Population density patterns in cities (NYC and Chicago as a starter)

[Chicago103]

I did a population calculation for the neighborhoods along the lake from the Loop to the northern border of the city of what one can call Chicago's "Manhattan". The lake is obviously the border on the east and the Chicago River South and North Branches/North Shore Channel on the west, the northern city limits on the north and Harrison Street on the south. This includes the community areas of Rogers Park, West Ridge, Edgewater, Uptown, Lincoln Square, North Center, Lakeview, Lincoln Park, Near North Side and the census tracts in the Loop north of Harrison Street.

http://media.apps.chicagotribune.com...38018798828,15

This area according to the 2010 census has 567,860 people in 24.2 square miles with a population density of 23,465 people per square mile. This is 21% of the city's population in 10.7% of the city's land area. This is slightly more dense than Queens (21K) but still a little bit less dense than New York City as a whole (27K), NYC is a monster!

[nei]

Originally Posted by CyberEric

I find that graph a lot easier to read for some reason, easier than those bell curve graphs. Looks great!
I am actually surprised to see Staten Island even as close as it is, it looks extremely residential to me.
I wish we could see similar to NY sized cities in a graph. Chicago just isn't close in size.

Could we see a similar graph for SF and Toronto?
Thanks for all of this cool stuff.

Yeh, I'd like to see London, Paris and Tokyo. I haven't seen census tract numbers, but I have looked up neighborhood sized tracts so I can make good guesses on what the graphs will look like. London's densest boroughs are around 30 k /square mile. At the census tract level, you'll get some denser numbers, but I don't think it'll will change much; London is long blocks of rather identical row houses with few big apartment buildings, so there shouldn't be much variation at smaller scales. So, London's densest sections should similar to that 22 square miles of the North Side, maybe a bit denser, past that London drops in density much less than Chicago, the outer sections feel similar to the lower density parts of Queens. (I've spent a lot of time in Outer London).

Tokyo lacks any neighborhoods above 50,000 per square mile or so, but it has a bunch of them at that density; a 22 square mile area in the core of Tokyo would have about that density. After the first 3 million or so, Tokyo declines a bit, but not by that much. By the outer sections of Tokyo (Tokyo and New York City have roughly the same city populations) Tokyo is quite a bit denser than New York City and of course London. Past the city limits, Tokyo probably stays flat at about the same; probably at the average density of Queens?

Paris is probably the closest to New York City; its core neighborhood have similar densities to New York City; the center city nabes are mostly 5 story low rise apartments on narrow streets; similar to older parts of Manhattan.

Midtown Manhattan probably the highest daytime density of any of these, but it's hard to find data.

Going back to your question, I could do a graph of San Francisco, not so much Toronto as I don't have the data handy. But a graph of just San Francisco defined by the city limits would be misleading, as the city limits of San Francisco are small while Chicago's are large; Chicago contains a higher percentage of its urban area population. I made a graph of the densest 1.25 million of a number of cities; a good indicator of how a big core a city has but it gives bigger cities an advantage.



I don't bother include New York as it'd be mostly off the chart (its line would reach the top of the graph at 110,000 ppsm). Boston's lower density than the other dense cities, probably because a lot of its housing stock (except for what contains the first few hundred thousand people) is triple deckers and two family homes on small lots compared to row houses (for Philadelphia), something that kinda resembles rowhouses / almost connected multifamily homes ? (Chicago and San Francisco; dunno how to describe them) or lots of freestanding apartment buildings (Los Angeles). San Francisco is interesting looking, right near the center it's a lot of 4-5 story connected apartment buildings.

[memph]

I can send you my data on Toronto and other Canadian cities, Nei.

I took a shot at Paris and Barcelona, compared to New York at the urban area level, but the problem is they don't have the same size of units. For New York, there are census tracts, but for Barcelona and Paris, it was a mix of neighbourhoods and districts for the core cities, and a mix of neighbourhoods and munipicalities for the suburbs. The result is that the average population of the unit used was...

Paris: 20,462
Barcelona: 16,414
New York: 4,188

What I did was graph those as is, and also smooth out the NY data over sets of 5 nearby census tracts to try to cancel the effect of smaller units for NY.


