Urban Sprawl: Which U.S. City Sprawls the Most? 

Xavier Cobalt visit Atlanta 😳. It's extremely 'not-dense' and is very large in sq miles

Samuel Macrae I can confirm that as someone who lives in Atlanta, especially outside of the downtown area

That's American cities for you. I have to say though, Atlanta is no where near on the same level of Phoenix, like that's a LOT better. Maybe Jacksonville, Florida (Florida in general) is a good example of a city/place that's overwhelmingly suburban.

Xavier Cobalt Seriously though, Phoenix is the 5th largest city in the U.S. yet our downtown is the size of other cities’ stadiums.

Thank you so much for this comment, this is what a tell everyone about Phoenix, but no one ever believes me. It's the same for Las Vegas too!

Bullshit, i live in the farthest suburb from the city centre, and i live in the sun belt, which means its the most auto dependent and suburban part of America. I only live about 5-10 miles from the city centre

Drive for like an hour in the U.K and you’re in the ocean, drive for an hour in the U.S and you haven’t left the city.

Steven Poke Look at how much larger we are in England. Several cities take up the entire county and are much larger than cities where you come from.

Warren Moon You know nothing and you’re a fucking moron. You just want to make yourself feel better about it because you don’t understand anything. There are quite a few cities in the United States that sprawl outwards 10 to 20 miles and are within the same city limits as the downtown too. What the fuck is wrong with you. And sometimes when people are on the outskirts of the city, their actual address is still listed as this city that they are next to. In some cases people do generalize where they live because if they say something to an outsider like I Live in Oak Bluff versus Kansas City, people will know what Kansas City is but not Oak Bluff. Too bad I had to school you......you stupid fuck.

I live in the Nashville metropolitan area and the suburb I live in is about 35-40 minutes away from town. Rent is still super high, and traffic is a little crazy at times.

Houston's a unique city and definitely worthy of a video someday!

If you look at most Southern Ontario cities you will find that as well. I noticed that you had a map of the GTA up, and it is surprising how dense it is considering the type of development is located in the periphery.

Texas doesn't have strict zoning laws. so high density buildings are able to be built anywhere a developer wants. unlike most other cities where the municipality controls what type of building can go where.

Fuck Houston

Houston is being examined in Australia. The MUD tax system ensures that housing affordability problem is dealt with. The consequence is sprawl.

Steven Poke I St.Louis (which is where I live) there are suburbs further from the city than that, for example godfey Illinois is 39 miles away from downtown

Henry Nark and wentzville mo is 42 miles from downtown St. Louis.

Same with DC and Baltimore.

How about SJ and SF - two distinct cities, connected by sprawl. What's in like between the two cities you mentioned?

@@oliversissonphone6143 Liverpool and Manchester both have green belts to prevent sprawl I guess.

Jenny R. C. America was industrializing when the car was first made, that’s why city streets are different here than in Europe.

Mostly everything built after WW2, we did a decent job before the war.

Cadavre boi you hit right on the head.

You can live in Chicago or New York without a car but not many other places

Franjo Kristof both wrong, apartment buildings aren’t boring, that’s why cities built like that were made for you to get out and be productive around the city, I live in a suburb and hardly anyone comes out to do anything recreational like except jog, no stairs to walk up and down, same bland design of housings, and same small but boring parks that no one even goes to. The only reason why people move to suburbs because the housing is bigger for families to raise but other than that, the more young and hard working people or graduates who are ready to start a career move into the city like NY, SF, Boston, Seattle, Chicago, Miami etc.

MrAtlfan21 no its not its 5 counties 💀

No it's 30 counties.

It’s 11-12 counties depending on which MSA report you read. I should know. I live here.

Jason Miller same

MrAtlfan21 8,000 square miles vs LA 10,000 square miles. In 20 years Atlanta metro will probably be that big since it lacks any Coast , desert or mountain boundaries.

Coming from the West on I-20, metro Atlanta basically begins just a few miles East of the Alabama state line.

Wow No wonder why america is such a co2 producer Ya whole coutry(-NewYork i think) is designed ineficiently for the car and a lot of unnecessary fuel consumtion

@@sovietpotatoes2353 For our size, we actually produce relatively little pollution. If you want to go scream at a country about muh environment go scream at China and India.

