Downtown San Francisco vs Chicago (rates, largest, place, skyscrapers)

[grapico]

Originally Posted by PerseusVeil

If you're going off population alone for the cities proper, then Boston and SF are not Chicago's peer cities. Even if you added the populations of San Francisco and Boston together and then compared that figure to Chicago, Chicago's population would remain closer to that of Los Angeles proper.

Why would anybody do that though, at least on this board. City limits are arbitrary. Chicago is statistically more a peer of Philly Boston SF and DC in terms of metro pop and gdp than it is LA, or NYC for that matter.

[PerseusVeil]

Originally Posted by grapico

Why would anybody do that though, at least on this board. City limits are arbitrary. Chicago is statistically more a peer of Philly Boston SF and DC in terms of metro pop and gdp than it is LA, or NYC for that matter.

If the topic was about a city's economic importance, or about what an overall metro area fells like in addition to said area's overall economic importance, I would get that and even agree with you, but this conversation is about how the downtowns of specific cities proper feel. If you're wandering around the Loop and areas of Near North how would places like Naperville and Schaumburg, and their economic importance, be relevant to your experience at all?

I will concede that my point works better when comparing whole cities instead of just their downtowns, as Boston and San Francisco are far more compact which helps their feel, but, if you did want to compare and contrast whole cities, I'd sooner compare and contrast Chicago's 227 sq miles (I'm not counting water for these measurements) and 2.71 million to Los Angeles' 469 sq miles and 3.85 million sooner than Chicago to San Francisco's 47 sq miles and 825,000. Philadelphia would be a good comparison though.

Anyway, that's all I was trying to get it, but, like I said, I did kinda go off on a tangent.

[PCH_CDM]

Originally Posted by PerseusVeil

If the topic was about a city's economic importance, or about what an overall metro area fells like in addition to said area's overall economic importance, I would get that and even agree with you, but this conversation is about how the downtowns of specific cities proper feel. If you're wandering around the Loop and areas of Near North how would places like Naperville and Schaumburg, and their economic importance, be relevant to your experience at all?

Obviously places like Naperville and Schaumberg are extremely relevant to downtown Chicago and its relative size. The Loop would be a much less busy place, with far fewer highrises and density, if you didn't have such a big suburban population.

The City of Chicago only has about a quarter of the metro area population, and I bet the proportion of white collar professional workers is even lower in the city proper. Many (most?) of those people you see scurring about in the Loop are from the suburbs, especially if we're talking the big towers along Wacker Drive and the like, which are filled with professional firms specifically because of proximity to the two main suburban train terminals.

[grapico]

Originally Posted by PerseusVeil

If the topic was about a city's economic importance, or about what an overall metro area fells like in addition to said area's overall economic importance, I would get that and even agree with you, but this conversation is about how the downtowns of specific cities proper feel. If you're wandering around the Loop and areas of Near North how would places like Naperville and Schaumburg, and their economic importance, be relevant to your experience at all?

I will concede that my point works better when comparing whole cities instead of just their downtowns, as Boston and San Francisco are far more compact which helps their feel, but, if you did want to compare and contrast whole cities, I'd sooner compare and contrast Chicago's 227 sq miles (I'm not counting water for these measurements) and 2.71 million to Los Angeles' 469 sq miles and 3.85 million sooner than Chicago to San Francisco's 47 sq miles and 825,000. Philadelphia would be a good comparison though.

Anyway, that's all I was trying to get it, but, like I said, I did kinda go off on a tangent.

They aren't, neither is the rest of the city though. That is why SF downtown can be slightly more vibrant while Chicago as a whole can be slightly more vibrant and LA can have more population but have a far less vibrant and interesting downtown than both.

However, the size of the area impacts the vibrancy of downtown Chicago a lot due to rise in commuters with the Metra line and CTA both on a spoke and wheel system feeding into the centralized DT area.

In the 3 companies I've worked in the loop for I'd say more than half of them live in the suburbs (2 Big insurance companies and one tech company). In the white collar crowd, people living in the city is heavily weighted to those in the 22-30 range (probably 90+% of them) and gets less the higher in age range you go up. Just my anecdotal experience but I doubt it's far off from those #'s.

If you work for a young startup company you might see a lot of those living in the city, if you work for a traditional f500 type company, I think you might have the half suburb/half city crowd.

