"High density" is a relative term

From The Spatial Organization of Cities: Deliberate Outcome or Unforeseen Consequences? by Alain Bertaud:

Comments

[DSK]

I wish that paper had provided maps showing what they considered to be the "built up area" (they only provide one for Atlanta). I can't imagine that New York (40) would truly be higher than those others in the 15-25 range if they really included all the commuter exurbs.

[AC]

He excludes even small pockets of undeveloped land and water features. (E.g., his methodology would include Central Park in calculating NYC's density.) "Leap-frogging" -- development jumping over open space -- thus won't affect his density calculations. This might explain the difference.

[M1EK]

Not sure if you guys were talking about the same thing - the development around NYC is fairly uniform - no "skipping" but what DSK means is that some of the commuter burbs are very low-density (mansions in the woods in Connecticut, for instance). The way LA usually ends up so dense in arguments used disingenuously by anti-smart-growthers is by including those Connecticut and New Jersey parts of the NY metro area, because the corresponding distance from LA's 'center' is still medium-density sprawl.

[DSK]

Yeah, what M1EK said is pretty much what I meant.

That isn't to say there aren't better things about those NYC exurbs than in other cities. I can take a high-quality commuter train most or all the way in to NYC from low density exurbs like New Canaan, CT, Putnam County, NY, or Morris County, NJ. I can't do that (yet) from, say, Alpharetta or Peachtree City, GA.

But when making a density graph comparison, it's not fair to exclude NYCs numerous low density exurbs. I suspect that this study did exclude many of them, but I can't say for sure because they don't say.

[M1EK]

I just want full disclosure - for instance, I want to know WHY they included/excluded a given exurb (if they include something very far away because 60% of people living there work in NYC, for instance).

[AC]

These are fair questions.

See this paper: http://alain-bertaud.com/AB_Files/Spatia_%20Distribution_of_Pop_%2050_%20Cities.pdf

He doesn't calculate average densities here. He does calculate density gradients for the NYC metro area out to 60 km from city center. (p. 75). He says he uses "roughly" the CMSA for NYC metro(p. 30). I assume by "roughly" he means he takes the CMSA and subtracts undeveloped tracts (but he doesn't make this explicit). Note that he has calculated very low densities for the outer ring, which are hardly the "exurbs" today.

I'm still looking for a paper in which he has defined the boundaries for the various metro area. I'll post it if I find it.

[Shilli]

For what its worth, my understanding is that Austin would be at the top of this chart if it was included, being about 2/3 as dense as Atlanta.

[AC]

I compiled some maps comparing certain city densities (including Atlanta and Austin) back in February. http://austinzoning.typepad.com/austincontrarian/2007/02/comparing_some_.html#more

[Scott Mercer]

L.A. is plenty dense. Believe me.

Not everywhere, but in certain corridors, very dense. Hollywood is packed to the gills with small to medium apartment buildings. Downtown, Koreatown, Century City, Mid-City, Boyle Heights, North Hollywood and Van Nuys are among these dense areas.

We also have multiple small downtowns, like Hollywood, Pasadena, Glendale, Long Beach, Anaheim, Orange, Warner Center, other ones.

[M1EK]

Yes, Scott, LA is semi-dense (more dense than many other cities, i.e. medium density car-dependent sprawl for a very long way), but NY is an order of magnitude more dense in practical terms, and yet anti-transit and anti-smart-growthers like to use the misleading studies of the whole metro area to claim that LA is more dense than NY.

[Fallopia Simms]

Practical density.......????

[M1EK]

In practical terms, meaning that the experience almost every New Yorker has is a high-density one, even though there's a ring of very low-density mansion suburbs on the outside. The experience of the typical Los Angelonianite is of low to medium density.