers have different set of factors by which they evaluate housing choices.

In a free country, market will cater to these different groups, and many others, together with zoning, to provide for different groups who choose different styles of housing arrangements, as long as they are financially sustainable (a bunch of recently graduates wanting to live the excitement of a big city downtown but with $ 30.000 yearly wage is just not financially sustainable to attract market offers for them).


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## Northsider (Jan 16, 2006)

> It is rather patronizing, IMO, from urban planners to "force" choices on people


That's their job. That's why they go through 2-4 years of graduate school, and 2-4 more years of post-graduate school. They are able to make the educated decisions. People don't know what they want. Rather, they _think_ they know what they want.

But you said it, there _are_choices. We force a select few choices on people based on the greater good. Fine if you want to live in a huge McMansion in the exurbs of a metro area, but be prepared to pay MUCH more than others in transportation costs and utilities. People here in Chicago are complaining about toll increases and how they shouldn't be the ones paying. Well, WHO SHOULD?! They are the ones that use the toll system! They are the ones that choose to live 40 miles away from their job and drive everywhere!

Yes, there are choices, but I feel they should be fair choices. Those that live in the city pay a premium on land and very little on transportation. The opposite should be true for those that live in the suburbs and exurbs, yet it's not always the case. 

Metros keep growing yet many cities keep losing people. Where are these people going? Farther and farther out. Who's paying to extend the water supply? Who's paying to extend the electricity? Who paying to pave and repave 100s of miles of road because these people "want a big backyard"? ****, _*I*_ don't want to... Sustainable seems to be the latest catch-word in planning and city development, and for good reason.




> "make them care about" by means of inducing "changing of lifestyle"


I'm not forcing anybody to change their lifestyle. I'm simply trying to quell myths about the city. As I said, many people are trying to pound the square peg into the round hole, get fed up, and blame it on the round hole, then move to where there is a square hole 50x the size of the one they got. The point I was making that is _IF _you want to live in the city, you _have_ to make some lifestyle changes. Just like I, car-less, couldn't exactly live comfortably in the suburbs; I'd have to adapt.

It's not patronizing...it's that people are ignorant and fickle. They hear what they want to hear about the city. One big robbery makes the news and all of the sudden the city "isn't safe", yet if they looked at their own local news blogs they'd see similar crimes all the time.

But, nobody's changing anybody's minds, I've been on this forum long enough to know that.


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## Pavlov's Dog (Aug 2, 2007)

Suburbanist said:


> In a free country, market will cater to these different groups, and many others, together with zoning, to provide for different groups who choose different styles of housing arrangements, as long as they are financially sustainable (a bunch of recently graduates wanting to live the excitement of a big city downtown but with $ 30.000 yearly wage is just not financially sustainable to attract market offers for them).


All of your points are very good. It is this last point that often doesn't work due to zoning. 

In the US (and other places I imagine) a large number of suburban empty nesters have car based lives in single family homes not because that is what they'd ideally like to do but because either developers aren't building, or zoning disallows, suitable higher density housing appropriate to their lifestyles in their currert suburban location. A lot of older people don't want yards but don't want to move from their social networks. 

In many suburban US locations high density housing is equated with poverty and rentals and thus are discouraged through zoning. Suburbs are also commonly engines to growth and younger people often live in relatively low density environments not out of desire but because they don't want to reverse commute long distances from a city. 

In both of these cases better regional planning and zoning would enable major US cities to have greater densities in concentrated areas for those whom might find that appealing with the benefit of taking pressure (in a normal housing market) off of single family homes.


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## Suburbanist (Dec 25, 2009)

Northsider said:


> That's their job. That's why they go through 2-4 years of graduate school, and 2-4 more years of post-graduate school. They are able to make the educated decisions. People don't know what they want. Rather, they _think_ they know what they want.


There is a fundamental difference. Engineers (civil and traffic/transportation) and, to some limited extend, architects, deal with physical constraints. You can't build a building exceeding the structural load because it _will_collapse, sooner or later. You can't have certain room disposition and divisions because it _will_ kill people should a fire (reason to avoid certain covers/materials without appropriate counter-measures) start in the building. You need to incorporate certain elements in your building to avoid the proliferation of air-borne diseases and to allow wheelchair access.

However, most of urban planning is, nowadays, occupied with things that are beyond its scope of providing a sanitized, organized and ordered built-up environment. Urban planning was born when folks realized it wasn't good to have all the employees of a steel mill living close by in shantytowns without running water, sewage collection or else. Nowadays, they make themselves enemy of free enterprise by trying to impose their own vision of how cities should look like to conform to their views. It is no one's job but that of private developers to be fussing around "livability" or "creating a sense of place and community". I don't want anyone telling me that I should be "directed" to shop at a neighborhood family-owned store instead of a shopping mall because thall will force me to meet my neighbors, for instance, and "connect" with them.



> But you said it, there _are_choices. We force a select few choices on people based on the greater good. Fine if you want to live in a huge McMansion in the exurbs of a metro area, but be prepared to pay MUCH more than others in transportation costs and utilities. People here in Chicago are complaining about toll increases and how they shouldn't be the ones paying. Well, WHO SHOULD?! They are the ones that use the toll system! They are the ones that choose to live 40 miles away from their job and drive everywhere!


I have no problems with tolled highways as long as buses and trucks pay their fair share for wear and tear and as long as all funds are used exclusively on highway maintenance/expansion, maybe in park-and-ride shared costs, but never on subsidizing rail, buses or else (maybe paratransit at most).

