In a broadcast of 60 Minutes a few weeks ago, during a segment on Detroit and its problems, the reporter commented that one of its problems was that it was so big, and it’s just too difficult to provide services over such a large area.  It was a comment that hit home with us.  After all, Memphis is about two and half times larger in land area than Detroit.

Many of Memphis’s challenges in service delivery and budgets can be traced to aggressive annexation, which doubled the size of the city in 40 years while cutting its density in half.  Here are the land (and water) areas for Memphis and selected cities:

325 square miles – Memphis

Memphis land area by decades:
104.2 square miles – 1950
129.0 square miles – 1960
217.4 square miles – 1970
264.1 square miles – 1980
279.3 square miles – 2000

Land and water area by city:
386 square miles – Dallas
319 square miles – Kansas City
305 square miles – Austin
234 square miles – Chicago
149 square miles – Birmingham
143 square miles – Detroit
143 square miles – Chattanooga
142 square miles – Seattle
134 square miles – Atlanta
117 square miles – Little Rock
110 square miles – Salt Lake City
98 square miles – Knoxville
97 square miles – Milwaukee
92 square miles – Baltimore
80 square miles – Cincinnati

Here are land areas for some consolidated city-county governments:

885 square miles – Jacksonville
518 square miles – Nashville
368 square miles – Indianapolis
342 square miles – Louisville
286 square miles – Lexington KY
221 square miles – Columbus GA
350 square miles – New Orleans
155 square miles – Denver
143 square miles – Philadelphia