Based of this, if I had census tract sized data for Barcelona and Paris, I would estimate that Barcelona would follow NYC quite closely for the first million people before dropping off with maybe around 2.5 million people above 50,000 ppsm. Paris I expect would follow the flattened (smoothed out) New York line before starting to separate around 2-2.5 million with also around 2.5 million people above 50,000 ppsm.

In Europe/North America, these are the cities that I expect would have the most high density, with Madrid being relatively close behind. In the East, Moscow and Tokyo seem like they would have less very high density areas, but might start overtaking Paris and Barcelona in the 20,000-50,000 ppsm range. Hong Kong and Seoul would most likely be ahead in the very high densities, it's just that I couldn't find detailed population data for them.

[nei]

Originally Posted by memph

Berkeley: 18,394 ppsm (113,000)
Oakland: 14,014 ppsm (390,000)
San Pablo: 12,327 ppsm (33,000)
Albany: 11,111 ppsm (19,000)
Alameda: 10,600 ppsm (74,000)

Here are some weighted density stats for some smaller Boston area cities (2000):

Boston: 22,458 ppsm (589,141)
Cambridge: 21,800 ppsm (101,355)
Somerville: 21,655 ppsm (77,478)
Chelsea: 20,994 ppsm (35,080)
Brookline: 17,532 ppsm (57,107)
Lynn: 14,993 ppsm (89,050)
Everett: 14,611 ppsm (27,771)
Malden: 12,0795 ppsm (56,340)

Cambridge has a large section of 30k+ ppsm tracts east of Harvard and north of the Red Line (roughly north of Mass Ave). Somerville, Chelsea lose a bit of density for having populated census tracts with boundaries that include undeveloped (industrial, railway, waterways, etc). Boston has a few tracts with that issue, as well (South Boston has a 30k tract and then an 8 k tract, with the low density having similar having housing stock but include land used for warehouses and ports).

Most of these cities have a large contrast in densities in their tracts, probably more than you'd get in California. Many other Massachusetts towns near Boston have a couple high density tracts but aren't consistently dense.

[nei]

Originally Posted by Thundertubs

Fun thread.

How are people getting these numbers?

Can anyone do the weighted densities of Newark and Jersey City, NJ?

Bergen County: 7,507 ppsm (pop 884,118)
Essex County: 15,136 ppsm (pop 793,633)
Hudson County: 33,391 ppsm (pop 608,975)

Newark: 22,618 ppsm (pop 271,540)
Jersey City: 32,079 ppsm (pop 240,055)

Newark has a number of census tracts above 30k + ppsm, with 65,890 living in them. Hudson County has 335,710 people above 30k+ ppsm, 138,366 live in Jersey City. Hoboken has a weighted density of 44,193; but I'm using 2000 numbers. Hoboken grew by 30% in the last decade.

[memph]

I manually did a few cities in Hudson County for 2010 based off this: http://www.citypopulation.de/php/usa...bridgeport.php

Guttenberg: 59,344 ppsm (pop 11,176)
West New York: 55,979 ppsm (pop 49,708)
Union City: 55,168 ppsm (pop 66,455)
Hoboken: 46,236 ppsm (pop 50,005)
Weehawken: 29,600 ppsm (pop 12,554)

That means the increase in weighted density in Hoboken was smaller than the increase in population. Looking at where most of the growth seems to have occured, it's around the Waterfront and Northwest of the city. These areas probably had little population and therefore little impact on the weighted density in 2000, and they are now around the density of the Hoboken average.

[Chicago103]

Could lack of alleys and fewer gangways be a reason that New York City is so much denser than Chicago? I.E. without alleys block sizes can be smaller, cramming more residential space into areas. One other thing I notice less common in New York City is gangways (spaces between houses/buildings), in Chicago almost every house has a gangway. In New York City it is quite common to see an entire row of residential buildings a block long without a single gangway separating any of them, you don't see that in Chicago. What are the dimensions for a typical residential block in the outer boroughs of NYC? I was trying to figure out why Brooklyn is so much more dense than say Lincoln Park or Lakeview in Chicago (heck LP and LV have more highrises than most of Brooklyn) that doesn't look all that different as far as building scale, perhaps this is an answer, as dense Chicago seems on the surface I guess the accumulation of alleys and gangways are big density killers.

