Giantaxe

Greater London isn't too interesting in judging overall sprawl growth, though, given that it was built up well before 1970. That's why I was looking for figures on a 40 mile radius, so as to compare with the population growth of the Bay Area in general. Just like in the Bay Area, the bulk of the growth will have come on the periphery, in places such as Crawley, Ebbsfleet, High Wycombe etc. In fact, a forty mile radius takes you out as far as Reading to the west and the southern fringes of MK to the north.

malch

Yes, I understand the point. I couldn't find much data. Tried looking for the number of people inside the M25, the surrounding counties etc.

Best I found was Figure 2 on this page:

The Evolving Urban Form: London | Newgeography.com

Inner exurban ring population grew from ~5.9m in 1970 to ~7.3 currently, or about 24%.

That compares with 67% for the Bay Area (using the numbers you provided earlier).

So I reckon it supports my assertion that Bay Area population growth is not typical of other population centers

Giantaxe

You mean not typical _of London_. Less than I expected, although I'm not sure it actually encompasses the same size of geographical area.

Here's some stats on US MSAs historically. Looks like some have grown a lot more percentage-wise than San Francisco since 1970:- LA, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Phoenix, Denver, Seattle, Miami, and Tampa have all increased a lot more than SF. In US terms, at least, SF's population increase isn't an outlier.

Detroit has been stayed constant so maybe that's the place for you??

Historical Metropolitan Populations of the United States - Peakbagger.com

malch

Interesting data. Especially the growth in Phoenix. It seems AZ is better able to handle the growth, especially the infrastructure upgrades. Their water, power, transportation infrastructure appear to be in pretty darn good shape.

The Bay Area has benefited from a profoundly massive growth in the tax base with the tech companies, astronomic increases in house prices, and huge numbers of highly paid tech workers. Yet the corresponding infrastructure is in a horrible condition.

Giantaxe

Well, apart from the fact that their water is primarily (i) pumped through a canal from the Colorado River using power generated by a coal-fired power station on the Navajo Reservation that is the second (?) biggest emitter of CO2 in the US, and (ii) groundwater that is being rapidly depleted. It's an ecological mess. But Phoenix certainly doesn't have the challenges geographically the Bay Area does - like an ocean on one side and a bay with a limited number of bridges over it.

I wouldn't say it's "horrible", at least not by US standards, but I certainly agree that it's completely inadequate for the population.

Steerpike

I was going to make a comment about how the population growth in the US is much greater than in the UK, but did a bit of research and saw this:
https://www.google.com/publicdata/ex...RA&hl=en&dl=en
So the population growth in the UK is actually greater than in the US, for the first time in at least 50 years; perhaps 'ever'?

I 'expect' the population to grow in the US, and I think by and large, it's set up for it - lots of open space still to develop (relatively speaking) but where do all those new people go in the UK? From talking to my brother, as well as from my own occasional visits, I find the UK terribly overcrowded - constant gridlock everywhere, never anywhere to park, etc. It must be getting much worse, faster than it is here!

Steerpike

AZ (Phoenix Metro) is 'lucky' in that it is a largely flat area with not many natural constraints (mountains, rivers, etc) so you can just keep on developing new tracts. This is especially so on the western side, which is where I believe most of the growth has been of late. And with everything being so spread out/low density, it's relatively easy to upgrade existing freeways and interchanges. In the past few years, they just added a lane in each direction to 'the 101' south of Shea; you wouldn't even notice it if you casually looked now. But the Bay Area's '101' is a nightmare of congestion, and you have no real options to add lanes - there just isn't any room left unless you start knocking down buildings, and quite the opposite is going on - they are shoe-horning buildings into freeway on-ramp gaps and other seemingly unusable spaces.

The Bay Area has mountains, the ocean, and the Bay to contend with, making everything harder.

But you are right - they ought to have massive funds from local taxes. I guess one issue is, everything is so crowded that making the improvements becomes problematic in itself. The recent project to replace the Bay Bridge was a rare exception - they managed to build an entirely new bridge alongside the existing one, thus minimizing impact. But how long did that project take?! the bridge was damaged in the '89 quake, and it wasn't till 2013 that the new one was operational. I know there were big fights over the appearance of the bridge - Oakland wanted a better looking structure - but what the f** made it take so long? Construction didn't begin till 2002 - 13 years after the earthquake. The delay in getting that bridge built is somewhat indicative of the way everything seems to go in the Bay Area (this article provides a bit of interesting background - New Bay Bridge Opening Completes Decades-Long Dream « CBS San Francisco )

malch

The speed with which they repaired the old Bay Bridge following the Loma Prieta earthquake was seriously impressive.

The construction of the new bridge, not so much. It ended up costing around 8 times the initial estimates. And quite a few serious defects were found during and after construction. I'm not convinced they're all resolved yet either.

Giantaxe

I'm not convinced either Otoh, it's a pretty impressive engineering feat, especially as it had to be built in conjunction with preserving the existing roadway to the Yerba Buena tunnel until the new bridge opened. I cycled from Oakland to Yerba Buena Island a few weeks ago (you can walk it too) and it's well worth it.

Steerpike

I hope the OP is enjoying the much cooler temperatures in the Bay Area this past week or so! It's been positively chilly in the evenings. This is more typical.