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Does bigger make better? Well, I suppose it does on city-data where it has been raised to manta level. but is there a real basis for this?
do you look at cities and metropolitan areas and tend to rank them based on their relative population?
what exactly does getting bigger do that is positive for either city or metro area? and if you can identify positives, what do you see as the negatives? and is it possible that the negatives just may outweigh the positives.
I saw on the NYC thread that the city has hit some estimated high of 8.4 million people. Is this good for NYC? Will it make New York a better place.
and if it does make New York better, will every increase be good? Would you like to see NYC at 10 million? 12 million? some Mumbai like 14,000,000? If bigger is better, would you like to see NYC at 20,000,000?
San Francisco is some 150,000 people shy of a million. should a million be a goal. Is San Francisco less of a city than the three in California (Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose), the later of which is in its own metropolitan area.
Should other metro areas follow the model of Indy and Miami and incorporate the whole county, spiking their numbers?
Would LA have lost any real status of power if the San Fernando Valley really did pull out of the city as it tried too?
Does a city and metro area's rise or fall in population give you the best picture of its relative strength and weakness?
Can a city losing population possibly be even more desirable?
So…..exactly how important is "bigger" and what is its relationship with "better"?
……and while we're at it: is higher better than lower? Should a city be judged by the size of its skyline? do more high rises equal a better city? if your city were offered by Skyscraper Fairy (silly, i realize, but bear with me) 10 buildings, each more than 100 floors high, would you take the deal, sight unseen?
hate to throw out more questions since i've thrown out so many, but….
will the race for the sky ever end? can it end. does every single "World's Tallest Building" wear a target on its head: "Somebody is going to out-tall me"? Is the "World's Tallest Building" just too tempting to a developer with an ego and the money to pull it off? does he have to go for it? does he have to go for it even when the point of economic return says that going taller is a money losing battle? can any building be allowed to keep that "World's Tallest Building" for any length of time, even if it is impractical to go higher. will they still be building new "World's Tallest Building's" in 2020? 2030?
Pittsburgh (basically flat right now) is probably in better shape than it has been in maybe 50 years
you certainly picked a very good example with Pgh, kidphily (although it's kind of funny to hear the words "Pittsburgh" and "flat" in the same sentence, no matter what the context.
you certainly picked a very good example with Pgh, kidphily (although it's kind of funny to hear the words "Pittsburgh" and "flat" in the same sentence, no matter what the context.
Yes, ironic
Growth in place is sort of related to maturity and parts related to industries
Some of the fastest growing places today are more driven by the birth to death ratio than by migration patterns - DC is the biggest outlier here among fast growers
Populations mature over time
Cities change - Look at places like say a Cleveland, Chicago or Philly - Post industrial decline the cities experienced job loss, economic changes (industrial blue collar to service and creative industries etc.) - Their losses from peak have as much (maybe more) to do with average family/HH size as flight - but the two fed on each other creating smaller tax bases to maintain infrastructure - so failing neighborhoods and schools and the spiral etc. A overall tough path to recovery of which all three may be sort of positive today in momentum (maybe different points on the curve)
Detroit was more decimated by a singular industry that had drastic changes - a more difficult recovery process
NYC or a Boston has a different trajectory - Boston moved its economy sooner as the textile implosion was sooner then the broader industrial implosion. NYC mat be an example where pure scale and diversity and economic influence could help the city just power its way through times (maybe the best example of where bigger/biggest is best so-to-speak)
Places like a Houston or a DFW are young - on their growth curve - they are babies and people (and jobs). At some point you have to build out, you need to educate more people, infrastructure ages and gets more costly. Prices increase for COL etc. A lot is cyclical. Are service and energy jobs sustainable forever, no. Things change - that is the only truth in all of this. Expecting anything to stay the same forever is the ill-informed. Change for the better or worse happens and always will. How well places adapt is the key.
In 1955 would anyone imagine the troubles Detroit faces today, nope
On tall buildings, at some point I do think it becomes impractical to go much higher. Cost and human aspects - Not sure if people want to be hanging out at 3K feet for too long - but then again in 1914 who would believe that people would be living in apt 1,000 feet in the air
Things change - size can be a help or a hinderance.