@@colonelcrossfire8268 America outpollutes India despite having a BILLION fewer people

@@colonelcrossfire8268 Not true. The United States produces 16.1 tons of CO2 emissions per capita. Compare that to 8.0 tons of China and 1.91 tons of India. The problem with China and India is their enormous population size, so the emissions quickly add up. That said, China is the only country that produces more CO2 emissions than the United States. Two times more in fact. India two times less than the US.

same with LA

DMV errrea bob

Yeah the metro area on I 20 starts at the Alabama border and goes uninterrupted for 100miles at the Newton/Walton county line

It’s like that in Houston

Yea in the woods ... might be the "METRO" area but its trees woods ... 20 west woods ... 75 north kinda woods until you past Kennesaw ... 75 south morrow .... 85 kinda urban ... but atlanta is trees bro ...... now L.A is sprawl until san Bernardino Ventura ... Houston is sprawl in every way n .s. e. W . Nw sw se ne

Jason Reyes holy shit all the way up to Ventura and all the way down to OC? Jesus

Same with Detroit

Los Angeles ran out of space to sprawl as it's sandwiched between mountains and the sea, nowadays it's starting to grow up.

Yes the LA sprawl rivals any, really only the conurbation of Tokyo compares. For its pop though sydney Australia is pretty sprawling. The geographic size of London but with only 5 million people (London has 14).

most of the suburbans there are dull and boring.

Blood Bath and Beyond yeah that is crazy i cant believe Jacksonville, okc, anchorage, are bigger than Houston, which in turn is bigger than NYC & Chicago, and LA area wise

Jacksonville is only 32nd by urbanized area square miles.

Pickup trucks are by far the best vehicles to own. So versatile. You can do anything in them.

OKC is actually the largest US city by land area

@@luisvilla799 I dont know about LA, that shit keeps growing bigger and bigger and more traffic

QR One LA is the most densely populated city in the country

It's: 1. NYC, 2. LA , 3. Atlanta, 4. Chicago, 5. Washington/Baltimore

No, it's not. NYC is by far the most densely populated. L.A. barely cracks the top 30 in terms of population density, even though it's #2 in total population, which is why it's definitely one of the most sprawling cities. I was shocked at how far literally everything was in L.A. after having been to New York and Chicago. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population

Interesting. Didn't know that. Thanks for sharing.

By approximate square mileage, urbanized area: 1) New York City Metro (3,450 sq. miles) 2) Los Angeles/Riverside-San Bernardino/Oxnard/Simi Valley/Mission Viejo/Murrietta/Hemet (2,841 sq. miles) 3) Atlanta/Gainesville (2,771 sq. miles) 4) Chicago (2,442 sq. miles) 5) Washington/Baltimore (2,038 sq. miles) 6) Philadelphia (1.981 sq. miles) 7) Boston (1,873 sq. miles) 8) Dallas (1,779 sq. miles) 9) Houston (1,660 sq. miles) 10) Detroit (1,337 sq. miles) 11) Cleveland/Akron/Canton (1,263 sq. miles) 12) Miami (1,238 sq. miles) 13) Phoenix (1,146 sq. miles) 14) Cincinnati/Dayton (1,138 sq. miles) 15) Minneapolis-St. Paul (1,021 sq. miles) 16) San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose/Concord (1,012 sq. miles) 17) Seattle (1,010 sq. miles) 18) Tampa/St. Pete/Clearwater (957 sq. miles) 19) St. Louis (923 sq. miles) 20) Pittsburgh (905 sw. miles) 21) Charlotte (741 sq. miles) 22) San Diego (732 sq. miles) 23) Indianapolis (705 sq. miles) 24) Kansas City (677 sq. miles) 25) Denver (668 sq. miles)

I think the definition of metro area doesn't necessarily equate to the sprawl of the city though. I'm not saying Atlanta hasn't had the biggest growth and amount of sprawl, much more than most American cities, it is huge, but development along highways without much residential landuse to me isn't sprawl, not in the same way as suburb after suburb being built to expand cities and engulf other cities around them. Looking at the satellite image of Atlanta on Google Maps, and from my memory of being there, albeit a while ago, you don't have to go far until you come to open countryside, not on the scale of the distance you'd have to go from downtown LA, for example. That's not to say it isn't one of the biggest in the country though.

@@mattpotter8725 Detroit metro is denser than a lot of atlanta/atlanta metro in terms of % of pavement, not in terms of population density though.

