Wasilla: The nth Largest City in America

[minnesota_liberal]

Shortly after John McCain announced Sarah Palin as his choice for running mate, Karl Rove tried to defend the decision and embellish Palin's executive experience. He did this not long after having belittled Virginia governor Tim Kaine's qualifications, saying that if Barack Obama were to choose Kaine as his running mate, it would be "an intensely political choice" and not in the best interest of the country. After all, Kaine had been governor for only 3 years and was once mayor of Richmond, only "the 105th largest city in America" (Rove's figure).

Besides recognizing that Karl Rove is full of shit and has an amazingly high tolerance for hyprocrisy when it suits his own purpose, his snarky comment got me thinking, "Just how does Wasilla stack up?

For my baseline figure, I chose to use the population currently listed on the city's website: 7,028. That's certainly larger than it was during Palin's reign, but I don't have a better figure and didn't want to shortchange Wasilla.

For the rest of the country I used the U.S. Census Bureau's 2007 population estimates for cities and towns. http://www.census.gov/popest/cities/SUB-EST2007-4.html It's the best source I could find but is inherantly flawed insofar as it only counts incorporated municipalities. Depending on their statutes regarding formation of local governments, most states have many UNINCORPORATED places, some of which are larger than Wasilla. (For example, the Census data includes Wisconsin's 592 incorporated municipalities but not its 1,265 unincorporated towns. Incomplete population data for those towns showed at least 17 larger than Wasilla. If that held true for every state, there would be at least 850 municipalities nationwide that are larger than Wasilla but omitted from the Census data. In another example, the Census data shows only one incorporated city in Hawaii, making Wasilla a statistically impossible #2.)

The final tally showed Wasilla no higher than the 3,644th largest city/town/borough/whatever in the United States. Keep that in mind when considering how Sarah Palin's extensive "executive experience" might qualify her to serve as vice president - or quite possibly president - of the country.

Here's the state-by-state listing:

AL #78
AK #9
AZ #49
AR #49
CA #402
CO #56
CT #22
DE #8
FL #184
GA #98
HI #2
ID #26
IL #275
IN #93
IA #56
KS #46
KY #57
LA #49
ME #18
MD #29
MA #47
MI #122
MN #112
MS #54
MO #103
MT #14
NE #24
NV #13
NH #18
NJ #157
NM #28
NY #119
NC #48
ND #11
OH #206
OK #53
OR #64
PA #122
RI #9
SC #48
SD #13
TN #75
TX #265
UT #66
VT #8
VA #49
WA #94
WV #19
WI #112
WY #14

[rgbecker]

1. Listen, my friend, you gotta get out more....Maybe take up ice hockey.

[Bill McBlueState]

2. it's true; varying definitions of "town" make this hard to do

I know that in Hawaii, they're not big on incorporation. Each island has its own mayor and functions like a single local government. Honolulu is the only official city, although places like Hilo on the big island feel like fairly typical small towns.

In any case, you've calculated a good upper limit. Wasilla is certainly no higher than #3,600.

[minnesota_liberal]

3. We'll never know, but I suspect the actual figure is more like #4,500

That's what I had in mind when Palin cited the "executive experience" she gained as mayor during tonight's debate.