Factoid:NYC borough populations compared to other cities
If we broke up NYC into five cities (Brooklyn was originally a separate city), the rankings would look like this (based on estimates):
- Los Angeles. 4,057,841. http://worldpopulationreview.com/us-cities/
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Chicago. 2,679,044
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Brooklyn. 2,582,830. https://www.citypopulation.de/php/usa-newyorkcity.php For boroughs
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Houston 2,359,480
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Queens 2,278,906
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Phoenix 1,711,356
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Manhattan 1,628,701
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Philadelphia 1,576,596
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San Antonio 1,569,929
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Bronx 1,432,132
Dallas, San Jose, and Austin are also over a million. Four New York boroughs would be in the top ten by themselves.
On the actual city list, NYC would obviously be #1, San Antonio would be #7.
The remaining borough, Staten Island, would show up as #42 on the actual city list if it were broken out, with a population of 476,179. That puts its population as greater than: Minneapolis, New Orleans, Tampa, Cleveland, Honolulu, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Orlando.
Keep in mind that this is a measure of within city limits, not metropolitan areas. Obviously, we can’t look at the metropolitan areas of individual boroughs. Also obviously, metropolitan area figures often dwarf city figures, and metropolitan areas sometimes encompass closely neighboring cities, like Dallas/Ft. Worth, Minneapolis/St. Paul or the Research Triangle in North Carolina (Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill).
At one point, we could get an idea of the most populous cities by the presence of major sports franchises. However, population growth since has resulted in cities we wouldn’t necessarily expect to be big surpassing far more conspicuous cities in population. Columbus, OH is more populous than Seattle, Denver, or DC. El Paso (just behind DC) is more populous than Boston, Las Vegas, Detroit, Baltimore, and (most surprisingly perhaps) Atlanta. But again, that’s within city limits. Looking at metropolitan areas, Atlanta and Boston come in at numbers nine and ten, and Washington DC at number six (https://www.statista.com/statistics/183600/population-of-metropolit…). In general, metropolitan area populations are way closer to our expectations. The only real surprise I saw high on that list was the Riverside/San Bernardino, CA area coming in at number thirteen.
06/26/2019 @ 10:32 am
The actual size of a metropolitan area is open to debate. Metropolitan New York, for example, includes Nassau (1.37 mil) and Suffolk (1.493 mil), counties on Long Island, Westchester (980,000), Bridgeport County CT (917,000), New Haven County CT (863,000) and eight counties in New Jersey (Bergen 950,000, Passaic 500,000, Essex 784,000, Morris 493000, Monmouth 630,000, Hudson 635000,
Union 537,000, Middlesex 810,000 ) with a combined population of 5,294,000. Altogether, the Metropolitan New York area has a combined population of 14.9 million. As a matter of fact, even though I am chagrined to say it (Brooklyn Tech, Class of 66) Brooklyn isn’t number 10 on this list, having been nudged out by Suffolk County. Of course, Brooklyn is a single unified city, while Suffolk is a collection of smaller towns….but the neighborhoods in the outlying villages are really a series of contiguous towns.
If you are willing to accept a two hour commute (and many people in Metro NY do just that) the combined population of the entire Metropolitan area is around 20 million. (That was a guess but I just peeked and I was right on the money.)
However, the extent of the available transportation resources is a conditioning factor that affects the size of a metropolitan area. Tokyo, long held out as the prototype metropolitan complex is just 9.2 million.
These statistics are very fungible. Some sources list Tokyo at 38 million due to the region’s exceptional public transportation resources. Delhi is listed at almost 26 million, which is something of a joke. How do you conduct a census of a population in which 12 percent of the population is homeless. Shanghai at 23 million doesn’t have the same percentage of homeless but do you actually trust any statistics coming out of China.
New York actually ranks 10th in the world’s metropolitan areas, behind Cairo, Osaka, Beijing, Mexico City, Mumbai., Sao Paulo, Shanghai, Delhi, and Tokyo,.
06/27/2019 @ 5:02 pm
You’re right. I did forget Rockland. I lived in four of the five boroughs before I left NY for Boston. My memories of the Big Apple are getting thinner and thinner as time goes by.
koshersalaami
06/26/2019 @ 10:47 am
Of course it’s open to debate. Some people think Baltimore is in Washington’s metropolitan area. And your list of NY Metro counties didn’t include Rockland, where I spent part of my childhood (9-15) and which is absolutely part of NY Metro. When we lived there, we could get to the city limits in about half an hour without traffic -GW Bridge into the Bronx, where my grandparents lived.
06/26/2019 @ 2:09 pm
It’s kind of hard to figure using metro areas because where do you stop. As examples, unless you look at signs one would think “LA” goes from San Monica all the way to Palm Springs and would include 90% of Orange County. Same goes for Chicago. In my mind Gary, Joliet and Schaumburg are simply “neighborhood” parts of Chicago.
koshersalaami
06/26/2019 @ 2:26 pm
The “where do you stop” question is a good one. I don’t know the methodology the site used.
Ron Powell
06/26/2019 @ 2:42 pm
Hey guys, I’ve got two posts stuck in save draft limbo…
How did you manage to get your posts published this time around?
I’ve sent multiple Pjs and requests for tech help to Allen, but have gotten no reply…I feel as though I’m being ignored or stonewalled here…
koshersalaami
06/26/2019 @ 3:01 pm
If you try stuff you’ve already tried, you’ll find that your options have changed. Windows that were missing, like for an Exerpt, are there now.
What specific problem are you running into?