Why Los Angeles is Denser Than You Think

Here’s a weird fact you probably didn’t expect. Los Angeles - the sprawling metropolis of car-culture and suburbia - is actually the densest urban area in the United States, even denser than New York. How is that possible?
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References and Data:
The data came from the 2021 5-Year American Community Survey, accessed through the 'tidycensus' package in R and plotted using ggplot2. (Using population data from the decennial census would have been a bit more precise but I had issues getting data for all the relevant geographies.)
The Median Lot Size in Every U.S. State in 2022
www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/t...

[@humanecities]

Density can also feel so much more intense when the only way to get around is by car. Recently, we visited Banff and my sister commented how quiet it was. “There aren’t many people here” she said. But I pointed out, there are just as many people as usual, they just removed cars from Banff Ave. And the busses they run are electric. Everyone was talking, but it was so much quieter without cars. I think people in LA would feel much less “full” if the area weren’t so car-dependent.

[@WhiskyCanuck]

It's been about a decade since I've been to Banff - when did they start doing this? Is it year-round, or only in the summer? (speaking of pedestrianizing Banff ave.)

[@humanecities]

⁠@@WhiskyCanuckI’d have to look into it, but this is the first year I recall it being the full Summer. Could have been during the pandemic, though. If someone has better info, feel free to chime in!

[@tom_rodriguez]

I couldn’t agree more with your comment on LA’s sprawl creating a perception of being “full”. Driving in LA is a chore for most folks.

[@andymod]

It's definitely felt in downtown Toronto. When it is weekday and there is a lot of commuter and business traffic - the city feels crammed. As soon as it is morning on Saturday or Sunday and there are only residents (with 14k people per sq. km or 36k per sq. mile in downtown) it feels nice and quiet, despite tons of people walking outside.

[@jamalgibson8139]

"Cities aren't loud, cars are loud."

[@trayveonjohnson4096]

As someone who is actually from Los Angeles, I can tell you that LA has a way of hiding it’s density that other older cities might not, similar to the way European cities manage to carry their density without building tall. I want some of you from other places to remember this, “In LA there is always a house behind a house”, sometimes a whole apartment building that you can access through alleys between the streets. That alone has a way of doubling or tripling the density without changing the street appearance. It’s a way of keeping human scaled density that most newer cities here in the west employ. I live in downtown San Diego, which is 110 miles from DTLA. I literally pass by 10 million people on that 1.5-2 hr drive, this is before even arriving into the city of Los Angeles. We’ve never had a shortage of people wanting to move to Southern California. It’s a desirable area despite what naysayers may think about its form. People come here for the natural beauty more so than the built environment, although that is beginning to change now that the area is completely filled out and turning back on itself.

[@Zraknul]

Lot size is really massive in itself. In a small suburb my parents live built in the 50s, the first subdivisions were built around homes needing a septic bed, where sewers were added later. around the 2000s an adjacent farm property was turned into housing, and the houses are over twice as dense. The newer lots are half as wide and 70% as deep.

[@BM-nk1pe]

Weather + natural beauty is the draw for sure

[@monkeyrun]

lol sounds like the kowloon walled city.

[@birdo1180]

It's really apparent when you look down on NYC and LA. NYC looks like its development is pulled towards Manhattan as the central node where the suburbs have these massive gaps, whereas LA is flat like a pancake with every square inch filled in between the mountain ranges and ocean. As someone from LA, when I visited NYC and looked down on Manhattan from the top of the Empire State, I was surprised to see undeveloped open land in New Jersey. In LA, if you hike the Santa Monica mountains, you cannot see the end of LA (because its so vast) and it's all filled in.

[@jordanjohnson9866]

Nah. Not cannot see the end of LA because it’s all filled in. Not “cannot see the end of LA because it’s all filled in.” /

[@Rhaspun]

@@jordanjohnson9866 Yes it is. Travel along I-10 from I-5 towards Fontana there isn't much empty space. Even if looking south from I-10 it is filled it. Going south on the 405 or 605 from I-10 it's the same.

[@anirudh_s17]

"Flat like a pancake" is the first that I've heard of LA described as such

[@salakast]

LA's lot sizes really provide so much potential for a world class city, thank god they're finally being used for things other than detached SFHs.

[@Sacto1654]

Given the huge value of the land nowadays, no wonder planned urban communities are being implemented all over the Los Angeles basin. Especially with the growth of both LA Metro Rail and the longer-distance Metrolink commuter rail service.

[@micosstar]

facts, i did take notice of how many bus stops were in certain parts of LA @@Sacto1654

[@bluelonden]

too bad 99% is suburbia and not mixed housing like apartments with shops underneath them

[@TrainsFerriesFeet]

@@bluelonden To me, that is the urban ideal and results in much more interesting neighborhoods.

[@jasonriddell]

@@nunyabidness3075 so single family homes that are built during a narrow time period is MORE diverse / interesting then having mixed town homes and 1+3 apartments WITH small shops in the base ???

[@squirlez6349]

Ever since I learned about this statistic I've thought it was pretty funny, since a visit to LA and NYC would be enough to immediately write off the statistic as not particularly useful. The population adjusted measure feels much closer to reality, in my experience. That said, LA does have plenty of dense pockets that are nice places to hang out.

[@windsabeginning2219]

Koreatown immediately comes to mind. It’s just as dense as Manhattan in NYC. It has some of the best food and entertainment options in the whole city.

[@sammymarrco2]

It’s because the LA metro area has similar density through but the farther suburbs of NYC are very spread out

[@cabalenproductions6480]

Dang I'm surprised that California cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Jose took the top 3 spots for urban density. Yes and this is coming from a resident of California like me. I would have guessed Chicago and New York would have took the top 3 for Most urban density. Also there is a proposed city called "Flannery, California" halfway from Sacramento and San Francisco that is under investigation and the claim is that they would make urban density similar to Brooklyn and Queens. But that claims are viewed as suspicious for two reasons one is how it affects nearby places like Travis Air Force Base, San Pablo Bay and Sacramento Delta which is where the dispute comes into play.

