San Francisco or Los Angeles: Who has more in common with New York City? (living, largest)

[Lets Eat Candy]

Self explanatory poll. Let me just preface by saying that all 3 are pretty distinct cities, but since this is city vs city, the comparisons have to be made.

Which city has more in common with NYC?

[Nafster]

I would honestly say neither (being well familiar with all three cities and formerly living in NYC, now LA).

If I had to choose between the two though, it would easily be San Francisco, only due to it's higher population density and it being more compact.

LA and NYC are completely different other than they are both in America and are the two most prominent and largest metros in the country.

[theraven24]

^^^ I was going to say the same thing. Been to all three cities, and they aren't the same.

[RichieTrick]

Neither......

[Lets Eat Candy]

Even though I did say that none of the three have anything in common really, I chose LA because

1) Los Angeles has the same cosmopolitan feeling that NYC does. Not saying that San Francisco doesn't feel cosmopolitan, but its definitely as widespread as it is in Los Angeles.

2) The bi-coastal connection: one of the busiest air corridors in the country is between LA and NYC.
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/res...appendix_3.pdf

LA-NYC: 4,355,755
SF-NYC: 2,980,648

In fact, NYC has more flights to London than it does to SF at 3,881,558.

3) Business connections: While SF has tech and tech related items, LA and NYC are both heavily involved in the creative class and nearly everything else more than NYC and SF have to each other

Megacities tend to flock together.

[ATUMRE75]

I would say SF overall because of some small similarties in geography and architect of it that reminds me more of NYC. The bridges, compact density, and the fact that SF downtown is on the water reminds me more of lower Manhattan than anything in LA.


LA is more similar to NYC when it comes to industries like fashion and entertainment but NYC economy is far more diverse than both cities. Again nether city is anything like NYC.

[munchitup]

I think SF is most like Manhattan. LA is more like NYC as a whole in having lots of high density / urban areas dotted all over (NYC obviously has more and larger areas but LA doesn't do bad either) and fairly large city limits. Comparing metros, they are all quite similar in having multiple high density suburbs (East Bay, NJ, LB/Glendale/SGV) though I guess the Bay and NYC Metro are more similar in that they are more centralized jobs-wise while LA Metro has a wide variety of large employment nodes.