@@mattpotter8725 What are you talking about you don't have to go far until you hit open countryside in Atlanta? Along I-85 northeast from downtown, you don't hit open countryside until you get past Braselton, and that is 48 miles from downtown Atlanta. Along I-85 northeast and forking onto I-985 north, you don't hit open countryside until you get past Gainesville, and that is 57 miles from downtown Atlanta Along I-75 northwest from downtown, you don't hit open countryside until you get past Lake Allatoona, and that is 32 miles from downtown Atlanta. Along I-75 northwest from downtown and forking onto I-575 north, you don't hit open countryside until you get past Canton, and that is 41 miles from downtown Atlanta. Along GA 400, by way of I-85 from downtown, you don't hit some exurban area until you get past Coal Mountain, and that is 43 miles from downtown. You don't hit outright open, rural areas until you get past the Outlet area some 53 miles from downtown. Along I-20 east from downtown Atlanta, you don't hit open countryside until you get past Covington and that is 37 miles from downtown Atlanta. Along I-20 west from downtown Atlanta, you don't hit exurban area until you get past Douglasville, and that is 23 miles from downtown Atlanta. You don't hit open rural countryside until you get past Temple, and that is about 38 miles from downtown Atlanta. Along I-75 southeast from downtown Atlanta, you don't hit open countryside until you get past Locust Grove, and that is about 35 miles from downtown Atlanta. Along I-85 southwest from downtown Atlanta, you don't hit open countryside until you past Fairburn, which is 21 miles from downtown Atlanta. However, after a brief exurban area, you pick up with suburban development down around Newnan which comes in from the east like a wrap around kind of development. You don't hit open countryside along I-85 southwest of Atlanta until you get past Newnan, which is about 40 miles from downtown Atlanta. So, from what I have shown you along the freeways heading out of downtown Atlanta, you don't hit open countryside until: 57 miles along I-985 53 miles along GA 400 48 miles along I-85 north 41 miles along I-575 40 miles along I-85 south 38 miles along I-20 west 37 miles along I-20 east 35 miles along I-75 south 32 miles along I-75 north The closest you'll get to any open countryside from downtown Atlanta is taking I-85 south to the south Fulton Parkway and heading westward. From downtown, it is 23 miles. Nowhere else in the metro area does it come anywhere close to that. Also, Atlanta and Los Angeles are about the same size, in terms of the number of miles of built-up land. As of 2010, the Atlanta urbanized area comprised 2,645 square miles of built-up land. Los Angeles by itself was considerably smaller than that at 1,736 square miles. However, when you take the real urbanized area by adding Riverside-San Bernardino, Oxnard, Simi Valley, etc., the areas are within like one hundred square miles of each other and basically the same size. Search List of United States urban areas - Wikipedia

Los Angeles... the “I’ll be there in 2 hours” city.

Atlantans are very used to long commuting distances. Atlanta was set up this way and it worked ok when the population was only 3 million. At 6 million it is a nightmare.

I live in Portland which is relatively dense with a comprehensive transit system and very bad traffic. On the worst rush hour days, the light rail MIGHT be able to make similar time to a car sitting in the gridlock. Any other time forget it. The other day I talked to some people from Phoenix and they were shocked at how compact yet hard to get around Portland was.

Don't type comments while driving.

Yep , you can pretty much drive 60/70 miles and still be in the north side of Atl. It is insane.

Thanks for the kind comment!

yeah its still more dense than atlanta.

Santa Monica to downtown LA, about a 15 mi trip, is extremely dense. You have downtown Santa Monica, mid city Santa Monica, Westwood, downtown Century City, Wilshire/Western, WeHo, Sunset Blvd, Hollywood Blvd, K-Town (Vermont and Wilshire), and a booming downtown LA. Google any of these places to see how dense it is.

it takes over an hour to drive from one end of L.A county to the other , with no traffic, driving 75 MPH...the L.A area is fuckin massive...

EntropyFan Chicago also sprawls pretty far too. The downtown loop and within city limits is dense but then it drops the further you go away from the loop. Chi city limits is 2.7 million. cook county is 5.5 million, add in the other 6 collar counties and surrounding 14 counties from lower Wisconsin to northwest Indiana you get about 10 million ppl. Kenosha to Merrillville Indiana is over 100 miles plus of Midwest long broad n flat n wide sprawl like the Mississippi river. Even further if you take 294 south around downtown through the burbs, and possibly longer than taking I 90-94 directly through downtown. Extra bonus if you take lake shore drive down into downtown, you can really appreciate the differences in density from the far north burbs into far south burbs and into Indiana. Lake Michigan beaches are better in Indiana or northern Wisconsin or western Michigan

Atlanta and the other sunbelt cities in Texas and Arizona have no coasts, no mountains and no boundaries. Eventually they will surpass LA metro in size not population.

Hell, we can't support the growth just in the last 20 years. Atlanta is the king of sprawl. Before you know it, the Atlanta Metro area will include parts of Alabama, SC and Tennessee.

It's too bad they didn't reroute I-85 off of the connector 10 years ago when land was still cheap in West Atlanta. That being said, I think those ridiculous highway laws Nixon passed might have made my plan technically illegal because it involves oppressing too many poor people. It's also too bad Atlantans hate MARTA even though it's actually a pretty great system.

@@alexanderfretheim5720 True Atlantans font gate Marta. Just white people.

People from Atlanta whine and bitch and moan about the traffic, but no one wants to actually commit any money to a public transportation system (chiefly a metro system that actually allows movement within the area) to fix it. This is truly stupidity caused by American pride and arrogance.

