The Virtues of Sprawl

Maybe it's a case of 'Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics', but how can this be true?

A Brookings Institution study on the Los Angeles area found an average of nine people per acre of newly developed land from 1982 to 1997, three times the rate of the New York metropolitan area. By the measure of people per square mile, Los Angeles--hemmed in, for all its expanse, by mountains and the ocean--is more dense than Chicago, according to the Census Bureau.

Is this saying that LA is 3 times as dense as New York? Is that possible? I've never lived in LA, but I've lived in two (Manhatton, Brooklyn) of New York's five boroughs, and they're pretty darn crowded. Maybe 'metro New York' includes Jersey City, Hoboken, Neward, etc.? I've lived in Jersey City, too - crowded. Hoboken? Crowded. Newark? Crowded. What gives?

Y'all can have your suburbs. I'm stayin in the city.