The Quad Cities vs STL Metro Area (home)

Hey a long time ago I planned to post this as a way to cure my boredom. But also, even though I'm not a big numbers lady, it gives me pleasure to try and put these in perspective.
Just, take a look.

thank census.gov for this by the way...

I took the following areas:

Alton 29,774
Godfrey 16,974
East Alton 6,680
Edwardsville 23,953
Bethalto 9,670
Jerseyville 8,068
Wood River 11,085

All the main towns around home. I added the populations to get a random population over milage number. A total of 106,204 ppl, unless my calculator sucks. This gives an average area population of 15,172, a little smaller than Godfrey.

Besides Alton/Godfrey/E. Alton, that run together, the surrounding towns are kinda spread out. To the closest big city, STL of course (343,279), Jerseyville is the farthest away at 43.5 miles away.

I probably should have included Brighton, but get over it- also I excluded smaller towns like Rosewood Heights, Fosterburg and Cottage Hills (and the like).

Then I took the Quad Cities:

Rock Island 38,807
Moline 42,927
Bettendorf, IA 31,615
Davenport,IA 98,355
E. Moline 21,114
Silvis 7,423

Total pop: 240,241 (nearly the size of STL altogether)
Pop. average: 40,040

I also left out little cities surrounding these. The difference is that there are NO smaller towns in between these listed, only surrounding them. Each town runs directly into one another. If u start in Bettendorf (which also touches Moline), u can head west to Davenport, then south to Rock Island, then East to Moline, keep going East into E. Moline and then Silvis.

Technically its a more populated area, and closer together.... which makes for a pretty big area, the entirety of which tends to remind me a bit of home although the size differences. The closest big city is IN the area, although it is 3 times smaller than STL, Davenport. From one the two farthest ends of the area, on a map (silvis to davenport) is only 16 miles. Roughly the distance from where Alton turns into Godfrey to Jerseyville.

The QC has 3 casinos on the Mississippi River. It is the covergence (like Alton with the Illinois and Mississippi) of the Rock and Mississippi Rivers. There are many similarities.

Alright, enough nerdy useless info :)