Now, that also tends to be only about 10-20% of the land area, thus why we have the term "High Density Populations". About 33% of the population live in Rural areas, thus the best way to get around has been the Automobile since the 1920s (and why in the 1920s the Automobile Industry concentrated on getting cars to Rural American and Upper Middle class America as opposed to the rest of the population, it is only in the post WWII era that you had most people living in urban areas driving cars).
The reason I am using 33-50% of the population for inner-city/urban areas is most traditional Northern Urban Cities stop expanding in the late 1920s, and you had the rise of the Suburbs. Most Suburbs started as "Trolley Suburbs" in the 1890s onward, but started to switch to "Automobile" suburbs starting in the 1920s (The Housing boom of the 1920s ended with the Housing crash of the 1930s, while some housing came back 1938-1941, WWII stopped that mini-boom and it did NOT re-start till 1946, by that time developers of suburbs were no longer building trolley lines to their developments, instead relying on new buyers having access to cars with a limited access to bus transportation).
Most of the pre-depression Trolley suburbs are now viewed as "Inner City" by most suburbanites. even if the Tolley suburb is NOT in the inner city proper. Sometimes these are referred to as "Older Suburbs". These are almost non-existent outside of California and the North (Minneapolis East to Boston/New York City/ Washington) for the south the west did NOT participate extensively in the boom of the late 1800s and pre-WWII industrial America. You have some on the West Coast, but we have to remember California only became the Third Largest state by population in 1940 (Beating out Ohio), and the second most populated state by 1950 (Beating out Pennsylvania). California only became the most populated state in the census of 1980, finally beating out New York State. Texas and Florida have followed a similar through about 20 years later pattern, thus the big three of 1900, New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio (#4 was Illinois, # 5 was Texas, #6 was Massachusetts), are now the big three of California, Texas and then New York (#4 is Florida, #5, Illinois and #6 Pennsylvania). Most of this development is post WWII (The top Six States by population in 1950 was New York, California, Pennsylvania. Illinois, Ohio and Texas).
I mention the above just to point out the much earlier development of the Northern States compared to the Rest of the Country. California started its "Growth" while before the South did and thus why the South is the most car dependent area of the Country, for the Urban and Suburban South is a product of the age of the Automobile suburb, not the earlier growth of the Urban Core nor the Trolley suburb and thus why it is the area most opposed to alternatives to the Automobile.
http://www.census.gov/statab/hist/HS-04.pdfFor this reason, outside of the American North, you tend to see very small urban cores surrounded by post WWII suburban developments, while in the American North you tend to have a more balance i.e. a much larger urban core, surrounded by a inner ring of old trolley suburbs, then the post WWII Automobile suburbs. The first two areas are idea for Light Rail, and where Light rail is making its biggest comeback, the later area is to low a population density for Light Rail, and depends on the Automobile. The Post WWII Automobile Suburbs must live and die with the Automobile, the Urban Core and Old Trolley Suburbs can survive without the Automobile for they were designed NOT to depend on automobiles.
I lived in the South, in an Automobile Suburb for a few years, and saw the differences between it and where I grew up in an old trolley suburb. To get anywhere in the Automobile Suburb I had to get there by Car, walking was either to far or to dangerous. I did NOT have such a restriction in my old trolley suburb, everything was in walking distance, they had something called "Sidewalks" even on major highways (The Housing development I Lived in had sidewalks, but the development was blocked off by four lane highways that surrounded the development).
I can NOT say EITHER aspect was a deliberate plan, I suspect it came out of the plan to make it easy to everyone to use the Trolley (In the trolley Suburb) or their Automobile (in the Automobile Suburb). Furthermore, the North retain more of their old inner city business core area then the Southern City Urban Cores (In the Southern City I lived in, the old urban core had for all practical purposes been abandoned in favor of being somewhere along the interstate that was the core of the Suburbs of that city). In Northern Cities, such development has occurred, but the inner City has retains many of its older business aspects.
Thus a comment on your statement that 99.99 % of the population, Light rail is a good solution to the old urban core and old trolley suburbs and those automobile suburbs that can adjust to light rail. This section of the population is around 33-50% of the population, more in the older Norther Cities and their older Suburbs then the Post-WWII suburbs (which is the growth area of most of the rest of the Country). The General rule of thumb is 1/3 of the American population live in the older inner Cities, 1/3 in Suburban and 1/3 in Rural America. The 33-50% numbers I am using reflect that the divide between these three groups is NOT that definite. US urban centers do NOT have walls that says where the cities ends and where the suburbs begin (Through some of the belt way perform a similar function as far as walking is concerned, thus why Boston did its "Big Dig" to get rid of the expressways built in the 1950s for they were killing Boston). The same with Suburbia and Rural America, you have huge overlap (in fact the term "Suburban" was invented to describe areas of such overlap between Urban and Rural American, but since the 1920s have taken to mean NOT that area of overlap, but something different from both).
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