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Data Sources and Definitions

Jan 10

2007

Several responses to some of my posts have asked for sources of the data I cite. While it is perfectly appropriate to ask this, the data usually aren’t critical to my main point, which is that planning does more harm than good.

Rather than provide links to every number (which is especially difficult for census data), I would like to list some of my most important sources of data here. I’ll also clarify my use of terms such as “city,” “urbanized area,” etc.

Data Sources

For future reference, many of my data sources are listed in the right column under data:

 

Terminology

As much as possible, I rely on Census Bureau definitions of things like “urban area.” The Census Bureau uses a variety of geographic terms, such as:

 

I try to use urbanized area or urban cluster for most of my data because it is the only sensible comparison of densities, travel modes, etc. Using city would not make sense because some cities (such as Houston and Indianapolis) have annexed most of their suburbs while others (such as Portland and Denver) have not. Using metropolitan statistical area would not make sense because so much of the land in many (but not all) of these areas is rural.

So when I write that Los Angeles is the densest urbanized area in America, don’t send me a comment saying, “How can that be when New York has a population density of 24,000 people per square mile?” The city of New York is denser than the city of Los Angeles, but the New York urbanized area (which includes northeastern New Jersey and southwestern Connecticut) is not as dense as the Los Angeles urbanized area (which includes Pasadena and much of Orange County).

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Reprinted from The Antiplanner