> Statistics junkies like me might want to check out this series of web pages on major U.S. cities. The first page is a listing of the 50 most populous U.S. cities, and if you keep following the chain of "next" buttons at the bottom, you'll be taken to still more interesting numbers.
>

I love charts like this too. My degree is in Geography, (with a specialty in urban geography) and when geographers look at population centers, census "Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas" (SMSA) are used, which, basically, = city + suburbs, (i.e., an economically interdependent area which may even cross county or state lines). [I'm not in that field any longer, perhaps they have changed the name to "Census Designated Place" (CDP)now as per the Honolulu note.] I would assume they are using SMSAs/CDPs here (as opposed to population inside city limits) although they don't specifically state that..(the notes about "remainders" gives a clue, though).

On a side note, I read a very good science fiction short story once that revolved around SMSAs. The census bureau couldn't figure out a statistically improbable jump in the population of one particular SMSA. Investigators are sent out to find if something went wrong with the process of census taking, or if there was actually a legitimate heretofore unknown reason for the spiking stats...

>
> I don't understand how people can stand to live in cities. If I had free reign to live anywhere, without any constraints at all, I'd find some area that's an hour away from a big city, so it's accessible, yet out in the country where there are sparse 3000-8000 people towns nestled in little valleys. That's more or less the way it was when I lived in Virginia, an hour west of Washington, DC. Where I live now is pretty close to that ideal: 10-12K people towns an hour north of Boston. When you live in an area where rush hour stops traffic dead twice a day, or where you can turn a wrong corner and not have reasonable odds of getting out alive, or where you smell exhaust instead of freshly cut grass, something's just not right.
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Well, I'm on the Eva Gabor side of the Green Acres issue. Not that I want a penthouse, but I *like* lots of people around me. I like the variety of ethnic cultures, the acccessibility of goods and services, I even like being able to be "anonymous" at times, which isn't so easy in a small town.
I even like the traffic. I have between 40 and 70 minutes "breathing space" between work and home (depending on time & day) which gives me time to
change gears* from being "Senior Customer Service Specialist" to "Mom"**

A lot of it, too, is what you're used to. I spent five harrowing hours once driving along bucolic (oh please) country roads. Give me the 405 at rush hour any day, where at least you have several lanes of traffic *and* a crash fence as a cushion between you and any million ton logging truck that happens to be flying past in the opposite direction.

> Nonetheless, cities are great places to visit, and so long as the view from the back yard is of snow-crested mountains, then occasionally gazing out at a neverending expanse of buildings and skyscrapers is an awe-inspiring sight.

Add orange trees and you've described Los Angeles.

koala"darling, I love you, but give me Park Avenue"mom

*both literally *and* figuratively, heh
**esentially the same job, just younger clientele in one case