[Chicago60614]

Originally Posted by PCH_CDM

Obviously places like Naperville and Schaumberg are extremely relevant to downtown Chicago and its relative size. The Loop would be a much less busy place, with far fewer highrises and density, if you didn't have such a big suburban population.

The City of Chicago only has about a quarter of the metro area population, and I bet the proportion of white collar professional workers is even lower in the city proper. Many (most?) of those people you see scurring about in the Loop are from the suburbs, especially if we're talking the big towers along Wacker Drive and the like, which are filled with professional firms specifically because of proximity to the two main suburban train terminals.

I've been working downtown in the loop for 12 years now, and I would say it's around 60% city and 40% suburbs as far as workers go. I actually work on the 36th floor for an investment advisor on Wacker Drive. Metra brings in around 150,000 one-way rides per day, and there are around 550,000 people who work in the loop every day. The number of retail/restaurant/service/hospitality people is a massive number as well, who are much more skewed to living in the city.

The Loop as tons of workers, and many many of them are younger. I would say of the 18-35 crowd, a very large majority live in the city, while the older you get the more chances you are that you live in the suburbs. Really the switch of the city being more popular than the suburbs for younger people happened in the late 90's, so I find people who are above or below 35-40 years old tend to be the divide with the first part being very city oriented until they have school-aged kids, and the older half being very suburb oriented.

There's a reason dozens of companies and thousands and thousands of workers have announced their moves from the suburbs to the city in the past few years - it's where the workers want to be. Companies realize that to draw talented young people they need to be where the young people want to live.

The downtown area gained 50,000 residents from 2000 to 2010, with around 12,000 more apartment units built in the past 3 years. The Loop has regained all the jobs it lost during the recession and then some, while suburban areas like DuPage County are still at a 12% loss. Ridership on just the Brown Line alone is up more than 150% since the 1990's, and that line runs from the north side of the city into downtown. It's at around 115,000 rider per day. Back in the 1990's it was almost shut down because it was so empty.

Sift through the newspaper articles from the past year and the draw is hard to miss - the city is pulling in tons of jobs from the suburbs and elsewhere. The downtown area is flying high while the suburbs are doing pretty poorly. A tale of two cities within the metro area.....:

Another suburban tech company moves downtown
As its name suggests, OpinionLab Inc. makes its living figuring out human behavior.
After nearly 15 years in Highland Park, it became clear that the sentiment of would-be....

Financial firm heads downtown after mulling move to Indy

Mike's Hard Lemonade Opens West Loop Headquarters

Startup Cappex moves to Chicago from Highland Park

Acquity to expand 30 percent here, adding 100 jobs

AT&T to Move 500 jobs Downtown From Suburbs

GoHealth eyes new office in Merchandise Mart
The new location also would allow 12-year-old GoHealth, which now has about 450 full-time employees, to add another 600 by December.

GreatPoint Energy Inc. breaks ground on new HQ in Illinois Medical District

Port of Chicago attracts $500 million investment

Cigna-HealthSpring to open downtown office, hire 120

Chicago draws near record 46M tourists in 2012

Medline to bring 40 suburban jobs to West Loop this year

Manufacturer moves HQ to West Loop from Morton Grove

Grainger to add space, employees in downtown Chicago

1871 tech co-op created 800 jobs in first year

Weight-loss firm to bulk up in new downtown offices

Coeur d'Alene Mines to move HQ to Chicago

Guggenheim to move 200 to Loop from suburbs

Sensient plans to move Indy headquarters to Chicago

St.Louis Construction firm bringing HQ to Chicago

Australian vitamin maker bringing U.S. headquarters to Chicago

Durata biotech moving headquarters to Chicago

Capital One leasing major office space in United Building

Dow Chemical opens new facility in Chicago

Motorola Solutions moving U.S. sales HQ downtown

Abe's Market moving Minneapolis corporate headquarters to Chicago

Presence Health to move headquarters — and 200 jobs — to Loop

Nokia unit joins tech collection downtown, brings 250 jobs

U of I, city hall mull opening huge research center in Chicago

Another HQ shifting to Loop from suburbs
A Lombard-based marketing firm is joining the suburbs-to-city migration, moving its headquarters to the Loop in a bid to attract talented urban workers...

