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Location: NY-NJ-Philly looks down at SF and laughs at the hippies
1,144 posts, read 1,296,325 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gateway Region
Compare these two cities/MSA metro areas by the listed criteria in terms of bang for your buck.
Bang
Beaches/Waterfront - List your favorites and explain why.
Dining - Compare in terms of quality and quantity of restaurants. Avoid discussing extremely expensive restaurants, discuss places a middle class American can afford.
Economic Niches - Discuss which city has the best economic niches for workers with an MBA. Avoid speaking about unemployment rates or current economic situations, simply their niches.
Parks and Squares - List your top parks and squares in each city and explain why.
Sports Bars/Sports Environment - Which city has the best sports bars and sports environment.
Unique Neighborhoods - Name a couple neighborhoods that you feel are unique in both of the cities and explain why.
Weather - How much colder is Chicago than Philadelphia during peak winter months?
Other - I listed attributes most important to me. If you feel something should be added then do so. I left airport, landmarks, museums and transit off of my criteria on purpose. Feel free to mention these attributes, but please don't turn the thread into an argument over any of those topics.
Buck
Real Estate Prices (Buying a Home)
Rent Prices
Taxes
This is a reminder to everyone in this thread. I am trying to gather information to possibly live in one of these locations.
I am not interested in comparing the urbanity of the two cities, the amount of ppsm in the metro or transit options. I am already aware both cities are urban and livable without a car. Please stick to the criteria to help me gather information. Thanks.
I've ridden Metra and it serves its purpose very well but it is limited in speed by having to use existing freight rail routes and overall is not as nice, clean and convenient as SEPTA which features three downtown stops. Bigger, not better is what I'd say about Metra. The situation becomes much less favorable for Philly when comparing the CTA 'L' lines versus SEPTA's subway and trolley lines.
Limited in speed? I don't think you have a clue how fast those things move. They may seem slow from inside but that's deceiving. You only realize how fast it's moving from the inside when you notice you're passing traffic like they're on bikes. I've been on Metra trains with my GPS and have clocked them at up to 70+ mph.
That's nice I guess that SEPTA has 3 downtown stops. Metra has 4 downtown stations and dozens of stops within the city limits.
Not my claim here... SEPTA claims this: "Interestingly, when accounting for the average distance between stations, SEPTA is fastest among 10 major commuter railroads in the US"
But SEPTA's average speed is not so high because of the fact that the stations are so close to each other.
Look, Metra is great, OK? Its how I get around Chicago when I am there. Clean, fast, on time (mostly).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Drover
Limited in speed? I don't think you have a clue how fast those things move. They may seem slow from inside but that's deceiving. You only realize how fast it's moving from the inside when you notice you're passing traffic like they're on bikes. I've been on Metra trains with my GPS and have clocked them at up to 70+ mph.
That's nice I guess that SEPTA has 3 downtown stops. Metra has 4 downtown stations and dozens of stops within the city limits.
Furthermore, Chicago's Urban Area is 9.24 Million in 5,900 square miles... Which is similar in size to Philadelphia's Metro. So back to your post, yes they can be deceiving, but now you know the facts.
Lol at their definition that demographia gives. Priceless.
An urban area is a continuously
built up land mass of urban development. It is the generally the urban footprintthe lighted area
that can be observed from an airplane on a clear night.
Heres Philadelphia with Chicago-like area metro acreage. Keep in mind there are a 1/2 dozen major arteries from Philadelphia to each of the areas.
Everyone of these micro areas immediately connects with the Philadelphia MSA suburbs.
Philadelphia CMSA 6,533,683
Lehigh Valley 821,683
Lancaster PA 507,766
Mercer County 366,513
Atlantic City 271,762
Dover De 157,741
Ocean City NJ 96,091
Delaware Valley 8,755,239
So yeah they are relatively close.
Quote:
Originally Posted by grapico
Everybody is tired about you whining about Trenton being close by the way, deal with it. It's a tired argument that has been going on for literally years on here, why do you still post it? It makes you come off like a sore loser. Everybody knows Philadelphia is in the larger greater region, and you have to play by the rules if you want to have access to NYC, Baltimore and DC right there, which is a benefit that Chicago does not have. So really there are two options for you on that angle, play that Trenton card all you want, but then never bring up your "access" ever again... You can't have it both ways.
I think you have me confused with some other guy named Rainrock.
I have never argued on being in the "Greater Access" to the Northeast. I merely try and educate people that Philadelphia quite frankly gets a raw deal. If I come off as a sore loser to you then thats your problem. Im just trying to set the record straight so that we dont have Kolchaks coming on here citing a few stats wihout knowing the inner details.
Trenton to Philadlephia is closer than the Northern + Southern borders of the city of Chicago.How ridiculous is it that Trenton isn't even in Phillys MSA let alone its CMSA?
Keep in mind that areas 60-70 miles from chicago are included in their GDP. Trenton/Ewing which has a GDP of close to $50 B is 15 miles away from Philadlephia and is not included in Philly GDP. Metro Stats can be quite deceiving. Chicago has a greater GDP than Philadephia but they are much much clo$er all things being equal.
Chicago metro sq mi 10,000 sq mi..
Philadlephia metro sq mi 5,000 sq mi
?????
Household Income 2010
Gladwyne Pa (190135) $204,210
Villanova Pa(19085) $171,003
lake Forest Il(60045) $160,206
I agree about the difficulty of assesing information using MSAs. However, all the suburbs mentioned in the statistics I provided lie within Cook and Lake Counties - an area of less than 1500 square miles. If the central 3000 square miles of the Chicago area were compared with Philadelphia's, the results wouldn't look much different. Chicago's core GDP would always be much higher than Philadelphia's
I agree about the difficulty of assesing information using MSAs. However, all the suburbs mentioned in the statistics I provided lie within Cook and Lake Counties - an area of less than 1500 square miles. If the central 3000 square miles of the Chicago area were compared with Philadelphia's, the results wouldn't look much different. Chicago's core GDP would always be much higher than Philadelphia's
Per Capita Income-2010
Trenton-$55,170
Philadelphia -$45,927
Chicago-$45,377
Okay, then Milwaukee's metro touches ours so then I'll include it. It works especially well since our CSA's overlap.
I could include Rockford's as well as a few others in Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Michigan.
But then you could make the claim that Philadelphia is part of a 30 M person CSMA with NJ/NY.
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