[@jasonriddell]

also the statistical boundaries of the 2 "cities" is a MAJOR issue the hills behind LA "feel" part of LA with there LOW density "McMansions" but the INCLUDED parts of NY that are near as rural are IMHO "detached" and "not part of" the NYC we experience when "on the ground"

[@TohaBgood2]

@@cabalenproductions6480 Dude, all we need is some high quality rail transit and we could have the full urbanist dream realized! Don't forget that pretty much all California cities are streetcar suburbs. We don't just have "good bones", no. Our cities were basically built to be urban paradises. We just need more trains!

[@OntarioTrafficMan]

Population weighting would be a good way to characterize bus crowding. Usually agencies use the average load per bus or proportion of buses which are overcrowded, but passengers are disproportionately likely to experience the overcrowded buses since they have the most people on them.

[@yukko_parra]

ngl that could work for all sorts of transportation and travel networks. population weighted usage of a motorway, for instance. or a walkway.

[@jasonriddell]

my thought is it would be BAD as it would unfairly harm routes to/from INDUSTRIAL JOB centres as there are NEAR ZERO population there OR a SUBURBAN "park and ride" head for a metro interchange

[@OntarioTrafficMan]

@@jasonriddell The purpose of measuring overcrowding is to identify overcrowding. Measuring ridership is a different thing.

[@aenetanthony]

@@jasonriddell​​⁠You wouldn’t be weighting it by the population living at the destinations though, you would be weighting it by the population actually riding the bus. Plus what @OntarioTrafficMan said

[@allanjmcpherson]

@@jasonriddell I would say this is why it's absolutely essential to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the statistics being used, what they can and can't tell you.

[@yukko_parra]

The difference between classical and population weighted density is quite remarkable. Using Sydney's inner city vs Melbourne's inner city for comparison. (all units in people per square km) True (County) Density: Sydney: 8690pp/km2 Melbourne: 4765pp/km2 w census plots with less than 500pp/km2 removed "non rural, non industrial": Sydney: 10778pp/km2 Melbourne: 9206pp/km2 Population weighted: Sydney: 25767pp/km2 Melbourne: 50764pp/km2 seems like melbourne has tall towers and sprawing parks in the centre, unlike the more built up sydney, just by this measure alone.

[@BluePieNinjaTV]

The densest area in Australia is the North end of Melbourne's CBD

[@fernbedek6302]

Population weighted density is good for experience, but overall average is good for addressing sprawl that devours farmland and natural areas. Both definitely have value.

[@jasonriddell]

would say the spread graphs shown are the "best" for that as overall density can over weigh NON housing land usages like industrial / shipping yards BOTH VITAL to a city BUT also places that SHOULD NOT be "densified" as BOTH the housing would be BAD and the economics of the existing use impacted

[@theultimatereductionist7592]

Obviously, two statistics, such as average (first moment) and population-weighted density (second moment: i.e. summing the squares of populations) are never as accurate as total information about the location of every individual, at all times, and their distance from everyone else. Statistics are MEANT to simplify our knowledge of complete information.

[@anthonytelles2226]

Exactly what I was thinking. The irony is that density preserves farmland. The people in NY are getting much more of a true rural experience AND city experience. Suburbs in LA try to be both and so fail at both

[@fernbedek6302]

@@anthonytelles2226 What? My point was that the LA dense suburbs preserve farmland while New York’s massive sprawling low density exurbs devour huge amounts of farmland and natural areas even if barely anyone lives there.

[@anthonytelles2226]

@@fernbedek6302 that might be true right now, but the more density in the cities, the more open space is naturally preserved on the outskirts, as shown in NY. So whoever lives in the exurbs could actually start a little farm with the land they do have (not saying that’s what most people do, but if they choose not to live in the city they should justify having all that extra space by making it productive). Most people in LA couldn’t grow food even if they wanted to, whereas the land is still there in NY to put to use

[@steemlenn8797]

I do this example for wealth inequality: If you have 1 person having 10 million dollar, and 9 persons having nothing, on average you have 10 millionaires.

[@sinisterdesign]

Any statistic that would treat LA as "dense" says more about the uselessness of the statistic than it does anything useful about the cities involved.

[@bundevsawhney7578]

It's only "dense" in the sense that areas outside LA proper are of similar density to the city itself. Even somewhere like New York has really spread out suburbs once you get deep into northern NJ, Long Island, etc

[@JohnDoe-my5ip]

For real. Ranking highly on this metric means that your “city” is basically one giant suburb and your urban planners have created an abomination.

[@acuritis]

@@JohnDoe-my5ipsuburban sprawl and urban density are literally opposites. We want cities with high density, that’s the only way to get the actual benefits of living in a city.

[@jasonriddell]

disagree LA is UNIFRMLY "semi dense" VS the whole of NY area is VERY DENSE and VERY NON DENSE so it should fall down some when land weighted but does better when population based but the population measure IMHO skews the outcome to "hide" the ultra LOW density parts that could easily INCREASE and MASSIVELY increase housing stocks far MORE then a tower replacement of some "medium" density LA blocks

[@jasonriddell]

@@nunyabidness3075 I dont think it is true but more of people want as much as they can afford and are weighing "density/ good commute against having "enough" house and with "tight" housing prices the "drive till you qualify" I think almost everyone would take a "vibrant" neighbourhood as long as they could have there 3 bedrooms+den++++ they believe they "need"

[@blores95]

Living in LA and getting into urbanism, this kinda reaffirms my belief that if LA were so inclined, we could eventually work our way into becoming America's version of Tokyo, a city that's also pretty spread out and mostly uniformly populated throughout. We'd either have to massively build out transit liens of every sort everywhere, which probably isn't cost effective, or densify in each individual LA city's downtown and become a sort of giant region of interconnected villages with transit linking the cores and suburbs filling in the gaps. Also helps call out the BS when people say LA isn't dense enough for mass transit everywhere just because it's not NYC dense all around. We're definitely sprawling but it's not like we're low density. It was crazy to find out my "small" city in LA between LA and LB was in the top 10 most dense city in CA, and we only have 2 circular bus routes that only operate on the weekdays!