Utility costs have some gains of scale, but they are limited. The economy of scale of laying out less miles of water pipes go only so far as higher concentration of buildings start requiring more sophisticated pumping systems and wider mains. Pavement wear and tear is pretty much a function of traffic going over there. But I agree with the principle.




> Yes, there are choices, but I feel they should be fair choices. Those that live in the city pay a premium on land and very little on transportation. The opposite should be true for those that live in the suburbs and exurbs, yet it's not always the case.


That should be no problem, until inner city dwellers start whining about jobs being located outside the "natural centrality" of the place they live, e.g., their doorsteps, where major companies should be "naturally" located. 


> Sustainable seems to be the latest catch-word in planning and city development, and for good reason.


Most people, me included, don't care about sustainability more than we care about comfort and a decent life in our own standards within reasonable limits. Asking me not to drive as much or the sake of some polar bears in the Arctic won't to the trick. Better ask me and millions else to engage in modern, state-of-the-art electric cars that don't pollute, for instance.


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## I-275westcoastfl (Feb 15, 2005)

Suburbanist said:


> I have no problems with tolled highways as long as buses and trucks pay their fair share for wear and tear and as long as all funds are used exclusively on highway maintenance/expansion, maybe in park-and-ride shared costs, but never on subsidizing rail, buses or else (maybe paratransit at most).


There is no such thing as trucks and buses paying their fair share. If you charge tolls to trucks then the price of whatever they are transporting goes up. If you charge buses tolls then fares go up, its a loss since either way the public pays for it.


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## Sweet Zombie Jesus (Sep 11, 2008)

poshbakerloo said:


> Glasgow has a lot and its growing...
> 
> *
> Glasgow...*


Interesting you mention Glasgow; I'm going to drag it into the discussion on this page because the spectacular decentralization of this city that happened over much of the 20th century was the result of government planning... i.e. *Suburbanization being forced on people against their will by city planners*. Funny how these things turn out sometimes...

These were people who moved people out in their hundreds of thousands in the 50's, 60's, and 70's, despite much of the general population wanting to remain in their urban, community focussed neighbourhoods (but they don't know what they want, or only _think_ they know what they want, right?), entire streets and districts were wiped out or replaced with housing usually at a much lower density (and conflicting with the existing city fabric) and the displaced people and businesses were flung to peripheral housing schemes or even New Towns intended to be completely seperate from the city. (though most are now dormitory suburbs, only East Kilbride seems to have its own sizeable economy, but is still largely dependent on Glasgow) This along with City Boundary changes meant that around half of the "Greater Glasgow" population now resided outside the city proper, their taxes going to areas which were previously largely rural, or dotted with smaller industrial towns. 

The loss of business and taxes further deflated the city, causing more to leave. This is where commercial housebuilders take over from the government, offering cheaper homes in out-of-town estates built to make a profit. The cities population has only recently stabilized (and risen slightly) as a result of the rebuilding of the local economy coupled with efforts to "re-densify" the city... fuelled by people moving back *by choice*.

Glasgows sprawl is generally wierd. Considering the remaining dense urban areas and many high-rise tower blocks we ought to have a higher population density, but it's cut down by some huge wastegrounds and ex-industrial brownfield sites.


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## Northsider (Jan 16, 2006)

I-275westcoastfl said:


> There is no such thing as trucks and buses paying their fair share. If you charge tolls to trucks then the price of whatever they are transporting goes up. If you charge buses tolls then fares go up, its a loss since either way the public pays for it.


It has to be fair. Buses and trucks destroy the road more than cars do. If fares go up, fine. If the price of goods goes up, fine. It's the price we pay for relying extensively on the road network. Trains can ship goods more efficiently on long hauls; as can trains transport people more efficiently on long hauls. 

I have mixed feelings about toll revenue being shared with transit and vice versa. The problem is that highways already are subsidized much more heavily than transit by the federal government. But toll roads (if I am not mistaken) aren't eligible for federal funding...that would be like a double tax of sorts.


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## Metro007 (Apr 18, 2011)

Going back to the initial question:

I think L.A. has the biggest urban area in one location. Otherwise - if we take in consideration a much larger area - the areas of Washington-Philadelphia-NY-Boston and Tokyo-Nagoaya-Osaka will be the 2 biggest ones.

In Europe Athens is by far not the biggest one! I would say London, Paris or Moscow are the biggest.

Cheers
F.


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## snowland (Aug 20, 2011)

Some examples from Buenos Aires:







































































































































































































They're everywhere nowadays :yes:


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## Metro007 (Apr 18, 2011)

@snowland: nice pictures but why are you posting pics of a little village? The thread was about urban sprawl.

Cheers
F.


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## snowland (Aug 20, 2011)

Metro007 said:


> @snowland: nice pictures but why are you posting pics of a little village? The thread was about urban sprawl.
> 
> Cheers
> F.


Those photos are not from a little village. It's in the Greater Buenos Aires area. The fact is they are very sprawled, so, far (20-40 km) from the city center and so they're very green.


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## Metro007 (Apr 18, 2011)

snowland said:


> Those photos are not from a little village. It's in the Greater Buenos Aires area. The fact is they are very sprawled, so, far (20-40 km) from the city center and so they're very green.


Ok now i understand ;-)


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## 645577 (Jun 22, 2010)

maybe this could help

buenos aires:
2.750 km²
4.737,45 hab/km²









NASA astronaut photograph


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