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New orleans bowed out long before Katrina. Way before.
and people need to stop bringing up Galveston. The hurricane that devastated Galveston is only one factor.
Fact of the matter is people are looking at only city limits and saying "oh a 100 years ago Galveston city was bigger than Houston city", but fail to realize that Houston was surrounded by many many cities while Galveston was not. Hurricane or not, with Texas Liberal annexation laws it was inevitable that Houston would leave Galveston behind. As metro divisions go Houston would have always won being completely surrounded by adjacent land rich with residents while Galveston was surrounded by water.
Ignoring, Houston and Galveston other metro sick as Atlanta, Miami, DFW and a few smaller ones also contributed to NOLAs diminished stature as companies chose more populated centers to relocate to.
Louisville
Baltimore
Seattle
New Orleans feels significantly larger, really surprised how small it is.
Nashville
Providence
Pittsburgh feels significantly larger
Kansas City
Des Moines
Asheville
Feels smaller than their population suggests:
Tampa feels significantly smaller
Cincinnati
Charlotte
St. Louis feels significantly smaller
Austin
San Antonio
Phoenix
Indianapolis
Virginia Beach, another surprise lol
San Antonio looks and feels like a metro well over 2 million. It has a massive freeway system with bigger than average interchanges, and clusters of high rise office buildings all over the city that form small skylines. It may not have a large downtown skyline but it does have a dense bustling downtown and an urban core that is pretty significant in size for the sunbelt. There are a few other cities you listed that in my opinion look about their size and smaller ones that their skyline may suggest a bigger city, but are not.
San Antonio looks and feels like a metro well over 2 million.
Not to me. Feels and looks just about exactly like what it is. It is also my favorite Texas city, so that's not a knock, but it doesn't feel like a big city to me, and I can't think of many cities that feel like "big cities" until about the 3-4 million mark. San Antonio is, and feels very much like a "small city" to me. Very much on the order of Indianapolis, Orlando, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, etc.
A lot of older East-Coast cities look and feel bigger when you're walking around in them. Portland, ME (pop. 66,000), Annapolis, MD (pop. 39,000), and Savannah, GA (pop. 144,000) punch above their weight, for example. Even smaller is New Castle, DE (pop. 5,000).
Not to me. Feels and looks just about exactly like what it is. It is also my favorite Texas city, so that's not a knock, but it doesn't feel like a big city to me, and I can't think of many cities that feel like "big cities" until about the 3-4 million mark. San Antonio is, and feels very much like a "small city" to me. Very much on the order of Indianapolis, Orlando, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, etc.
San Antonio has about 2.4 million people in its metro, and almost 2 million of that is more urbanized versus the outlying exburbs or low density outlying areas that add to the total metro population. Having another 600,000 people out in the metro won't change the look and feel much of the first few hundred to thousand square miles where cities are at their highest density and where people draw an opinion whether the city seems big or not. San Antonio's downtown will always have an old world charm feel more so than a corporate one, even when the metro reaches 3 million or more residents. Possibly with the proposed skyscrapers and all the residential being built it might change the look and feel of downtown slightly and lose some of that small town charm but not a whole lot.
Out of the metros in the 1.7 million to 2.5 million range, and outside their respective downtown area, San Antonio would look like one of the bigger ones based on the first 500 to 1,000 square miles and probably be among the most populated within that size area. More people means more concrete and commercialization. I'm not saying it is the most urban in design but one of the most urbanized of that size group.
Last edited by SweethomeSanAntonio; 06-04-2015 at 06:16 PM..
Without being repetitive, cities like San Francisco, Seattle, and Boston are all rather small compared with their metro or CSA populations. But they still serve as the center of their populations, with the greatest density in the area. So this is why it has been added to the discussion. I'm sure there are many other examples of this throughout the country.
Without being repetitive, cities like San Francisco, Seattle, and Boston are all rather small compared with their metro or CSA populations. But they still serve as the center of their populations, with the greatest density in the area. So this is why it has been added to the discussion. I'm sure there are many other examples of this throughout the country.
That's Pittsburgh too.... a city of 305K.... Feels more like a city of 600-700k even a 1 million at times.... because of the small sq miles (55), and it has a lot of Urban Inner Suburbs that transact mostly with the city.
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