[@muhilan8540]

I guess it’s because LA is surrounded by mountains and deserts so it can’t expand outward to get that super low density exurbia.

[@jasonriddell]

and its medium low density "base" made exurbs SO far away that they can NOT be considered as commuter suburbs

[@bluechairreviews]

The fact that it had no dense urban core did that. The reason why NY is able to have such a low density exterior is precisely because it has a high density interior

[@muhilan8540]

@@bluechairreviews how so?

[@shrimpflea]

And the ocean

[@bluechairreviews]

@@muhilan8540 because packing more people into a smaller space means that there are less people to fill the space surrounding it, and the density can be lower.

[@qolspony]

NYC has a lot of large parks. And the density drops off a lot after you leave the city.

[@h.d.h]

The densest cities in the USA are all located right outside NYC - cities like Union City or Jersey City are all denser than NYC itself.

[@rchot84]

Jersey City, Newark, Irvington, East Orange, Paterson, Newport alot of density.

[@RacksonRacksonRibss]

Also the waterways

[@TohaBgood2]

You guys are just awesome! You explain in clear human terms the concepts that most urbanists, especially youtube urbanists, get wrong! That you for all you do! This is amazing work!

[@definitelynotacrab7651]

Great video, really love how yall approach this from multiple ways of calculation

[@jono4829]

Very informative and well delivered

[@tomtaber1102]

I live in San Mateo County, in the San Francisco Bay Area. Most people think of this county as suburban. But the reality is that most of the county consists of water and steep forested mountains. The cities are squeezed in a narrow urban/suburban corridor between the bay and the Santa Cruz Mountains. This inhabited area is only a couple of miles wide, and even much of that is quite hilly. There is no room for the urban/suburban area to sprawl outward and there is no room to build any more single family detached houses. New housing consists of apartment buildings, condos, and town houses built on underutilized land in the existing urban area such as parking lots and strip malls.

[@cabalenproductions6480]

Yes and also San Andreas fault is a factor in San Mateo County. I remember much of the populated areas in San Mateo county is East of the San Andreas Fault.

[@alejandroviasus668]

I clicked on this video and paused at 2 seconds, absolutely perplexed by the title. Thinking it was cheap click bait, I searched for every source that told me the population density of US cities, and all coming out with NYC at #1. What flew over my head was the fact that 100-200 square miles or so of LA is uninhabitable mountains and sprawled suburban/rural zones, so LA's "urban area" is technically more dense, since it covers less square miles. What's absolutely nuts is that if housing codes allowed for NYC levels of density, then we'd see LA's metro area compete in size to Tokyo. Wild. thanks for swerving me for a sec. This is an amazing channel. Now onto the video!

[@alejandroviasus668]

More thoughts. It's also kinda crazy how in the surrounding LA area, theres's a lot of definable urban pockets that you can point out, from Pasadena to the north, Alhambra to the east, Santa Ana to the south, and Culver to the west. All with street grids and city centers than suggest centrality and natural human form. Long Island though, just a massive suburb with very little urban pockets. Maybe Hempstead, or Islip?? It suggests heavily that LA has SOOOOO much potential to to become the next great walking urbanist "utopia". Utopia in quotes because no city will every be perfect (*cough* Not Just Bikes". With a little rework to its transportation, pedestrian access, and zoning, this place has more potential than any other city in America. So let's bury our disdain for this freeway metropolis and optimistically look towards the amazing change we can see happen in SoCal

[@kosefix]

For those wondering. The axe at 0:32 is the former coat of arms of Telemark fylke in Norway. Very random.

[@smb6995]

And very interesting mathematics of urbanism at the end. Great work! Thank you for useful insights

[@edwardmiessner6502]

The population weighted density shows Boston and Philadelphia to be not much denser than Miami and San Diego. Yet Boston and Philly have extensive rail transit systems and Miami and San Diego less so. The two northeast cities also have extensive parks while the latter two are noted for their dense suburban sprawl. It's not just the density but what the city was built around (horse-and-buggy and railway vs. automobile and freeway)

[@deanc9453]

+

[@harpsgalore6584]

That's the crazy part too also Chicago is not even on the top 10 of densest cities in the United States in this study. If this study was not released then I would have thought Chicago got the top 5 of dense cities in the USA before Los Angeles and San Francisco are even considered.

[@danmur2797]

I'm not sure about Miami, but San Diego has quite a few beautiful parks, plus the mountains and beach areas. I find Boston lovely and green, but let's not pretend the rail system goes everywhere it's needed. It is clean and very useful though. Probably one of the cleanest in the country. I would easily prefer to live in Boston or San Diego though over Philly and Miami.

[@alexhaowenwong6122]

Los Angeles suburbs like Irvine are closer in density and layout to Brampton, ON than they are to Frisco, TX. Both Canada and California have a very sharply defined suburban-rural boundary, while the rest of the US tends to have a transitional zone of exurbs.

[@SonsOfSevenless]

interestingly in canada sometimes the lot sizes and houses get smaller the further out you go due to the differences in property prices from the boom of suburbs in the post war period to the modern burbs of the 21st century

[@alexhaowenwong6122]

​@@SonsOfSevenless Same thing in Los Angeles. Irvine is an outer burb and has probably the smallest SFH lots in the region (and yes, I measured Irvine's lots on Google Maps and they are as small as the tiniest SFH lots in Brampton or Markham).

[@keshanranasinghe]

Please enable closed captions 😊

[@OhTheUrbanity]

We uploaded the script to be converted to subtitles, but it's possible it's taking some time to process (because KZbin has to generate timings from the script).

[@saywhayguy]

Another great new video! Have you calculated population weighted density for major Canadian cities?

[@stephen7938]

I enjoy watching how you point out the several ways density is calculated in this and other videos. Mainly, because others choose one of the methods only to prove a point of what they want even if it is the wrong method to use. Many never think about what metric is being used to convince them yet you show all the metrics and suggest the best one based on the question at hand not force one or the other.

