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U.S. cities over 500,000 that are growing.


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Estimated population, year of estimation, increase from 2000, average yearly increase.

1-New York City-8,168,338 (2004) +160,060 avg/yr-40,015

2-Los Angeles-3,957,875 (2005) +263,055 avg/yr-52,611

3-Houston-2,012,626 (2004) +58,995 avg/yr-14,749

4-Phoenix-1,418,041 (2004) +96,996 avg/yr-24,249

5-San Diego-1,305,736 (2005) +82,336 avg/yr-16,467

6-Dallas-1,260,950 (2006) +72,370 avg/yr-12,062

7-San Antonio-1,236,249 (2004) +91,603 avg/yr-22,901

8-San Jose-953,679 (2006) +58,736 avg/yr-9,789

9-Indianapolis-794,160 (2004) +2,234 avg/yr-559

10-Jacksonville-777,704 (2004) +42,087 avg/yr-10,522

11-Columbus-730,008 (2004) +18,538 avg/yr-4,635

12-Austin-681,804 (2004) +25,242 avg/yr-6,311

13-Memphis-680,768 (2005) +30,668 avg/yr-6,134

14-Fort Worth-603,337 (2004) +68,643 avg/yr-17,161

15-Charlotte-594,359 (2004) +53,531 avg/yr-13,383

16-Seattle-580,089 (2006) +16,715 avg/yr-2,786

17-Denver-579,744 (2005) +25,108 avg/yr-5,021

18-Las Vegas-575,973 (2005) +97,539 avg/yr-19,508

19-Nashville-572,475 (2004) +2,584 avg/yr-646

20-Portland-556,370 (2005) +27,249 avg/yr-5,450

21-Oklahoma City-528,042 (2004) +21,910 avg/yr-5,478

22-Tucson-521,605 (2004) +34,906 avg/yr-8,727

Potential (keyword-potential) population in 2007

1-New York City-8,288,383

2-Los Angeles-4,063,097

3-Houston-2,056,873

4-Phoenix-1,490,788

5-San Diego-1,338,670

6-San Antonio-1,304,952

7-Dallas-1,273,012

8-San Jose-963,468

9-Jacksonville-809,270

10-Indianapolis-795,837

11-Columbus-743,913

12-Austin-700,737

13-Memphis-693,036

14-Fort Worth-654,820

15-Charlotte-634,508

16-Las Vegas-614,989

17-Seattle-582,875

18-Denver-589,786

19-Nashville-574,413

20-Portland-567,270

21-Tuscon-547,786

22-Oklahoma City-544,476

Cities likely to hit 1 million in the next 25 years.

San Jose in about 5 years

Jacksonville in about 21 years

Las Vegas in about 22 years

Fort Worth in about 23 years

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Not sure I can agree with all the conclusions here. For one, you've used all sorts of sources and years for your city estimates, which freeze a point in time. San Jose, San Diego, Austin and Dallas have registered a net loss in population in at least one of the last ten years, while Chicago and Boston have registered a net gain at least once over the same period.

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I don't see why OKC is on this list, sure it is over 500k, but with 607 sq. miles of area.

Uh...because its a city?

Just because some cities are trapped from futher growing by wall to wall suburbs doesn't mean others with open space around them aren't cities.

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Uh...because its a city?

Just because some cities are trapped from futher growing by wall to wall suburbs doesn't mean others with open space around them aren't cities.

I think what the previous poster makes perfect sense. How many northeastern cities are there that, if you take into account the suburbs to make the land area equal, would be a whole lot bigger? Take Providence, which is 18.5 sq miles and closing in on 200k. It's surrounded by the cities and towns of Pawtucket, North Providence, East Providence, Cranston, Warwick, and Central Falls (one of the densest cities in the USA). These municipalities together are home to about 515,000 people in about 112 sq miles of land. That's a lot more dense. It's not really much of a city with all that open space and that little development. Cities are dense, not large swaths of areas that happen to contain patches of large populations.

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I looked for any recent estimates. Some had them for 2006, some didn't. I tried to even the fields to show the average yearly growth.

The urban area of Providence is barely denser than the urban area of Oklahoma City.

Providence-2,332 per sq mile urban is 504 sq miles

Oklahoma City-2,320 urban area is 322 sq miles

In case anyone's curious these are the 5 densest urban areas over 500,000.

1-Los Angeles-7,068

2-San Francisco-6,999

3-San Jose-5,917

4-New York-5,309

5-New Orleans-5,097

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I think what the previous poster makes perfect sense. How many northeastern cities are there that, if you take into account the suburbs to make the land area equal, would be a whole lot bigger? Take Providence, which is 18.5 sq miles and closing in on 200k. It's surrounded by the cities and towns of Pawtucket, North Providence, East Providence, Cranston, Warwick, and Central Falls (one of the densest cities in the USA). These municipalities together are home to about 515,000 people in about 112 sq miles of land. That's a lot more dense. It's not really much of a city with all that open space and that little development. Cities are dense, not large swaths of areas that happen to contain patches of large populations.