Xavier Debidour Living in Atlanta I can tell you that it truly is the “City in a Forest.”

I loved that part of it. The urban planners crapped all over intelligent road planning, but it is beautiful. If you come down 75 and head onto Eastbound 285 (northern part, inner loop), you pop out of the trees and see skyscrapers right ahead of you. And then you turn and pop down below the treeline again and can't tell you're in a city until you see Sandy Springs. Gorgeous. Horrendous traffic. But gorgeous.

Atlanta is easily my second favorite American city. I've been thinking about moving to that area recently...

Jason Miller ... Although much smaller, the "City in a Forest" also describes Memphis, Tennessee when flying into the city or looking east from one of the taller downtown buildings.

@@jasonmiller3421 The Forest makes me want to move there, but the sprawl does not :(

Right! I live in Greensboro too and if you don't have a car here your fucked

I live in Greensboro, and yes...if you don't have a car in greensboro, you are most definitely FUCKED.

fun fact the wetlands bridge portion of the urban loop is being built right in my back yard.

I was surprised the Twin Cities were on there too. I’ve always felt that there’s been a “biggest small town” feel about the cities, but yeah, there’s almost no public transportation and what we do have is very inefficient. We were the birthplace of some of the biggest causes of sprawl, malls, and have the biggest mall in the US. The suburbs might not go on forever, but even the inner suburb rings bus lines are barely used. Then again, downtown is very walkable, even in winter with covered bridges between buildings and a massive park and path system.

I too did not expect the W to make it on the list, it hurt deeply, and it is true though. Our neighborhoods sprawl so damn much. It is a very wide city with low density. Lots and lots and lots of open space.

haha, thanks. Sadly, I've since upgraded to a proper microphone stand. My kids are happy to have their Lego back!

thats awesome, keep on making more of these interesting videos!

Mystic Dust I thought in nyc and boston it would be a burden to use cars lol

Too bad it's so expensive to live there. I'd love to live in downtown Chicago!

EmolgasApple actually don't. chicago is crime-ridden like most cities in the great lakes. if you want a safer alternative, go to pittsburgh

I prefer commuting by car because i love driving.

V8 Power who wants to live in a place that looks like chernobyl anyways??? basically america is for all the car drivers and the conservatives while europe is pretty much for all the liberals (and the liberals haven't done shit to get rid of the slums that still exist in spain, portugal and france). can't say anything about eastern europe because it's the second world, and all that i know about the second world is uranium

I need the darkness, someone please cut the lights...

lol i see it

Ha! Just commented the same thing...then came down to see if anyone else had noticed it too! Hilarious! 😂😂

YEP! I noticed it about 2 minutes in, and honestly, that's really freaking clever! No money needed to be spent, just used what he had, and it works impeccably!

"Walk" its Atlanta you clearly meant drive bc one does not simply walk

@@mz4ahs I didn’t expect my city to get this much criticizm

@Moon Shine Some of that is false but okay. Atlanta is not the only city like this. Orlando can be worse. 40 mins just get from your cheap hotel to Disney world 😂. And I didn’t find any transit their either, just freeways and traffic.

@Moon Shine Okay

@@mz4ahs Boromir: "One does not simply walk in Atlanta."

Yes, LA is big, but LA is densely developed, and on top of that, it is in an arid region, so it is much more easy to see development from a plane than in metropolitan regions with lots of trees.

Agree. It looks kind of insane flying into LAX. Always wondered why the downtown was so small.

Alright listen up bitch, I'm the fucking Don here and I'll call the shots. I don't need to take career advice from little plebs like yourself. Is that understood sweetheart?

Yeah nice burn you fucking loser. Send me your address tough guy.

Ben Dover i'm actually at your mamas house right now. Come and meet me.......in a half hour caus i'm not finished yet.

Ben Dover haha

I'm still at my "little fucking pussys" place. Didn't she tell you. I've been busy filling all her holes.

I'm sorry to hear that.

Just like a Canadian City in winter.....we hide inside most of the winter, you do so in the summer

Thanks!

chigasaki06 I agree. I live near riverside, CA and I’ve been to the Netherlands a few times and OH MY GOD public transportation is the best! I was able I get any where I wanted. Everything is close by. And I just felt a lot closer to the people. Americans are missing out.

But but but Public Transpiration is Socialism. 'America is capitalist and it's not the governments job to use taxpayer money to build inefficient infrastructure. Americans should have the option to use PAY TOLLS . Just look at California and New York. Socialist shiza holes' ---- Texans and Mainstream conservatives against Public Transportation.

julio ventura I’m from a big city with pretty good public transportation but it’s so inconvenient for groceries and many life’s situation. I wish I could live in a suburb with my personal private house and backyard and a car. Cars are the best way of transportation.

