How ya gonna keep ’em down on the farm?…
Urban Density “Shadow”
TOKYO: Population 42,607,376 – Area 7,408 km² – Density 5,752 pp/km²
From Cotonou in Benin, with just more than 1.5 million people, to the Tokyo metropolitan region, with more than 42 million inhabitants, a total population of 1.2 billion people– 35 per cent of the world’s urban population in 2010– live in one of 129 ‘extended metropolitan regions’ across the world. LSECities has taken a closer look:
Using Google Earth satellite imagery, we captured a ‘snapshot’ of where people live and estimated ‘net densities’ by systematically tracing the built-up area of each metropolitan region – including central zones, satellite towns and the peripheral areas (a detailed methodology can be found online). The fact that 23 million people in Manila occupy a space one eighth the size of the same number of New Yorkers, or that Atlanta in the USA is 25 times larger than Hong Kong with roughly the same population, says something about the capacity and resilience of urban form as well as physical and geographical constraints…
Explore further at LSECities’ “Measuring the World’s Urban Footprint.”
[TotH to Flowing Data]
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As we hail a cab, we might recall that it was on this date in 1864 that Union General William T. Sherman ordered residents of Atlanta, Georgia, to evacuate the city. Sherman had taken Atlanta with little effort, and had promptly destroyed rail lines that might connect the city with Southern reinforcements. Preparing to march on, Sherman didn’t want to be responsible for the civilian population of the city, so decided to evict them: from September 11- 16, 446 families, about 1,600 people, left their homes and possessions and were “dropped” by Sherman’s men far south of the city, in the vicinity of the remains of the defeated army of Confederate General John Bell Hood. In November Sherman and his men, having resupplied themselves with the goods that remained in Atlanta set out on their infamous “March to the Sea,” destroying nearly everything that lay in their path.
Sherman’s men destroying rail lines in Atlanta at the time of the evacuation order
ATLANTA TODAY: Population 7,506,267 – Area 6,888 km² – Density 1,090 pp/km²