How Much Space is Enough?

(Written by Charles Platt)

To what extent do we feel overcrowded, as a species? I’m not talking about resources; just psychological factors.

To create this chart I turned to the CIA Factbook, where I looked up the populations of various nations and then divided this number into their land area (excluding lakes and rivers) to get the number of square feet available per person. I represented the results in squares that are all drawn to the same scale.

Of course if you are in Australia, where each resident has almost 4 million square feet to play with, you won’t make full use of your land ration, if only because most of it is desert. On the other hand, when I was in Australia I did feel intuitively aware that the country was, so to speak, empty. As soon as I drove out of an urban area, the emptiness was right there. Conversely, in Hong Kong, where citizens have barely more than 1,600 square feet each, everyone is intensely aware of being crammed into a very crowded place.

Personally I enjoy wilderness areas, but I wouldn’t claim that open spaces are essential for my mental health. I do, after all, still have an apartment in New York City containing just 350 square feet. The apartment next to mine, identical in size, used to be a home not only to a married couple, but also their young child.

I suspect that our romantic yearnings for “freedom to roam” may be just that: Romantic yearnings.

Population Projections.

Population is UP!

Ah, Minneapolis, always impressing me. A recent projection for America's smallest big city puts a downtown population at 34,140. Not too shabby, considering Columbus' downtown population is around 2,000.



Something else to consider is the relatively small size of Minneapolis: 58.4 square miles. That is incredibly tiny, considering Columbus is 212.6, New York is 468.9, Houston is 601.7 and New Orleans is 350.2 square miles.

Although the Twin Cities Metropolitan is home to over 3 million people, only about 380,000 people live within Minneapolis' small city limits. It's just interesting to note that almost 10% of those people live within the booming downtown area, while only about .0027% of Columbus' population live downtown. (2,000/740,000). However, with Minnesota's harsh winters, and Minneapolis' fine sky-way system, it's no surprise so many people take to living downtown. They can pretty much go for weeks without ever having to step foot outside.

Gay Metropolitans in America.

There's been this myth circulated that Columbus is one of the highest gay-populated cities in The United States. I've heard it so many times at the bar, "Columbus has the highest gay population per capita in the country! It's the San Fran of The Midwest!" While it is true that Columbus is a very liberal city with a great and booming gay population, the numbers don't really support that "Top 3" number I've heard so many people throw around.

According to research at UCLA -- Law, San Francisco remains the gay mecca it's generally been heralded. Here is the list of the largest gay populations in America per capita:

(% of total population/estimated total GLBT population)

1. San Francisco :
   
• 8.2% / 256,311
2. Seattle :
   
• 6.5% / 154,835
3. Boston:
• 6.2% / 201,344
4. Portland:
• 6.1% / 94,027
5. Tampa
• 5.9% / 119,044
  
6. Austin
• 5.9% / 61,732
7. Denver
• 5.8% / 99,626
  
8. Minneapolis
• 5.7% / 130,472
9. Orlando
• 5.7% / 81,272
10. Hartford
• 5.6% / 49,000
11. Sacramento
• 5.5% / 81,759
12. Columbus
• 5.5% / 66,300
  

As you can see, we're not even in the top ten (although Minneapolis is!). You'll also notice that New York, Chicago, Atlanta or Washington DC (usually considered the Gay cities) are not listed in the top either. This data is in consideration of the entire metropolitan, not just the cities themselves. Therefore, I think discrepancies could be argued since Columbus' metropolitan area includes places such as Marion, Plain City and Lancaster, notoriously conservative small towns. When compared to Boston's Metropolitan, which is surrounded by very liberal Cambridge and Quincy, it's hard to gauge the exact city themselves, since downtown Columbus and The Short North are gayer than a drag queen singing Liza.

When you look at that list, that's really the whole gamut. You've got coast-to-coast(Seattle-Hartford), South (Austin), Midwestern (Columbus), Northeastern (Boston), Northern-Midwest (Minneapolis), West (Denver)...it really shows the spectrum of gays in this country. Looks like what they say is really true--gays are people, too! They're not just an illusion nor a media creation!

What hit the rock bottom of the gay city list? Pittsburgh. 2.8% of their population is estimated to be gay. I guess they don't call it "The Rust Belt" for nothing, right?