Examining America’s 10 Largest Urban Areas

.. why it matters .. among other reasons, these 10 areas have 24% of the total U.S. population. Three have increased by more than 20% in the past 5 years.

More than 80-percent of America’s population is urban, but far more than 80-percent of America’s geography is rural. Census 2010 shows that America’s urban population increased by 12.1 percent from 2000 to 2010, compared to the national overall growth rate of 9.7 percent. Urban areas now account for 80.7 percent of the U.S. population, compared to 79.0 percent in 2000.

America’s 10 Largest Urbanized Areas
The following table shows the largest 10 Urbanized Areas (UAs) based on the American Community Survey 2011 and 2016 1-year estimates (ACS2016) and change over the period. UAs are sorted in descending order based on the 2016 population estimate. Note that Atlanta, Dallas and Houston moved up in rank.

Geodemographic relationships vary widely between the urbanized areas (UAs). Some, such as Miami, comprise most or all of the urban area within the corresponding metropolitan statistical area. Others, such as Philadelphia, are nested within a mix of adjacent urban areas interspersed with rural areas. Among other things, these different geodemographic structures reflect how planning, needs assessment and market development vary widely from associated metro-to-metro. These data show the importance and need to consider the urban/rural population distribution even in the largest metros.

Visual Analysis — Dallas Urbanized Area
The urbanized area (UA) of the corresponding metropolitan statistical area (MSA) generally occupies less than half of the MSA.
See the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX MSA Situation and Outlook Report

… View developed using CV XE GIS.

Map Views for Each of the Largest 10 Urbanized Areas
Maps for each of the 10 largest UAs are shown at
http://proximityone.com/urbanareas_2016.htm.

Each graphic shows the designated urbanized area in a darker salmon color fill pattern, associated metropolitan statistical area with bold brown boundary, and other urban areas with a lighter shade of salmon fill color, counties black boundaries and yellow labels. The ACS 2016 UA population is shown as a white label under the UA name. The ACS 2016 estimates are the most recent data available and will update with 2017 estimates in late 2018.

More About Analyzing Urban/Rural Patterns and Characteristics
See the related section on America’s urban/rural population and geography:
http://proximityone.com/urbanpopulation.htm.

Join me in a Data Analytics Lab session to discuss more details about accessing and using wide-ranging demographic-economic data and data analytics. Learn more about using these data for areas and applications of interest.

About the Author
— Warren Glimpse is former senior Census Bureau statistician responsible for innovative data access and use operations. He is also the former associate director of the U.S. Office of Federal Statistical Policy and Standards for data access and use. He has more than 20 years of experience in the private sector developing data resources and tools for integration and analysis of geographic, demographic, economic and business data. Contact Warren. Join Warren on L

Creating Custom Demographic Datasets with API Tools

.. develop national scale spreadsheet files with virtually no learning time .. easy-to-use API operations to create national scope demographic-economic datasets based on American Community Survey 2016 1-year estimates .. custom subject matter selections. See more detail in related web sections ACS2016 and ACS2016_API.

Benefits and utility … how to acquire a spreadsheet showing the population of all cities with population estimates based on the ACS 2016 1-year data? … or, housing units, median household income, median housing value, etc.? Variations of this need frequently arise — what is the list of largest California counties sorted on total population: What are the 25 metros having the highest median household income? Which 10 congressional districts have the highest poverty incidence? Which urban areas have the highest educational attainment?

Use simple API calls described below to get answers to these types of questions — and more.  Create files that can be used for recurring applications. An example …

Urban Areas with 2016 Population 65,000+ Population
… results from using the API downloaded data … the following graphic shows urban areas with 65,000 or more 2016 population; zoom-in to Texas. The full national scope GIS project is available as described below; examine U.S. or any region. The file used to develop this view was created using the results of the API call reviewed below (requires integration of those data into the urban areas shapefile). Click graphic for larger view; expand browser window. Larger view shows urban areas labeled with name and mini profile for Dallas UA showing all subject matter items downloaded (via API) as described below.

… View developed using CV XE GIS.
… See more about Urban Population & Urban Areas.

Access ACS 2016 1-Year Data Using API Tools
Here are the API links … use these API calls to access/download selected items for selected geographies. See more about using API tools. Click a link and receive a return page with CSV-like structured data. See usage notes below. As these are ACS 2016 1 year estimates; geographies are only available for areas 65,000+ population.
Click a link:
• All U.S. cities/places
• All U.S. counties
• All U.S. CBSAs
• All U.S. Urban Areas
• All 115th Congressional Districts
• All U.S. states
• U.S. only

The following data retrieval operations are by state. These are examples using Arizona (FIPS state code 04).
• All [within state] Elementary School Districts
• All [within state] Secondary School Districts
• All [within state] Unified School Districts

API Call Returned Data Usage Notes
Clicking the All U.S. cities/places link above generates a new page with content very much like a CSV file. Try it .. click an above link.

See the related ACS2016_API web section for more details.

Items Retrieved in the API Calls
The sample header record above shows the subject matter item listed at the left in the following set of items. Modify API call and use other subject matter items. See full array of subject matter – xlsx file.
.. B01003_001E – Total population
Age
.. B01001_011E — Male: 25 to 29 years (illustrating age cohort access)
.. B01001_035E — Female: 25 to 29 years (illustrating age cohort access)
Race/Origin
.. B02001_002E – White alone
.. B02001_003E – Black or African American alone
.. B02001_004E – American Indian and Alaska Native alone
.. B02001_005E – Asian alone
.. B02001_006E – Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone
.. B02001_007E – Some other race alone
.. B02001_008E – Two or more races
.. B03001_003E – Hispanic (of any race)
Income
.. B19013_001E – Median household income ($)
.. B19113_001E – Median family income ($)
Housing & Households
.. B25001_001E – Total housing units
.. B25002_002E – Occupied housing units (households)
.. B19001_017E — Households with household income $200,000 or more
.. B25003_002E — Owner Occupied housing units
.. B25075_025E — Housing units value $1,000,000 to $1,499,999
.. B25075_026E — Housing units with value $1,500,000 to $1,999,999
.. B25075_027E — Housing units with value $2,000,000 or more
.. B25002_003E – Vacant housing units
.. B25077_001E – Median housing value ($) – owner occupied units
.. B25064_001E – Median gross rent ($) – renter occupied units

The rightmost fields/columns in the rows/records contain the area name and geographic codes.

Using API Tools for Data Analytics
Join me in a Data Analytics Lab session to discuss more details about accessing and using wide-ranging demographic-economic data and data analytics. Learn more about using these data for areas and applications of interest.

About the Author
— Warren Glimpse is former senior Census Bureau statistician responsible for innovative data access and use operations. He is also the former associate director of the U.S. Office of Federal Statistical Policy and Standards for data access and use. He has more than 20 years of experience in the private sector developing data resources and tools for integration and analysis of geographic, demographic, economic and business data. Contact Warren. Join Warren on L