@@urbanistgod I used to carry my groceries on a bike or carry them in a bag. The problem with the American lifestyle is that we consume so much more than what we need. You need a car for your grocceries because you're buying too much of things(heavy excess meats&junk food) , i'd bet you weigh 300 lbs. Also, American cities were designed for autos and thus are way spread out. In a normal city /country cities are planned in walking distance. That's why East Coast cities have a lot of close amenities because they were built in a time when cars didn't exist. Out West and in the South everything is built for the sub urb , so thats why PT to you seems inconvenient but its not.

I'm reading a book called The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs. So far so good. It talks about sprawling, the use of a sidewalk, and other urban planning things that I have yet to read. Give it a go! I lived in Grenoble France for a summer and agree with getting around. It was much easier in Europe. Plus, I stayed in shape :) In America, I feel it is harder to do that. Specifically, I live in Detroit.

Atlanta doesn't even feel like I city to me. The streets are not on a grid system which is the real reason why traffic is so bad to me. I describe Atlanta as some big towers and high rises in the middle of a forest lol.

sophisticado100 they call it the city among forest for a reason

I used to drive cross-country for a living. I drove through all states in the lower 48 and through pretty much every single city - big or small - that had an Interstate running through it. Of all the cities I had to drive in or through, the two absolute worst were Boston and Atlanta. In Atlanta you’re pretty much at the mercy of the horribly congested freeways, because the streets make no sense at all. I once made the mistake of trying to take shortcuts on the streets of Atlanta, and wound up completely lost in some godawful ghetto. I was lucky I got out of there without being jacked up. At least in most other major cities (not named Boston) I could always find shortcuts on surface streets. Not Atlanta. Those streets are a fucking maze.

I saw the traffic just on the freeways flying over... pretty bad.

The Atlanta traffic is bad but the freeway system is not as extensive as LA's and has a lower capacity (fewer lanes overall). The LA freeways are so wide yet the traffic still sucks. Most cities have 2 lanes in each direction which expand to 4 in each direction in the most congested areas. I'm still going with LA on this one

Because all of the land around the cul de sac is privately owned, and the distance to the next road is actually moderately sizable (e.g. 600-1000 meters).

europe has been developing with modern techniques for 1000s of years. the US, only since the 1600s.

I grew up in the suburbs. It's not efficient at all. All my friends that travelled to Europe(germany, Spain) agreed that Europe does city/urban planning the best. America is deprived of such basic human infrastructure. At least the BART has made attempts towards it and NYC is a different country.

Who cares? You have a private home with a private backyard a private pool and a private place to park your car it’s all what matters

DefCon1Shooter - yes, ecological problems are definitely a major concern in Houston at least. When Hurricane Harvey hit a couple of years ago it was a giant wake-up call for urban planners. The worst flooding occurred almost entirely in the recently developed outer suburban areas, where prior to development there were floodplains that channeled water away from the metro area. The city is now focusing most of their efforts into densifying the core neighborhoods and discouraging suburban expansion, because it’s only a matter of time before another hurricane or tropical storm hits the area.

Hello! American here, uhh no... we do not like subarbs at all, well... at least I don't. I despise them.

Danny Martinez I live in Riverside as well, you're correct about it all....u mean Riverside California right?

KasaiLifeTV yeah, Riverside, CA!

I live in Temecula and sprawl is still pretty bad

so... we need public transportation... until it's built near near you. people aren't really smart.

Dank Memez89 Riverside county in general is pretty bad, but Temecula definitely stands out. It's one gigantic suburb. Miles of single family housing. I hear Temecula residents are getting fed up with all the traffic, lol.

Yep, it's really hard to define what is "urban" and what is "rural" in the age of endless suburban tract development.

Orange county itself is basically a suburb without a major city, same with Ventura county, some argue they're an extension of Los Angeles. There's definitely an argument to be made for that. Whenever I've flown into LAX, I'm always blown away by how it sprawls. From one end of the basin to the other, there aren't many gaps.

Yeah, I have to drive 80 miles just to visit friends in LA. Along those 80 miles, there is nothing but houses, buildings, shops and factories. In a sense, it never feels like you leave the city. It's a large area with a a bunch of towns. Even when you drive down to San Diego from LA, there are nothing but cities and towns. So you are never really isolated from a proper city.

Dustin Reed - Orange County is definitely a suburban extension of metro L.A., as much as it pains many OC residents to admit that. It’s not like there’s some dramatic change that occurs when one drives over the county line from Cerritos to Buena Park. It’s all part of the same developed mass.

City Beautiful The metrics used to identify sprawl (density, single use, auto dependency) would seem to apply for rural areas as well. It seems to me it would be possible to game the rankings based on where the threshold for where “rural and therefore exempt” is set. But rural areas don’t suffer from congestion in the way suburban areas do, so perhaps that could be another criterion for identifying sprawl. It also seems that geographic extent or scope would also play a role: one square mile of low density surrounded by rural area wouldn’t be as subject to congestion as 100 square miles of the same density in suburbia.

