Another IM conversation from work

Yesterday was a half-day at work--the markets close at 1 PM instead of 4 PM, trading is always light, and not much gets done. (One benefit of coming in is that one of the sales guys always buys lunch for the unfortunate few who have to come in; this year, it was Carnegie Deli. Mmm, a pile of pastrami as big as my head.)

Anyway, I heard our lead trader, who is a native Brooklynite, referring to "that sign at the beginning of Welcome Back, Kotter"--the sign on the Verazano-Narrows Bridge exit that called Brooklyn "America's 4th-Largest City". Here's the IM conversation that followed, edited slightly for coherence:

kjmaroney: Brooklyn is still, by a very small margin, the fourth-largest city in the US.
kjmaroney: Houston is catching up.

johndelbalso: yeah i thought so . i can tell on my train that we are still overcrowded

kjmaroney: I had no idea Phoenix is now #5--it slightly edges out Philadelphia.
kjmaroney: Wow--I had no idea Yonkers was the 15th-densest population city in the US.
kjmaroney: 10K per sq mi.
kjmaroney: NYC is densest, at 26K / sq mi.

johndelbalso: yup like rats

kjmaroney: Indeed I do.

kjmaroney: Ah, Phoenix is only the 13th largest *metropolitan area*. Like a lot of western cities, the city itself encompasses most of the metro area.
kjmaroney: So Phoenix has a population of 1.4 million in a metro are of 4.2, while Philadelpha is 1.3 million in a metro area of 5.8.
kjmaroney: San Antonio is #7 on biggest cities but only #26 on metro areas--the city is 1.3 million, the metro area 1.9. There's just nothing *near* San Antonio except San Antonio.

johndelbalso: damn . u write for wikipedia don't u

kjmaroney: Nah, I just read it a lot....
kjmaroney: I know where to find things.