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Boston, Philadelphia and New York grew up together and share similar histories. IMO San Francisco is the outlier out of these 4 cities from an architectural and cityscape perspective. This may offend people but the architecure in SF really does leave a lot to be desired. SF is also the outlier in regards to natural scenery, as it may be the most picturesque city in the country.
It only makes sense, being thousands of Miles away and all and growing into it's own at a completely different point in history.
Population 1850 NYC 696,115 Boston 136,000 Phila 121,000 SF 25,000
Population 1860 NYC 1,174,779 Phila 565,529 Boston 177,840 SF 56,802
Population 1900 NYC 3,437,000 Phila 1,293,000 Boston 560,000 SF 342,000
It's worth mentioning that the jump in population for Philadelphia between 1850 and 1860 was due to the Consolidation Act of 1854. Spring Garden was the 9th largest city in the country in 1850. (Northern Liberties and Southwark were large cities as well).
Also, Brooklyn was a separate city until the 1890s. It was the 4th largest city in the country in 1890 (So, New York jumped from 1.5m to 3.4m). It also annexed Williamsburg and Bushwick to become #3 in 1860.
Yea I still can't believe California of all places overturned the legalization of gay marriage.
Why? CA has some very conservative parts will millions of conservative minded people, there's a whole another CA most people don't seem to recognize. That plus a voter initiative system that makes it somewhat easy for voters to overturn judicial decisions.
Wow, I'm really surprised that San Francisco isn't on that list. The tourism industry is huge here.
That posted list wasn't accurate. It's just what's reported by local visitors bureaus.
Orlando, for example, considers visitors to all of Central Florida to be "tourists", while NYC only counts visitors to the city proper. So you can't compare across cities.
Obviously SF is a Top 5 or Top 6 city for visitors in the U.S.
I would guess the most popular cities for tourists would go something like this:
NYC
LA
Orlando
Vegas
SF
Miami
And then everyone else, at least in terms of tourists. Chicago, Boston, DC, Philly, and New Orleans would probably be the second tier (and I would guess DC on top of that second tier, if I had to pick one).
Boston, Philadelphia and New York grew up together and share similar histories. IMO San Francisco is the outlier out of these 4 cities from an architectural and cityscape perspective. This may offend people but the architecure in SF really does leave a lot to be desired. SF is also the outlier in regards to natural scenery, as it may be the most picturesque city in the country.
It only makes sense, being thousands of Miles away and all and growing into it's own at a completely different point in history.
There's also the fact the San Francisco basically had to rebuild most of the city following the 1906 quake. There'd be more 19th Century buildings from the post-Gold Rush-era if the earthquake and subsequent fire that destroyed most of San Francisco hadn't ended up entailing a very quick rebuilding of San Francisco in the following decade. I don't find the architecture in most of San Franciso that bad though... There's still plenty of old Victorian or Italianate houses or rowhouses with bay windows, you have old stately hotels up on Nob Hill, the beautiful modernist buildings like the recent museum remodelings, and plenty of nice areas to walk around like North Beach or up around the Haight. Compared to many major US cities(especially much of the Sun Belt), San Francisco is veritable gem.
While the architecture in much of San Francisco might be a little less colorful and modern in parts than a brownstone neighborhood in Brooklyn or Federal-era townhouses in Philadelphia or Boston on the other hand you don't have many neighborhoods with giant concrete high-rise housing projects as in New York or vacants like in Philadelphia. All in all though, I actually like the architecture in general throughout all four cities.
But honestly, San Francisco doesn't feel much like any of those cities outside of a few superficial commonalities.
There's also the fact the San Francisco basically had to rebuild most of the city following the 1906 quake. There'd be more 19th Century buildings from the post-Gold Rush-era if the earthquake and subsequent fire that destroyed most of San Francisco hadn't ended up entailing a very quick rebuilding of San Francisco in the following decade. I don't find the architecture in most of San Franciso that bad though... There's still plenty of old Victorian or Italianate houses or rowhouses with bay windows, you have old stately hotels up on Nob Hill, the beautiful modernist buildings like the recent museum remodelings, and plenty of nice areas to walk around like North Beach or up around the Haight. Compared to many major US cities(especially much of the Sun Belt), San Francisco is veritable gem.
While the architecture in much of San Francisco might be a little less colorful and modern in parts than a brownstone neighborhood in Brooklyn or Federal-era townhouses in Philadelphia or Boston on the other hand you don't have many neighborhoods with giant concrete high-rise housing projects as in New York or vacants like in Philadelphia. All in all though, I actually like the architecture in general throughout all four cities.
But honestly, San Francisco doesn't feel much like any of those cities outside of a few superficial commonalities.
Agreed with the above, especially the bolded. Don't get me wrong, I saw some beautiful neighborhoods in SF but I couldn't help notice how so many houses had such ugly garages front and center, kind of disconnecting residents from the sidewalk and streetscape in a way.
The OP's post is very vague and only mentions literature, media and politics as barometers. He also quoted a post that doesn't make exact sense. Although it is true that SF, Boston and Philly are infinitely more closely related on an economic level than they are to NYC.
The title of the thread is not nor the bottom two or three sentences from the OP.
There have been a few people in this thread (like grapico, kidphilly, others) that understood what it was about though.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 2e1m5a
Boston, Philadelphia and New York grew up together and share similar histories. IMO San Francisco is the outlier out of these 4 cities from an architectural and cityscape perspective.
Boston, Philadelphia, & New York are the supporting cast for this thread, the main protagonist for this thread is San Francisco which has many times over been described as an "eastern cousin displaced on the west coast"? The theme revolves around which of the other three it's most like.
I'm not focusing on reputation, all of these cities are largely different on that. Just which one under any stance of either superficial or actual setting San Francisco has the most, absolute most, in common with.
As for me, I find all 4 along with all of the other 8 largest cities in America to be quite lovely-- each in their own respective ways. Truly appreciate what America has to offer, I like them all.
Boston, Philadelphia, & New York are the supporting cast for this thread, the main protagonist for this thread is San Francisco which has many times over been described as an "eastern cousin displaced on the west coast"? The theme revolves around which of the other three it's most like.
I'm not focusing on reputation, all of these cities are largely different on that. Just which one under any stance of either superficial or actual setting San Francisco has the most, absolute most, in common with.
As for me, I find all 4 along with all of the other 8 largest cities in America to be quite lovely-- each in their own respective ways. Truly appreciate what America has to offer, I like them all.
Ok, gotcha. It is just a very difficult comparison to me because Boston, NYC and Philly can all be very similar and SF feels very different. I did see elements of all three Eastern cities in SF though. Parts of downtown had Manhattanesque vibrancy, the Bridges everywhere feels like NY, I saw Philadelphia style rowhomes and even some of the trolleys in SF are originally from SEPTA. The Beach in SF was like nothing over here.
Boston I'm not quite sure on specifics but they might be most similar because they are nearly equal in city size and both have a similar white/Asian aspect and very educated populations by percentage.
Boston is also much more tied in with their Bay than Manhattan is with the New York's Bays or Philadelphia is with the Delaware Bay and very similar to SF in that regard.
Last edited by 2e1m5a; 01-24-2013 at 12:49 PM..
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