[@Sacto1654]

There are a lot of suburbs on Long Island because of the presence of the Long Island Rail Road for many years. It's not a coincidence that Levittown was built so it was close to LIRR Main Line and LIRR Babylon Branch Line.

[@MrBirdnose]

That's also how a lot of the LA metro area was built. The Pacific Electric ("Red Car") line was subsidized by developers who wanted to build out suburbs along the line.

[@harpsgalore6584]

@@MrBirdnose and now Metrolink and Metro are in the approximate areas where the former Pacific Electric line is located for Los Angeles.

[@Cyrus992]

Much of it is due to overcrowded housing thanks to high costs. You will notice how the dense areas are mainly found in the Hispanic areas. Housing density =/= population density. Las Vegas is ironically #5 for a similar demographic and the tiny lot homes too

[@562Omar]

Love California! Cheers from your friend in Long Beach, California USA 🇺🇸.

[@jamalgibson8139]

I think the real joke in this chart is that San Jose is denser than new york...

[@jasonriddell]

no it is NOT a "joke" but proof that DATA input NEEDS to be known to "factor" the output and that DATA can be manipulated in a way that is 100% accurate to create a "picture" that is wanted and TECHNICALLY "accurate" but BIASED and designed to show a outcome

[@harpsgalore6584]

San Jose actually has more people than San Francisco. But I know what you mean where is Chicago City proper on this list it has to be dense and would be on the top 3 if this video was not released. San Francisco is the other one two Bay area cities on the list.

[@watch1981]

San Jose is the most dreadful sprawl of cultural wasteland in california

[@harpsgalore6584]

@@watch1981 I know what you mean "Average" people commute to San Jose from Tracy, Stockton and Modesto areas to work in San Jose. And the Venture Capitalist CEO's commute to San Jose for work and have their homes in San Francisco, and Austin type stories. All of it is because housing is expensive in places like San Jose and San Francisco.

[@christophergs]

When you have explanatory text or captions for photos, would you consider putting them higher in the frame? Where you put them (such as around 7 minutes) the captions cover them. I really like your videos, they are informative.

[@allanjmcpherson]

While perhaps a bit inconvenient, in the meantime you could move the captions. I've checked, and that's possible on both desktop and mobile.

[@kevley26]

Ok but should we really be including THAT much of long island with NYC? I suspect if we were just talking about the buroughs of NYC, LA would be blown out of the water even if we also adjusted LA to a smaller denser part. EDIT: Ok I saw the end, great video, I haven't heard of this statistic but I'm glad you explained it, It helps clarify some things I've been thinking about when it comes to density statistics.

[@DiceMaster740]

@@cmmartti Their reference area for NYC extends almost 100 miles to the East and to the South of NYC. Frankly, there's already a case to be made that NYC should really be thought of as 5 separate cities rather than one (how many other cities encompass the entirety of 5 distinct counties?). Yes, Long Island and much of New Jersey are in the NYC metro area, but grouping that much area in with NYC is completely bonkers.

[@DiceMaster740]

@@cmmartti Because the title of the video is "the densest *city* is not what you think" (emphasis, mine). There is not a single definition of city that a single person in 2.5 million years of hominid existence has once used that would define that thing on the map as one city, up until this video of course. And because there's no policy that New York City could implement that would meaningfully affect the density of a region that large, so there's very little practical use for talking about population density of such an enormous metro area. If they had titled the video, "the densest enormous metro area is not what you think", I would have thought it a strange and minimally useful statistic to track, but I wouldn't have bothered to comment. The reason I am objecting is because the title is misleading clickbait at best. New York City is obviously denser than LA. Pretending that NYC is less dense because of LI and South Jersey is asinine.

[@shanekeenaNYC]

​@@cmmarttiAlso, tree coverage has to count for a ton of that with greenbelt laws.

[@csus4add9]

Exactly, this is just a graph of which cities are circled by geographic obstacles EDIT: I also saw the end of the video and I’m annoyed that they clickbaited everyone and only said the more useful number at the end.

[@danmur2797]

@DiceMaster740 It's not asinine, just a measure. For all intents and purposes these areas of LI and NJ are a part of the NYC conurbation because it's residents commute to and from these areas to Manhattan, Brooklyn, etc. They also share other infrastructure, media, economy, and things that makeup a metro area. Most restaurants in LI and NJ for instance probably get their food from distributors in Manhattan or Brooklyn--OR vice versa, Manhattan restaurants get their food supplies from distributors in NJ. And some of the items those restaurants get in LI and NJ, if imported, likely go through the ports of NY/NJ. IKEA and other retail stores too for instance have their distribution centers near the urban cities, but not exactly within the cities. Why metro and conurbation statistics are more useful--even if things like zoning are not uniform or able to be centrally controlled by city leadership.

[@Earth098]

Great video as always. This is the first time I learned about population weighted density. I always learn something new when I watch your videos. By the way, I have a question, when they calculate population density, do they remove the public land areas reserved for parks, forests, lakes, etc.?? Because in order to estimate the true land use efficiency, you need to remove those areas from the calculation.

[@ficus3929]

Knowing the distribution of density helps to explain why getting transit mode share up in the LA area is so hard. LA is developed with the assumption of anywhere to anywhere connectivity sad opposed to having high density nodes that are connected by transit to lower density nodes (e.g. LIRR and NJT).

[@TheLIRRFrenchie...]

I lived in San Francisco for years, and i can assure you neighborhoods like the sunset are NIMBY. An 4 story building could be considered a highrise over there.

[@dmnddog7417]

Yep, I lived in the Outer Richmond District (The Avenues) for a couple of years and it was same. Only a few streets allowed higher density than SFH.

[@jeffreydavis8338]

Thanks for this. Density is basic to understanding cities but our measurements really struggle to get it right. It’s not simple! Also to contend with is parkland/open space. Does having a lot of neighborhood parks mean the neighborhood is less dense? Do we treat undevelopable land features (canyons, say) differently than lakes and rivers? Better measures can help us understand places and opportunities better. Thanks again for your work.

