Houston's Size

[JasonDFW]

2. I thought San Fran included Oakland in their area space.

3. Since when has Miami had over 5 million people in their area? Miami-Dade is big, but once again, who are they including? Key West?

My main complaint is that we really don't know what they (census) consider as part of a city's "area".

Yes, San Francisco does include Oakland in the metro area, and those numbers reflect that. I went back and edited the name to add Oakland to avoid confusion. In fact the Oakland side has many more people so if we were to take that out San Francisco would be way down the list.

Miami only includes 3 counties (compared to Houston's 10) so you can tell its fairly dense. Those counties are:

Miami-Dade

Broward

West Palm Beach

No, Miami metro does not include Key West, as that is its own micropolitan statistical area in Monroe county.

For the entire list of metropolitan definitions, see the census definitions here:

http://www.census.gov/population/estimates...-city/List4.txt

Jason

[The Great Hizzy!]

The three counties that make up Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach's CSA are huge in land area but the overwhelming majority of their urbanized areas is densely concentrated along the Atlantic coast. Development mostly ends about 15 miles or so inland heading west, but it is endless from about Florida City to Jupiter (Southern Miami-Dade County to north central Palm Beach County) from south to north.

The Everglades and the Loxahatchee WildLife Refuge to the west of US HWY 27 limits the physical growth of these communities, particularly in Miami-Dade and Broward Counties. Hence those counties are being forced to build more multi-unit dwellings, including highrises, to accomodate any type of migratory population growth. Yet even with traditional suburban style development (like in western and northern PBC), housing costs are getting out of control. Not quite as bad as California, but pretty audacious for a southern location.

[editor]

Ummm...Editor

"The 2004 population estimate for Houston city, Texas is 2,012,626."

Houston census page

Looks like we've got dueling Census pages at work.

[TJones]

Looks like we've got dueling Census pages at work.

<---------grabs his banjo !

[Knqn]

What's with this "obsession" with passing Chicago in population? Say we wake up tomorrow and the NYT reports "Houston surpasses Chicago in population," then what? A cities vitality and healthy urban atmosphere is 10 times more important then bragging rights in population. Look at a San Francisco or Boston, two cities who have nothing to prove in the population category (city wise) and they're respectively a couple of the most dynamic urban centers in the U.S. Enough with Houston trying to polish it's image nationally, you first have to showcase your city locally and start some kind of critical mass in the central area.

[YakuzaIce]

Hmm, the plot thickens...

this one also says 2,012,626

this one too

[editor]

What's with this "obsession" with passing Chicago in population?

I think it's healthy. Chicago is the next one up. After that the obsession will be L.A., then New York.

[RedScare]

What's with this "obsession" with passing Chicago in population? Say we wake up tomorrow and the NYT reports "Houston surpasses Chicago in population," then what?

Then we get on SSC and totally thrash all of the Chicago posters about what a punkass town they are.

[Montrose1100]

Jason's figures are wrong.

The Census still includes SF as 7, and Baltimore-D.C. as 7. Infact, I'm surprised they don't count the entire Bosh-Wash metro region as one.

**If Houston's metro includes Huntsville, Which is almost equal distance from Downtown to Beaumont. I don't Get Houston's metro countings...

Its like saying Houston's Metro is the size of South Carolina.

[eelimon]

What's with this "obsession" with passing Chicago in population? Say we wake up tomorrow and the NYT reports "Houston surpasses Chicago in population," then what?

So being number one at any thing is not good?

I would hope one day there wont be a USA There will be the United States of North America and Mexico city that dirty old place surpasses New York as the largest city in the U.S. of N.A.

Lighten up it is not a complex or an obsession it is a discussion on what will likely happen

A cities vitality and healthy urban atmosphere is 10 times more important then bragging rights in population. Look at a San Francisco or Boston, two cities who have nothing to prove in the population category (city wise) and they're respectively a couple of the most dynamic urban centers in the U.S. Enough with Houston trying to polish it's image nationally, you first have to showcase your city locally and start some kind of critical mass in the central area.

But I totally agree with you on this part of your comment

[JasonDFW]

The Census still includes SF as 7, and Baltimore-D.C. as 7. Infact, I'm surprised they don't count the entire Bosh-Wash metro region as one.