[Chicago103]

Both New York City and Chicago are known for their skyscraper canyons in their central business districts, usually commercial buildings but sometimes residential highrises as well, such as the cliffs along lake shore drive in Chicago or on the UES and UWS sides of Manhattan.

What New York City has that Chicago doesn't have is canyons and block long walls of five-seven story residential buildings. I found these photos on NYgirl's NYC thread and the density in some of them blew me away and it demonstrates what I am talking about.
The South Bronx:









Brooklyn looks rather tame compared to the South Bronx but it still has the wall effect, no spaces between buildings, many blocks don't even have trees and even those that do there are no tree lawn strip, just a tree in the middle of the sidewalk.
















I should post some Chicago pictures as a comparison or maybe someone else can. The point is that even Chicago's densest non highrise residential neighborhoods don't look like that. There are alleys, gangways, treelawns, etc. Also in Chicago non-highrise residential buildings are typically three-four stories tall unlike the five-seven very common in New York City and unlike there very rarely in Chicago is there a block long row of identically scaled buildings. In Chicago there are more ecclectic mixes of buildings even on commercial streets like four plus ones, two or three stories of apartments above shops, a one or two story old worker's cottage, one story car repair shop, then four story building with residences above shop again, etc all on one block. Solid block long walls of townhouses or attached five story tenements are a NYC phenomenon not a Chicago one, something like Alta Vista Terrace (block of row houses) here is an exception. Don't get me wrong I love New York City architecture but going simply block by block there is usually more building scale diversity in Chicago, not saying one is better than the other just different. NYC is a city of walls of attached buildings and low-mid rise canyons, Chicago really isn't, we are more of a bungalow and two flat kind of city and that is another reason the density here is less than half of NYC's.

[Crawford]

As your pictures show, the Bronx is generally significantly denser than Brooklyn, even if the overall density is roughly the same (because Bronx has far more parkland, highways, industrial and other nonresidential uses).

And it isn't really the South Bronx that has that 5-7 floor tenement typology. It's more like the entire West Bronx (whether South or North). If anything, the North Bronx is probably a little denser than the South Bronx (though that may be changing because there's more newer infill in the South Bronx).

The big built form distinction in the Bronx isn't between North and South; it's between East and West. Basically the Eastern third of the Bronx has a less dense built form and the Western two-thirds have the typology shown in the pics.

The rough border between "dense Bronx" and "not so dense Bronx" is the Amtrak NE Corridor line, though the density starts to slowly decrease east of the Bronx River.

[Chicago103]

Originally Posted by Crawford

As your pictures show, the Bronx is generally significantly denser than Brooklyn, even if the overall density is roughly the same (because Bronx has far more parkland, highways, industrial and other nonresidential uses).

And it isn't really the South Bronx that has that 5-7 floor tenement typology. It's more like the entire West Bronx (whether South or North). If anything, the North Bronx is probably a little denser than the South Bronx (though that may be changing because there's more newer infill in the South Bronx).

The big built form distinction in the Bronx isn't between North and South; it's between East and West. Basically the Eastern third of the Bronx has a less dense built form and the Western two-thirds have the typology shown in the pics.

The rough border between "dense Bronx" and "not so dense Bronx" is the Amtrak NE Corridor line, though the density starts to slowly decrease east of the Bronx River.

Yeah I am just starting to learn more New York City geography from looking at NYgirl's threads on SkyscraperCity. Actually density in the Bronx and Brooklyn is more interesting to me than Manhattan because highrise residential density is common in NYC and Chicago but the residential density in parts of the Bronx and Brooklyn just blows me away, especially how widespread and unrelenting it is. The only parts of New York City that remind me of the bungalow belts of Chicago where I live are eastern Queens and gasp!; parts of Staten Island. Actually the parts of Queens near JFK Airport and near the border with Nassau County remind me of the neighborhoods near Midway Airport in Chicago where I live, i.e. neighborhoods that are majority detached bungalows/houses that have multi-family residences here and there. Overall Queens is the closest to Chicago in terms of the way it looks, the denser western parts looking like the north lakefront areas of Chicago and the eastern parts looking more like the bungalow belt of Chicago. So I would say the recipe for Chicago would be to take Queens, throw in some lower and midtown Manhattan for the tall skyscrapers and add in a healthy dose of Detroit to get the Chicago ghettos. Also the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn looks a lot like Chicago's Bridgeport just a bit denser. The only place in Chicago that looks close to the south Bronx would be the densest parts of Woodlawn or parts of Rogers Park and of course the highrise housing projects look somewhat similar between NYC and Chicago but in general Chicago's ghettos are lower density and look more like Detroit than the Bronx.