Just one example - I believe Houston (MSA) added ~ 60-80K births this year. In 5 years that means they need about 2800 (70,000/25 students per classroom) kindergarten classrooms in the metro - do they exist today? dunno - but everything has impacts longer term
NYC isn't amazing b/c of its size or population. I feel NYC is the best b/c of what it has to offer.. but I do think the fact that people are flocking to NYC says something about the kind of place it is. People move from all over the globe to live in NY, to try & make it in NY. That says something.
Growth in place is sort of related to maturity and parts related to industries
Some of the fastest growing places today are more driven by the birth to death ratio than by migration patterns - DC is the biggest outlier here among fast growers
Populations mature over time
Cities change - Look at places like say a Cleveland, Chicago or Philly - Post industrial decline the cities experienced job loss, economic changes (industrial blue collar to service and creative industries etc.) - Their losses from peak have as much (maybe more) to do with average family/HH size as flight - but the two fed on each other creating smaller tax bases to maintain infrastructure - so failing neighborhoods and schools and the spiral etc. A overall tough path to recovery of which all three may be sort of positive today in momentum (maybe different points on the curve)
Detroit was more decimated by a singular industry that had drastic changes - a more difficult recovery process
NYC or a Boston has a different trajectory - Boston moved its economy sooner as the textile implosion was sooner then the broader industrial implosion. NYC mat be an example where pure scale and diversity and economic influence could help the city just power its way through times (maybe the best example of where bigger/biggest is best so-to-speak)
Places like a Houston or a DFW are young - on their growth curve - they are babies and people (and jobs). At some point you have to build out, you need to educate more people, infrastructure ages and gets more costly. Prices increase for COL etc. A lot is cyclical. Are service and energy jobs sustainable forever, no. Things change - that is the only truth in all of this. Expecting anything to stay the same forever is the ill-informed. Change for the better or worse happens and always will. How well places adapt is the key.
In 1955 would anyone imagine the troubles Detroit faces today, nope
On tall buildings, at some point I do think it becomes impractical to go much higher. Cost and human aspects - Not sure if people want to be hanging out at 3K feet for too long - but then again in 1914 who would believe that people would be living in apt 1,000 feet in the air
Things change - size can be a help or a hinderance.
Just one example - I believe Houston (MSA) added ~ 60-80K births this year. In 5 years that means they need about 2800 (70,000/25 students per classroom) kindergarten classrooms in the metro - do they exist today? dunno - but everything has impacts longer term
actually according this this Harris county had 142K births last year
so that would be 5,400 kindergarten classrooms - wow
The Houston area's growth does not come without potential costs, said Harris County Judge Ed Emmett.
"If we are going to continue to accommodate growth - and I think that's a good thing - we are going to have to invest in the infrastructure to take care of it," he said.
Emmett said the "vast majority" of Harris County's growth is occurring in unincorporated areas.
"That is why we have to make the Legislature understand that Harris is an urban environment and the county is not geared to urban issues," he said.
"It is important that Harris County and Houston and other jurisdictions find ways to cooperate and do things together," the county judge said. "We need to look at things as a region, rather than at arbitrary county lines."
Topping Emmett's list of concerns is transportation, an issue that may necessitate new roads, enhanced bus service and commuter rail."
Organic growth is healthy, but bubbles are not. That's not to say some fast-growing cities aren't growing organically. For example, Panama City in Panama is exploding and I think it's doing so for all the right reasons: it's (just recently) at the cross-roads of the shipping world! If a city grows though because of a recent trend or discovery of a finite natural resource, like oil near Williston, ND, that's when I worry that growth does not necessarily help the area, not unless those people put down roots and the region can support them.
There are some cities that I think can not be self-sustaining at their current populations, let alone at growing populations, and I don't think growth for these places is healthy whatsoever.
Also, a city can be great and wealthy and prosperous without growth. Look at your average European city -- are they not healthy because they're not exploding in size? Of course not. Same with companies -- is Microsoft an unhealthy company because it's stopped growing quickly? Most would say Microsoft is incredibly healthy. Same with Campbell's, 3M, General Mills, Wells Fargo or Caterpillar. How about adults -- are they unhealthy because they stopped growing in their teens? Are children healthier? Obviously it depends, but generally growth doesn't have that much to do with health.
Growth does not equate to greatness, but there can be SOME semblance of a correlation between growth and greatness, it's just not very strongly correlated.
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