[@symphwind]

Population-weighted density is a cool concept that I've never considered before! That also helps a lot with cities that merged with their counties (like Louisville, Jacksonville, and Nashville), which have absurdly low "regular" population densities because their borders include straight up uninhabited land on the outskirts of the city-county. I suspect their population-weighted densities would be fairly similar to typical peer cities in the US South.

[@lizhutchinson6978]

I like how this was secretly teaching us how population density can be misleading and how population-weighted density is so much better. TY

[@pablogaeta3815]

This does not appear to be an apples to apples comparison to me. E.g. counting Monmouth County, NJ as part of the NY metro area. That area is as sparse as it is in large part because NYC is as dense as it is. Last I heard, less than 3% of people who live in Monmouth County commute to NYC.

[@c.a.mcmullen7674]

Another nicely done video! California indeed is a 'surprise' crashing and dominating both of your lists. Anyone who's driven around LA can attest that the density it has is more consistent: it doesn't let up. Unless you go to the hills you are always surrounded by lots of housing.

[@cabalenproductions6480]

True too.

[@ToyotaCamrySEv]

LA it’s like as dense as a low density area can get. houses are detached but close together, and blocks tend to have at least one midrise apartment or condo building.

[@allanjmcpherson]

This is a great demonstration of the way that averages are insufficient to understand a dataset. The density numbers are a measure of average density. To properly understand the data, we also need to know things like the variance (or standard deviation) and the skew. Or a good plot.

[@fouroverseven7799]

You may be able to make the argument that the greater Los Angeles area is more dense than the greater New York city area, but not the city itself.

[@OhTheUrbanity]

The only sane way to make city comparisons like this is by something like metro area or urban area.

[@cinnanyan]

The interesting thing about the urban area measure is that many smaller towns in California where the tallest building is a small church show up as some of the densest. For example, places like Salinas. There has to be some overcrowding in those homes, particularly families with a lot of children.

[@Eugene-pt5lu]

Also alot of Los Angeles County suburbs are extremely dense for their populations.

[@kailahmann1823]

Even the definition of an urban area is highly subjective - how large gaps do you allow? I've read something about 200 m, which would mean, a river, a freeway or even a railway line can cut "the city" in two. But once you allow for bigger gaps, you start to find sections, which jump from one remote house to another.

[@cbaylor7382]

i think NYC's urban area extending twice as far as LA's explains the difference (3.2k v 1.6k sq mi). any list that says LA is more dense than NYC has a flawed methodology.

[@RacksonRacksonRibss]

For real lol

[@matthewboyd8689]

America when building New York: look at our technological advancements we can build so high America today: What do you mean it's possible to build more than three floors?

[@michaele8896]

There is probably some way of redefining a city such that any city would be considered most dense.

[@RacksonRacksonRibss]

Fr

[@benashworth1674]

You guys HAVE to do a similar video comparing US and Canadian suburban density. Canadian suburbs are usually more dense, and I think it would be really interesting to examine why

[@jasonriddell]

look at a city like Winnipeg where the housing stock is single family and "semi detached" all around 1200 square feet and lots are smaller around 33+100 for the OLD areas with NEWER being smaller

[@sm3675]

Yea. Etobicoke, Scarborough, North York all have their own skylines. Mississauga, Vaughan also

[@aruharu245]

This is so true, even the newer suburbs being built in Canadian cities are much more dense (even though they're just mostly single-family or townhomes).

[@microtubules]

How do Canadian cities compare in terms of density and population-weighted density?

[@PastPerspectives3]

I’d assume that the hostile climate forces people into fewer, denser cities like in Scandinavia

[@janvanhoyk8375]

"Population Weighted Density" is exactly the term for an idea I have been very curious about! Would love to see a map of this by county for the US, and for countries, etc. A crucial factor that affects and is affected by so many different things

[@notyilli_2481]

I LOVE URBANISM !!!

[@StreetfilmsCommunity]

Hey! Two Clarences sponsoring on Patron!!!

[@kidtrunks2568]

While the LA Urban Area does not include all of San Bernardino County, it does include several cities in San Bernardino County--Chino, Chino Hills, Upland, Montclair, Ontario, and Rancho Cucamonga. Keep up the great content :)

[@audetnicolas]

That was super interesting, thanks! Is there a way to get similar data on density for Canadian cities?

[@thekrazyhatter5063]

Toronto #1 by a MILE the Furthest of Miles

[@TroxMacgee]

It’s very simple. The Los Angeles metropolitan area (this includes the entirety of LA County and Orange County) is denser than the New York metropolitan area (this includes Long Island, part of New Jersey, Connecticut, Westchester, and even parts of pennsylvania). Los Angeles proper is no where near as dense as New York City proper (especially Manhattan).

[@1staid477]

Exactly 👌 And as someone who has spent some decent time out East, I feel like the 'NYC Metro Area' makes sense on paper kinds of but in reality totally not. When you leave NYC say past Jersey City or into Connecticut or something, by then you've already driven through some dense forested areas/semi rural towns which definitely don't feel like NYC. But when you leave LA say into riverside or San Bernard or down south, no matter how far it still feels like you're in urban LA. Just personal opinion

[@TroxMacgee]

@@1staid477 Yeah, agreed. Also, the NYC suburbs are much more spacious than the LA suburbs, but NYC (specifically, Manhattan, BK, Queens, and the Bronx) are far denser than Los Angeles proper. Outside of Downtown, Los Angeles is relatively spread out for such a major city.

[@carkpop]

So we're just cherry picking definitions to make a clickbait title? Like I'm sorry but, how is San Bernadino it's "own metro area" since it doesn't follow the traffic patterns and commutes of LA, but North Sea Long Island(which also looks gerrymandered in this image), a small town that's a 2.5 hour drive without traffic out of Manhattan, is considered the NYC metro? Unless you mean San Bernadino is *too big* to be a part of LA's metro area, so it becomes it's own thing... then why is Newark count towards NYC? Is it really that more dependant on NYC than San Bernadino is to LA? Like, just the outrageous hypocrisy of not going by city limits due to Gerrymandering, but then literally doing your own gerrymandering of NYC's metro area to include farm land and suburbia that has nothing to do with NYC is so disingenuous. You'll have people watching this video saying 'Fun fact, LA is more dense than NYC', when that's only true when you include a 2.5hr drive radius around NYC

[@OhTheUrbanity]

Take it up with the US Census Bureau. We didn’t draw these boundaries.

