Monday, October 29, 2007

Frank Cannot Read a Map (and has no sense of scale)

OK Readers, I Have no-one but myself to blame, But I will blame you all anyway, because you allowed this to stand. NOT a ONE of you corrected the rather large error in my Last post about The Great Southeastern Drought.

Atlanta does not have a population of 8.8 million people. GEORGIA has a population of 8.8 million people. Atlanta has a population of less than half a million people. And Georgia is the 15th largest State in the nation, Atlanta is not the 15th largest City in the nation.

It's the ninth.
Wait... What?
How can a city with a measly 400-something thousand people be the 9th largest in the nation?

Well technically it isn't.

Are you confused yet? Good, because this is confusing. It turns out that the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta Metropolitan Area is the 9th largest Metropolitan Area in the nation, with a Population of a little over 5.1 million, which puts it in the league with the metro areas of Houston, Miami, and Washington, DC.

So, if you look at the actual City-limits, full time, official population of the City of Atlanta all by itself, My initial claim of 8.8 million people and 15th largest city in the U.S. was WAAAAY off. Even Memphis,TN has a larger population than Atlanta, if you use those statistics, and they don't even have a Football team. Anymore. (Nelson laugh -->) HA!HA! Go Titans!

But, If you look at Metro Areas, which include surrounding counties with significant economic relationship to the city center, Then I was a bit high on the 8.8 Million (actually 5.1M), but I was actually LOW on the 15th largest city factoid. It is actually 9th!

For Comparison's Sake, since most of my readers are in or Familiar with Tennessee, The Nashville/Davidson County/Murfreesboro/Franklin Metro Area clocks in at 39th in the nation, with only 1.45M, while the Greater Memphis area is almost right behind it with 1.27M

So are you all just not paying attention, or are we all that bad at geography? (I am compelled by the Laws of Topical Comedy to mention Miss Teen South Carolina's now infamous answer to American Geography Deficiency Syndrome. Seriously, it's just funny all over again every time you watch it.)

So the NINTH largest Metropolitan Area in the country is about to run out of water, which leads me to the next Post in today's Post-A-Palooza; So, How's That Drought Thing Working Out For You?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Um, did Memphis ever have a football team?

Frank Gibson said...

They had the Houston Oilers, before they were the Titans, when they were, very briefly, the Tennessee Oilers. There is a mention of it at the end of the movie Castaway, which was partly set in Memphis. I think it was in 1999.

Anonymous said...

If you've ever been on the road in Atlanta proper (or even the suburbs during rush-hour), it feels like there are 8.8 million cars on the highway with you - most of them SUVs that merge without signaling or even looking. So I can understand your confusion ; )