LA's Urban, Metro Area Comparison

[chicagogeorge]

This pretty much describes the situation. New York City is hyper dense compared to L.A. in the core, but L.A's suburbs are more dense most likely do to gepgraphical restraints.

[pesto]

A very interesting graph. Correct me if I’m wrong, but what it says is that the first 2M (Manhattan, basically) is denser than any part of LA, but the next 2M (parts of NYC and some denser areas like Jersey City or Newark) bring the average down to about the level of LA (excluding SFV) and some denser suburbs, and most of the rest of the NY area is less dense.

Another way of putting it: if you look at the densest 50 percent of the land in each area, LA looks about twice as dense as NY. This also implies that a lot of people in VERY low density areas are included in NY as compared to LA (that is our sparsest areas are quite empty (mountains) as compared to NY (farms, ridges, lakes?).

[chicagogeorge]

Pretty much. L.A. due to geographic restrictions excels in higher density suburbs (which many act very independent from L.A.), even though the core (L.A. city proper) is not nearly as dense as NYC. NYC (like Chicago) has no geographic restriction which would inhibit sprawl. We can grow outward nearly indefinitely while L.A. runs into mountains, national forests, HUGE military installations, and then barren deserts.

[klamedia]

Isn't that from Wendell Cox's website that promotes suburbia? That website is interesting because in promoting suburbia LA is held up as a fake suburban city whereinwhich the suburbs may have single family detached homes but they are packed in so tight and uniform that they reach some of the urban densities of the most densest cities. He basically doesn't want Portland to ever become as dense as LA.
I encourage all who find this topic interesting to go to the LA section of his site. Here is a link to LA compared to NYC, Toronto, Tokyo, Paris etc. You may be surprised!
http://www.demographia.com/db-latorprofile.htm

[chicagogeorge]

Originally Posted by klamedia

Isn't that from Wendell Cox's website that promotes suburbia? ]

How does this website promote suburbia? From my research on that site, it basically states what is going on in American metropolitan areas.

[klamedia]

It certainly reports on what is going on in American as well as International Metro areas but with all reports and studies it favors. So I agree that it does report but I also believe that it reports with an opinion or if you'd like to be technical "findings".
SMART GROWTH ASSOCIATED WITH RADICALLY HIGHER HOUSING COSTS IN THE UNITED STATES
Costs of Sprawl Forecast Misses by a Mile

Headlines like the above are bandied about throughout the website as well as the downside of density and smarter growth.

THE HEAVY PRICE OF SMART GROWTH AND URBAN CONSOLIDATION
SMART GROWTH & URBAN CONSOLIDATION: INCOMPATIBLE WITH HOUSING AFFORDABILITY

Wendell Cox has an agenda and if you don't know that going into this admittedly informative and exhaustively researched website then you're missing a very important dimension in the given information.

As someone who is very familiar with this site and enjoy reading it there is no doubt what agenda Wendell Cox is promoting:

* Traffic will be 40 percent more intense in Portland’s more dense environment in 2040 than it would have been if the urban area had been allowed to continue to expand.

Here's another:

* Fortunately for our sprawling city, it has the best freeway system on the continent.

I am not talking about Los Angeles, Atlanta, Phoenix or St. Louis. I am talking about Paris.
Paris --- the western world’s ultimate city --- with a population density of more than 60,000 per square mile in the central city. Yet, despite an overall urban area density three times that of Portland, the automobile is dominant, except in the four percent of land represented by the ville de Paris.
My point?
That transit serves only niche markets and that cities are sprawling everywhere.
Portland will never be as dense as Paris, and even if it were, the automobile would still be dominant.
Smart growth is about incoherence.
Smart growth is not a vision.
Rather, smart growth is a delusion.
http://www.demographia.com/

[Cibele Zimmerman]

[milquetoast]

Cibele, bella? I cannot a tell if you are being ah facetious or what, eh?

11 posts all made here within a few seconds of each other, no?

[klamedia]

Strange isn't it?

[andrestm]

Just wanted to jump in and say, milquetoast, you've done a great job showing that the NYC and LA metro areas are INCREDIBLY different, but you're comparing apples and oranges and I can't really see the point you're trying to make with some of your posts. We all know that the NYC metro area has MUCH more people than the LA one. We also know, as you proved with some of your images, that the suburban part of NYmetro is much, much more spread out than that of LA, with more, bigger green spaces and longer distances between houses. Simple math would tell you, it has to be physically bigger. That, my friend, cannot be disproved with satellite imagery or anything like that.

As to whether the NJ and CT parts count, well, of course they do. And it's not bureaucratic inefficiency or laziness or anything like that. State boundaries are there for historical, geographical, and political reasons, but that doesn't mean that if a metropolitan area spans more than one state, it necessarily becomes more than one metro area. As you know, the extent of a metro area is not arbitrarily defined by politicians who just want to say "hey, my city is bigger than yours." If the tri-state area is so incredibly large is because those areas that are part of it are, to some extent, economically dependent of (or at least closely linked to) its central district, which is NYC. It is because there are commuting and infrastructural patterns that show this dependence. If people from Austin commuted to Houston (which is where I'm from—I'm not from NYC), if you heard Houston's radio stations in Austin, and if central offices of major businesses in Houston also covered the Austin area, surely enough Austin would be part of the Houston metro area, far as it is from here. But that's not the case. And it is the case with that huge chunk of red blocks that NASA classifies as the NYC metro area, even though it is so spread out that it covers three states.