[@lyledavis7175]

@@OhTheUrbanity I thought this video analysis used the " urban area "? The Census Bureau doesn't include SW Connecticut as part of NYMetro even though the 2nd busiest commuter railway in the country connects Manhattan to Fairfield and New Haven counties. Do another analysis focusing on the core cities. Go 50 miles from downtown LA in all directions and 50 miles from midtown Manhattan in all directions.

[@RacksonRacksonRibss]

@@OhTheUrbanity No. Your channel is called ‘oh the urbanity’ - so we’re taking it up with you… Do you support an urbanist lifestyle or not? Because saying LA is denser than NYC is useless in supporting this endeavor. Or do you just not get out much?

[@amac2612]

that image at 2:00 shook me to my core.

[@starfilmsanimation]

I’d love to see the population weighted density for more than just the top 10 cities!

[@michlo3393]

Probably because LA is a proper Megacity and not a bunch of "sprawling suburbs" like everyone thinks. I don't know. Flat and Urban are not mutually exclusive.

[@RacksonRacksonRibss]

No it’s definitely sprawling suburbs lol

[@michlo3393]

@@RacksonRacksonRibss no, it's definitely not.

[@lizcademy4809]

I need to make a once weekly medical trip from my dense urban neighborhood to the western suburbs of Minneapolis. [I normally don't need a car, I don't own one; I'm using a ride service.] I noticed there are *a lot* of "5 over 1" residential buildings being built near the highway ... one ground level that's mostly for cars, 5-ish floors of housing above. These buildings look large, but much less so than a subdivision. Because the parking is within the building, the developers often leave the mature trees on site. Usually I see them in clusters near a shipping area. They actually look like not-unpleasant places to live - assuming you want a brand new flat in suburbia. [I don't.]

[@kim15742]

Very cool. I wonder where Australian and European cities would fall in this ranking

[@jasonriddell]

that was MY unanswered question - lets see London ETC

[@tomtrask_YT]

Always surprised, and happy, to see San Jose on the good end of any urbanism scale.

[@harpsgalore6584]

I was thinking that Chicago and New York would be on the top 3 list for most dense metro areas. This is before I seen that San Francisco and San Jose was on the list for most dense cities. Congrats to the Bay Area.

[@Alejandro-vn2si]

But if this were a combined Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose. I think we would be second. I am wondering if this combined meteo would be even denser than LA.

[@bensteele5801]

Your content just gets better and better. I love these interesting topics and nuances you get into. Really helps define what we as urbanist want, while at the same time being approachable to anyone.

[@AaronSmith-sx4ez]

Do your density metrics only consider homes/apartments? For example does it differentiate between high density office space vs low density office space? What about industry, retail, etc... When you do that, I suspect NY would shoot up back to the top.

[@FalconsEye58094]

A few freeway removals/closures between neighborhoods could be the door to making it the Paris or Amsterdam of the US. We're seeing them make a slow but sure turnaround

[@jordanwutkee2548]

A good follow-up topic for this would be to discuss the ways that each city's geography has driven their relative density. You touched on it by noting San Francisco's position at the end of a mountainous peninsula. The vast Los Angeles Basin, too, is completely bound by its geographical surroundings: Mountains to the north, ocean to the south and west, and a few valleys to the northwest and east which are also surrounded by mountains. The basin and all of those valleys are now almost fully urbanized. There's no cheap flat land left to build additional low-cost housing on without crossing huge mountain ranges through narrow chokepoints. The only way to go now is up. That fact essentially precludes coastal Californian cities from ever being affordable again, unless they go full Detroit and experience major population collapses (highly unlikely given their climate and beach access). But other cities in the western USA are also running into the same problems. Seattle and Portland are constrained in similar ways, and so are Las Vegas and Salt Lake City. Both of the latter two are only a couple decades away from completely filling in their valleys. Phoenix's valley is bigger, so it has more time, but the rising costs everywhere else will probably accelerate its popularity, too. But you know what parts of the country *don't* have this intractable problem of massive geographical restraints? The Midwest. The Great Plains. Texas. The South. Outside of the Ozarks and Appalachia, the cities of the American Heartland are essentially unconstrained. They have space around them to keep building new cheap low-density housing for entire *centuries.* Watch for Chicago, with its functionally unlimited fresh water supply and highly resilient farming hinterlands, to rebound in a big way. Watch the Texas Triangle grow into the greatest American megacity, powered by its hyperabundant energy economy, both high-carbon and low-carbon. The Future of America is neither West nor East. It's in the Center.

[@evanoc]

Hold on, the chart for population weighted density at 8:04 is for metro areas. Is there a chart available for population weighted density for urban areas instead, like you mentioned at the start of the video?

[@OhTheUrbanity]

Good catch. This was just an issue of data availability. I calculated population-weighted density by taking census tracts (neighbourhoods of a few thousand people), and I was only able to access census tract data by metro area, not urban area. However, this probably doesn't matter very much. Remember that the main problem of metro areas is that (because they're based on counties) they sometimes include a lot of nearly empty land. Well, nearly empty land doesn't get counted very highly in population-weighted density!

[@armadillolover99]

Including like half of NJ and nearly all of Long Island as part of NYC is a massive stretch

[@OhTheUrbanity]

Take it up with the US Census Bureau!

[@FullLengthInterstates]

Great breakdown of the technicalities surrounding density, and how meaningful each statistic is! A thing I would point out is that the suburbs in the NY statistical area have a lot more greenery in frame compared to the small lots of LA. By maximizing the density in Manhattan, NY achieves both higher efficiency in the city core, and is able to offer more open space in the suburbs, which some people may consider a a win-win.