**If Houston's metro includes Huntsville, Which is almost equal distance from Downtown to Beaumont. I don't Get Houston's metro countings...

Its like saying Houston's Metro is the size of South Carolina.

Are you drunk? Huntsville is not part of the Houston metro. Please educate yourself on the topic. Huntsville is its own micropolitan statistical area. I have given the link to the official census data defining the Houston metro already above, and Redscare has provided data that matches that. I'll give yet a third link that also contains the micropolitan areas so you can see Huntsville is its own area:

http://www.census.gov/population/estimates...-city/List1.txt

On the topic of San Francisco and DC, I have given proof on those as well. If you have official data that shows otherwise I'd love to see it. Perhaps you're living in 2002 and haven't gotten the news yet.

Jason

[Houston19514]

Are you drunk? Huntsville is not part of the Houston metro. Please educate yourself on the topic. Huntsville is its own micropolitan statistical area. I have given the link to the official census data defining the Houston metro already above, and Redscare has provided data that matches that. I'll give yet a third link that also contains the micropolitan areas so you can see Huntsville is its own area:

http://www.census.gov/population/estimates...-city/List1.txt

On the topic of San Francisco and DC, I have given proof on those as well. If you have official data that shows otherwise I'd love to see it. Perhaps you're living in 2002 and haven't gotten the news yet.

Jason

Cool your jets, Jason. There is also something called the Combined Statistical Area. In Houston's case, it's called the Houston-Baytown-Huntsville combined statistical area. When speaking of metropolitan areas, it is just as legitimate to speak of the Houston-Baytown-Huntsville CSA as it is to speak of the Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown metropolitan statistical area. Personally, I think the Census Bureau is causing further confusion with these new definitions. And in the case of San Francisco and DC, there still exist the DC-Baltimore Combined Statistical Area as well as the San Francisco-San Jose Combined Statistical Area (hence the confusion I mentioned above), both of which remain in the 7 million range.

Also, I'm not sure it's correct to say that Fort Worth meets the "government criteria for a suburb." Some metropolitan areas are apparently not quite as cohesive and interrelated as others, and so are divided by the Census Bureau into "Divisions." Dallas Fort Worth is one of such areas. The D-FW Metropolitan Area is comprised of the Dallas-Plano-Irving Metropolitcan Division and the Fort Worth-Arlington Metropolitan Division. I rather doubt that Ft. Worth would be in a separate division from Dallas if it met the government criteria for a suburb of Dallas.

BTW, Jason, what are your "other sources" for the 2004 Metropolitan Area populations, if I may ask?

[Dominax]

Back when I lived in Houston (1962-64), the city was the seventh largest city in the U.S. (Detroit was 5th and Baltimore was 6th at that time). Now Houston is the fourth largest city in the U.S.

Now I have a question. Am I right or wrong when I say that Houston doesn't have as many suburb cities as Dallas does? Dallas has many suburb cities (e.g., Garland, Mesquite, etc.). I've always thought that if Dallas were to annex its suburb cities, not only would it surpass Houston in size, but it just might go to the second largest city in the U.S. (I don't think that any city would ever come close to surpassing The Big Apple).

Who out there agrees or disagrees with my belief?

Well Houston carries more people in its city by itself than Dallas does.

Maybe because Dallas always had less than Houston is that because about all the area is used in the city limits and the only choice is to live in the suburbs in Dallas.

Houston can fit alot more in its city by itself and maybe people are willing to enjoy living in the city area more than in the suburbs. Everything is in the Houston city limits but nothing in the sublands. But people are willing to live in the outside area as how it grew largelyas it contains part of FTW and there's things you can do in the sublands and the city area of Dallas.

[Gary]

While this is all very interesting, I'm curious how the New Orleans evacuees have effected the cities population. Last count I heard was around 200,000. If that's true then Houston is inching ever closer to #3.

[Ashikaga]

While this is all very interesting, I'm curious how the New Orleans evacuees have effected the cities population. Last count I heard was around 200,000. If that's true then Houston is inching ever closer to #3.

