Boy, population densities can be so misleading. The typical approach is to just take the number of people and divide it by a given area. This then gives you something like X number of "people per square kilometer." The problem with this approach is that there are countless factors that can skew your result.
Boy, population densities can be so misleading. The typical approach is to just take the number of people and divide it by a given area. This then gives you something like X number of "people per square kilometer." The problem with this approach is that there are countless factors that can skew your result.
Hong Kong, for instance, is really dense. But as a city, it also has a lot of green space, mountains, and other undeveloped areas. Only about a quarter of Hong Kong's land is developed. So when you divide total people by its administrative boundary area, it is going to appear less dense than it really is.
One alternative approach is to use a method known as population-weighted density. The way this works is that you take the average densities of smaller more granular subareas and then weight them by the population of each subarea. It is a little more complicated to calculate, but the overall intent is to try and capture a density figure that more accurately reflects what the average person experiences on the ground.
And this is exactly the method that Jonathan Nolan decided to use in his new website CityDensity.com. What his site allows you to do is compare population-weighted densities across various cities, and then see how it tapers off as you move outward from their city centers.
Once again, it is hard to beat Paris' supremely dense mid-rise built form:
Well, that is, until you check out Hong Kong:
Charts: CityDensity.com
The folks over at City Observatory have recently developed something called The Storefront Index.
It is a mapping of “clustered” consumer-facing storefront businesses across the 51 largest cities in the United States and within a 3-mile radius of their CBD. (Their definition of cluster is that the business is located within 100m of another business.)
At the top of this list is New York (no surprise here) with 9,905 storefronts and at the bottom of this list is Detroit (probably no surprise here either) with 411 storefronts. On average, they found that the “typical” city has about 900 storefronts within this 3-mile radius.
Here’s a screenshot of New York:
Hong Kong, for instance, is really dense. But as a city, it also has a lot of green space, mountains, and other undeveloped areas. Only about a quarter of Hong Kong's land is developed. So when you divide total people by its administrative boundary area, it is going to appear less dense than it really is.
One alternative approach is to use a method known as population-weighted density. The way this works is that you take the average densities of smaller more granular subareas and then weight them by the population of each subarea. It is a little more complicated to calculate, but the overall intent is to try and capture a density figure that more accurately reflects what the average person experiences on the ground.
And this is exactly the method that Jonathan Nolan decided to use in his new website CityDensity.com. What his site allows you to do is compare population-weighted densities across various cities, and then see how it tapers off as you move outward from their city centers.
Once again, it is hard to beat Paris' supremely dense mid-rise built form:
Well, that is, until you check out Hong Kong:
Charts: CityDensity.com
The folks over at City Observatory have recently developed something called The Storefront Index.
It is a mapping of “clustered” consumer-facing storefront businesses across the 51 largest cities in the United States and within a 3-mile radius of their CBD. (Their definition of cluster is that the business is located within 100m of another business.)
At the top of this list is New York (no surprise here) with 9,905 storefronts and at the bottom of this list is Detroit (probably no surprise here either) with 411 storefronts. On average, they found that the “typical” city has about 900 storefronts within this 3-mile radius.
Here’s a screenshot of New York:
And here’s a screenshot of Detroit:
They should be at the same scale.
If you’d like to read their Storefront Index Report, you can do that here. And if you’d like to explore their interactive maps, you can do that here. City Observatory has made all of this available as a free tool for city builders – which is really great to see. (You can even download their shapefiles if you’re into that sort of thing.)
And here’s a screenshot of Detroit:
They should be at the same scale.
If you’d like to read their Storefront Index Report, you can do that here. And if you’d like to explore their interactive maps, you can do that here. City Observatory has made all of this available as a free tool for city builders – which is really great to see. (You can even download their shapefiles if you’re into that sort of thing.)
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