DenverUrbanism Blog

Last week’s post about Colorado’s densest neighborhoods showed where density is clustered in Denver and other Front Range cities. Now let’s look at the densest spots in the core areas of other large cities around the US.

This post shows the census tract density of the central county (only) in each of America’s 20 largest Urban areas, in both 2000 and 2010. The list is in order of size, so New York is first, LA second, and Denver 18th.

Note that the scale on these maps is different than on the Colorado ones from last week, since the scale of density in cities nationwide is more broad than just within Colorado. All the maps in this thread do show the same scale compared to each other.

1. New York: America’s biggest city breaks the scale. While others on this list might have a few neighborhoods in the top density category, which on these maps is 40,000 ppsm and higher, New York is covered end to end. It’s one of only 4 cities with any tracts above 100,000 ppsm. Its peak is 200,000 ppsm.
2000	2010
2. Los Angeles: Despite its reputation for sprawl, LA compares favorably to the densest cities after New York. Its peak density of 94,000 ppsm is 4 times denser than Denver’s peak of 23,000 ppsm.
2000	2010
3. Chicago: Home to probably the single-densest census tract in America, a 508,000 ppsm anomaly that’s just a single high rise, and is so small it’s not visible at normal scale. Besides that tract, Chicago tops around at about the same level as LA.
2000	2010
4. Miami: Thanks to more narrowly-drawn census tracts along its high-rise coast, Miami’s peak density shot up from 38,000 ppsm in 2000 to 77,000 ppsm in 2010, but the actual change wasn’t as significant on the ground.
2000	2010
5. Philadelphia: Philadelphia’s peak rose from 54,000 ppsm in 2000 to 64,000 in 2010.
2000	2010
6. Dallas: Despite a lot of regional growth, Dallas’ density dropped significantly. It has fewer dense tracts in 2010 than in 2000, and its peak is down to 44,000 ppsm from 57,000 ppsm.
2000	2010
7. Houston: Unlike Dallas, Houston appears to be densifying. Oddly, its densest area, with 55,000 ppsm, is not the core.
2000	2010
8. Washington (with Arlington & Alexandria): Washington’s peak density increased from 57,000 ppsm to 66,000 ppsm. Note that this map includes 2 jurisdictions in addition to the central county, unlike all others on this list.
2000	2010
9. Atlanta: Not only is Atlanta shockingly sparse, its densest tract fell from 41,000 ppsm in 2000 to just 21,000 ppsm in 2010. The explanation? A downtown public housing complex was demolished, erasing the population of the densest 2000 tract.
2000	2010
10. Boston: One of only 4 cities with a tract above 100,000, Boston has a single tract that reaches 110,000 ppsm.
2000	2010
11. Detroit: Detroit’s peak density of 18,000 ppsm is about the same as in 2000, but the number of mid-density tracts above 10,000 ppsm declined significantly as the city continued to empty.
2000	2010
12. Phoenix: Phoenix tops out at 23,000 ppsm, the same as central Denver. But unlike Denver, Phoenix is strongly de-centralized. It has no visible downtown core, and its 23,000 ppsm tract is in the suburbs.
2000	2010
13. San Francisco: San Francisco has more tracts above 100,000 ppsm than any city except New York. It tops out at 161,000 ppsm.
2000	2010
14. Seattle: With a peak of 51,000 ppsm and a small but significant core, Seattle is smaller than the other big coastal cities on this list, but still strongly centralized and quite dense.
2000	2010
15. San Diego: While downtown San Diego densified compared to 2000, and its 50,000 ppsm peak is higher, some of its other denser neighborhoods are sparser in 2010. The densest area is Mission Valley instead of the core.
2000	2010
16. Minneapolis: Of all the cities on this list, Minneapolis looks the most similar to Denver. Its distinct core of moderate density neighborhoods topped out at 25,000 ppsm in both 2000 and 2010.
2000	2010
17. Tampa: By far the sparsest city on this list, Tampa’s peak of 13,000 ppsm means it has no tracts in the 3rd or 4th categories, and precious few crack even into the 2nd. Boulder and Aurora are denser, Lakewood is about the same.
2000	2010
18. Denver: Denver is like a hybrid of sparse sunbelt cities and dense coastal ones. Like coastal cities, Denver has a noticeable core of dense neighborhoods near downtown. But like the sunbelt ones, Denver’s densest spot is in a suburban area, a 31,000 ppsm tract in Glendale. Denver’s urban peak of 23,000 ppsm is slightly lower than it was in 2000, when Capitol Hill was 26,000 ppsm. The drop is most likely due to demographic changes, as more singles but fewer families live in the same places. Densities increased in downtown and LoDo, but not yet enough to be visible at this scale.
2000	2010
19. Baltimore: Baltimore’s lone tract in the densest category is an impressive 86,000 ppsm, but that tract is down from a whopping 176,000 ppsm in 2000. Why such variation, and why 1 tract so much denser than all the others? That one extreme tract is a prison.
2000	2010
20. Saint Louis: Saint Louis’ losses have been less drastic than Detroit’s, but they still hurt. Its peak is down to a Tampa-like 13,000 ppsm, from 15,000 ppsm in 2000.
2000	2010