Lots of cities have "streetcar suburbs." I agree that streetcars played a role in urban expansion, but the rate of growth increased considerably with the car.

@@CityBeautiful In the case of LA, though, almost ALL of the suburbs were streetcar suburbs, and you see that when you look at the Pacific Electric route map.

What's interesting though is they weren't just streetcars. The Pacific Electric Railway was built to standard gauge, which meant they could receive freight trains on the same tracks. Most of the PE system would shut down from midnight to 6 am and then use electric freight locomotives to deliver railcars from the Southern Pacific Railway to various factories that had sidings along Pacific Electric streetcar lines.

@@alexanderfretheim5720 I did not know that. Thanks.

@@Zeyev It was really smart actually. It's a shame more places don't do that.

I love seeing the grid from a plane.

City Beautiful Me too

Grids are great. Sprawl isn’t big difference

Adding Santa Barbara to me sounds like a stretch, but you could definitely add the Antelope Valley and everything in the Mojave all the way out to Barstow.

Atlanta has piss poor infrastructure.

@@Imperial0666 You think Orlando does as well?

I'd favor Dallas-Ft Worth. Everything in Dallas is miles apart, even when they are right next door to each other.

dlwatib d allas is lame and boring. It's like plain yogurt

Edwin Palacios nah Indianapolis takes the cake for that

Kathryn White you are talking about a central city of well over 600 square miles. If Houston were completely built out at high density it would easily topple New York City and become the largest city in the US.

Shit, just try driving up the I - 5 in the seattle area

all that growth in South Florida is contained by the Everglades. South Florida is a long metro area, but it is not wide.

I see absolutely no forestry or open areas of natural vegetation.

The Miami area, especially Miami itself, its considerably pretty densely populated.

More like the world 😱🤣

Atlanta born and raised, used to shock me how there was nothing then immediately city when I was used to 50 miles of solid suburbia in all directions.

Atlanta the "I'll be there in 45 minutes" city. Meanwhile I'm driving 85 mph on 985 to get to 85 the switch to 75 to get to my destination and I've been on the north side of the city the entire time!

Atlanta's urbanized area is at least 70 miles across. It isn't city then nothing. If you got that idea from a trip down I-75 through the northwest of the city where there are large leafy lots, then you really didn't discover the area. Atlanta is massive. Unless you're talking about NYC, there isn't any city with 50 miles (100 miles across) of development in all directions.

I’d say *DEFINITELY* the most sprawled in the country. Metro Atlanta is even bigger in land area than the Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex (which itself is one of the nation’s most sprawled metro areas), but with almost 2 million less people. Atlanta takes the trophy for sprawl, easily.

How big would you give houston at its furthest dimensions ????? Far east-west north-south nw-sw se-ne

Too Vexx - That’s probably all going to change after what happened with Hurricane Harvey. It kind of has to. The main reason the flooding was so extreme was because they developed all these suburbs in the floodplains. You just can’t do that in a big city that’s built on a swamp. It was a very rude awakening for urban planners. Houston (the city-proper) has already been making efforts to densify and urbanize in the core neighborhoods inside loop 610, but now they’re really beginning to step it up and focus on densifying outside the loop as well. It’s a matter of necessity at this point, because there will inevitably be another hurricane or tropical storm in the near future. Building even further out from the city at this point would be really stupid.

Jason Williams - From the Northern end of the metro (Conroe) to the Southern end (Galveston), it’s 92 miles. From the Western end (Katy) to the Eastern end (Baytown), it’s 53 miles.

@@Brewzerr it’s already sprawled past Katy

@@tflking4916 yea its creeping on Brookshire to the west for sure

Thanks!

SlenderPsycho I don’t understand it. I moved from Chicago and can’t figure out why anyone wants to live in a city and have to drive everywhere. The via is ok if you’re taking major routes like the 550/551 but you better hope what you need is on the access road.

used to live in San Antonio but since I had a job in another city for about 10 years and then when I returned to visit, I didn’t wanna live there anymore. more congested, of course, and everywhere you have to drive, to visit, friends, to go out to eat, to jobs to recreation, to drive many miles, and the rush-hour traffic has extended from one hour to more than two hours several times a day.!!!! Start and stop traffic is very stressful, I’d rather have a train, of course not possible here and commute somewhere without having to drive. Haven’t found my new city yet.

