Dallas-Fort Worth vs. Washington-Baltimore metro area definition (better, compared, bigger)
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Washington DC. is officially 38 miles from Baltimore
Any cursory glance at these two metro areas would show that both pairs of city have continuous overlapping urban-suburban sprawl, where the only open space there is that which is protected and off-limits to development, as well as a random farm, field or woodlot that hasn't been developed.
Both Dallas and Fort Worth as well as Washington DC and Baltimore however have very different identities from each others close cousin, so they are regarded as separate cities, period.
Both sets of cities share an aiport.
Yet Washington DC and Baltimore are separate MSA and urbanized areas, and only are combined in the CSA. Whereas Dallas Fort Worth are considered part of the same MSA and urbanized area.
This is why urbanized areas, MSA, and CSAs, one is not better, but out of the three it seems like the CSA makes the strongest case for "metropolitan area definition" because it seems that Dallas Fort Worth has the same relationship as Washington and Baltimore in terms of what you see on aerial images.
There are a few cities that fit this bill. I think it is a mystery to most why some are separated and some are not. Supposedly a lot depends on travel patterns between the two and whether or not their economies are sufficiently linked. Minneapolis/St. Paul, Raleigh/Durham, Tampa St.Petersburg.
They are actually very different. Dallas and Fort Worth while different cities share many things in one metro than DC-Baltimore. Same radio market, same tv market, same airport, same etc. Counties are next to each other, shared suburbs, They compliment itself. BTW, Dallas westernmost city limits to Fort Worth easternmost limits are as close as 10 miles apart. The 32 miles is downtown to downtown. It's continuous all of those 32 miles as well. There are gaps between DC/Baltimore.
Location: That star on your map in the middle of the East Coast, DMV
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Most of those gaps between DC and Baltimore are due to designated land areas used for either agricultural purposes or military, BWI, etc. But yes Dallas and Ft Worth are more connected as one where as DC/Balt kind of tap each others end points with some continuous development along cooridors like Rt. 1.
What does FW feel like? Definitely not like a suburb. Fort Worth has a much different feel from Dallas.
Wow I didn't know much about Fort Worth or Dallas before but a key difference between Baltimore and DC is less sprawl. What I mean by that is the land mass Fort Worth covers to obtain its population which is 342.2 sq miles and Dallas has a land area of 340.5 sq mi. That's more than New York City and all its boroughs put together at 304.8 sq mi and bigger than some of the counties in Maryland. I guess everything is really bigger in Texas. Meaning that the Baltimore metro DC metro has a denser core with more people in a small amount of urban land with Baltimore city boundaries having a land mass of 80.9 sq mi and DC at 61.4 sq mi. With this scale the boundaries never overlap and can still identify with its MSA and surrounding counties. The closet influence between the two is between the Baltimore metro counties of Anne Arundel and Howard counties with DC's Montgomery, Prince George's, and Calvert counties because this is where they touch and they are in between both Baltimore and DC. Before the sprawl of northeast cities to the suburbs and when many cities saw peak population in 1950 Baltimore had almost 1 million people in the 80.9 sq mi today and DC had over 800,000 in 61.4 sq miles. Compared to 792,727 people in a area bigger than New York City and bigger than Baltimore and DC put together geographically.
As you can see both cities are the small box like boundaries in the center and you can see which counties would be more affected by either metro.
Baltimore and metro
DC and DMV
Last edited by Northernest Southernest C; 02-06-2015 at 04:54 PM..
Wow I didn't know much about Fort Worth or Dallas before but a key difference between Baltimore and DC is less sprawl. What I mean by that is the land mass Fort Worth covers to obtain its population which is 342.2 sq miles and Dallas has a land area of 340.5 sq mi. That's more than New York City and all its boroughs put together at 304.8 sq mi and bigger than some of the counties in Maryland. I guess everything is really bigger in Texas. Meaning that the Baltimore metro DC metro has a denser core with more people in a small amount of urban land with Baltimore city boundaries having a land mass of 80.9 sq mi and DC at 61.4 sq mi. With this scale the boundaries never overlap and can still identify with its MSA and surrounding counties. Before the sprawl of northeast cities to the suburbs and when many cities saw peak population in 1950 Baltimore had almost 1 million people in the 80.9 sq mi today and DC had over 800,000 in 61.4 sq miles. Compared to 792,727 people in a area bigger than New York City and bigger than Baltimore and DC put together geographically.
Well I think his point is far different than yours. If you're trying to say FW is suburban, I agree. If you're trying to say FW is a suburb of another city, I will not agree.
To be fair, Baltimore actually feels like a big city on it's own, where as Forth Worth, not so much...
Huh? Sounds like you haven't been to Ft. Worth before.
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