[Marcu]

Originally Posted by Chicago103

The only place in Chicago that looks close to the south Bronx would be the densest parts of Woodlawn or parts of Rogers Park and of course the highrise housing projects look somewhat similar between NYC and Chicago but in general Chicago's ghettos are lower density and look more like Detroit than the Bronx.

Nothing about the density or architecture of Rogers Park and Woodlawn resemble the south Bronx any more or less so than any other Chicago lakefront neighborhood.

[Chicago103]

Originally Posted by Marcu

Nothing about the density or architecture of Rogers Park and Woodlawn resemble the south Bronx any more or less so than any other Chicago lakefront neighborhood.

The similarities are that parts of Woodlawn, South Shore and Rogers Park are high density african american neighborhoods which is unusual in Chicago where many more blacks either live in projects (many of which are now gone) or a majority in bungalows, two flats and small apartment buildings in neighborhoods that resemble Detroit more so than the Bronx.

Also Rogers Park has a density of about 30,000 per square mile and it and Uptown are really the only north lakefront neighborhoods with a significant black population and that density is fairly close to the average density of the Bronx. Of course the architecture is different, the apartment buildings in Rogers Park tend to be about two stories shorter than typical tenements in the Bronx and in Chicago they are not block long walls of buildings or anywhere near as wide spread but in that small area near the Howard Red Line stop in Rogers Park there are some similarities.

[Marcu]

Originally Posted by Chicago103

The similarities are that parts of Woodlawn, South Shore and Rogers Park are high density african american neighborhoods which is unusual in Chicago where many more blacks either live in projects (many of which are now gone) or a majority in bungalows, two flats and small apartment buildings in neighborhoods that resemble Detroit more so than the Bronx.

Also Rogers Park has a density of about 30,000 per square mile and it and Uptown are really the only north lakefront neighborhoods with a significant black population and that density is fairly close to the average density of the Bronx. Of course the architecture is different, the apartment buildings in Rogers Park tend to be about two stories shorter than typical tenements in the Bronx and in Chicago they are not block long walls of buildings or anywhere near as wide spread but in that small area near the Howard Red Line stop in Rogers Park there are some similarities.

If you are going purely by demographics, then Rogers Park is about 25% African American, 25% Hispanic (heavily Mexican), and 40% white, while Woodlawn is almost 90% African American. The South Bronx is about 60% Hispanic (heavily Puerto Rican) and 40% African American. Also, the density of Rogers Park (30,000) is about the same as the Bronx (parks, highways and all), but is also the same as Chicago's Lakeview. The density of Woodlawn is significantly less (13,000).

[nei]

A couple of South Bronx neighborhoods lost 2/3 of their population in one decade (1970s). Have any Chicago neighborhoods undergone similar rapid population loss? Or any other city?

http://www.demographia.com/db-nyc-ward.htm

(Bronx District 2 and 3)

Bronx District 3 was still at a population density of 34k / sq mile at the end of the decade.

