Changes to Team Names

[LoneStarPhan]

I think many do not realize that San Antonio is the #7 most populated city in the US and is bigger than Dallas. San Diego and San Jose are also in the top ten and close to San Antonio. Many are probably also surprised by the ranking of Austin and Fort Worth.

Probably also could fool some by asking what is the most populated city in the San Francisco Bay area. It's not San Francisco, although San Francisco is 16 on the list I linked to in the earlier response.

[Philsmania]

I was surprised to learn that Columbus is the biggest city in Ohio.

[zambonir]

I was surprised to learn that Columbus is the biggest city in Ohio.

I was actually going to post that too. Cleveland and Cincinnati got hollowed out while Columbus still boomed with government and OSU. A good chunk of Cincinnati's population/economy isn't even in Ohio (though you could also say that about NY and Philly I guess). Cincinnati's MSA is still ahead of Columbus (but Cleveland is #3).

It's a city vs. suburbs vs. metro area thing in a lot of cases. As a metro area San Antonio is still tiny compared to Dallas and Houston. Even if you combined it with Austin, which does seem somewhat inevitable (just put an airport and an MLB team in San Marcos) it would still be smaller than those metros. DFW is also big enough to be considered two metro "divisions."

Arlington by itself has a bigger population than Cincinnati, Cleveland, and St. Louis.

[andyb]

Columbus was a "newer" city that was also able to expand its boundaries into Franklin County over the years in ways that Cleveland and Cincinnati could not. Many of the newer cities in the Southwest also have much larger footprints because much of the area around them was also not incorporated into towns for decades after they were founded.

Outside the geographic footprint, state government and Ohio State University have both grown while the manufacturing bases in the other counties have stagnated or shrunk. It is a pretty familiar story of information economies growing at the expense of manufacturing economies.

San Antonio BTW is one of those cities with a large footprint that grew geographically where a place like Dallas had more established geographic boundaries. Dallas and Houston of course are much larger metropolitan areas.

[Philsmania]

Cincy's airport is in Covington, KY. Hence, the baggage tags and airline tickets say "CVG". I flew in there once and did a double take when I got off the plane and saw a sign that said "Welcome to Northern Kentucky" and in a brief moment of panic wondered if I mistakenly flew into Louisville. But then I saw the smaller print beneath it which said "Greater Cincinnati International Airport". Cincy's belt highway (I-275) briefly traverses a corner or Indiana.

We always think of Texas as place with open plains as far as the eye can see but six of the nation's twenty-two largest cities are in Texas. I follow a lot of political blogs and people say Texas is slowly turning purple. Frankly, I've never believed it but with all these growing urban areas, that may be the case after all.

List of United States cities by population

Looking at the numbers and trends in that wikipedia link, I could see Houston passing Chicago and taking #3 after the 2020 census with Philadelphia likely to fall to #7 or even #8 after 2030.

[zambonir]

Texas is purple really, just gerrymandered, plus all those rural areas still add up. There's no city in Texas that isn't blue really, Hillary Clinton won Dallas, Harris (Houston), Bexar (San Antonio), Travis (Austin), and El Paso counties, as well as the Rio Grande Valley. Only Tarrant (blue) went for Trump.

[BostonRoss]

Just for fun

US Populous Cities 1790

[Philsmania]

Those New England cities tripped me. But, I do remember that two "cities" that are now just neighborhoods within Philadelphia were once two of the largest cities in the country.

[BostonRoss]

Those New England cities tripped me. But, I do remember that two "cities" that are now just neighborhoods within Philadelphia were once two of the largest cities in the country.

It helps to have lived in both Pennsylvania and Massachusetts! I have lived in two of those cities; one now has about 800,000 people (Boston), the other probably under 20,000 (Newburyport). Sherburne is actually the old name for the Town of Nantucket.

If you add the cities on that list that are now part of Philadelphia, it would have been the largest city in the US, even if you gave Brooklyn to New York City.

[LoneStarPhan]

Certainly NYC is so large because they consolidated what could have been a couple cities into one. It was almost the 20th century before Brooklyn became part of NYC.

It is true that adding unincorporated areas has helped some cities in Texas grow at great rates. I moved into Fort Worth 15 years ago, the city has incorporated two housing developments within one mile of us into the city. Part of Fort Worth extends into Denton County. Playing around with google maps one night, I find that it was a 35 mile drive from one Fort Worth fire station to another.

[Philsmania]

Southwark no longer even exists as a neighborhood. It was divided into Queen Village and Pennsport. Northern Liberties is still there though it is smaller than neighboring Fishtown. I'm not sure if it is still there but there used to be a building along Spring Garden Street on the NoLibs side which had painted on it "Welcome to Northern Liberties, America's First Suburb".

[andyb]

Apparently the team name change was only a distraction this week:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/07/16/redskins-sexual-harassment-larry-michael-alex-santos/?arc404=true

It was really suspicious when they fired their top 2 pro scouts and their play-by-play guy quit out of the blue earlier this week. Neverending drama for the league's worst owner.

[zambonir]

Neverending drama for the league's worst owner.

But for how long?

[andyb]

50-50 Snyder is gone for all this. Might take a little while, but his minority owners are already trying to sell and everybody thought it was the name change. One of the reporters was on a podcast a couple of days ago hinting the issues were much deeper than that.

Remember the story about their cheerleaders a few years ago? This is a pattern of behavior that starts at the top and nobody cared. Snyder has always played personal favorites in the front office over competence, so it is hard to believe that he did not know about this (and Bruce Allen is mentioned in the article with a "how could he not know because my desk was 30 feet from his office" line).

[Philsmania]

Yeah, Snyder is looking like something of a Donald Sterling. The problem is that if he goes, the Washington NFL franchise just might become a worthy adversary again.

[zambonir]

And a new owner might fix the Mets too (unless it's Josh Harris lol).

[el-pietro]

That story should have been much bigger than it was. I'm surprised it's not being brought up more in the wake of this.
There was a story similar to this one a year or so back with the Mavericks and Mark Cuban. Cuban came out and took responsibility, saying he shouldn't have allowed this to happen and he would make changes to prevent it happening again. Has Snyder said anything? As you rightly point out this is not the first story in this vein under his stewardship, even if the scale is much more widespread this time.

[Philsmania]

And a new owner might fix the Mets too (unless it's Josh Harris lol).

A-Rod doesn't strike me as being as sharp a tool as Jeter. Wait and see what happens when he and J-Lo eventually break up.

[zambonir]

I don't think it's gonna be A-Rod. I don't think Jeter's doing a good job either (but he's neither the control person nor the money, and A-Rod wouldn't be either).

[andyb]

The Post's lead columnist said he should go:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/07/17/daniel-snyder-must-go-nfl/

The NFL seems to be alluding to fines and papering it over. I think it is 50-50 he will have to sell. If he was a good owner DC would support him. He is so terrible that even the conservatives who don't care about this issue just want him gone.