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What? You're a black hole of envy and bitterness. This whole thread has been consumed by your lunch room bullying. Quite honestly, I'd prefer if you'd think of the others who are trying to have a discussion in this thread.
We get it, you love SF. It's the most urban place behind NYC to you. Thanks for your opinion; now please move on.
Thanks for injecting some perspective and sanity here. Yes, 18 idolizes SF. We've learned it's even better than London in this most recent thread. Hooray! I'm sure some will agree and others (including me) won't. Just as in real life, berating others who disagree with you here on CD is unlikely to win any converts, however. A page or two back, I sunk to the same level Apologies, 18.
But it doesn't really feel like a city....just a huge suburban neighborhood outside of city limits (which it is)...
Anyway,
1. New York
2. Chicago
3. San Francisco
4. Philadelphia
5. Boston
6. Los Angeles
7. Miami
8. Atlanta
9. Houston
10. Dallas
Suburbanity doesn't really automaticlly make a city feel smaller. LA metro is gonna feel larger than Boston and Philly, just based on how far the developement goes out, regardless of it's urbanity. It may feel larger because it is.
But those characteristics are what make LA seem so massive.
Drive down Sunset, Wilshire, Santa Monica etc and its exactly as you describe, relatively dense residential areas with large retail and commercial areas in between them. And that's just the Westside.
On a visit about a month ago, I drove on city streets from Downtown all the way to Santa Monica mainly because I had things to do along the way and it took forever with traffic, but also because there was so much that distracted me that I stopped and walked around.
By the way, I hate driving there during the day, but absolutely love it late nights---ironically just like when Im in New York.
I did not have a chance to do this when I was there. It's because of this that I feel like LA could be considered to feel bigger than Chicago on the whole. Downtown aside, LA is just massive and feels it will never end.
Suburbanity doesn't really automaticlly make a city feel smaller. LA metro is gonna feel larger than Boston and Philly, just based on how far the developement goes out, regardless of it's urbanity. It may feel larger because it is.
It all depends on perspective. I based my relative "big city feel" rankings on the perspective of a pedestrian located smack-dab in the center of a city: How far can I walk and still feel the vibrancy, what happens if I take a subway 15 minutes and emerge, etc. If I was looking at it from the perspective of someone driving a car across a vast metro area, I'd likely offer a different ranking.
Last edited by Pine to Vine; 08-25-2011 at 09:32 AM..
I interpret this thread literally, as in how big a city "feels". To me it makes no sense to post statistics about population density if you've never been to the city in question.
Personally, I get the "wow this is a big city" feeling when I'm walking on a crowded sidewalk and can feel the energy of the place. I also get a similar feeling when I'm driving towards a downtown on a 10 lane congested highway and I start passing through satellite or "edge" cities.
Some cities have one or the other.....
For example, when driving north of Atlanta towards Alpharetta I get the feeling. But walking around midtown I feel like I'm in a medium-sized city.
I get the feeling on the roads around DC and approaching from I-95. Also I get it majorly driving through the industrial wasteland of refineries in Northern New Jersey with the skylines of NYC and Newark both in view. Interestingly, there are some roads in the Norfolk/Hampton Roads area that make the area feel larger than it really is.
Conversely, I get the feeling in downtown Philadelphia but not driving around it. Admittedly, I do get the feeling passing the city from the east on the way to NYC but when driving west or North from Center City I feel like it's quite a let down. I'm aware it has to do with the mountainous terrain but as I said this is based on emotion not fact. It's probably a letdown for me because walking around Center City feels like such a major city with the street-level activity combined with the skyscrapers.
Suburbanity doesn't really automaticlly make a city feel smaller. LA metro is gonna feel larger than Boston and Philly, just based on how far the developement goes out, regardless of it's urbanity. It may feel larger because it is.
I don't agree. For me, suburbanity does make the city feel smaller. When it's just rows and rows of houses as opposed to an area that's densely packed with mid and high rise buildings, it just doesn't feel like a big city to me.
While LA may physically be much larger than Boston and Philly, I get the feeling that I'm in a large city when I'm in the latter. When I'm in LA, I don't get that city-feel.
But that's my personal take on it.
Ok so still need to dredge up the Tract version and only did one townsip by tract but here is the poor mans version of the Philly footprint, would be more succinct on tract as the peripheral townships are tweeners and parts not really urban but
so based on the quick less sophisticated version it is 2.14 Million in 213 sq miles of continuous footprint
What? You're a black hole of envy and bitterness. This whole thread has been consumed by your lunch room bullying. Quite honestly, I'd prefer if you'd think of the others who are trying to have a discussion in this thread.
We get it, you love SF. It's the most urban place behind NYC to you. Thanks for your opinion; now please move on.
He's not that far off - SF IS the most urban place behind NYC and Chicago.
He's not that far off - SF IS the most urban place behind NYC and Chicago.
Many disagree, and some agree
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Apologies, 18.
