Largest midwest cities ranked by city-core population

[ChiSoxRox]

Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright

To be honest, I'm not surprised by Milwaukee. Driving through Milwaukee over the highrise bridge has always been a real treat because it showcases the massive density of the neighborhoods that surround Milwaukee's core. Milwaukee also has a lot of room to grow on a list like this as the Menominee River Valley and Park East Freeway are redeveloped. If only Milwaukee could get some legitimate non-bus transit to take advantage of it's density.

Yeah, Milwaukee's density is impressive; it comes in second in the Midwest by population living in census tracts denser than 10,000 people per square mile.

[Blitz]

Originally Posted by hudkina

To be fair, people in Windsor and Detroit listen to the same radio stations, watch many of the same TV stations (I actually grew up watching the Canadian version of Sesame Street and a huge chunk of Canada gets Detroit's local stations), follow the same sports teams, go to the same concerts, use the same airport. Young people in Detroit go into Windsor for the lower drinking age, Windsor residents come to Detroit for the cheap shopping. Many Windsor residents go to school at Wayne State and some even work at the Detroit Medical Center or Downtown in office towers. You don't technically need a passport to cross the border, as Michigan residents can get what is called an Enhanced License so that they can cross into Canada with ease. While there isn't much commuting occuring between the two cities, everything else suggests a single metropolitan area.

I'd be interested to see the 'true' numbers as well especially since the 2-mile and 3-mile ones would include very high density neighbourhoods of Windsor. In fact I'd be willing to bet you can double those numbers listed (at the very least).

Commuting isn't a huge number but there are still 5,000 people who work on one side and live on the other.

Everything you said is true - many of us even have season tickets to Detroit sports teams, just look at how our transit system has direct service to the stadiums on game days and how full all the buses always are. Our transit system goes into another country but doesn't even cross into our own suburbs! People here are hugely supportive of everything Detroit and generally don't give a crap about Toronto for example.

[Blitz]

I calculated this for Windsor - it helps figure out Detroit better since Detroit City Hall and Windsor City Hall are almost exactly 1 mile apart. (Yes, I converted km to miles before calculating everything).

Windsor City Hall (Canadian residents only)
1 mile radius = 29,482
2 mile radius = 63,313
3 mile radius = 92,476
4 mile radius = 132,834

Based on these numbers, Windsor has the most densely populated core in the 'Midwest' outside of Chicago (since a big portion of that 1 mile radius is actually water).

[Columbusite]

This certainly exposes cities that like to play the numbers game via annexation like Indianapolis and Columbus which like to boast a population figure around 800,000 to prove how "big" of a "city" they are.

[The ATX]

Originally Posted by Columbusite

This certainly exposes cities that like to play the numbers game via annexation like Indianapolis and Columbus which like to boast a population figure around 800,000 to prove how "big" of a "city" they are.

Have either of those cities done any recent annexations? I thought they were pretty much ringed by suburbs.

[hudkina]

Even without recent annexation, they both have bloated city limits compared to much of the rest of the midwest.

[unusualfire]

Cincinnati density is down because you can't build on the side of hills.

[LMich]

You know, I know there are hills and then there are hills. And, I know that no two hilly cities are directly comparable or anything. But, San Francisco seems to do all right with building on the side of hills, just saying.

Cincy's density is down for the reason a the density is down in a lot of other cities on this list: they've consistently lost population for decades and have small city limits. Cincinnati's situation really isn't unique.

[subterranean]

Calculated the numbers for Lansing and Ann Arbor, and where they would rank, individually, in the previous 15 cities:

Lansing:
Within Mile 1: 11,001 (11th)
Within Mile 2: 47,037 (10th)
Within Mile 3: 93,381 (13th)
Within Mile 4: 141,078 (14th)
Within Mile 5: 199,300 (15th)

Lansing nudges out Detroit, even 5 miles out.

Ann Arbor:
Within Mile 1: 33,324 (2nd)
Within Mile 2: 60,835 (6th)
Within Mile 3: 96,491 (11th)
Within Mile 4: 134,216 (15th)
Within Mile 5: 150,038 (16th)

Ann Arbor and Lansing both benefit from their large universities, but Ann Arbor definitely has the edge given its university is in the same town as its city hall.

[Snowbird]

Three things.

First, remember that these are good generalizations as the US Census bureau did not actually calculate population within concentric mileage rings around a city's city hall but merely used census tracts that best fit within the given mileage parameter. So the population within a two mile radius figure could include the population for a census tract extends extends to a point 2.5 miles from city hall, for example. Or the one mile figure could be missing a tract contained within it's perimeter simply because the majority of the tract is located more than one mile away and is therefore included in the two mile data field.

Secondly, look at how the inner cities of Cleveland, Detroit and St.Louis have been completely decimated. I mean, you hear all the time about the great doughnuts but it was still a little shocking to see.

Thirdly, I was pleasantly shocked at how well Cincy stood up for inner city population. I guess that goes to show that you can be too close to the situation. All I hear from family back home is that the city is a waste and everybody has moved out and nobody lives in Cincy anymore. Evidentally not true.

[Snowbird]

Never mind. I had a silly question that has been rendered moot.