[Crimsondude]

That plotline was in my original DeeCee pitch from 2007. It's about damn time.

[Mirikon]

Other things I'd love updates on would be some of the sprawls from Feral Cities, namely Chicago (what with Ares keeping a Queen hostage) and Geneva (and the technomancers/AIs playing havoc in the city).

[Wakshaani]

As much as I love Philly, I'd have to say it's probably not the most populous city in the UCAS. Seattle is probably #1, but Philly's definitely in the top 5, if not top #2.

Seattle is at, what, 3 million in 2072? That's five times the population of today, but understandable since much of the Northwest flocked there and then it became a boomtown.

The top five of today are, in order, NYC, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, and Philly.

New York went through the quake and lost Manhattan. LA was California Free State but now makes up about half of the PPC population. Chicago flatlined. Houston's in the CAS. Philly's the only one that hasn't had a disaster.

(The next five, again in order, are Pheonix Arizona, San Antonio, San Deigo, Dallas, and San Jose. Indianapolis is the third largest USA city still in the UCAS.)

(Oh, Toronto crops up above Indy once you add in Canadian cities.)

I boosted Philly from the current 1.5 million to around 6 million, drawing on refugees from New York and, later, from Boston, but, Rotten Apple didn't exist at the time and that could change things on my end.

So, the top four in 2072, but NOT in order, are New York City (Which, minus Manhattan, you almost expect them to fracture into four normal-sized cities, but that goes against the Metroplex idea), Philly, Seattle, and Toronto. Indy may well be #5.

...

Not that this exactly means anything, but hey.

[CanRay]

*Shudders*  Hogtown.   

[FastJack]

Um... hate to break it to you, but the BULK of New Yorkers probably went north to Boston after the Quake, following the ECSE and work. Then, when Crash 2.0 happened, they most likely went BACK to New York.

Remember, predators follow the prey. There's really no reason for a population explosion in Philly that would boost it from 1.5 million to 6 million. Per the 6WA, the population of the UCAS is 187,822,981 people, which about 3,000,000+ are in the Seattle area. You've got the Minneapolis Metroplex, Detroit, Toronto and FDC all having much bigger population increases due to employment opportunities than Philadelphia. I'm not saying it's not in the top 3, but I don't see it beating out Seattle (which is THE major port/business capital in the UCAS) for the top spot.

[CanRay]

And those are just the SINners! 

[kirk]

As much as I love Philly, I'd have to say it's probably not the most populous city in the UCAS. Seattle is probably #1, but Philly's definitely in the top 5, if not top #2.

Seattle is at, what, 3 million in 2072? That's five times the population of today, but understandable since much of the Northwest flocked there and then it became a boomtown.

The top five of today are, in order, NYC, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, and Philly.

New York went through the quake and lost Manhattan. LA was California Free State but now makes up about half of the PPC population. Chicago flatlined. Houston's in the CAS. Philly's the only one that hasn't had a disaster.

(The next five, again in order, are Pheonix Arizona, San Antonio, San Deigo, Dallas, and San Jose. Indianapolis is the third largest USA city still in the UCAS.)

(Oh, Toronto crops up above Indy once you add in Canadian cities.)

I boosted Philly from the current 1.5 million to around 6 million, drawing on refugees from New York and, later, from Boston, but, Rotten Apple didn't exist at the time and that could change things on my end.

So, the top four in 2072, but NOT in order, are New York City (Which, minus Manhattan, you almost expect them to fracture into four normal-sized cities, but that goes against the Metroplex idea), Philly, Seattle, and Toronto. Indy may well be #5.

...

Not that this exactly means anything, but hey.

Actually, I have to differ with you on city ranking today. You're right if you use the incorporated area. For a number of reasons I think MSA ranking is better. That is, what's generally called the Greater Metropolitan (city of choice).

The top five  today in the US are NYC, LA, Chicago, Dallas, Philadelphia. The next five are Houston, DC, Miami, Atlanta, Boston. Seattle is fifteenth on the list. If we add Canada, Toronto would fit between Miami and Atlanta while Montreal is almost exactly the size of Seattle.

