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In a college course on urban affairs, a student asserts that traffic congestion in the United States increased between 1990 and 2000 mostly in and around very large cities such as Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The student claims that not only were smaller areas such as Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Anchorage, Alaska, less affected, but the amount of congestion in those areas remained constant throughout the same period. A second student claims that this is an unsupported assertion based on incorrect assumptions about traffic patterns in urban areas of different sizes.