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Okay I got that wrong, I should have said 60th street where Central Park begins.
Anyway, when I went there it felt vast, and I've never met anyone who thought NY was small. On what basis do they think it's small?
New York is broken up. You have bridges/tunnels connecting the boroughs to Manhattan, and Central Park does break up the continuity and that is probably a good thing for most visitors.
As other posters mentioned you have like 2 downtown areas in New York. The city has far more changes in density and diverse building patterns than people are aware of or like to admit. Everyone remembers the grid pattern in Manhattan and the subways but once you go outside of that beaten path, into areas primarily served by the bus, with mid-rises instead of high-rises, New York is a much different place.
You don't have to go far either; Staten Island is the most obvious example but you also have Queens and the Bronx, for some variety in relation to the sea of towers you have in Manhattan.
New York isn't small, but it is big enough for most people. There will always be a select few looking for something bigger/better, even if it is not realistic for the environment, or for local economies, to sustain such development/infrastructure.
Tokyo and a handful of other Asian cities can make New York seem quaint in density and scale. I've never heard of anyone thinking NYC or Manhattan is small though and the vast majority of the city is not on a unified grid. Perhaps NYC's true boundaries are smaller than many cities, but the urban area is gigantic.
Also, technically everything south of 59th street is in a business district. Though Midtown South is heavily residential, there is more office space there than almost any other U.S city.
Hardly...NYC is still up there in density and scale.
Many seem to refer to Manhattan as a reference point for New York City anyway. Or at the very least use it as a comparative, foundational basis on which to compare the size and qualitative features of the other districts.
Especially those who proclaim it to be the "greatest city on earth" after selectively touristing the Fifth Avenue corridor, Theater District and isolated parts of Downtown.
I saw a lot of Manhattan, the glam and the gritty, and it's still my favourite. Maybe because it was the original modern big city/concrete jungle with the skyscrapers...
New York is broken up. You have bridges/tunnels connecting the boroughs to Manhattan, and Central Park does break up the continuity and that is probably a good thing for most visitors.
As other posters mentioned you have like 2 downtown areas in New York. The city has far more changes in density and diverse building patterns than people are aware of or like to admit. Everyone remembers the grid pattern in Manhattan and the subways but once you go outside of that beaten path, into areas primarily served by the bus, with mid-rises instead of high-rises, New York is a much different place.
You don't have to go far either; Staten Island is the most obvious example but you also have Queens and the Bronx, for some variety in relation to the sea of towers you have in Manhattan.
New York isn't small, but it is big enough for most people. There will always be a select few looking for something bigger/better, even if it is not realistic for the environment, or for local economies, to sustain such development/infrastructure.
Bigger? I'm fairly sure NYC has the biggest central business district in the world, or at least second or on par with Tokyo.
According to Demographia, the Ku Area of Tokyo is 238 sq miles with a population of 8.5 million (as of 2005). This tops NYC's population and density (300 sq miles, 8.2 million):
Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitor sites is not allowed
It's true that Manhattan's density kills the Yamamote Loop (60 sq miles, population 2.2 million), but Tokyo's amazingly consistent 35-45k ppsm density in the outer wards give it the overall size edge. That amazing considering the size and scale of BK, Queens, and The Bronx.
At the metro level, Tokyo fits 16 million more people in a smaller footprint than New York. Just staggering numbers.
I would assume yes. Midtown Manhattan is usually thought of as the largest business district in the world, and is certainly larger than any contiguous business district in Tokyo.
But Tokyo has a ton of smaller business districts that are more separated from one another. Manhattan's business core tends to be more unitary and contiguous. I would guess that overall, Tokyo and NYC have the largest total amount of office space of any cities on earth.
I would assume yes. Midtown Manhattan is usually thought of as the largest business district in the world, and is certainly larger than any contiguous business district in Tokyo.
But Tokyo has a ton of smaller business districts that are more separated from one another. Manhattan's business core tends to be more unitary and contiguous. I would guess that overall, Tokyo and NYC have the largest total amount of office space of any cities on earth.
Yeah, Tokyo does feel more like cluster of many smaller cities (the 23 special wards are their own city in a way), while Manhattan feels more like one single large city.
I've never been there but I don't see how Tokyo could not feel larger than New York. For some reason people on this site tend to downplay its' size. This is a metropolitan area that has as many people as the state of California. It has more people than Canada. Tokyo metropolitan area is twice the size of New York's. I have to visit someday just to see it with my own eyes.
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