[Crimsondude]

The City of Los Angeles is a very small part of the L.A. Basin. Reading CFS is like chewing glass every time they call the City of Compton (among others) a neighborhood. That's why the city population is 2M, but the MSA is over 17M.

New York is similar in many regards because of the boroughs and the various political subdivisions.

Washington is skewed because it would be the downtown to other cities. The population during workdays explodes, but the permanent population is around 600K. The other 3M live in the counties. The funny thing is that there are pretty built up parts of the counties, and Washington does actually have some pretty neat suburbs.


The Seattle-Tacoma MSA population is about what the Metroplex population is in SR, which contradicts the idea of parts of Seattle being crowded. The Seattle Metroplex is huge. It took my step-brother 45 minutes to get from the city of Seattle to the city of Puyallup ten years ago, so with go-gangs and such it should not be any easier. I am pretty sure I could get in my car right now and be in sight of Mexico in the time it takes to get from northern Everett to southern Puyallup districts now, let alone in 2073.

[Bull]

Here's something I've been thinking about...

Do the census numbers take into account Corp Citizens?  We know that Corps can issue their own SINs (Something that badly needs explored and explained in Shadowrun).  And how do those Corp Citizens interact with the city itself?  Some have Dual Citizenship, I'd assume, espeically if they live "off corp territory", as it were.  (Many live in the corp enclaves and never leave, so they'd just have the corp citizenship).

And Seattle has a stupidly high percentage of SINless.  There are a lot in every city, but Seattle got more than it's share.  Especially when you factor in things like residents of the Ork Underground.

Like a lot of things, the numbers tend to be pretty screwy, and make no sense unless you "no prize" the explanations to pad them out a lot.

Bull

[Crimsondude]

Well, it depends. If they live in an extraterritorial site then, no, of course not.

The thing is that the UCAS is not the U.S. The UCAS would count SINners, whereas the U.S. counts everyone. So if you don't have a UCAS SIN then why would they bother counting you?

That has been my understanding, anyway. It's not like I'm writing a book about the UCAS fedgov or anything.

Waitasec ...

[Bull]

My point exactly, James. 

There's a lot of stuff that's implied... A lot of information in older books that hasn't been revisited in well over a decade.  And then there's areas like the Corp Territory issue which, AFAIK, has never been explicitly stated.

Once you factor in all the corp citizens, you can probably increase Seattles population by 10-20%, minimum.  Factor in Seattle's SINless (Especially with Puyullup, Redmond, and the Ork Underground) and you probably damn near double it.   At least.

Bull

[Critias]

Because census counts may or may not count SINless, may or may not count citizens of extranational corporations, may or may not count people in outlying areas that should (but may not be) considered part of the _______ sprawl in particular, may or may not count Infected and other wacky weirder-than-metahuman types...to me, the short answer has always been "the __________ sprawl has as many people as you, the GM, thinks it needs to tell your story." 

Sometimes unreliable narrator is a tremendous gift to GMs.   

[beowulf_of_wa]

so does that mean the next Seattle book will have the stats for what the government and corps show/claim followed by several dissenting opinions? say the numbers as provided by the Salish/shidhe border patrol, the number from some hidden data node that has sinless included, and maybe random guesses based on gods care what for throwing wrenches in the works?

[kirk]

Why a census? Money. Regardless of whether it's government (taxes) or corps (customers), they want the best idea of how much is there. Secondarily is places where numbers of bodies matter -- representative governments being an example.

Why do the counted allow it? The most effective is if they get something from it. Fear (we can count you in the census or in the graveyard, your call) isn't so good as a lot of the potential counts hide or shoot back.

The tension between those determines how accurate and comprehensive the count will be.

So, it's up to the GM. Me, I say that it varies between nations but NONE are closer than 80%.

[Wakshaani]

Well, modern US census counts residency, not citizenship, so, it doesn't matter if you're, say, a Kurdish Iraqi living in Nashville... you're a resident, so get counted.

I'd wager that corporate citizenship is counted in a similar fashion.

Of course, we also know that the actual bodycount is all kinds of wonky (Native American Nations, anyone?) ... it might be corruption, but it equally might just be the fact that no one competent works for these positions anymore. Or it could be Shadowrunners fudging stats.

Once you add SINless to the mix, population counts start getting wonky.