The way we measure most populous cities / most dense cities is weird, and hinges on arbritary factors (take, for example, Chongqing, the “most populous city”, which is mostly rural land, in a “city” the size of Austria)
I think a good metric that captures the population / density of a city is the number of people that can be reached with half an hour’s or an hour’s worth of transportation (1/2 hour down and 1⁄2 hour back is one hour both ways, a very common commute time, though a radius of 1 hour each way still contributes to the connections available) - this does have the effect of counting a larger area for areas with better transportation, but I think that’s a good feature of such a metric.
This metric would remove any arbitrary influences caused by arbitrary boundaries, which is needed for good, meaningful comparisons. I would very much like to see a list organized by this metric.
What is often used today is “metropolitan area”. This is less arbitrary than city boundaries, but not as rigorous as your “typical 1 hour from given point”—it boils down to “people pay extra to live somewhat near that conceptual location”. I think the base ranking metric is not very useful, as well. Why do you care about “most populous” or “densest (population over area)”, regardless of definition of location?
Why do you care about “most populous” or “densest (population over area)”, regardless of definition of location?
1) Population density has an important impact on the mileau and opportunities that exist in a given location, but we can only make meaningful comparisons when metrics are standardized. 2) I’ve heard it said that in medieval times, many lords would collect a “bushel” of taxes from the peasants, where the bushel was measured in a large basket, but then when paying a “bushel” of taxes to their king, the bushel would be measured with a much smaller basket, thereby allowing the lord to keep a larger amount of grain for himself. When we don’t have consistent standards for metrics, similar failure modes can arise in (subtler) ways—hence why I find reliance on arbitrary definitions of location to have bad taste
The way we measure most populous cities / most dense cities is weird, and hinges on arbritary factors (take, for example, Chongqing, the “most populous city”, which is mostly rural land, in a “city” the size of Austria)
I think a good metric that captures the population / density of a city is the number of people that can be reached with half an hour’s or an hour’s worth of transportation (1/2 hour down and 1⁄2 hour back is one hour both ways, a very common commute time, though a radius of 1 hour each way still contributes to the connections available) - this does have the effect of counting a larger area for areas with better transportation, but I think that’s a good feature of such a metric.
This metric would remove any arbitrary influences caused by arbitrary boundaries, which is needed for good, meaningful comparisons. I would very much like to see a list organized by this metric.
(Edited: misremembered commute times. See Anthropological Invariants in Travel Behaviour)
related map of the US, with clustering of actual commutes: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/here-are-the-real-boundaries-of-american-metropolises-decided-by-an-algorithm . Note this uses longer commutes than I’d ever consider.
(edit: removed stray period at end of URL)
Huh, I’m seeing a 404 when I click the link
What is often used today is “metropolitan area”. This is less arbitrary than city boundaries, but not as rigorous as your “typical 1 hour from given point”—it boils down to “people pay extra to live somewhat near that conceptual location”. I think the base ranking metric is not very useful, as well. Why do you care about “most populous” or “densest (population over area)”, regardless of definition of location?
1) Population density has an important impact on the mileau and opportunities that exist in a given location, but we can only make meaningful comparisons when metrics are standardized. 2) I’ve heard it said that in medieval times, many lords would collect a “bushel” of taxes from the peasants, where the bushel was measured in a large basket, but then when paying a “bushel” of taxes to their king, the bushel would be measured with a much smaller basket, thereby allowing the lord to keep a larger amount of grain for himself. When we don’t have consistent standards for metrics, similar failure modes can arise in (subtler) ways—hence why I find reliance on arbitrary definitions of location to have bad taste