Monday, June 7, 2010

Some True Nerd Shit

So this is some true nerd number running right here and this post comes as a companion to my last post.

After a recent trip to Austin and some research I did upon my return it occurred to me that most large American cities are much bigger land wise than the large cities we have here in the Northeast. Due to this people who have spent most of their lives living in the Northeast may have a distorted view of what makes a large city. I contend that because of the city and town system of New England, even though the towns surrounding a large city are autonomous, independent and have their own municipal governments the group of towns and cities themselves are what dictate the culture of the metropolitan area that gives the core city it's reputation. So I present to you the stats for Worcester, Boston, Providence, Lowell, Hartford, and Springfield. 1st column is the population, second column is the land area in sq miles, third column is the density people per square mile. On the bottom you will find the totals. Since Austin was the inspiration for this I tried to get as close to 300 sq miles as I could. This is by no means scientific but I do think it illustrates my point, which is to stop thinking of Worcester as the second biggest city and trying to get it to live up to all the expectations that entails.

So to start off with Worcester:

Worcester 182,596 37.60 4,678.10
Shrewsbury 31,640 20.70 1,526.30
Westborough 17,997 20.50 876.90
Auburn 16,259 15.40 1,035.30
Holden 15,621 35.00 446.40
Grafton 14,894 22.70 655.00
Northborough 14,013 18.50 756.10
Clinton 13,435 5.70 2,355.70
Oxford 13,352 26.60 501.50
Northbridge 13,182 17.20 767.20
Millbury 12,784 15.70 812.50
Spencer 11,691 32.90 355.90
Charlton 11,263 42.50 264.80
Leicester 10,471 23.40 448.30
West Boylston 7,481 12.90 580.00
Paxton 4,386 14.70 297.70
Boylston 4,008 16.00 250.00

372,547 293.00 1,271.49


Boston:

Boston 620,535 48.43 12,813.00
Cambridge 105,594 6.43 15,767.96
Quincy 92,339 16.80 5,496.40
Lynn 87,122 10.80 8,066.90
Newton 83,271 18.10 4,600.60
Somerville 74,405 4.10 18,147.60
Waltham 59,758 12.70 4,705.40
Malden 55,712 5.10 10,923.90
Medford 55,565 8.10 6,859.90
Revere 55,341 5.90 9,379.80
Weymouth 53,272 17.00 3,133.60
Arlington 41,144 5.20 7,912.30
Chelsea 38,203 2.20 17,365.00
Everett 37,269 3.40 10,961.50
Braintree 34,422 13.90 2,476.40
Watertown 32,521 4.10 7,932.00
Randolph 30,168 10.10 2,987.00
Needham 28,263 12.60 2,243.10
Melrose 26,708 4.70 5,698.30
Wellesley 26,613 10.18 2,614.10
Saugus 26,078 11.00 2,373.70
Milton 25,961 13.00 1,976.00
Dedham 24,132 10.50 2,298.30
Belmont 23,356 4.70 4,969.40
Canton 21,916 18.90 1,159.60
Winthrop 20,154 2.00 10,077.00
Hull 11,050 3.00 3,648.90
Nahant 3,632 1.20 2,918.70

1,794,504 284.14 6,315.56

Providence:

Providence 171,557 18.50 9,473.00
Warwick 85,808 35.50 2,457.00
Cranston 79,269 28.60 2,774.70
Pawtucket 71,765 8.70 8,437.00
East Providence 49,515 13.40 3,692.00
North Providence 32,411 5.70 5,720.20
West Warwick 29,581 7.90 3,728.70
Johnston 28,195 23.70 1,191.40
Lincoln 20,898 18.20 1,146.60
Smithfield 20,613 26.60 775.30
Central Falls 18,683 1.20 18,683.00
Barrington 16,812 8.40 1,997.90
Scituate 10,324 48.70 212.10

635,431 245.10 2,592.54

Hartford:

