But once one gets behind the relatively small urban core, the overall density is barely 2, 200 per square mile, less than half San Jose or Los Angeles, hardly a fifth that of Tokyo and not much more than Atlanta, the least dense major city in the world with more than 2.5 million residents.
This imperfect, if not inverse, relationship between density and wealth is widely ignored by most urban core boosters, many of whom argue that packing people together is the true key to economic growth.
Its main city, Portland, became the poster child of the "smart growth" movement by forcing up density, building an extensive light-rail system and restoring its urban core.