Houston -- fourth largest US city
 

Where have I been? Am I the only one who was surprised in all this IKE coverage to hear that Houston is the fourth largest US city. Wow, what a surprise to me.

New York and LA being 1 & 2 isn't a big shock to me but i think #3 Chicago is the one city that shocks me. I think I can see Houston being #3 before Chicago. I have been visiting there my entire life and when compared to LA and NY it looks much smaller in scale and population.

Hill
www.edufire.com

I had the same thought! No clue it was that big, there are some other surprises for me on this list

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0763098.html

Interesting Fact: If the borough of Brooklyn was a separate city, it would be the 4th largest city in the USA, larger than all of Houston.

That's how populous BROOKLYN is.

Wow.

It seems to be one of the better kept secrets . . What suprised me, was that San Anotnio just overtook San Deigo as the 7th largest city.

We are hurting a little right now. First Ike than another 8 inches of rain last nite from a cold front moving in. Lots of flooding on top of the damage done by Ike.

Galveston was just about wiped out . it will be a while before they are back up and running.

I am on the west side, some damage but nothing like the East side . . We got power again yesterday, but a signifigant number do not . .

A lot of folks were also suprised when Houston was named the number 1 place to live by Kiplinger

http://www.kiplinger.com/magazine/ar...work-play.html

Even San Antonians are surprised by its ranking. The way I describe it is that it is big enough to offer desirable amenities but small enough to feel homey.

Locals like to bring this up from time to time, but that's pretty meaningless as it's talking only about the City of Houston.

Much more meaningful is size of the metropolitan. Houston is actually 6th right now, also behind the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex and Philadelphia.

If you only count city population, then Boston will be very small as it has only about 600,000 residents. But the Massachusetts Bay Area is the 10th largest metro area in the US.

Houston being in 4th only means it has a large city government.

Here's a list of US metropolitan areas, from Wikipedia, which has the rankings to which rk refers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_...ropolitan_area

Chicago is no surprise to me. It was the second largest city in the US for 100 years -- from 1890 to 1990 when Los Angeles surpassed it.

Houston first appeared on the top 10 list in 1960 in 7th place and moved up 1 place each decade until it became #4 in 1990 where it has remained since.

Here's the top 10 by decade according to Wikpedia. Interesting how the population has shifted.

http://tinyurl.com/6fq378

To me Chicago is obvious - it's Houston that's amazing - I would have put it at # 10 or 12.

Brooklyn I knew about.

I think one of the differences is if you count just the city itself or the entire Metro area.

NYC is only about 9 million - but the Metro area is more than 20 million. I would guess the proportions are different for many of the smaller cities.

Why are you guys surprised?

The metropolitan has huge growth from various immigrant communities, as well as people moving from other parts of the country because of cheap housing and fairly strong growth in economy.

If you go to the Texas Medical Center, you see at least 4-5 big buildings in construction simultaneously. Once one is finished, they tear down some other ones to rebuild, or find new spots.

And for Houston being #4 in <b>city</b> population, that's because most of the surrounding areas don't have much to start with. The city itself can expand, and sometimes annex some small towns when the suburb gets to them. It's different from older cities like Boston, where there's no room for the City of Boston itself to grow.

I was surprised. The Wikipedia page is great, you can sort on different criteria.

&quot;What suprised me, was that San Anotnio just overtook San Deigo as the 7th largest city.&quot;

What surprised me is that San Antonio (#7) overtook Dallas (#9)! But it is growing gangbusters down there.

You may be shocked to find that San Antonio and Dallas are also in the top 10 or were a few years ago.

First let me say that this discussion - and the links you have provided is one of the reasons I love Fodor's. I truly feel at home here!

I was not surprised by Chicago or Houston. As were a few others, I was surprised that San Antonio is 7, and ahead of Dallas.

Perhaps alot of it is in the context of how you (or I in this case) visit a city. For instance, I was in San Antonio for a few short days, staying on the Riverwalk as a visitor. This probably gives a limited view of the city as a whole.

In comparison, we live a few hours from Dallas and drive to and through there several times a year, to different parts of the city.

Does it seem odd that Pittsburgh is #22 on the Metro area list, but not even on the top 50 city list?

H

Pittsburgh and many older Eastern cities are very very small geographically, which is why the SMSAs in the Wiki link are a more reasonable way to compare locations. It's really impossible to compare populations based on technical city boundaries.

For instance, the city of Boston is just 48 square miles and Houston is 596 square miles. That's why the Boston SMSA is ranked 10th but the city per se is ranked 23rd. Similarly, they city of Miami is just 35 square miles and ranked 43rd among cities, but Miami/Dade county is 2000 square miles, which is about the same as the entire state of Rhode Island and the area is ranked #7.

I'm shocked at San Antonio being larger than Dallas. Dallas is SO much more a city in every way, shape, and form than San Antonio. I know that sounds unkind to the city I live in now, but it is true!

