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There must be a city with the highest amount of floorspace per person, but nobody seems interested enough to compile that list (lemmy.world)
submitted 3 days ago by FinjaminPoach@lemmy.world to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world
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Like we have "largest city" lists,

  • most people would think largest city means most populous,
  • but some people interpret it as city area,
  • so in the former case Mexico City would be the "Largest" city in North america
  • in the latter case, LA would be (i haven't fact checked these, just roll with it)

Some cities are really populous, like Hong Kong, and it means people settle for very little living space just to have access to the opportunities there. Cities grow big largely on the basis of this principle - how many people are willing to slum it in one place together? And historically, the rich have done the opposite; when peasants are cramming themselves into as small a space as possible, the rich are building homes larger than entire villages.

So, to contrast a city of commoners and a city of wealthy people, one effective metric would be to look at the average footage (floor area) of peoples' homes. Ideally divided by how many people there are, to have it on a per person basis.

I bet the results would be interesting. We'd find loads of places we didn't know the names of, little hideaway towns which serve as getaways for the wealthy

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[-] Lehmuusa@nord.pub 24 points 3 days ago

This can be a surprisingly difficult thing to measure, for a little surprising reason:

The city with most floor space per person is among the cities with the lowest population density. It will be a city where the maximum amount of homes are detached houses. And probably one where the "urban" planning is less dense than in your standard suburbia.

It will be a very small city by population.

And that leads us to the problem: how do we define "city"?

There are several competing definitions for what constitutes a city, and since we're talking about cities at the very lowest end of the population scale, you'll get a big pile of different answers depending on what counts as a city fir whom.

[-] neidu4@piefed.social 4 points 3 days ago

This was my immediate thought too: The city with the largest amount of floor space per person probably won't qualify as a city on its own

[-] Simulation6@sopuli.xyz 17 points 3 days ago

How about Pripyat? Abandoned city near cernobyl, so dividing by population gives NaN.

[-] wildncrazyguy138@fedia.io 3 points 3 days ago

Fukushima is likely high up on the list too.
Outside of nuclear waste zones, I’d imagine factory towns where most of the work has become automated that also have an Amazon warehouse and a data center would be high up there too. So like, all of Ohio.

[-] TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 days ago

That could be highest or lowest simultaneously, depending on how you look at it. Technically, NaN is the correct answer, so you can’t really apply this logic to any place with a zero population.

[-] alsimoneau@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 days ago

Population density would give you a good approximation and that list is already compiled.

[-] jumping_redditor@sh.itjust.works 0 points 2 days ago

not really, sitka AK is the biggest by area but has few enough houses/ few multistory buildings that it is almost certainly not the most floorspace per capita.

[-] t_378@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago

I think the trick with compiling such a metric is defining it, and it's intended purpose. You've got one: compare the city of commoners to city of wealthy people. Or maybe a rich town locator.

With apartments, you get the sq. ft. of the dwelling, but there's also common areas. None of it being owned by the residents, merely rented. Contrast that with farm land, you'd have relatively few people with high amount of "owned land".

Sometimes very rich people choose to rent in ultra luxury apartments.

I wonder if part of the metric is something like, $ value of land / sq. ft. that is privately owned? Someone in Nebraska maybe owns 50 acres of land that is relatively low demand, versus say... a guy who owns a few golf courses in expensive areas.

[-] Jela@lemmy.today 2 points 2 days ago

Houston, TX immediately came to mind

[-] ulemmyagain@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

You also have to take into account unhoused people. They have the most floor space of all.

[-] lime@feddit.nu 3 points 3 days ago

kiruna claimed to be the largest city in the world up until 2009 due to the city limits being colocated with the municipality limits as a result of a typo in the paper work. it has a population of 22k and an area of almost 21k km^2^ (~8k sq mi).

[-] Obituarykidney@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

Perth, WA is the longest city in the world and is only 2.5m people.

[-] HocEnimVeni@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

My money is on Big Sky, Montana

[-] snek_boi@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 days ago

I would guess cities with declining populations would make it high up in the list.

this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2026
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