Wendell Cox Responds to My Post on Density

by Sandy Ikeda
Sat, 23 Feb 2008 at 11:21 PM

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In an earlier post, "Is LA really denser than NYC?" I wrote that I was puzzled with Wendell Cox's data showing that Los Angeles is denser than New York. He left a comment that, with his permission, I reproduce below:

The data Dr. Ikeda questions is not mine, it is that of the United States Bureau of the Census. In 2000, the last data available, the Los Angeles urbanized area (urban footprint) had a population density of 7,068 per square mile. The New York urbanized area had a population density of 5,309 per square mile. Even San Jose, with nothing that resembles even the density of central Los Angeles (much less New York) has an urbanized area density of 5,914, well above that of New York. Any arguments with this data should be taken up with the Bureau of the Census (which has developed this data since 1950), not me.

All urbanized areas must be contained within a metropolitan area (MSA), thus the urbanized area definition will ALWAYS have a greater population density than the MSA. I have no problem with the Jane Jacobs definition of a city (in the generic term, not as a municipal corporation), that a city is "a settlement that consistently generates its economic growth from its own local economy." This is true of urbanized areas (as I report Census data) and true of metropolitan areas. I suspect Bureau of the Census demographers would have no difficulty with that definition for either term.

All of this can be verified by visiting www.census.gov, the Bureau of the Census website. http://www.demographia.com/db-ua2000pop.htm

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I was wrong. My problem was I could not derive the density figures I found on his website directly from Census data, and because I believed his concept of a city is fundamentally different from mine and Jacobs's (which I'm pleased to learn it isn't), I assumed that he used his own method of calculating density. I know now that I should have looked at urbanized-area and not MSA tables. I thank him for taking the trouble — in addition the above comment there were several email exchanges and a telephone conversation — to clear up my misunderstanding.

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Having said that, though, I'm very pleased to be wrong. That the LA urbanized area is actually denser than the NY urbanized area is a challenge for interventionist urbanists, such as advocates of smart-growth and the New Urbanism. They demonize Los Angeles and Phoenix and hype New York and Portland, largely because of the high densities of the latter. Well, the Census data Dr. Cox presents shows they're wrong. Phoenix has a density of 1,404 per square mile and Portland 1,289, and this is after decades of very interventionist anti-sprawl, pro-density policies in Portand and relative laissez-faire (until recently) in Phoenix.

At the same time, as I've mentioned in previous posts, I do part company with many free-market urbanists (FMU) who don't see density as especially important for economic growth, as Jacobs does (and I do). The census data appear to support the idea that, while the trend in urban development has been away from the downtown-centric model and more toward the suburbs and so-called edge-cities, density is still highly relevant. As Joel Garreau wrote in his book about the edge-city phenomenon: "Density is back!"

It's unhelpful for the FMU to diss density, when what they really oppose are government interventions (e.g., greenbelts and similar restrictive land-use restrictions) that try to promote higher population densities and combat so-called "sprawl." I too am highly suspicious of using intervention to impose — to borrow a phrase from a recent NY Times editorial — "a comprehensive vision for urban America." Just please don't throw the density baby out with the interventionist bathwater!

Anyway, to answer that post: Yes, LA really is denser than NYC!

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