I really find it a shame that much of the land that was country outside of San Antonio is been built with dozens of new suburban houses plus some people that lived on a farm for years that wanna retire in their family home are still having to keep it a farm and keep some cattle just so they wouldn’t have to pay a luxury tax, but keep it agriculture. They are still working hard, even though they’re past retirement age because some people from the city Herbert what used to be farms just so they can live out in the country and then the commute to the city but they haven’t had the storm for several generations like some other people have actually worked their whole life there and now they’re property tax would go up higher if they didn’t still keep working past 65

Didn’t mean to write Herbert,

Spencer Smallwood not as far south as Hillsboro when you take 35 east south bound the sprawl ends around oak leaf/red oak. In the north it ends around Sanger Texas. When it comes to 75 Anna Texas 45 Wilmer. 30s sprawl ends just before Royce city and west word it ends around Weatherford. With I-20 east it ends around the seagoville area. Dfw is sprawling but it's mitigated sprawl.

DFW is smaller than Atlanta, in terms of urbanized area's square miles. It does have a little larger population, however. The Atlanta metro area is not a small town. It is 5.7 million people. Most people live in the suburbs. The city limits aren't all that large, and one third of the city is filled with expensive homes on large, leafy lots. There's also a lot of industrial areas, such as three rail yards, half of the airport and the corresponding industry surrounding the airport. This leaves less room for housing.

More like (from W to E) White Settlement to Rockwall, and (from N to S) Prosper to Waxahachie. Yes, still a massive, massive amount of area. Easily the most sprawled in Texas... even more than Greater Houston.

After living in Atlanta for over a year now, it's definitely no where near the size of Dallas-Fort Worth! If you add the Birmingham metro 30 miles to the east of Atlanta and fill it in between, that would be Dallas-Fort Worth!

@@jamesgreen7752 You're wrong. Look at the official statistics instead of going off what you think. Atlanta by far is the larger metro area by developed, built-up area, while DFW does have a larger population because it is built a little more densely. White Settlement on the far western end of the developed area to Rockwall (which isn't exactly straight across, but I'll give it to you anyhow, is about 63 miles. Prosper to Waxahachie is also about 63 miles from north Prosper to south Waxahachie. Now for Atlanta. Gainesville to Newnan is 86 miles miles Villa Rica to Loganville is 64 miles. So, Atlanta is considerably larger north south and about the same size east west, built-up area wise.

Greater Houston is insanely sprawled, but still not as bad as Atlanta, Phoenix, DFW, Charlotte, Tampa Bay, Las Vegas, Austin, or Orlando.

austin is not even that sprawled as houston what?

The only thing that stops the Sydney sprawl are the Blue Mountains in the west and the national parks in the north and south, otherwise it would have already merged with Wollongong and Newcastle and made them into suburbs of Sydney.

Perth looks to have an urbanized span about 19 miles east west and 40 miles north south, with more in the string of cities along the coast to the south.

+Alex Smith Yes, good idea! This is actually my area of research, so I may wait to do that video until I can share something I've published. In the meantime, you could check out "Retrofitting Suburbia" by Dunham-Jones or "Retrofitting Sprawl" by Talen (ed.). I co-authored a chapter in the latter book.

City Beautiful Wow, you have grown fast! Well done!

Just because something is "desired by a certain part of the population" doesn't make it automatically okay. Smoking is desired by a certain part of the population, but it still has negative effects for smokers and society as a whole, for example.

Roberts I think that the idea here isn't to destroy suburbs and single family houses, but build neighborhoods with diversified zoning, and well planned living. Where I live for example, every new development has to include some sort of high rise for housing, small commerce, walk path, cycle, and public transport has to be easily integrated to the community. In recent years, new neighborhood don't only have better quality of live, but it has allowed to reduce criminality (since more people could afford to live in these areas), reduce traffic (because major congestion was becoming an issue), and made the city less isolated (more community feeling). Our city also included new sectors of commercial and industrial activity. With a technologic industrial park, an insurance and financial district, as well as a video game and start-up sector. CHECK IT OUT. I live in Quebec city, as city well known for its suburbs and highways. Today, unemployment is 3,8% and the city even refused Amazon to build it's new Canadian headquarters in the city, because the city feared it would bring in too many jobs in the city XD.

yeah, maybe the proper term should be transition. How does a city transition from the monolithic zoning of low-density suburbs, to a more united con-urban community. Personally, I think it comes with the transformation of actual suburbs. I mean, Paris was a shithole until Hausmann completely morphed the city into the city of lights in the late 19th century. The rebuilding of Paris wasn't a cheap project, but 150 years later we can conclude that the operation was a success. I'm pretty sure something similar could be done with other cities in North America, that could include a better urbanism, without overcrowding the areas.

Cities & Skyscrapers No, it's not. It's driving up land values, rent, and property taxes. It's making it so people can't afford to live here anymore.

Densification is necessary for the American cities. Period.

