Greater NYC still includes a lot of very dense conurbation well beyond the city limits. For example, some of the densest cities in the US are those in Hudson County, NJ, and some of the suburban downtowns (for example, White Plains) have skylines that rival midsized Midwestern cities. Newark, though down at its heels, is linked to NYC by a 35-minute rapid transit trip at 10-minute headways, the commuter rail network is even more extensive than that, and bus commuters come to NYC from Allentown and the Poconos in Pennsylvania.
You can't just count an entire massive county as 'LA' while cutting off NYC at its city limits. The stub-ends of the subway lines at the Bronx border are dramatic, but the city doesn't just end anywhere— I wouldn't be shocked to see the subway extended beyond NYC at some point.
You could do the same with LA. "Greater LA" also includes the Inland Empire, Orange County, Riverside/San Bernadino. Total population (according to Wikipedia) is around 18 million.
I agree that you can draw the line arbitrarily to support whichever city you prefer as "winning". My sense is that a) if the City of Los Angeles consolidated as NYC did over 100 years ago it would have the highest official population in the US, b) if you do a more fuzzy "metro area" analysis the result is up for grabs depending on how you choose to draw the borders.
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Greater NYC still includes a lot of very dense conurbation well beyond the city limits. For example, some of the densest cities in the US are those in Hudson County, NJ, and some of the suburban downtowns (for example, White Plains) have skylines that rival midsized Midwestern cities. Newark, though down at its heels, is linked to NYC by a 35-minute rapid transit trip at 10-minute headways, the commuter rail network is even more extensive than that, and bus commuters come to NYC from Allentown and the Poconos in Pennsylvania.
You can't just count an entire massive county as 'LA' while cutting off NYC at its city limits. The stub-ends of the subway lines at the Bronx border are dramatic, but the city doesn't just end anywhere— I wouldn't be shocked to see the subway extended beyond NYC at some point.
You could do the same with LA. "Greater LA" also includes the Inland Empire, Orange County, Riverside/San Bernadino. Total population (according to Wikipedia) is around 18 million.
I agree that you can draw the line arbitrarily to support whichever city you prefer as "winning". My sense is that a) if the City of Los Angeles consolidated as NYC did over 100 years ago it would have the highest official population in the US, b) if you do a more fuzzy "metro area" analysis the result is up for grabs depending on how you choose to draw the borders.