[jsjohnst]

Your numbers are way wrong, even if we discredit another commenter's point about city vs metropolitan areas. The top FIVE cities in the US total over 19 million people. If you instead use the top FIVE metropolitan areas you get just shy of 70 million. That's 20% of the US population living in or directly around the top five cities. Furthermore, there are over 300 cities in the US with populations over 100k. I'm too lazy to do the math to add it up, but I'd venture a guess than 50% of the US population lives in a metropolitan area of over 100k people.

(Edit: fixed 25 for 19, accidentally added a city twice)

[jsjohnst]

One last post to further emphasize my point, in the UK there are zero areas with a population of over 10k per square mile (highest[0] is ~15k per km², which is very roughly ~6k in miles²). In the US, there's >100 cities, per Wikipedia [1].

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_districts_by... [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities...

[jessriedel]

Where are you guys getting these numbers? The top 5 cities in the US have 19.2 M residents, and the top 10 have 26 M.

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

This one is more sensitive to noise, but still pretty different than what you quote: The top 5 metro areas have 56.9 M

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

[jsjohnst]

Fixed my 25 figure, accidentally added one city twice I think.

For the ~70 million figure, see here:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_areas_o...

[jessriedel]

I think last link is the wrong data to use. Despite the title of the article, it is using the largest possible "Combined statistical area" that contains the city, rather than anything commonly known as the metro area.

> A combined statistical area (CSA) is composed of adjacent metropolitan (MSA) and micropolitan statistical areas (µSA) in the United States and Puerto Rico that can demonstrate economic or social linkage. The OMB defines a CSA as consisting of various combinations of adjacent metropolitan and micropolitan areas with economic ties measured by commuting patterns.

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

For instance, the "Washington-Baltimore-Arlington, DC-MD-VA-WV-PA Combined Statistical Area" (which is not part of the top 5 cities) includes all of Hampshire County, West Virginia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampshire_County,_West_Virgini...

a Google image search confirms that this is a very rural area.

https://www.google.com/search?safe=off&site=&tbm=isch&source...

[chongli]

If you use metropolitan areas then you're just proving the original point. Metro areas in the US are HUGE! For example, the Greater Las Angeles area is ~34k square miles. The entire country of England is only ~50k square miles! Understanding this is key to understanding why the cable and telecom businesses in the US are so difficult to enter.

[jsjohnst]

Per this link [0], there's 10 million homes (out of 90 million with broadband) in the US with fiber to the premise, versus 250k in the UK. The number seems a bit suspect, but I generally trust Ars.

[0] http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/05/how-th...

[jsjohnst]

Citation needed for the ~34k mi² estimate. Per Wikipedia it's <1/7 that number (and yet has 1/4 the population).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_metropolitan_are...

[chongli]

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

[jsjohnst]

And the corresponding one for NYC:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_metropolitan_area

[jsjohnst]

Also, the point I was refuting from the parent post is the claim that Europe is urban where as the US is not. That's simply not factual, as others have also pointed out.