Hartford 124,512 17.30 7,025.50
New Britain 71,254 13.30 5,358.70
West Hartford 61,173 22.00 2,781.00
Manchester 55,572 27.30 2,036.00
East Hartford 49,173 18.00 2,732.00
Newington 29,676 13.20 2,248.00
Vernon 29,491 17.70 1,666.00
Windsor 28,778 29.60 972.00
Wethersfield 26,220 12.40 2,115.00
South Windsor 25,985 28.00 928.00
Farmington 24,941 28.10 888.00
Bloomfield 20,581 26.00 792.00
Berlin 19,590 26.50 739.00
Rocky Hill 18,760 13.50 1,390.00
Windsor Locks 12,411 9.00 1,379.00

573,176 273.90 2,092.65

Springfield:

Springfield 150,640 32.10 4,692.80
Chicopee 54,563 22.90 2,389.70
Westfield 40,072 46.60 860.30
Holyoke 39,958 21.30 1,871.40
Agawam 28,144 23.20 1,210.90
West Springfield 27,899 16.80 1,665.70
Ludlow 21,209 27.20 752.10
South Hadley 17,196 17.70 971.00
Longmeadow 15,633 9.00 1,732.50
East Longmeadow 14,100 13.00 1,087.10
Wilbraham 13,473 22.20 606.30
Belchertown 12,968 52.70 245.90
Palmer 12,497 31.50 396.30
Southwick 8,835 31.00 285.40
Hampden 5,171 19.60 263.30

436,422 281.40 1,550.90

Lowell:

Lowell 103,512 13.80 7,500.90
Methuen 43,979 22.40 1,963.30
Billerica 42,038 25.90 1,623.00
Chelmsford 34,128 22.70 1,503.40
Andover 31,247 31.00 1,007.80
Tewksbury 29,607 20.70 1,430.30
Dracut 29,498 20.90 1,411.40
Burlington 25,034 11.80 2,121.50
Westford 22,066 30.60 712.10
Wilmington 21,679 17.10 1,267.80
Bedford 13,146 13.70 959.60
Tyngsborough 11,860 16.90 701.80
Groton 10,641 32.80 324.40

418,435 280.30 1,492.81

So there it is. Again, I wrote my last entry on the fly without looking back at these numbers so the numbers I quoted were exagerated, however, these numbers here, all taken from 2000 census numbers do illustrate my point. If all cities in New England were southern city size, Worcester would be number 6 of the bunch (maybe further down as I haven't run the numbers for New Haven or Bridgeport, which by the rules I set would probably just be one gigantic city).

The city (government and it's citizens) need to stop referring to the city as the second largest in New England because it simply is not and it leads to expectations that simply cannot and will not be met.

They're just not that into you Worcester

I am slowly starting to realize that this right here is Worcester's biggest obstacle to becoming a true city with a non poor urban core. The majority of people who grow up in Central Mass and stay here are not people who enjoy a dense urban lifestyle. People who do enjoy city living and want to stay in the area almost always end up moving to Boston, Providence or NYC. So what you have left is a very small minority of folks who truly love the city and are living in the urban neighborhoods and trying to make things better. Than you have folks moving to "the second largest city in New England" (a title true in population only and false in every other way imaginable) expecting all that title would entail and being hugely disappointed. What you have here is a bunch of people trying to run a city who haven't the faintest clue about what true city living is being voted in by a population who could care less about true city living.

Worcester for most of it's history prior to the industrial revolution was a small town. In the span of about 40 very quick years it became a city on the cusp of being a great American city. I-290, the GI bill, and white flight halted this practice in it's tracks in the 50's and 60's and the entire city has been an exercise in futility ever since. The title of second largest city in New England plus the skyscrapers and other big city infrastructure has fooled Central Mass into having faith that this city should be something it isn't and fooled New England and the rest of the outside world to expect this city to be something it just doesn't have the capacity of becoming.

Add in the fact that the metropolitan area is absolutely tiny. Worcester has far less people coming into the city on a daily basis to use it's services and amenities than Boston, Providence, Hartford, New Haven, Springfield, and Albany, and even Lowell. We like to compare ourselves to Providence but people can't seem to grasp the idea that a Northeastern cities density and metropolitan area are what make it feel like a large city not it's population.

If Boston was laid out like a southern city of over 150 square miles it would be an absolute megalopolis. Providence and Hartford would be very large cities of over a million people. Worcester would still only be about 300,000 people. Think about that next time you are comparing and thinking about what you think Worcester should be versus what it is.