https://www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/random-samplings/2022/12/redefining-urban-areas-following-2020-census.html geeky Census geography definitions (urban vs rural)
If you ask me - urban means half of the buildings are 5+ stories high. But what do I know, my experience is limited to Moscow (pop 10M)
@statstas In earthquake country, most buildings are 3 stories or less, and there, urban is more defined by the density of people and the built environment.
@statstas Loving this definition, here is what this classification looks like for Canada. https://censusmapper.ca/maps/3746
@vb_jens So cool! What's the data that goes into this? I can't believe you have the building-level data on the number of stories.
@statstas This is census data. The enumerators classify the buildings, with one category being “Apartment, 5 or more storeys”, and the census counting how many dwelling units and households are in each building. Which is what gets reported.
@vb_jens wow. So I got lucky that my "definition" actually aligns conceptually with the Census data!
I doubt we have that in the U.S. though
@statstas US splits this differently, there you can get buildings with 10 or more apartment units.