As Austin's population grows, how will its density change?

This year, Austin became the 11th largest city in the U.S., allowing the Statesman to use the words "vaults,"  "leapfrogged," and "moving on up" in a single article. But Austin doesn't feel like a big city to me. I recently visited Vancouver, which has a population of a little over 600,000, but it felt like a much bigger city.

This got me thinking about density and sprawl in Austin. Ryan Robinson, the City's demographer, identifies intensifying urban sprawl as one of the ten most important demographic trends in Austin. (His full list of demographic trends is worth checking out, by the way.)

Here are the 20 most populous cities in the U.S., according to the 2012 Census Bureau estimates that were cited when Austin rose - or vaulted - to number 11:

1. New York - 8,336,697
2. Los Angeles - 3,857,799
3. Chicago - 2,714,856
4. Houston - 2,160,821
5. Philadelphia - 1,547,607
6. Phoenix - 1,488,750
7. San Antonio - 1,382,951
8. San Diego - 1,338,348
9. Dallas - 1,241,162
10. San Jose - 982,765
11. Austin - 842,592
12. Jacksonville - 836,507
13. Indianapolis - 834,852
14. San Francisco - 825,863
15. Columbus - 809,798
16. Fort Worth - 777,992
17. Charlotte - 775,202
18. Detroit - 701,475
19. El Paso - 672,538
20. Memphis - 655,155

And here are these 20 cities again, sorted from highest to lowest population density:

1. New York - 27,546 persons/sq mi
2. San Francisco - 17,619 persons/sq mi
3. Chicago - 11,926 persons/sq mi
4. Philadelphia - 11,540 persons/sq mi
5. Los Angeles - 8,231 persons/sq mi
6. San Jose - 5,567 persons/sq mi
7. Detroit - 5,055 persons/sq mi
8. San Diego - 4,115 persons/sq mi
9. Columbus - 3,728 persons/sq mi
10. Dallas - 3,644 persons/sq mi
11. Houston - 3,603 persons/sq mi
12. San Antonio - 3,000 persons/sq mi
13. Phoenix - 2,881 persons/sq mi
14. Austin - 2,828 persons/sq mi
15. El Paso - 2,634 persons/sq mi
16. Charlotte - 2,604 persons/sq mi
17. Fort Worth - 2,289 persons/sq mi
18. Indianapolis - 2,278 persons/sq mi
19. Memphis - 2,079 persons/ sq mi
20. Jacksonville - 1,119 persons/sq mi

I was surprised to see that Austin's population density is lower than in Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio (and just slightly higher than that of El Paso). I'm also stunned at the range. In this list, population varies by a factor of about 13, but density varies by a factor of almost 25. And for all the talk of empty lots and wastelands in Detroit, its population density is much higher than many other cities in the nation -- and almost twice that of Austin's.

Not everyone considers a high population density and a "big-city feel" to be a good thing. But it has some benefits, and as Austinites continue to grow in number, it's interesting to think about how the city's density will change as well.

For those nerds who care about these things, I used population estimates from the Census's 2012 statistical abstract, and I calculated density using land area from the 2010 Census (land area is updated every 10 years).