According to WaPo today, the east coast no longer has the monopoly on population density.
And Los Angeles grows more crowded every year, adding residents faster than it adds land, while most metropolitan areas in the Northeast, Midwest and South march in the opposite direction. They are the sprawling ones, dense in the center but devouring land at their edges much faster than they add people.Odd as it may seem, density is the rule, not an exception, in the wide-open spaces of the West. Salt Lake City is more tightly packed than Philadelphia. So is Las Vegas in comparison with Chicago, and Denver compared with Detroit. Ten of the country's 15 most densely populated metro areas are in the West, where residents move to newly developed land at triple the per-acre density of any other part of the country.
This northeasterner isn't too surprised by the finding. The metropolitan area development on the east coast is much older, with most going back to World War II or earlier. Back in those days the population was much smaller, allowing space for modern luxuries such as lawns.
Since then there has been tremendous population growth from the large wave of immigration. Most of this growth is occurring in the west and southwest, along with Florida and the outer reaches of the east coast metropolitan areas. New developers, squeezing as much profit out of buyers as they can, are building homes into ever shrinking lots, creating high density housing on new land. With housing so scarce as it stands, homebuyers are willing to pay top dollar for small spaces.
That is not to say you won't find high density sprawl on the east coast. Just look at new developments in New Jersey for example. However, the existing lower density development still covers much of the metropolitan area. It may be that the east coast will catch up in density to Los Angeles with new developments. In that case, I'll just have to move to Montana.