Since the late 1700s, New York has been the largest city in the United States. Philadelphia and Boston were both supplanted by New York by 1800, and New York’s preeminence has been unquestioned ever since. By the middle of the twentieth century, New York was the largest city in the world, not just the United States.
New York is no longer the largest city in the world in terms of population, although it remains the most important by most metrics. Still; will New York remain the largest American city in the future?
 |
| Data from US Census Bureau via Wikipedia–2010 figures are based on the same counties included in each CSA in 2000 |
I compiled a list of the top 10 U.S. Combined Statistical Areas from 2010, and included their population from 2000 as well as the numerical change between the two figures. If you look at the growth in terms of percentage, the clear leaders are Dallas, Houston, and Atlanta–all sprawling sun-belt metropolises. All three agglomerations grew between 22-26% in the past decade.
Washington-Baltimore was the only other top 10 CSA to grow more than 10% in 10 years, with the region growing roughly 13% between 2000 and 2010.
Growth in terms of % increase is deceptive, though. Even though four other CSAs come out ahead of it in terms of percentage increase in population, the Los Angeles area still has a healthy lead when it comes to numerical growth, having added over 1.5 million residents this past decade–over 250,000 more than Dallas, which came second in terms of raw growth.
Los Angeles’s numbers are extremely impressive, especially for a city of its size. If trends from the past decade continue–and they will not, as the growth of cities is extremely unpredictable for a variety of reasons–it would still take well over 50 years for the Los Angeles region to pass New York. Even if Los Angeles manages to grow more robustly in future decades while New York stagnates, the numbers show it will be a very long while before New York loses its number one spot to Los Angeles.
Simply put: New York will be the undisputed largest city in the United States until 2050 at the very earliest, and that is assuming something terrible happens to the New York region while the Los Angeles area booms. While that is always a possibility, it seems very unlikely at this time, especially as real estate has experienced a tremendous crash in the Los Angeles area, with the Inland Empire–where much of the region’s growth has occurred–hit particularly hard.
Besides the battle between number 1 and number 2 (basically David vs. Goliath), there does appear to be a re-shuffling in the works for the rest of the cities in the country’s top 10.
Washington and Chicago are currently separated by roughly 1 million residents; this figure would be more notable if the growth in Washington wasn’t so rapid. The Washington-Baltimore region grew by one million residents this past decade, while ‘Chicagoland’ increased by fewer than 400,000. While Chicago looks likely to retain a slight lead in 2020, the Washington region should pass Chicago population-wise sometime around 2025. Growth has remained robust in the D.C. region throughout the recession, although any cutbacks in government spending could limit the region’s expansion in future years.
One stark difference between Washington and Chicago is the population shift in each region’s core. The city of Chicago lost just over 200,000 residents over the past decade; the District of Columbia gained 30,000 people. What’s more noteworthy is that the District’s gains only came in the latter part of the past decade, as the population continued declining through the early 2000s. While many attribute much of Chicago’s population loss to the demolition of public housing, the raw numbers are not forgiving for those hoping Chicago experiences any sort of widespread urban renaissance anytime soon. If a region’s inertia is measured from its core, Washington has a definite leg up over Chicago, and the growth of D.C. proper certainly isn’t a negative when it comes to the prospect of Washington surpassing Chicago in size.
Even with the growth of Washington, the most remarkable changes will occur in Dallas and Houston, which continue to experience significant growth even through the ongoing economic malaise. If trends continue, Dallas could eclipse both San Francisco and Boston as early as 2020, when all three of those regions will have just under 8 million residents. Houston will likely move up in ranking as well, passing Philadelphia before the decade is out.
These presuppositions are based on the continuation of growth trends already present; there is by no means any guarantee Houston will become larger than Philadelphia or that Washington will surpass Chicago, although current trends are in favor of both events occurring.
The United States is growing faster than any other developed nation, and new residents obviously move somewhere. If the Census Bureau’s estimates are correct, the U.S. population will be well in excess of 400 million by 2050. The pattern of increase is clearly uneven, meaning some areas will expand enormously while some continue to shrink–localities should be doing all they can to harness the nation’s growth for their own benefit.
Given changes in taste and the prevailing economic climate, there are several things to take away from all this:
The first is that explosive growth is never sustainable. It is unlikely Atlanta, Dallas, and Houston can continue to sustain 25% growth decade over decade. Some may balk at such a claim, but the same people would have been surprised had someone refuted the future growth of Detroit or Chicago in the 1930s. More measured growth is certainly possible, but cities like Phoenix and Las Vegas are already showing that the explosive growth of the 2000s is finished in many sun-belt cities.
The second is that a slow-growing city is not necessarily worse than a fast-growing one. Dallas grew at four times the rate of Chicago, yet many consider Chicago significantly more livable than Dallas. How much land has Dallas sacrificed in the past decade along its suburban fringe to satiate the demand for McMansions and strip malls? By the same token, growth in Los Angeles and Washington–much of it admittedly sprawl, but a significant portion belonging to urban ‘infill’ projects–shows that impressive numbers do not necessitate consuming hundreds of thousands of acres of land. Growth can and should come from within, and many cities are seeing the beginnings of ‘smart-growth’ initiatives which encourage development near public transit.
The image below shows just how sprawl-driven Houston (among others) has become. Despite half as many people as Paris (6 vs. 12 million, approximate), Houston takes up twice as much space. Houston takes up over 3/4 of the space of Los Angeles, as well–L.A. is over three times the size of Houston!