Cities & Skyscrapers Densification is making the society poorer. Public transportation is making us less free because it’s less convenient for most life’s situations and you can’t go from point A to point B. A house with a backyard with a car is the ideal way of living.

And south of San Clemente is open for a few miles before you hit Oceanside.

Cyrus992 - Only because that area between San Clemente and Oceanside is a giant Marine base.

Yes but it is of considerably high density

No other metro area in the country comes close to the sprawl of greater L.A. Over 12 million people. GIGANTIC.

I noticed every nation sort of sprawled when the car became affordable. Even Germany has its sprawl areas around Munich, or Vienna Austria has its sprawl... only in urban areas where you can't sprawl are metro.

jmitterii2 Australia is a wannabe USA

@@jmitterii2 In Britain, they actually have lots of suburbs, but the suburbs are connected to the mass transit system just like the city centers are and also typically have a walkable "village" area with a pub, coffee shop, et cetera.

Nashville is definitely very sprawled out. Take a look at the Tennessee congressional districts and compare the sizes of the ninth district with the fifth district... and Nashville is considered to be a larger city. Derp. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee%27s_congressional_districts

I live in a Nashville suburb and it’s 40 minutes from downtown, but the development never really ends so it’s really just all Nashville.

Portland is also mostly sprawl.

@@stevenmatthews2278 In reality Nashville is a tiny city surrounded by a bunch of suburbs that for some reason are counted as part of the city. Just because "the development never really ends" doesn't mean it's all city.

profd65 It pretty much is the same city and the area is growing larger every day. Murfreesboro is one of the fastest growing cities in the country and the population has doubled within a decade. If I can be in Nashville within 35 minutes it really isn’t that far removed from Music City.

Metro Atlanta is larger than Detroit. 5.7 million to 4.2 million.

@C caymer if you mean the People Mover in Detroit, it's tiny and rather useless as a main way of public transit. It was mostly designed to get you from your closest parked car to things like the auto show or a Detroit Red Wings game. But in order to get to the people mover in the first place you most likely drove. The Q-Line is a good start. But still will need massive extensions to make it properly reliable for many people as a main way of transit for people connecting all across the city.

Detroit is the center of the automobile industry. do you think they'd rather have people on the trains or have people buying cars?

@@Imperial0666 And that was the problem.

Only because it won't help you. Sim City 4's transportation flows are EXTREMELY unrealistic. The game basically assumes that your sims always commute to the closest workplace, will treat neighboring towns as workplaces, and won't favor freeways over slower roads even for long distances. I love Sim City 4, but the unreality of the simulation can be a really turn off.

Axel Axelrod yeah kind of like Seoul South Korea.

Thanks!

Ayyy.

NekoMouser Jacksonville, Florida is the largest city by square miles ... in the continental U.S.A.. However, Alaska 's Jeanue (sp) is the largest city (in the entire 50 states) ... yet has a small population size.

Although, I could be wrong; Houston and Los Angeles also feature huge metropolitan areas. 😊😎

you should checkout the DFW (Dallas Fortwort metropolitan area)

Houston Ends... Go East

@@DmitriyK12 The city government of Juneau governs that huge area, but basically only possesses it for the purpose of building roads and improving navigation. There's no actual urban development except in one tiny area. It's really more of a Port Authority than a city.

That's because we have a lot of unincorporated areas within the urbanized area, and the city boundaries of most of the suburban cities are smaller in area with a considerably larger unincorporated area surrounding it, such as is the case with the city of Marietta, but the area of Marietta is far beyond that, taking up all of East Cobb, parts of South Cobb, and Marietta. If you took the area that has a Marietta address, you're looking at around 300,000 people, perhaps even more.

leadfoot9x we wonder why obesity is rising to seriously high levels.

Allie B ahahaahaha

I go through san antonio on holidays, its a joke compared to houston

San Antonio is still relatively compact compared to Houston. It's a sprawly city and unless you're inside the Loop, Public transportation is useless There isn't many suburbs that enclose the city itself(the suburban areas are in the city limits north of Loop 410 and beyond). Driving is not bad in San Antonio at all unless you're on I-35 heading toward Austin. This is where the sprawl is rapidly growing and turning that area in a continuous suburban strip city all the way to the Austin city limits/Travis County line Houstons Metro is huge and the suburbs are expansive.

@@rippasix210 Yeah, I live in the sprawly area of SA unfortunately lol

Scotty Haines it’s not about land dimensions

Oh yeah, by any metric discussed, Jacksonville should be on the list, but maybe the Tampa Bay area as well.

Jonathan Aman Metro area as opposed to city.

Kaministquia Mahackamack Jacksonville still has one of the largest metro areas in the country if not the largest. It takes up almost 800sq miles

Anchorage is over twice the size of Jacksonville.

Thanks for taking the channel across the threshold!