I'm looking at the 2002 edition of World Book Encyclopedia. It says that the population of the city of New Orleans is 484,674, and that the population of the Metropolitan area is 1,337,726. So that means that The Big Easy now has somewhere between 250,000 and 300,000 people. This edition used to rank the largest cities in the U.S., but it shows only a table of world city size ranks.

What number did New Orleans come in before Hurricane Katrina hit it? I wonder what number it is at now, if you go by population?

[TJones]

Here is an interesting tidbit, I saw on Channel 2 news last night that there were 14 homicides in the city, over the Thanksgiving Holiday weekend. 9 of them were within a 2 mile radius, Beltway 8 and 59s. area. This area has historically been a bad part of town, I am just wondering, IF and how many evacuees are in that area now, because of the cheaper housing over there, and are they any affect on the area, i.e. were they any of the victims or the shooters of any of these crimes ? Channel 2 didn't elaborate as to names or origins of the victims, I was wondering if anyone might know.

[MidtownCoog]

I read the crime stats in the Chron this weekend, and 8 of those 12 were from south of the border.

Another reason not to go for drink at El Loco Cantina.

And if you do, bring your gun and knife.

[Jeebus]

Here is an interesting tidbit, I saw on Channel 2 news last night that there were 14 homicides in the city, over the Thanksgiving Holiday weekend. 9 of them were within a 2 mile radius, Beltway 8 and 59s. area. This area has historically been a bad part of town, I am just wondering, IF and how many evacuees are in that area now, because of the cheaper housing over there, and are they any affect on the area, i.e. were they any of the victims or the shooters of any of these crimes ? Channel 2 didn't elaborate as to names or origins of the victims, I was wondering if anyone might know.

It doesn't hurt that Channel 2's studio is in that area either. Makes it easy for them to cover stories.

[skwatra]

Mexico city that dirty old place

have you been to mexico city? it's actually quite nice and clean for the most part, and safer then i expected. it has its dirty areas, but no more so then any large city.

sorry to go off topic, but i just visited a few weeks ago so i felt a need to defend the city...

[RedScare]

Here is an interesting tidbit, I saw on Channel 2 news last night that there were 14 homicides in the city, over the Thanksgiving Holiday weekend. 9 of them were within a 2 mile radius, Beltway 8 and 59s. area. This area has historically been a bad part of town, I am just wondering, IF and how many evacuees are in that area now, because of the cheaper housing over there, and are they any affect on the area, i.e. were they any of the victims or the shooters of any of these crimes ? Channel 2 didn't elaborate as to names or origins of the victims, I was wondering if anyone might know.

One of the homicides was committed by an evacuee. But, here's the interesting part. The Chron reported that the victim approaches the evacuee's apartment, ARMED, and bangs on the door. The evacuee thinks it is the same person he had an altercation with earlier, and shoots through the door, killing the victim. HPD arrests the evacuee for murder.

Does anyone remember the Scotch tourist who banged on a homeowner's door in a drunken stupor about 15 years ago? The homeowner gets scared and fires through the door, killing the tourist. No charges are filed on the homeowner. A grand jury no-bills the homeowner.

Sounds like a double standard, doesn't it?

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metrop...an/3489626.html

[TJones]

One of the homicides was committed by an evacuee. But, here's the interesting part. The Chron reported that the victim approaches the evacuee's apartment, ARMED, and bangs on the door. The evacuee thinks it is the same person he had an altercation with earlier, and shoots through the door, killing the victim. HPD arrests the evacuee for murder.

Does anyone remember the Scotch tourist who banged on a homeowner's door in a drunken stupor about 15 years ago? The homeowner gets scared and fires through the door, killing the tourist. No charges are filed on the homeowner. A grand jury no-bills the homeowner.

Sounds like a double standard, doesn't it?

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metrop...an/3489626.html

Wasn't that homeowner arrested and processed though ?

[Houston19514]

One of the homicides was committed by an evacuee. But, here's the interesting part. The Chron reported that the victim approaches the evacuee's apartment, ARMED, and bangs on the door. The evacuee thinks it is the same person he had an altercation with earlier, and shoots through the door, killing the victim. HPD arrests the evacuee for murder.