United Airlines moving HQ to Willis Tower, extends lease to 2028
United Airlines is doing what it promised for downtown Chicago and more, moving its headquarters into 200,000 square feet at the Willis Tower and extending its lease for 625,000 square feet it already occupie...s

KPMG to add 500 jobs here over five years

Chicago tech firms commit to create 2,000 jobs

Walgreen Co. to expand headquarters, add 500 jobs

Zurich says it will add 150 jobs in Chicago

Motorola Mobility leaving Libertyville for Merchandise Mart with 3,000 jobs

Braintree to add 150 jobs in West Loop

Reznick moving Midwest HQ downtown from Skokie

Sterling Partners moving downtown from Northbrook

Huron Consulting to add 400 to 600 HQ jobs in Loop

Devry to Bring 600 Jobs to New West Loop Offices

InnerWorkings adds space to accommodate 200 hires

Accounting firm McGladrey shifts HQ to Chicago

Chicago Bulls Plan To Move Practice Center Downtown

PLS moves headquarters to 1 South Wacker

Utopia raises $50M, to add 500 employees

Citibank makes Chicago its new regional hub

GrubHub moves HQ to the Loop

[PCH_CDM]

Originally Posted by Chicago60614

I've been working downtown in the loop for 12 years now, and I would say it's around 60% city and 40% suburbs as far as workers go. I actually work on the 36th floor for an investment advisor on Wacker Drive. Metra brings in around 150,000 one-way rides per day, and there are around 550,000 people who work in the loop every day. The number of retail/restaurant/service/hospitality people is a massive number as well, who are much more skewed to living in the city.

Well then even if it's only 40%, obviously the suburbs play a huge role in the relative size of downtown Chicago.

And I think it's higher. When I lived in Chicago, a majority of my co-workers (especially management) lived in the suburbs. I think in the fancy law firms, consulting firms, and the like, a strong majority of the white collar workers live in the suburbs (especially north and west, in places like Winnetka, Hinsdale, Barrington and the like).

And you can't just go by Metra ridership. Plenty of people drive in every day. All those garages in the Loop are full for a reason. Plenty of people don't want to deal with the train, especially if they don't work close to their terminal. And if you have kids, especially, you see people driving (such as my friend, who works at Mayer Brown & Platt, and lives in Northbrook, but drives in so she can pick up her daughter from daycare on the way home).

[grapico]

Even though SF right now is what I would view as *slightly* more vibrant DT... The way Chicago is going I'm not sure that is going to last b/c the residential population in the loop doubled from 2000-2010 and areas around it like west loop/south loop/river north continue to grow as well and has far more high rise dwellings to put people in. Chicago might be bleeding as a city but the core of the city is getting better. On the other hand, SoMa continues to grow and build out... so, who knows.

Originally Posted by PCH_CDM

Well then even if it's only 40%, obviously the suburbs play a huge role in the relative size of downtown Chicago.

And I think it's higher. When I lived in Chicago, a majority of my co-workers (especially management) lived in the suburbs. I think in the fancy law firms, consulting firms, and the like, a strong majority of the white collar workers live in the suburbs (especially north and west, in places like Winnetka, Hinsdale, Barrington and the like).

And you can't just go by Metra ridership. Plenty of people drive in every day. All those garages in the Loop are full for a reason.

Yeah, like I said above, might depend where you work. In my experience I'd say overall more people live in the suburbs. In addition to the 3 main places I've worked for, when I first moved to Chicago I temped at a bank and a law firm for about 2 months and the experience there was the same.

[NARFALICIOUS]

Michigan Avenue in December? Yeah

[grapico]

I wonder if the al fresco dining in and around SF DT makes it feel more vibrant also by making sidewalks even tighter than they already are. There is way more of this in SF than Chicago from what I've noticed at least in the areas around DT. Sometimes the restaurants setup in the middle of the street also. Chicago does have quite a bit of restaurants w/ outdoor seating, but often times this is officially gated off, on the roof, or in the back of the place. SF places more often seem to just sit some tables and chairs right in the middle of the sidewalk. You can't have sidewalk dining in Chicago Dec-Feb.


sterling style academy

[PCH_CDM]

Originally Posted by grapico

I wonder if the al fresco dining in and around SF DT makes it feel more vibrant also by making sidewalks even tighter than they already are. There is way more of this in SF than Chicago.

And the streets are generally narrower in SF, plus fewer parking lots/garages.