Anyway, so, by way of anil dash's daily links, it's the Top 100 Biggest Cities in the US of A:
- New York, New York (pop 8,008,278)
- Los Angeles, California (pop 3,694,820)
- Chicago, Illinois (pop 2,896,016)
- Houston, Texas (pop 1,953,631)
- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (pop 1,517,550)
- Phoenix, Arizona (pop 1,321,045)
- San Diego, California (pop 1,223,400)
- Dallas, Texas (pop 1,188,580)
- San Antonio, Texas (pop 1,144,646)
- Detroit, Michigan (pop 951,270)
What I forget is how few cities in the US have over a million people. Indianapolis and Columbus appear in the list as 12 and 16, respectively, and although both are nice enough to visit, it's a bit difficult wrapping my brain around them ranking that high. Austin, of course, falls right below Columbus.
I suppose some enterprising soul has already checked these numbers against where weblog/LiveJournal/Diaryland/etc. maintainter type people say they live. Obviously, people I read make up a seriously skewed sample set, but a first pass would seem to confirm that "flyover country" is an accurate name for the vast majority of the country. Or I'm feeling snarky. Take your pick.
Along those lines, the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul combined still only make up about how many people you could expect to find at Taste of Chicago on a good day, around half a million.
Well, give or take 150,000 or so; they're #47, at 382,618, and #63, at 287,151. Dammit, Jim, I'm a linguist, not a. . . math guy.
Not looking at racial breakdowns, because ignorance is bliss.
The only place I've ever lived other than the metro Houston area and New Jersey is a little tiny village in North Yorkshire that had a population of about 50. (The Houston MSA is about 4 million, IIRC, and no, I don't want to know what the NYC MSA is.)
I think the difference in population made more difference to my lifestyle than the fact that they were in different countries.
And I have just used my quota for variants of the word different for today in that sentence, thanks.
Columbus, at least, is hardly a city of a million . . . it's a COUNTY of a million, a tiny little urban nucleus surrounded by vast spreads of suburbia which have been designated 'City of Columbus' for reasons of taxation. That cornfield has a sub-dividsion on it now? It must be city! Let its children therefore be subject to the administration of the worsts chool district in the Midwest!
Richmond VA could easily be listed cheek-by-jowl with Columbus on that population list, but the county structure has more internal legal integrity here, and so all the suburbs are 'in the counties' and not counted in the city population numbers.
This, of course, allows for even more perfect segregation than in Columbus, as those with money flee to the counties for the better school districts.
Myself included.
Right. Nipping off to shoot myself, now.
Hempstead? 750,000? Huh? I know it's on Long Island and all but huh?