I love LA, don't get me wrong. California is the state of my dreams and my childhood fantasies, and LA plays a major role there. I don't particularly like a lot of aspects of it but it is the entertainment capital of the world, as well as the third biggest city economy on the planet, far above behemoths like London or Paris. But one thing I know is, its metro area is not bigger than that of NYC. But why argue so much about it? It's not like being bigger and more spread out is such a great quality. And we know that NY metro has more people, so what are these efforts for?

[milquetoast]

Originally Posted by andrestm

I love LA, don't get me wrong. California is the state of my dreams and my childhood fantasies, and LA plays a major role there. I don't particularly like a lot of aspects of it but it is the entertainment capital of the world, as well as the third biggest city economy on the planet, far above behemoths like London or Paris. But one thing I know is, its metro area is not bigger than that of NYC.

I've never said it was "bigger", but I've studied NY and its motives for close to 30 years now and I can tell you without a doubt in my mind that they LIVE to tell. Tell about how great they are. Tell about how historic they are. Tell about how big they are, and that YOU should pay hommage to them- as if we were ALL part of their area, or world, as it were.

This extends to how they portrayed themselves as OUR superiors during the aftermath of 9/11 and to this day how Muslim interactions within other communities in the country are somehow damaging NY's message over it's argument with their Mosque proposition. As if they were being interferred with by others in its debate- which they are loving by the way!

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And it IS all about bragging rights. I used to hear it all the time on another site until SSC started looking like City-Data. Discussions about traffic patterns are fine but don't constitute allegience in my mind. Television stations and other media, well.... those are "market" issues always brought up in a "metro" debate.

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The fact is the NY metro does not have much more people than the L. A. one. And the spreading of boundaries of naming rights that stretch into the suburbs of Philadelphia? That's absurd! "BosWash" is another political term that means nothing in the real world, and I deal with the real world.

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My reasoning is, if you're Newark, New Jersey, then you are sizeable enough to have your own "metro" area established for you. Anyone being a "central" district for others- especially in other States- makes no real world sense to me.

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What is funny is the way the Counties in The Los Angeles Metropolitan Area all intersect where the urban area is concentrated. Yet some of these Counties, some very important ones that have ACTUAL interdependence with the City of Los Angeles, are not included in L. A.'s count WHEREAS States intersecting NY's Metro Area are counted and then some- even crossing over New Jersey and including Pennsylvania! Explain that reasoning to me and you get a prize.

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Austin has its own personality and is much closer to San Antonio than Houston and is directly linked by a major interstate. Still, I don't see Austin wanting to be usurped by anyone. They sure as hell would if claimed by another's label.

[klamedia]

Originally Posted by andrestm

I love LA, don't get me wrong. California is the state of my dreams and my childhood fantasies, and LA plays a major role there. I don't particularly like a lot of aspects of it but it is the entertainment capital of the world

I always wonder what people mean when they say what you said above. What aspects of it don't you like? Please tell!

[LAsam]

Originally Posted by klamedia

I always wonder what people mean when they say what you said above. What aspects of it don't you like? Please tell!

I'm guessing it's the big 3:

1) Smog
2) Traffic
3) "Fake" People

[LosAngelesSportsFan]

Originally Posted by LAsam

I'm guessing it's the big 3:

1) Smog
2) Traffic
3) "Fake" People

i just wanted to chime in here on this big three.

1) this has to be the most overrated problem with LA. Other than 10 bad days a year, i dont even notice the smog anymore. we have come such a long way and it continues to get better.

2) not as bad as its made to be.

3) this is the biggest bs of all. ya we have what, 10,000 "fake people" out of 18,000,000? and about 9500 of those fakes are from other cities.

[LAsam]

Originally Posted by LosAngelesSportsFan

i just wanted to chime in here on this big three.

1) this has to be the most overrated problem with LA. Other than 10 bad days a year, i dont even notice the smog anymore. we have come such a long way and it continues to get better.

2) not as bad as its made to be.

3) this is the biggest bs of all. ya we have what, 10,000 "fake people" out of 18,000,000? and about 9500 of those fakes are from other cities.

I agree with you 100%.

[Mr.Hollywood]

I AGREE ASWELL!

[klamedia]

I think it's the full 10,000 that are from other cities.

[Mr.Hollywood]

---..

[Kreicherisch]

Well, we gotta admit, LA's metro is the densest sprawl in the nation. In terms of population, it can't beat that of NY, but LA's the densest.

[Mr.Hollywood]

I Wish they Could Just Add More Highrises In Those Nasty Useless Parking areas and also more all over Wilshire connecting DTLA to CC... WOW THAT WOULD BE AMAZING and it would be a Forest of highrises from one side to the other and would Make LA Amazingly Denser! .... Ughhh... i Guess i Gotta Dream On