Your post has given me an idea for a new topic.

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Cities are dense, not large swaths of areas that happen to contain patches of large populations.

No, urban areas are dense.

Cities are parcels of land administered by a single municipality. Population density is irrelevent.

If one wants to start a comparison of urban areas, they can use those statistics...the Census Bureau has them readily avaiable.

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I looked for any recent estimates. Some had them for 2006, some didn't. I tried to even the fields to show the average yearly growth.

The urban area of Providence is barely denser than the urban area of Oklahoma City.

Providence-2,332 per sq mile urban is 504 sq miles

Oklahoma City-2,320 urban area is 322 sq miles

In case anyone's curious these are the 5 densest urban areas over 500,000.

1-Los Angeles-7,068

2-San Francisco-6,999

3-San Jose-5,917

4-New York-5,309

5-New Orleans-5,097

Yep...and the urban areas of Fargo, ND, Wichita, KS, Amarillo, TX, and Yuma, AZ are all denser than Philadelphia, PA, Providence, RI, and Boston, MA.

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Like KC... We have over 450,000 people in 313.5 square miles of area. That is almost 500,000 people, yet we still have a lot of land yet to be developed. North of the MO river, KC has just over 40 square miles of land that remains largely undeveloped. South of the MO river, KC has just over 20 square miles that is undeveloped. Leaving about 254 square miles that has been developed to a degree.

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^As far as determining how big the TRUE city is, yes. But if you want more federal dollars, and the freedom to be able to do more as a city without relying on the state or feds due to an increased tax base and a potentially higher bond rating, city numbers matter.

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OKC gets a lot of heat for its huge land area- granted, 600 sq mi is very huge and as a local I'm all for deannexation of about 300 sq mi. BUT mathematically the population density for OKC is only like 800 people per sq mi. That's ridiculous, and based on living here I knew that it wasn't true- so I decided to look into it a little closer.

I used the Census' zip code statistic to isolate 28 contiguous zip codes in OKC. At the time of 2000 census, there were 524,837 people in 212.5 sq mi, for an average density of about 2500/sq mi. That includes two tiny cities (The Village and Nichols Hills, really more like neighborhoods than cities, but still seperate entities.) in N OKC that are surrounded by OKC city limits.

Here is a population density map- as youc an see, there is a lot of land within the city limits that is completely undeveloped.

post-8-1137368148.jpg

So don't knock the cities with big land areas before you really know their true densities.

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Estimated population, year of estimation, increase from 2000, average yearly increase.

Cities likely to hit 1 million in the next 25 years.

San Jose in about 5 years

Jacksonville in about 21 years

Las Vegas in about 22 years

Fort Worth in about 23 years

It is amazing that you could forget Charlotte on this list.

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I'm glad that someone brought up the whole issue of there being completely undeveloped land within the city boundaries of many southern/western cities, thus explaining the overall lower density and huge land area. This is a concept very foreign to me being from the Northeast. I always thought places like Jacksonville were just really low density all around.

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^ Additionally - most southern cities continue to actively annex. Meaning - especially when considering most growth has been low dense post WWII developments - a city can continue to grow in population due to both new annexations & past annexations. Suburban areas as a rule grow in population, except for aging early post WWII areas, so this helps the city population. Even with the case of Atlanta, which hasn't annexed since 1952 - the city doubled in size when that annexation occured. So much of the city can be categorized as post WWII suburbanism - the southwest side & northern Buckhead in particular.

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.... I always thought places like Jacksonville were just really low density all around.

Jacksonville sounds larger than it is because it consolidated its government with the county so city population is really county population. The actual "city" is much smaller.

Nashville and Louisville are two other places that I know that have done this.

The moral of this story is that it really isn't that productive to compare city populations because there is no consistant definition as to what makes up a city. It varys due to local and state politics.

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Jacksonville sounds larger than it is because it consolidated its government with the county so city population is really county population. The actual "city" is much smaller.

Nashville and Louisville are two other places that I know that have done this.

The moral of this story is that it really isn't that productive to compare city populations because there is no consistant definition as to what makes up a city. It varys due to local and state politics.

I agree. A lot of it has to do with how aggressively cities annexed decades ago. This is why the city of St Louis is so small and even its inner ring suburbs are very urban though the metro is quite large and significant. Furthermore, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Austin, Ft Worth, and El Paso are all larger than Atlanta yet the latter is much larger than all of these aside from Houston and Dallas and comparable to these cities which are three times larger in population. In reality, the only difference is how much suburban land is included in the city boundaries proper. In these days of sprawling metroplexes city population's really insignificant.

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