Re: Vikings upset Karmazin

[mwaters@mail.wesleyan.edu (Martin J. Waters)]

>>  For years and years, WGN was the top-billing station in the US,
>>even though it's in the #2 market.
>
>
>A slight correction here.  Although Chicago is the #2 city in the US,
>it's the #3 market.


        A further slight correction of the correction: The city population
of LA now makes it #2 with Chicago #3. LA (growing) surpassed Chicago
(shrinking) in the early 1980s. The 1980 census was Chicago 3.005 million
to LA's 2.969 million. The 1998 estimate was LA 3.6 million to 2.8 million.
Among other things, it made the famous Second City theatrical company in
Chicago a throwback reference to the past.
        City populations are an apples-and-oranges thing because the
square-mile sizes of the cities vary so much. Boston is an example of this.
It's very small in square miles compared to most other major cities. It's
48 square miles. NYC is 309; LA is 469; Chicago is 227; Philadelphia 135,
Detroit 139. Most of the western cities are very large. Dallas, 342;
Houston, 540. Even the older Midwest cities tend to be much larger.
Cleveland is 77; Milwaukee is 96. So, Boston is #20 on the list of city
populations, but the metro area (1996 estimate) is #7. About 11 percent of
the metro population lives in the city of Boston. About 22 percent of the
metro area population lives in Dallas.
        Interestingly, the city that Boston probably is compared to most
often, San Francisco, is nearly the same size, at 47 square miles. I can't
think of another large city in population as small as either of them in
square miles. Meanwhile, here's a trivia item. San Francisco now is
actually the second most populous city in its metro area. The population of
San Jose (171 square miles), up to 861K in 1998, surpassed San Francisco as
of the 1990 census.