New York, NY – According to the Census Bureau latest calculations, New York City has shrunk by more than two square miles, or the equivalent of Central and Prospect Parks combined.
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Employing the most sophisticated mapping techniques available, the Census Bureau says the city actually measures 302.643 square miles. Brooklyn and Queens appear to have borne the brunt of the shrinkage.
Census and city geographers agree that official estimates can convey a false precision. They can be subject to any number of variables, including whether measurements are taken at high or low tide and even the pitch and yaw of planes taking aerial photographs.
The city’s land area measured 303.311 square miles in 2000, grew slightly to 303.373 in 2009 and then shriveled to 302.643 last year. The water area within New York City, meanwhile, ebbed and flowed, respectively, from 165.6 square miles to 165.1 and 165.8.
The City Planning Department estimates that more than half the city’s usable land area is divided almost equally between open space (41,000 acres, including parks, beaches and cemeteries) and one- and two-family houses (42,000 acres). Another 2,058 acres, an area more than twice the size of Central Park, is devoted to parking lots and garages.
i thought my house was smaller than it was said to be…
so now we know ! NY is a 2 miles smaller then square !
According to Einstein, then we must be moving faster.
Maybe this the new way of cutting the budget by making the city smaller?
No wonder there aren’t enough parking spaces!
I can see in Bayswater that the water level is rising.