[Mad_Nick]

Originally Posted by Chicago103

Yeah I am just starting to learn more New York City geography from looking at NYgirl's threads on SkyscraperCity. Actually density in the Bronx and Brooklyn is more interesting to me than Manhattan because highrise residential density is common in NYC and Chicago but the residential density in parts of the Bronx and Brooklyn just blows me away, especially how widespread and unrelenting it is. The only parts of New York City that remind me of the bungalow belts of Chicago where I live are eastern Queens and gasp!; parts of Staten Island. Actually the parts of Queens near JFK Airport and near the border with Nassau County remind me of the neighborhoods near Midway Airport in Chicago where I live, i.e. neighborhoods that are majority detached bungalows/houses that have multi-family residences here and there. Overall Queens is the closest to Chicago in terms of the way it looks, the denser western parts looking like the north lakefront areas of Chicago and the eastern parts looking more like the bungalow belt of Chicago. So I would say the recipe for Chicago would be to take Queens, throw in some lower and midtown Manhattan for the tall skyscrapers and add in a healthy dose of Detroit to get the Chicago ghettos. Also the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn looks a lot like Chicago's Bridgeport just a bit denser. The only place in Chicago that looks close to the south Bronx would be the densest parts of Woodlawn or parts of Rogers Park and of course the highrise housing projects look somewhat similar between NYC and Chicago but in general Chicago's ghettos are lower density and look more like Detroit than the Bronx.

There are some parts of Brooklyn that are like what you describe, low density with a few apartment buildings thrown in for good measure. Check out Bensonhurst and Midwood for instance. The outer parts of Brooklyn aren't very dense by New York standards.

But in general I agree. New York actually has much more in common with European cities in terms of built form than with any other American city.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Mad_Nick

There are some parts of Brooklyn that are like what you describe, low density with a few apartment buildings thrown in for good measure. Check out Bensonhurst and Midwood for instance. The outer parts of Brooklyn aren't very dense by New York standards.

While Bensonhurst and Midwood aren't particularly dense by NYC standards, they're still pretty dense, and the vast majority of housing is multifamily. They don't look similar to the furthest outer parts of Queens or Staten Island.

There are relatively few single family homes in either neighborhood, excepting the Syrian Jewish part of Midwood (which is really an outlier in every conceivable way).

I would say that, in both neighborhoods, the most common housing typology is the small multifamily (2-10 unit) building.

The only places in Broolyn where single family homes dominate are in small enclaves, such as Mill Basin (the newer part, along the water), the Syrian Jewish part of Midwood, some Orthodox blocks in Midwood, and the fancy part of Manhattan Beach.

There are tons of places where 2-4 unit buildings dominate, though. Pretty much every neighborhood has that typology.

[whiteford]

Vancouver is doing great in this regard as we all know. my dream is to see calgarys belt-line district become highly populated and filled with tall residential towers and mixed use towers. with lots of green spaces and street level shopping. if that where ever to transpire it would be my destination to live for sure. here is to dreaming big.

[whiteford]

btw it is very unlikely we will ever see the type of density shown of NY or Chicago in any other north american cities. that is a bygone era and only a few other cities have success in this way. such as Montreal or Philadelphia for example. although on a smaller scale. the best any of the newer density nodes can ever hope for is what they are doing in Toronto or Vancouver and what i envision for Calgary's beltline.

[Jelly Roll]

Originally Posted by whiteford

btw it is very unlikely we will ever see the type of density shown of NY or Chicago in any other north american cities. that is a bygone era and only a few other cities have success in this way. such as Montreal or Philadelphia for example. although on a smaller scale. the best any of the newer density nodes can ever hope for is what they are doing in Toronto or Vancouver and what i envision for Calgary's beltline.

I think Philadelphia is going to get much denser over the next 20 years. Center City is adding 4,000 apartment units over the next 4 years. The real thing that is holding density back in Philly is the zoning but I think eventually we will see that fixed.

[Marcu]

Originally Posted by whiteford

btw it is very unlikely we will ever see the type of density shown of NY or Chicago in any other north american cities. that is a bygone era and only a few other cities have success in this way. such as Montreal or Philadelphia for example. although on a smaller scale. the best any of the newer density nodes can ever hope for is what they are doing in Toronto or Vancouver and what i envision for Calgary's beltline.

It seems that way now, but "ever" is a long time, and development patterns can change rather quickly. Just look at the 20th century when the US went from building one end to the other in a matter of decades. If gas prices in the US stabilize at $4-5 a gallon, you'll probably see a significant shift in behavior to a more urban form that may not resemble Manhattan, but will look a lot more like the "1 car per household" patterns you see in some parts of Queens/Brooklyn and the Chicago lakefront with density levels of around 30,000.