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Yeah, it was specified in the original post. Also most people don't view cities as statistical boundaries of governmental funtion, but rather as destinations they visit that are not aligned with those governmental boundaries.
I personally see big cities by importance and global presence in addition to population.
Tier A
New York City (Obviously Way Ahead)
Los Angeles
Chicago
Tier B
Boston
Washington DC
San Francisco
Miami
Houston
Tier C
Dallas
Philadelphia
Seattle
Atlanta
Then DC has to be in Tier A. It's the seat of government of the US.
Quote:
Originally Posted by _Buster
I'll explain it for you. Historically the cities were all smaller land areas and more centralized. As suburbanization happened, many cities especially in the south and west, annexed large amounts of outside land, even entire counties. While many other cities especially in the northeast, for many reasons retained much smaller land areas within their jurisdictions. The result was usually smaller denser city cores in the northeast, surrounded by many dense suburbs, while in the south and west was often small city cores that had annexed very large areas of suburbs and even rural land into city limits. This only makes them bigger cities on paper and for government function, not in real life or in importance to residents or visitors. And defintely not in terms of urban experience.
You can keep thinking than places like San Antonio or Jacksonville are 'bigger cites' than say Boston for example, but fair warning you will be roundly ridiculed for it here, and for good reason. Most population of those large land area 'cities' are simply former suburbs that still function as such.
The northeastern narrative. Name some cities that did this. The only one I can think of is Omaha, and it actually looks as you describe for northeastern cities, until you get to the very outer edges.
Last edited by Katarina Witt; 11-23-2018 at 09:06 PM..
Yeah, it was specified in the original post. Also most people don't view cities as statistical boundaries of governmental funtion, but rather as destinations they visit that are not aligned with those governmental boundaries.
No kidding. The only time people like to use the city proper is when it helps their argument. Sometimes, and I find it comical, is when they like to use the small city proper population to make a point, but always like to use the metro when taking about how much the “city” has to offer. Like anyone really thinks Jacksonville has the same amount of people as Atlanta and Miami COMBINED, or Indianapolis is larger than Boston, Seattle, or Washington DC.
No kidding. The only time people like to use the city proper is when it helps their argument. Sometimes, and I find it comical, is when they like to use the small city proper population to make a point, but always like to use the metro when taking about how much the “city” has to offer. Like anyone really thinks Jacksonville has the same amount of people as Atlanta and Miami COMBINED, or Indianapolis is larger than Boston, Seattle, or Washington DC.
On the other side of that token, when then somebody uses metro numbers to point out, that for example, Houston or Dallas is bigger than Boston, DC, SF or Philly once gets quickly reminded of the opposite or the goalpost is moved to density.....
No kidding. The only time people like to use the city proper is when it helps their argument. Sometimes, and I find it comical, is when they like to use the small city proper population to make a point, but always like to use the metro when taking about how much the “city” has to offer. Like anyone really thinks Jacksonville has the same amount of people as Atlanta and Miami COMBINED, or Indianapolis is larger than Boston, Seattle, or Washington DC.
The other side of the coin is ..... some cities NEED their suburbs to help their argument.
Some cities have a smaller city-proper footprint. Sometimes by topography .... sometimes a inability to absorb early suburbs or state restrictions. But if a city has a large city footprint and its own street-grid vs the vast majority of its suburbs ..... it is unique and valued alone enough .... to stand on its own.
Some cities you can't tell where the major city ends and suburbs begin. Some you can in built environment.
Cities that had major growth earlier then the last few decades. Will have probably maintained a more separate identity between city and its suburbs. Especially those where inner-city declines had a severe change. Just within a larger city-proper.... you fine this separation even.
The northeastern narrative. Name some cities that did this. The only one I can think of is Omaha, and it actually looks as you describe for northeastern cities, until you get to the very outer edges.
Kansas City. When I was growing up there, the city was the 25th largest in the US by population but the 8th largest by area. It was constrained from annexing its wealthiest suburbs by the presence of the Missouri-Kansas state line. There are still some sizable chunks of the city that are planted in corn and soybeans.
Denver. Recall that the Colorado legislature eventually put limits on Denver's annexation powers, given that any territory it annexed in an adjacent county became part of the City and County of Denver?
Albuquerque. It was a mayor of that city, David Rusk, who wrote the best-known treatise arguing for broad annexation powers, Cities Without Suburbs.
Houston. San Antonio.
Los Angeles. (The separately incorporated suburbs that surround it were by and large defensive responses to LA's expansionism, and many didn't exist before California changed its incorporation law to allow cities to incorporate while sloughing off police and fire protection onto county governments.)
Any city that consolidated with its surrounding county. Indianapolis was the first of these cities to do so in the modern era, in 1961, but others have followed since, including Louisville, Jacksonville, Miami and Kansas City, Kansas. The very first such city to do so, of course, was the one I live in, which pulled off the move in 1854, touching off the great wave of 19th-century annexations and consolidations in the Northeast that culminated in the 1898 creation of the five-borough City of New York.
The arguments in favor of such moves then were similar to those in favor of such moves now.
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