Population density 6000 people per square mile!

[230RN]

So, as I was fiddly fartin' mapwise in the area, I decided to look up the town of Mountain View.  I drive by it and through it a lot.  It's real small, only 12 square blocks according to Wiki.  When I was quitting smoking I was half-serious about approaching its PD about voluntarily being arrested for a week or ten days to keep me off tobacco for that time.  I'd pay all costs. (I finally quit cold turkey.)

But in digging around for my own amusement I discovered the amazing fact that its population density was 6000 people per square mile!  Yep.  541 folks divided by 0.09 square miles.

Dayam.  I figure that must be some kind of record.  Denver is 4700 people per square mile.

Terry, 230RN

[griz]

Here's a chart of the population densest by country:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_population_density

The highest seem to be because of the small size of the country.  Makes me wonder about bigger places, like maybe LA, that would have wildly varying densities depending on where you were in the city.

[WLJ]

Try 3,250,000/sq mi for size

Place was like something out of a Sci Fi movie

Kowloon Walled City
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowloon_Walled_City

The city also underwent massive construction during the 1960s, with developers building new modular structures above older ones. The city became extremely densely populated and "a world unto its own", an enclave,[15] with over 33,000 people[16] in 300 buildings occupying little more than 7 acres (2.8 ha)

A thorough government survey in 1987 gave a clearer picture: an estimated 33,000 people resided within the walled city. Based on this survey, the walled city had a population density of approximately 1,255,000 inhabitants per square kilometre (3,250,000/sq mi) in 1987,[22] making it the most densely populated spot in the world.[58]
 

[zahc]

Population density numbers are problematic to generate or think about, especially if they are averaged over large areas. Even city population numbers are almost noise, because it all depends where you draw the borders. For some reason Tokyo often pops up as the biggest city, but you could just as easily say Los Angeles is the biggest city. It's sort of like the coastline problem.

At the block level, typical residential densities in cities are 100-300 per acre. With few exceptions, less than 100/acre is considered blight for a city, and unsustainable. That's 64,000-200,000 per square mile. In NYC, 100,000 isn't even considered a district... just a neighborhood.

There are a few buildings in Alaska that are basically an entire town in one giant building. I always thought that was pretty interesting.

[French G.]

5.35/Sq mile in my county.  I am smothered though, couple hundred in the square mile I live in.

[BobR]

I live in the 3rd largest county in the contiguous US, Nye County Nevada. We have a land area of  18,199 square miles. The town I am in has an area of 297.9 square miles. The population of the entire county is about 55k these days, with about 42k of that in the town I live in. We are still building and plenty of people moving in from Las Vegas (.75-1 hour commute) because they can still afford a house here and there may be a little less crime and stress.

In 2020 they called it 2.8 people per square mile for the county while the town here is 136 per square mile. If you want to get lost just move here and settle somewhere outside of Pahrump and you can live your solitary life quite easily.

bob

[Ben]

Population density numbers are problematic to generate or think about, especially if they are averaged over large areas.

There are a few buildings in Alaska that are basically an entire town in one giant building. I always thought that was pretty interesting.

Yeah. Out of curiosity I looked at my county, which is running 394/sq mile, which I would almost consider a misprint, except that easily 80-90% of the population is concentrated in the extreme East, in what would be considered the Boise Metro (Ada has 470/sq mile). I'm in the extreme West, a few miles from a neighboring Idaho county that has 1.6/sq mile, and a mile from the bordering Oregon county that has 3.2/sq mile.

Of course what sucks is that while population density and population where I am are closer to those latter two counties, I'm stuck with what comes with a "high density" county based on that Eastern concentration - i.e., stupid local laws, regs, building codes, etc. that the low density counties don't have. Much how states can be the victims of their big cities,  I guess counties can too.

Any links to those Alaskan "cities in a building"? It would be interesting to see some images or videos.

[BobR]

^^^^

Here is one of them, Whittier.

https://www.npr.org/2015/01/18/378162264/welcome-to-whittier-alaska-a-community-under-one-roof

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bH-TlC0111Q


bob

[Ben]

Cool, thanks Bob!

[grampster]

population density is about 765 per square mile in my county according to 2020 census.  County is 848 square miles and contains about 650,000 people.

[griz]

[230RN]

^
That one reminds me of a sign that was just outside of Gold Hill Colorado:

       

I haven't been  up there in quite a while... I have my own chemical pic of it somewhere, but had to dig that one up off the web.


There's also this one-building city in Alaska

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/visit-town-where-every-resident-lives-same-building-180959081/

Now, though, Begich is much more than a building. When the town mostly closes down for the winter, residents return to full-time occupation in their condos, stopping at various floors in the building to meet all their needs. There’s a playground, a church, a post office, a clinic, two convenience stores, a police station, a video rental store, city offices and a laundromat all under the one roof. The school (where the only gym is located) is across the street, accessible via an underground tunnel.

The complication is the same as with Kowloon:  Population density is figured on land area, but in situations like that, the "land area" should be multiplied by how many floors are involved in the "area."  A one acre ten-story building is actually ten acres. (REF:  640 acres in a square mile.)  But Mountain View is mostly single family homes.  Driving through it, you just wouldn't think of it as having a population density even greater than Denver 

They say Mountain View is "12 square blocks," which "equates" to a square area "3.46 blocks" on a side, just to visualize it. (I know, "12 square blocks" is kind of a dumb way of putting it, sort of like saying "a six-sided cube," and 0.09 square miles is 57.6 acres.)

I'm not saying its population density (6000/mi²) is the greatest in the world, just that I was kind of taken aback at the number for just a mostly residential area.

Terry, 230RN

[WLJ]

The complication is the same as with Kowloon:  Population density is figured on land area, but in situations like that, the "land area" should be multiplied by how many floors are involved in the "area."  A one acre ten-story building is actually ten acres. (REF:  640 acres in a square mile.)  But Mountain View is mostly single family homes.  Driving through it, you just wouldn't think of it as having a population density even greater than Denver 

No the floors should not be counted since as even as you said sq/mile in pop sq/mile is sq/mile of land area. The number of floors in a building doesn't change the amount of land area, living space within that land area yes but not the actual land area.

[grampster]

America has about 2.43 billion acres with about 320 million people.  Everyone would have about 7 acres each.   Yeah, I know, not every acre is habitable, but it is interesting anyway.  Every human being earth, 8 billon, would have .03 acres in America.

[Viking]

Try 3,250,000/sq mi for size

Place was like something out of a Sci Fi movie

Kowloon Walled City
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowloon_Walled_City

It would have been fascinating to visit that place before they tore it down. Iirc there's a few documentaries on Youtube about it.