Does anyone remember the Scotch tourist who banged on a homeowner's door in a drunken stupor about 15 years ago? The homeowner gets scared and fires through the door, killing the tourist. No charges are filed on the homeowner. A grand jury no-bills the homeowner.

Sounds like a double standard, doesn't it?

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metrop...an/3489626.html

I remember that incident. But I don't remember that the homeowner shot through the door. That could be the difference.

[sinatra]

Are you drunk? Huntsville is not part of the Houston metro. Please educate yourself on the topic. Huntsville is its own micropolitan statistical area. I have given the link to the official census data defining the Houston metro already above, and Redscare has provided data that matches that. I'll give yet a third link that also contains the micropolitan areas so you can see Huntsville is its own area:

http://www.census.gov/population/estimates...-city/List1.txt

On the topic of San Francisco and DC, I have given proof on those as well. If you have official data that shows otherwise I'd love to see it. Perhaps you're living in 2002 and haven't gotten the news yet.

Jason

How about the Atlanta plan where you include 30 counties in your metro area to reach 5.1 M

[Dominax]

Houston is still 4th largest city today

but as it can surpass Chicago if crime-level and if things don't get too bad of whats ahead ot them

like losing a Six Flags and almost been into a large hurricane

Morely this city is not morley increasing with the New Orleans people in it. More of the New Orleans move and lione in Northern States away from the disaters happening.

Houston will continue to still grown only at its own rate.

[Houston19514]

2000 Census:

Chicago - 2,896,016

Houston - 1,953,631

Chicago Metro - 9,098,316

Houston Metro - 4,715,407

2004 Estimate:

Chicago - 2,719,290

Houston - 1,946,484

I couldn't find metro estimates for 2004 from the Census Bureau.

I was just looking through this thread and noticed the dispute over the 2004 estimates. The problem is that your 2004 numbers are taken from the "American Community Survey" which "is limited to the household population and excludes the population living in institutions, college dormitories, and other group quarters." Thus it is not really comparable to the "census" numbers or census estimates.

The 2004 Census estimates are:

Chicago: 2,862,244

Houston: 2,012,626

The Census Bureau has now released the 2004 estimates for metropolitan areas:

Houston Metropolitan Area: 5,180,443

Houston Combined Statistical Area: 5,280,752

[JasonDFW]

Cool your jets, Jason. There is also something called the Combined Statistical Area. In Houston's case, it's called the Houston-Baytown-Huntsville combined statistical area. When speaking of metropolitan areas, it is just as legitimate to speak of the Houston-Baytown-Huntsville CSA as it is to speak of the Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown metropolitan statistical area. Personally, I think the Census Bureau is causing further confusion with these new definitions. And in the case of San Francisco and DC, there still exist the DC-Baltimore Combined Statistical Area as well as the San Francisco-San Jose Combined Statistical Area (hence the confusion I mentioned above), both of which remain in the 7 million range.

Also, I'm not sure it's correct to say that Fort Worth meets the "government criteria for a suburb." Some metropolitan areas are apparently not quite as cohesive and interrelated as others, and so are divided by the Census Bureau into "Divisions." Dallas Fort Worth is one of such areas. The D-FW Metropolitan Area is comprised of the Dallas-Plano-Irving Metropolitcan Division and the Fort Worth-Arlington Metropolitan Division. I rather doubt that Ft. Worth would be in a separate division from Dallas if it met the government criteria for a suburb of Dallas.

BTW, Jason, what are your "other sources" for the 2004 Metropolitan Area populations, if I may ask?

CMSAs are just what they state, combinations of one metro with another metro or micropolitan area. That was my point, that Huntsville is not within the Houston metro. If you combine the Houston Metro with the Huntsville micro area, you get the combined MSA that you mention.

You're right that its not correct to say "Fort Worth" meets the criteria for a suburb, is it actually Tarrant county that meets the suburb threshold and Fort Worth proper does not have enough employment/population in the western half of Tarrant county to reverse this commuting trend that occurs to Dallas county. This may change one day but the entire metroplex is becoming more cohesive and infilled at a faster rate than that.

The metropolitan divisions are used when there are different cultural, economic, and social areas within a metro area, and don't relate to the commute patterns that are used to classify areas of a metropolitan area. An example is the median price for a house. Having a Fort Worth Arlington division allows them to measure and show that the these areas have cheaper (often more suburban) housing than the Dallas division.