Want to see more? You can make maps like these for any county in the United States, using census.gov. Here are instructions.

Density is a good thing for urbanism. More density means more shops and amenities nearby, better transit service, and shorter walks. When communities are built around transit, walking, and biking instead of automobiles, more density actually makes them function better, not worse.

But what qualifies as dense? Overall city density figures are often reported, but they can be skewed by weird geographic features such as bodies of water, mountains, or giant airports inside the city limits. And even if they’re not skewed, every city has lots of variation between its neighborhoods.

A more telling statistic is the density of individual neighborhoods. Luckily, the US Census Bureau publishes density statistics for “census tracts,” which are neighborhood-sized geographic units.

Using census.gov, it’s possible to generate maps illustrating the density of census tracts in any county in the United States. This post will explore some of Colorado’s most populated areas. If you want to make more maps of your own, here are instructions explaining how to do so.

Denver:
Residential density in Denver is centered in Capitol Hill, which contains Denver’s 3 densest census tracts. The densest one has over 23,000 people per square mile (ppsm). While that beats every other central city in Colorado, Arapahoe County has one tract that’s denser.

Arapahoe County:
Who’d have thought Colorado’s densest place wouldn’t be central Denver, but southern Glendale? At a little over 31,000 ppsm, the section of Glendale south of Cherry Creek and east of Cherry Street tops the state.

Adams County:
With 2 tracts in the 15,000 ppsm range along Colfax in Aurora, Adams’ peak is half that of Arapahoe, but still high.

Jefferson County:
Belmar is beginning to look like a true downtown. At 13,000 ppsm it’s JeffCo’s densest tract.

Boulder – Boulder County:
Although it can’t match Denver’s density, Boulder’s 3 tracts above 10,000 ppsm and peak above 15,000 ppsm is very respectable. It’s about the same as Colfax Avenue in old Aurora.

Colorado Springs – El Paso County:
With a peak density of just 9,000 ppsm, the Springs doesn’t have any neighborhoods that even come close to approaching Boulder, much less Denver. Oddly, the core urban neighborhoods don’t appear to be any denser than the outer suburban ones.

Fort Collins – Larimer County:
Fort Collins has one neighborhood that just barely squeaks above 10,000 ppsm.

Pueblo – Pueblo County:
Like the Springs, Pueblo’s core neighborhoods are about the same density as its outer ones; in fact, the densest tract is the one at the very north end of the city, with just under 8,000 ppsm.

In a future post, we’ll look at the neighborhood density of large cities around the country, including New York and Los Angeles.

Today we’ll take a look at the 2010 Census results for Colorado’s 64 counties.

At the time of the previous census in 2000, Broomfield wasn’t a consolidated City-County yet. It was created in 2001 from portions of Boulder, Adams, Jefferson, and Weld counties. Consequently, its 55,889 population in 2010 resulted in a combined decrease in those four counties’ population of the same amount.

All 64 counties in descending order:

El Paso County passed up Denver as the most populous county in the state. For the past several years, population estimates have placed the two counties neck-and-neck with each other, with El Paso now taking a firm lead. El Paso County covers 2,130 square miles compared to Denver’s 155 square miles, so it was inevitable that El Paso would someday grow larger than Denver.

Seventeen of the state’s 64 counties—27%—lost population during the decade. Most of these counties are located on the Eastern Plains and in south-central Colorado. That one-quarter of our counties lost population is remarkably consistent with the recent Associated Press article that 1 in 4 counties in the United States are “dying”.

Here are two additional tables, showing the Top 10 counties in numeric change and in percentage change during the decade:

Douglas County took the top spot on both charts, experiencing both the highest percentage gain (Weld County was a distant second) and numeric gain (just squeaking past El Paso) for the decade. Douglas County’s growth has been phenomenal over the past few decades. In 1970, Douglas County’s population was 8,407 and in 1990 is was 60,391.

For an interactive map of 2010 Census, go here at the Census Bureau website.