Perth Amboy evening news., 1921-12-05

What are the five most populous
urban communities" in the United
States?
The question sounds stilted, a bull
letin from the National Geographic
Society admits. but the term refers,
it is explained, to something entire
ly different from 1.-THE five largest
cities" For some purpose 1T is more
useful to know where the greatest
numbers of city dwellers are gather
ed than to know how many live in
side arbitrary political divisions.
Continuing, the bulletin says:
Two "Cities'' Rank Fourth
"If the term cities is used loose
ly, the United States is in the strange
position of having two that rank
fourth and two that are fifth in size,
although these communities are or
different magnitude. The mix-up is
due to that artificial thing, the city
limit. People in establishing their
homes have shown a fine disregard
for these lines-except as prompted
by considerations of taxation-and
have built on either side and even
astride them. There are many places
where city boundary lines run d.
rectly through blocks or along busy
I streets, leaving outside regions as
populous' or more populous than
those includM ~. Yet when the popu-
lation OF the city is being ascertain
ed, only the noses inside the imagin-
airy lina are counted.
ITO clear UP the difficulty and
bring out the really important fact
where the greatest concentrations OF
city-dwel ling populations are to be
found-the United States Census has
gathered statistics not only for city
political divisions but also for met
ropolitan districts These latter in
clude the entire urban communities
made up of the big cities inside their
political lines and also the city dis
tricts drawn closely around them
though outside the arbitrary bound
| aries. The figures obtained for these
| population units strikingly alter the
rank of the cities
Boston District Fourth: Boston City
seventh
THE first three places are held
by New York, Chicago and Philadel-
phia under both systems of enumer-
alton. But while Boston, the poll
teal division, ranks seventh and De-
troit fourth. the Boston metropoli-
tan district jumps to fourth place
and the Detroit metropolitan dis
trict takes the sixth position. The
population figures show that within
a rough circle drawn from the GEN.
ter CT Boston with a radius of be-
tween ten and fifteen miles there are
in th.ckly settled communities -
772,254 inhabitants.
I'm a similar circle drawn around
Detroit in United states territory
there arc 1,165.152 inhabitants. II
the entire population of Wayne coun-
ty in which Detroit is situated were
counted in the Detroit district and
the populations of the four coun-
ties grouped around Wayne county
were added the population would
still be less than 100000 though
the average radius would then be IN
creased to nearly thirty miles.
The increase of the radius around
Boston to twenty-five or thirty miles
would bring into the district between
100000 and 2,500.000 inhabitants
! for the eastern end of Massachusetts
is one of the most thickly populated
| regions in the United States.
Pittsburgh District Fifth
Like Boston, Pittsburgh suffers in
a comparison of the population OF
| cities by the fact that h official
city boundaries enclose a relatively
small area while Immediately out
| side are numerous pcpulous regions.
When the figures for the Pittsburgh
metropolitan district are used in
| stead of the figures for h political
division Pittsburgh rises from ninth