(Paris in red, Houston in Yellow, Los Angeles in blue–as an aside, the image below was originally from Spotila at Skyscraperpage who has created an excellent assortment of maps outlining many urban areas–see more at his Urban Area Map Thread, at SSP.)
 |
| Image formatted by R@ptor, originally by Spotila at Urban Area Map Thread, Skyscraperpage |
The third point is a derivative of the second; cities that are currently sprawling and refuse to implement smart-growth policies are setting themselves up for failure. Houston, Dallas, and Atlanta may have each experienced limited urban infill, but all three saw massive growth along the fringes. Any sort of oil-crisis will be bad for all of America, but particularly for exurban areas, where long commutes are common. As gas becomes more expensive over the coming decade, exurban and suburban development may grind to a complete halt. The idea of a 4,000 square foot house 50 miles from work becomes significantly less appealing when gas is $5-6/gallon. Urban areas that are actively investing in their public transit infrastructure stand to benefit most from the coming energy crunch, and this includes regions like New York, Los Angeles, and Washington.
The bottom line: explosive growth of the sun-belt cities is not likely to continue. In fact, they may be following the same trajectory of the Rust Belt cities, like Detroit, Chicago, and Pittsburgh. While Dallas may become larger than Boston and Houston may surpass Philadelphia, their rankings will be irrelevant with regards to livability if oil prices rise drastically in the near future. The real key to true, sustainable growth is investing in public transit and creating ‘smart-growth’ nodes–essentially, bringing portions of city-like urbanity to formerly suburban locales, as well as expanding the core city itself. Growth is fantastic if it can be managed correctly–if not, you end up with something like Phoenix, and the ongoing implosion of that city’s economy should serve as a warning to the other sun-belt cities.
Here is one last table including my personal predictions for the 2020 numbers for the urban areas discussed earlier. I will preface the chart with the fact that it is nearly impossible to predict population movement because of how ‘chaotic’ migration patterns can be, but I gave it my best shot. Although the numbers will probably end up very wrong, it’s always fun to speculate–and who knows, come 2020, maybe some of the numbers will have verified?
Subscribe to YIMBY’s daily e-mail
Follow YIMBYgram for real-time photo updates
Like YIMBY on Facebook
Follow YIMBY’s Twitter for the latest in YIMBYnews
These are figures for the metropolitan areas of these cities. They are not the actual population numbers of the cities themselves but the greater metropolitan areas which include many cities and tiwns and unincoporated areas around these cities. Houston passed Philadelphia 20 years ago as the nations 3rd largest city in America. Latest numbers show Houston will surpass Chicago as the nations third largest city.Dallas has dropped to the thurd largest city in Texas after San Antonio and Austin is approaching a million people within its city limits. Dallas adds Firt Worth and dozens of cities and towns all aroubd it. In the next five years, Texas will have four of the ten largest cities in America. This article fails to accurately report the actual popultion figures of cities. New York and Chicago have actually lost population in the several last years.The su mms belt and especially Texas will continue to grow economically and pooulation wise to de ades to come. Texas passed New York state ten years ago as the second most populated state after California…..
Looking back at this article, I would say they completely under estimated the growth of Texas metro cities. DFW, Texas MSA is almost at the number already predicted for 2020 and Houston is right behind them. Philadelphia appears to have not grown any. Boston’s number looks wrong, but its growth is pretty much died off also. I really think New York is being conservative with their size statement. They were at this number already, but then again how far out to you count their border? And why mention Atlanta, but pass on Miami? Miami was and is still larger than Atlanta metro. I would have mentioned both since they are close. Pretty fun numbers.
When did the U.S. Census Bureau get the authority to create and combine cities? Washington-Baltimore, San Francisco-San Jose and Dallas-Fort Worth are not single cities. It is two cities that are not managed under a single government. If that is the case why not have Houston-Beaumont-Huntsville, College Station-Victoria. I believe that the only reason for this is to try an make little insignificant cities appear to be larger than they really are. Dallas is the 3rd largest presently and will soon be the 4th largest, yet to try and make Dallas appear to be growing it is always given too much credit. Austin is booming and will soon pass Dallas and Fort Worth also is booming and will soon pass Dallas. The U.S. Census Bureau needs to be reigned in or be defunded if it is not going to do its job according to the U.S. Constitution.
Primo Benavides obviously has a strong hate for Dallas; Nevertheless Dallas proper is growing astonishingly and becoming more livable by the day. Not to mention that Dallas is the leader in Texas for light rail and for encouraging development among light rail lines. Even the author of this article doesn’t believe Dallas is doing good “urban in-fill” projects but the truth is that Dallas is. Dallas will become the largest metropolitan area and also the most urban. Even if Houston proper is bigger than Dallas in terms of population Dallas does urbanity better.
Primo Benavides – MSA and PSA are taking the city metropolitan statistical populations.
I get a kick out of these cities with a land area the size of Rhode Island “bragging” how large their cities’ populations are… Annexing surrounding areas to incorporate within your city limits to make your city “big” actually doesn’t. It makes your land area bigger but your city’s population density shrinks dramatically resulting in a “city” not feeling much like a CITY… Boston, San Francisco and Washington have among the smallest land areas of any major city so their population density plus the millions of people within 25 miles of their downtowns really gets these cities bustling. So in a nutshell, as is always the case, numbers by themselves do not tell the entire story when all things, i.e., land area, are not equal. Boston may only have 675,000 within city limits but extend outward 25 miles in each direction from downtown (like many of these “big” cities y’all bragging about) and you will find that their are 3 million more “Bostonians”. That’s why Boston has MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL, & MLS while San Antonio just has the Spurs and Austin has, uhm… Well you know…
Houston is not a city, it’s like 40 combined suburbs. It’s 3X the size of Chicago and still has fewer people.
Major thanks for the article.Much thanks again. Fantastic.