Chicago still headed for megacity status: report

[Qubert]

Originally Posted by Sun Belt

New York is the center of a 50 million person mega region and that's in a region that faces more difficulties in development than Chicagoland. Rocky soils, hilly terrain to it's northwest and salt water along it's eastern boundary.

New York MSA bleeds into other MSAs and the sprawl that is the northeast megalopolis is pretty solid.



If a city like L.A. [that was once on the frontier and isolated] can grow into a region of 18 million despite the harsh realities of extreme topographical challenges, natural disasters, lack of fresh water sources and the inability to expand/sprawl outwards due to these restraints, then surely Chicagoland is/was capable of doing the same.

Not necessarily. The coastal mega cities represent the nexus of international trade and as such would always have a business advantage. NY blew up more from the Erie Canal than Buffalo because even though one was in the heartland the other was where the actual importing/exporting was done.

[dimondpark]

Originally Posted by Urbanguy

That's by MSA but by the larger metric of CSA it's different.

D.C. is almost there already...

Washington-Baltimore-Arlington, DC-MD-VA-WV-PA Combined Statistical Area 9,764,315

San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, CA Combined Statistical Area 8,837,789 *The MSA figures have San Jose & San Francisco MSA's separated but as been debated a million times it's all continuous.

Boston-Worcester-Providence, MA-RI-NH-CT Combined Statistical Area 8,233,270

...then it's

Dallas-Fort Worth, TX-OK Combined Statistical Area 7,846,293

Philadelphia-Reading-Camden, PA-NJ-DE-MD Combined Statistical Area 7,206,807

Houston-The Woodlands, TX Combined Statistical Area 7,093,190

Click here>>Click ME - CSA

Toronto would probably be up there too for North America, especially if Canada used the same (generously) defined parameters.

There's been an update in CSAs.

NY lost Allentown and the Bay Area added Modesto-Merced.

I posted this in another thread regarding the top 5:

So back to the top 5 CSAs using the new definitions, I did some quick calculations to determine the average annual growth from 2010-2017 and applied that to 2018-2020. Obviously no one has a crystal ball, but if growth in the next 3 years remains similar to the last 7, then 2020 might look like this...

CSA.......................2010 Pop.......2017 Pop
New York.............. 22,255,491.....23,035,605
Los Angeles.......... 17,877,006......18,788,800
Chicago.................. 9,840,929.........9,901,356
Washington ............9,051,961.........9,765,772
San Francisco......... 8,923,942........9,658,361

CSA/2010-2017 Growth/Average Annual Growth
LA +911,794..........+5.09%....+130,256
NY +780,114.........+3.60%.....+111,444
SF +734,619..........+7.86%.....+106,231
DC +713,811.........+7.77%.....+101,973
Chicago +60,427...+0.61%........+8,632

CSA/2018-2020 Projected Growth
LA +390,768
NY +334,334
SF +314,836
DC +305,919
Chicago +25,897

Projected Top 5 2020:
New York........23,369,939
Los Angeles....19,179,568
Washington.....10,071,691
San Francisco...9,973,697
Chicago.............9,927,253

[maru2501]

Originally Posted by Sun Belt

America is a suburb of Canada!

No but Chicago IS the Miami of Canada

[pacarlson]

Turning the clock back to 1950, Chicago was at its peak and was the 8th largest urban area in the world with 5,587,000 people, according to Demographia (after NYC, London, Tokyo, Moscow, Rhine-Ruhr, Paris, & Shanghai). Was Chicago a megacity at that time (1950)? If so, did it's status as a megacity fall to faster growing urban areas since then? Today, Chicago's urban area population is 9,160,000 and it ranks number 40 in the world, while NYC's urban population rank has now dropped to 8th place.

[The North One]

How does the Bay Area jump from 7 million to 9 million??

[SIGSEGV]

SF is so expensive that people commute from the central valley

[IrishIllini]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

SF is so expensive that people commute from the central valley

The Bay Area's CSA is one of the most egregious for "padding the stats" IMO. The numbers become so distorted they're almost meaningless.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Sun Belt

America is a suburb of Canada!

Obviously! This is why the U.S. border is so close to Canada's major cities.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by dimondpark

There's been an update in CSAs.

NY lost Allentown and the Bay Area added Modesto-Merced.

I posted this in another thread regarding the top 5:

So back to the top 5 CSAs using the new definitions, I did some quick calculations to determine the average annual growth from 2010-2017 and applied that to 2018-2020. Obviously no one has a crystal ball, but if growth in the next 3 years remains similar to the last 7, then 2020 might look like this...

