The Strange Reason LA Is Denser Than New York

Los Angeles is the sprawling, car-dependent, suburb-covered city that Americans use as the definition of low-density urban development. It is also the densest urban area in the United States, denser than New York, and has held that position in every census from 1990 to 2020. The explanation is both simpler and weirder than it sounds. It involves why comparing city boundaries is meaningless, why New York's density average is dragged down by Long Island, why five of the ten densest cities in America are in California, why Las Vegas appears on the same list, and why the most intuitive way to measure density is probably the wrong one.