[@davidbarts6144]

Part of it is water. In LA and Las Vegas, if you don't have municipal water, you are basically screwed when it comes to being able to develop land. The water table is just too far down to make private wells affordable. On the fringes of the NYC metro area, you can have well-and-septic instead of sewer and water mains.

[@KannikCat]

"Whose skyline looks like... this?" A someone who currently lives near SJ, I laughed. :D At the other end, amazingly while it's been nearly 25 years since I've lived in Ottawa I still recognized it almost immediately in the second-to-last drone shot. Guess that city will, with delight, always be a part of me. :)

[@raney150]

I can’t believe how poorly Chicago does on both measures considering how many dense corridors are in the city. You can get an area with more people than San Francisco out of Chicago that is also denser as an example.

[@cabalenproductions6480]

Same here and I am a NorCal resident I didn't think San Francisco and San Jose would rank in the top 3 based on this study. I would have guess Chicago too as cities considered most dense in the USA. But then again interesting study though.

[@mcsomeone2681]

The most dence city in texas is a tiny mobile home park that incorporated as "Mobile city" it shows that it doesn't require huge skyscrapers to make a city dence. Small lots with trailers will outperform your typical modern apartment towers with thier big parking lots.

[@RedAlert39]

Is there anywhere we can see the list of cities included in each urban area? Since I don't see Oakland anywhere in the list, I'm assuming it's considered part of SF? Also curious what the cutoff between SF and San Jose is.

[@nathanlandau9408]

You can look up the Census Profile (not the Quick Facts) for the San Francisco-Oakland Urbanized Area. That puts up a map where you can see what's included in the UZA. You can also see the maps for neighboring UZAs like San Jose and Concord. The Census Bureau has criteria for splitting up contiguous areas like San Francisco and San Jose. It splits around Palo Alto. i'd like to know where to find population weighted densities. The Census Bureau calculated them for the 2010 Census, but not for 2020.

[@bulbasaur5203]

Another factor that contributes to LA’s high density is that a lot of people live in multi-generational households within a SFH home. It’s common to a see like 5 cars dedicated to a single house. If you venture out to places like South LA you’ll see this a lot.

[@xMercurex]

I think it a bit weird that field are included in New York... Yes they are part of New York economic zone, but it seem this is the only one include rural. Also it kinda point out the obvious there is very few rural zone in Last Vegas.

[@thomasmartel1739]

I recently saw your videos in bikes ride, could take a ride to L'île-Perrot, Pincourt and Vaudreuil-Dorion please ?

[@MartinHoeckerMartinez]

There is a use for both statistics. There is strong variability of population density as a function of the granularity of the data. You do a good job of introducing that problem of selecting the relevant sample area in the intro to the video. Choosing what the boundaries are for the relevant area to improve on coarse measures (like by state or county) is a delicate process. Getting density by smaller sample areas (like census blocks) is useful as that can better map out where the is "room" for more people, where there is a need for better transit, and other amenities. The difficulty is that when you get down to human scale of (~1 km sq or even ~1 mi sq) you run into data quality issues. Getting reliable data at a walking person's resolution is hard so planners and other urbanists fall back on the coarse aggregations because those larger averages give the quantification more precision. Reliable data with known shortfalls is sometimes more useful than unreliable data that more directly answers the questions you are asking. Usually you need both as one can be used to compensate the other and vice versa.

[@jasonriddell]

I wonder if a POST CODE map inverted would give good date as there are a "fixed" number of addresses to a post code and the NUMBER of post codes per unit of measure IE square KM I have seen apartments / office towers with there OWN post code and it would "add weight" to NON residential usage that "basic" density plots remove but a CITY NEEDS (10 stores on a block would "use up" a post code far more then a BIG BOX "home depot"

[@jamescoulson7729]

What would be the population weighted density for Canadian cities?

[@UMTopSpinC7]

Would be cool to see how the US cities with top population weighted density compares with a list from the Netherlands or EU as a whole.

[@kennj321]

l live in the NYC urban area. it would be hard to replicate the density western suburbs have given the amount of rain and rain runoff issues we have here. Already there are some pretty strict limits on how much of your lot can be paved to allow water to absorb into the ground and not create a flash flood. the issue is the middle housing problems, create more dense blocks separated by green spaces.

[@r.williams8349]

Glad you covered population weighted density. I'm still flabergasted that san jose has a higher population weighted desnity than chicago or philly....!!! Is there something else going on here other than big lots in the suburbs chicago and pilly? Is it that there's less park space or open space counted in san jose?

[@nathanlandau9408]

The difference between the population weighted densities of the San Jose area on the one hand and the Philly and Chicago areas on the other is mostly lot sizes. Also new sprawl around the Bay Area is mostly happening in the Central Valley, and gets included in other urbanized areas.

[@harpsgalore6584]

I looked up a link that Oh the Urbanity cited and it's interesting that Sacramento and Vallejo are more dense than Chicago according to that study. But then again that source included the suburban areas too. Also for the Vallejo one specifically Solano County, CA has to respond to Both Sacramento and Bay Area commuters at the same time.

[@Luredreier]

What would happen if you do each lot and do a calculation of the closest 10 or 15 lots and mark it with a colour representing the population density of that area and do it for all lots in the state? Then simply pick a cutoff level for what qualifies as a urban area using that to define what is or isn't in the city marking those in a different colour to the ones that's not urban. Then define islands of that colour as separate cities.

[@Blaqjaqshellaq]

We should measure the variance as well as the mean.

[@robthetraveler1099]

4:15 Would never have guessed that Upper New England (Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine) had the US's largest average lot sizes!

[@harpsgalore6584]

Same too I was going to think Nevada and Texas has large average lot sizes because here in California we get hype by real estate speculators that Texas and Nevada has large lot sizes as part of the ploy to get Californian to leave the state.

[@Izzy-qf1do]

The traffic everywhere tells you how dense it is.