CSA.......................2010 Pop.......2017 Pop
New York.............. 22,255,491.....23,035,605
Los Angeles.......... 17,877,006......18,788,800
Chicago.................. 9,840,929.........9,901,356
Washington ............9,051,961.........9,765,772
San Francisco......... 8,923,942........9,658,361

CSA/2010-2017 Growth/Average Annual Growth
LA +911,794..........+5.09%....+130,256
NY +780,114.........+3.60%.....+111,444
SF +734,619..........+7.86%.....+106,231
DC +713,811.........+7.77%.....+101,973
Chicago +60,427...+0.61%........+8,632

CSA/2018-2020 Projected Growth
LA +390,768
NY +334,334
SF +314,836
DC +305,919
Chicago +25,897

Projected Top 5 2020:
New York........23,369,939
Los Angeles....19,179,568
Washington.....10,071,691
San Francisco...9,973,697
Chicago.............9,927,253

Pray for L.A. It's about time for the second city curse to catch up to it...

[The North One]

Pray for LA now, that's just an insane amount of people I would never want to live with, especially with that traffic and awful built form, forget it.

Honestly, I don't see anything happening to LA, It'll outlive the Bay Area at least.

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by IrishIllini

The Bay Area's CSA is one of the most egregious for "padding the stats" IMO. The numbers become so distorted they're almost meaningless.

DC's not any better.

They just decided to lump Baltimore in

It's all bogus!

At least Chicago is one huge city whose unworthy and subordinate burbs orbit it and swear fealty to it like a proper metro.

All this "multicity metro" nonsense is just a way to pad the numbers, IMO

[Chisouthside]

the bay area is huge and its pretty much built up all the way from santa rosa to morgan hill. now if it wasnt for mountains and the bay and the physical built form of the bay all those areas would probably be more condensed and san jose might still just be all orchards

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by The North One

How does the Bay Area jump from 7 million to 9 million??

Cities grow (SF by 1 million/decade) and by doing it, the capture other counties. Chicago also did so, and that's why it spreads over 4 out 5 Great Lakes states.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

DC's not any better.

They just decided to lump Baltimore in

It's all bogus!

At least Chicago is one huge city whose unworthy and subordinate burbs orbit it and swear fealty to it like a proper metro.

All this "multicity metro" nonsense is just a way to pad the numbers, IMO

Same for Boston. Other than the teams and sometimes Logan, most people in Boston's CSA have nothing to do with Boston and a regular basis.

[the urban politician]

^ Yeah, in Chicago’s burbs there is no question where the center of the Universe is.

Sure, some people hate the city or it’s politics. Some old timers will quack “why would I ever go to the city? Too much of a headache”

But aside from the usual suburban stuff and hundreds of mini suburban downtowns feigning their own character, there is a singular identity here that revolves around being part of “Chicago”. You are nothing else but a Chicago burb

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by yuriandrade

Chicago also did so, and that's why it spreads over 4 out 5 Great Lakes states.

chicago's CSA only spreads across 3 states:

1 county in SE wisconsin

10 counties in NE illinois

5 counties in NW indiana


source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ChicagoCSAmap.png




but the great CSA county mash-up game is a regional measure, not a city measure, and chicago's CSA is retardedly large. vast, VAST swaths of the above map are literally endless cornfields.

by urban area, chicago is in a very solid #3 position with 8.6M people, roughly 3M people ahead of 4th place miami with 5.5M. (2010 numbers).

[Yuri]

If I'm not mistaken, at some point Michigan City had this Berrien county inside its MSA.

Urban areas are not perfect as New York and Brigdeport, Los Angeles and San Bernardino, San Francisco and San Jose are brought separated.

Anyway, if Chicago suburban growth accelerated as they were back in the 1990's, at some point Rockford MSA would be captured, placing Chicago firmly above the 10 million barrier.

[F1 Tommy]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ Yeah, in Chicago’s burbs there is no question where the center of the Universe is.

Sure, some people hate the city or it’s politics. Some old timers will quack “why would I ever go to the city? Too much of a headache”

But aside from the usual suburban stuff and hundreds of mini suburban downtowns feigning their own character, there is a singular identity here that revolves around being part of “Chicago”. You are nothing else but a Chicago burb

Yup, and it doesn't hurt that Chicago has a downtown the size of a mountain range that everybody can see from way out in the burbs. Also all the airports are still controlled by Chicago.

[Sun Belt]

I think we all agree that CSAs are the worst metric to use when comparing metropolitan areas.

CSA < MSA < UA

[Dariusb]

Do you think Chicago may one day add Milwaukee, South Bend and Rockford to their CSA like the San Francisco bay area did when they added Merced, Modesto and Stockton?