OO, I know what you mean. That just seems so weird to me. But to be honest I was even surprised that Houston is larger than Dallas -- clearly I'm living in the past and haven't been to either in a while.

At the same time as Anonymous points out -- there are statistics and there are statistics. Some cities have huge suburbs which are separate cities, therefore not counted into the total population. That's just one way that sometimes the statistics SEEM misleading.

And then there are the rankings strictly by size. How many people would know what the second largest city in Florida is? Cape Coral. And most would assume that would be after Miami, but wrong. The largest in area is Jacksonville!

Seems like people still don't understand the difference between a city and a metropolitan.

The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is much bigger than San Antonio. But it is made up of two big cities - Dallas and Fort Worth, plus many many other ones which you may also have heard of - Arling, Irvine, etc. In fact, many of the places you visit - DFW airport, Texas Stadium, Ball Park at Arlington, Gaylord Texan Hotel and so on - are NOT in the city of Dallas.

But San Antonio, like Houston, has a large city area.

NeoPatrick - Dallas-FW Metroplex is larger than Houston-Galveston.

Yes. That sort of thing was exactly my point --&quot;Some cities have huge suburbs which are separate cities, therefore not counted into the total population.&quot; I'm not sure who &quot;doesn't understand the difference between a city and a metropolitan.&quot;

Neo - I wrote my prevoius response while you were typing. I was mainly referring to phieaglefan and a few others who posted before about Dallas vs San Antonio.

Ok, but no problem and no offense intended. I meant my &quot;yes&quot; comment to refer to the one you had just made to me. The Dallas-Ft. Worth was a good example of what I (and others) had talked about.

Yes, I realize that Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex is bigger than San Antonio metro and even Houston metro, but I was only comparing cities.

What I was saying was that, even excluding the metro areas, I find it hard to believe that San Antonio has overtaken Dallas. I find the Dallas downtown to seem to be much bigger than San Antonio. Houston is definitely bigger than Dallas per se, but Dallas has Ft. Worth, Arlington, Carrollton, Addison, Grand Prairie, Irving, etc... Houston has Houston, Galveston, Pasadena, and that's about it. San Antonio only has San Antonio.

I think Phoenix is similar to San Antonio in that Phoenix is just Phoenix, with not much outside of it except desert.

Exactly. That's why Phoenix is the 5th most populous city in the country, even though its metropolitan is only 13th.

It's intersting that New Orleans can have a heavy dew, and prayer vigals break out all over . . the 4th largest city in the US takes a direct hit by a hugh huricane, and the only comments are suprise that it is the 4th largest city.

Amazing . . .

Yes, but it smells like #1

There are a couple of nice maps of MSAs and CSAs here:
http://tinyurl.com/4tpqky

Houston #4 doesn't surprise me. Yokohama being #2 in Japan does surprise me. Have known both facts for some time now, but the second one still surprises.

Yokohama is just a part of the Tokyo (city of 8.7 million) metro area (something like 20 million) but by itself it is the second largest city in the country at 3.6 million.

I too was only referring to the <i>cities</i> of San Antonio and Dallas and not the the Metroplex. I live in one and we go to the other at least once every 3 months and used to live there as well. Dallas plain and simple is far more the city, with city amenities than San Antonio, which is like a big ole country town! LOL Look at things like symphony and theater alone. San Antonio's offerings can't hold a candle to Dallas'. Dining options. My gosh...no comparison! Market...shopping in general! I'm not talking anything in Arlington, not including Ft Worth, not even including Richardson (LOL, whatever that might have), I'm talking Dallas only.

Patrick it seems impossible that Cape Coral could be #2. Does it even have a downtown?? If so, I've missed it.

Sure it has a downtown -- it's one long strip mall. :D But trust me, you didn't miss much!

You did note I said &quot;by area&quot;, right? Cape Coral extends for miles and miles.

I wish that there were rules about incorporations of towns. I don't think it's right that a city of 600 square miles can be compared to a city of 50 square miles. Well, you know what they say about statistics.

Very interesting post. I was aware that Houston was way up there, still some surprised over a few of the fast growing places in the US.

How is the SMSA determined? Is there a formula or is it kinda hit and miss.

I remember seeing somewhere that Tokyo's metro population is something like 35 million. Hard to imagine.

I think everyone by now understands the difference between a municipality and a metropolitan area. Since people can travel all over the metro, the metro is the real city. Many metros in the top 10 nevertheless have a small municipal jurisdiction in the center.

So it's meaningless to say that San Antonio is the 10th largest &quot;city&quot; when it is just the 10th largest city government. It is a mid-sized metro with a large municipality embedded within it.

Similarly, Dallas-Fort Worth is the 4th largest metro in the United States, but it has smaller municipalities embedded within it.