[@roadtrip2943]

The bronx and queens have large parks and numerous neighborhoods of single/two family homes

[@Imthefake]

the moral is that to have good suburbs you need density in the city, if you don't have a dense urban core your suburbs will end up overcrowded, with no green and sucky in general

[@Gary_C]

My guess is that LA developers had to squeeze more out of their land and yards aren't as desirable in a desert

[@squirlez6349]

LA is not a desert, the desert is on the eastern side of the mountains. Lot sizes are small in CA largely because of the massive amount of population growth the state experienced in the mid 20th century, which pushed developers to build as many homes as possible.

[@jasonriddell]

@@squirlez6349Los Vegas IS desert and ONE of the "dense" areas and I assume the "yards in desert" is referring to Vegas not LA

[@squirlez6349]

@@jasonriddell I guess it could be, yeah. Vegas is definitely desert haha

[@harpsgalore6584]

@@squirlez6349 How Much is this is because sometimes the Inland Empire gets sometimes counted as part of the Los Angeles area. I understand that Inland Empire places like San Bernardino county and Riverside county do have desert north and east of their most populated cities. Also Inland Empire is counted as a different census area though.

[@linuxman7777]

Strong towns describes this best, that Density is not an inherent good, it really is just an Amplifier, it makes good urbanism better, and exacerbates the problems of bad urbanism. a 3rd world slum is dense and it just amplifies the problems of poverty. Cities that are less dense but have mixed use are more walkable than places significantly more dense. Traffic gets worse with density if you don't have mixed use or you have walmarts and other big box retails as the only places to shop. Also street connectivity is very important, as densifying suburbia will make problems worse if you densify before adding mixed use, and connecting the street network.

[@nickberry5520]

I think it would be interesting to compare commuting patterns between LA and NYC. I know that super-commutes by train are relatively common for NYC.

[@mariaansley1519]

Most people won't go more than about an hour train ride into Manhattan from Long Island. Babylon, Huntington, and Ronkonkoma are the terminals and anything beyond that is annoying

[@nickberry5520]

@@mariaansley1519 I'm not familiar with Long Island to be honest. I know there are a significant number of people who commute between Philadelphia and NYC. Not typically 5 days per week, though.

[@danmur2797]

Ironically NYC has outranked LA for having the worst road traffic for some years now. As far as rail commuting, LA, like NYC, now also has its fair share of supercommuters riding Metrolink rail lines. These all extend into the exurbs to the counties surrounding LA County. Into South Orange County, San Bernardino, Riverside, and Ventura. Easily a 2 hr ride to these areas via Metrolink commuter lines. And I've always in the past found the trains full during morning and evening rush hours. However given that LA's conurbation population, at 19 million, is less than NYC's at 22 million (which includes the commuting areas), I think it's safe to assume NYC has a higher supercommuting ridership than LA via rail. Also NYC has the one main business hub of Manhattan served well by its extensive subway system, whereas LA has multiple business centers that aren't always well connected via subway or light rail line to its larger stations and commuter lines like Metrolink. In that regard NYC very much has an advantage.

[@mariaansley1519]

@@danmur2797 I'm sure there are some commuters from Suffolk but they're unicorns. The terminals end in West Suffolk. Personally I think they need to rethink at least the LI portion. Really, the forks? Manhattan does have traffic. What portion is local cabs and Ubers is probably high

[@filanfyretracker]

I had no clue LA was shaped like that, I thought that whole coastal area was LA and that Beverly Hills was just basically like Brooklyn or Queens are to NYC.

[@MarcoAntonio-hw7si]

Bevery Hills used to be part of LA in the past

[@papaicebreakerii8180]

Yea LA is a small part of the whole area. There’s like a hundred different cities in LA county that all form the metro area

[@1staid477]

Yeah it's not comparative our metro has 180 cities 😂 can't really compare it to the queens Bronx, Brooklyn etc. type thing

[@raventhorX]

wait, if you're not comparing LA the city to new york the city then what the hell are you comparing it to?

[@OhTheUrbanity]

Keep watching the video, it’s explained in the first few minutes with maps and everything.

[@RacksonRacksonRibss]

They’re comparing the metro area/greater area for some reason

[@1staid477]

​@RacksonRacksonRibss yeah because it's easier to compare cities based on their metro areas since NYC is much more compact than LA

[@zeroone8800]

I see you used the 2021 data that is based on highly inaccurate estimates instead of the accurate 2020 cencus data to get Los Vegas instead on Honolulu into fifth place.

[@stevemiller7949]

Nuances really matter! Public transportation and mixed use zoning (and trees and width of streets etc) have to ultimately go into the equation. Thanks for all of this.

[@jaxonmattox9267]

Nothing is more annoying than people using city proper statistics when 99% of the time the much more relevant stats are metropolitan area stats. Props to y’all for regularly acknowledging this unlike others who rarely or never do

[@sunshineyellow]

The only people shocked by this would be people who've never been to LA. NYC has very high density for a relatively small area while LA has medium-high density over a much greater area. If we put streetcars back, LA would be exactly the same as Barcelona that every urbanist is always screeching about.

[@Urbanhandyman]

In the 1990s I was walking down a street in San Francisco. Two women were walking past me going in the opposite direction. One was apparently visiting the other. The "local" woman said to the other, "San Francisco is like New York City, but without the energy." So true.

[@harpsgalore6584]

Woah that was true when San Francisco was facing the post Loma Prieta quake phase. I remember that when it was true.

[@TohaBgood2]

I'd say that San Francisco is like New York, but without the energy. SF is plenty fun and vibrant, but our civic life happens in the cutesy middle density 3-7 neighborhoods. They're like a series of main streets connected by Muni Metro. It's definitely a different feel to NYC. A lot closer to Paris's medium density neighborhoods. But the vast majority prefer that over the aggressive intensity of NYC.

[@candycologne840]

This reminds me of that meme where they ask the girl named jimmy which beaker has more water and she chooses the taller beaker but in reality it’s the shorter beaker that has more liquid

[@shsd4130]

This Canadian channel properly pronounced San Bernardino, and properly said "on Long Island" instead of "in Long Island." Not sure how so many Americans get these two things wrong.