My "other source" for the 2004 Metropolitan Areas was listed in post 27 and its worth noting it matches your numbers for the Houston metro count:

http://proximityone.com/msarank04.htm (you can change the order by clicking on the tabs at the top)

Jason

[Houston19514]

CMSAs are just what they state, combinations of one metro with another metro or micropolitan area. That was my point, that Huntsville is not within the Houston metro. If you combine the Houston Metro with the Huntsville micro area, you get the combined MSA that you mention.

You're right that its not correct to say "Fort Worth" meets the criteria for a suburb, is it actually Tarrant county that meets the suburb threshold and Fort Worth proper does not have enough employment/population in the western half of Tarrant county to reverse this commuting trend that occurs to Dallas county. This may change one day but the entire metroplex is becoming more cohesive and infilled at a faster rate than that.

The metropolitan divisions are used when there are different cultural, economic, and social areas within a metro area, and don't relate to the commute patterns that are used to classify areas of a metropolitan area. An example is the median price for a house. Having a Fort Worth Arlington division allows them to measure and show that the these areas have cheaper (often more suburban) housing than the Dallas division.

My "other source" for the 2004 Metropolitan Areas was listed in post 27 and its worth noting it matches your numbers for the Houston metro count:

http://proximityone.com/msarank04.htm (you can change the order by clicking on the tabs at the top)

Jason

Thank you for the info on your "other source". I'm sorry I had overlooked that link. I see they came up with their metro estimates by adding up the Census Bureau estimates for the component counties. I do not understand why it takes the Census Bureau many months to perform that mathematical exercise. ;-)

As to the CSA's, you are quite right that they are officially termed "Combined Statistical Areas". Nevertheless, they are often, one could say, routinely, referred to as metropolitan areas (perhaps not with a capital "m" and capital "a") and a reference to a CSA as a metropolitan area did not justify the hostile reaction it received earlier in this thread.

As to Fort Worth or Tarrant County meeting the "official classification of a 'suburb'": Of course, it seems rather obvious that parts of Tarrant County would be considered suburban (whatever that "official classification" might be; I'm not actually aware of any offiical definition of "suburb"), but it is equally obvious that not all of Tarrant County would be considered suburban. On what are you basing your conclusion?

Your understanding of Metropolitan Divisions appears to be incorrect. The definition of "Metropolitan Division" is: "one or more main/secondary counties that represent an employment center or centers, plus adjacent counties associated with the main county or counties through commuting ties." A county qualifies as a "main county" of a metropolitan division if 65% or more of its employed residents work within the county and the ratio of the number of jobs located in the county to the number of employed residents of the county is at least .75. A "main county" automatically serves as the basis for a Metropolitan Division. There is also a "secondary county" category. Then all other counties in the MSA are grouped with the Main County or Secondary County groupings with which they have the highest employment interchange measure. Sounds like commute patterns to me... As someone said earlier in this thread, "Please educate yourself on the topic." ;-)

[JasonDFW]

I don't have the number required in front of me, but I think its 15% because I remember about 1/5th of Tarrant county commuting to Dallas and there being some headroom in the stats. Whatever that number is, it automatically allows the region to be one MSA instead of "Dallas-Fort Worth" being an CMSA as Washington-Baltimore and San Fracisco-Oakland are.

On the metro divisions topic, I mentioned the purpose of the divisions, not the statistical definition. I got the purpose from a print copy of a document from the census bureau on the new standards. Your definition is dealing with the commute patterns between the counties of the division, and I'm saying the commute pattern within the metro area (in other words between the divisions) doesn't matter. I guess it does though in an extreme example looking at your definitions. If 5% more of Tarrant county worked in say Denton and Dallas county, Tarrant couldn't claim itself as a division of the metro area. I didn't realize it dealt with more than the commute patterns from Parker, Hood and Johnson counties. I'll continue to do my part though by eating at On the Border and Chili's to ensure that doesn't happen because the political leaders would be pissed! Actually, I think they would have enough power for an slight amendment to the census rules in that case.

Jason