Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Well said and nice to see someone gets this! Cities like NYC and London have power and influence that extend to a plethora of networks within each of many areas that are all connected to most facets of the world economically, culturally you name it. You can transplant a company or the White House and the players in them with a lot more ease than transplanting multi-nodal networks that are heavily rooted in NYC and London. D.C is more just a location for political and institutional power. It too has its own influence but to compare it to truly Alpha ++ networked global cities is ridiculous.
Here is some persepective:
The U.S. government is never going to relocate anywhere else - in our lifetimes anyway. Washington, D.C. will remain the political capital of the United States as it has been for the last 224 years.
Washington, D.C. does not compete with cities like New York and London. However, it is the second most powerful city on the east coast of the U.S. It is the seat of all branches of the U.S. government, including the U.S. Supreme Court, the headquarters of the CIA, FBI, NSA, NASA, the World Bank, the IMF, the Pentagon, the U.S. Treasury, the U.S. Patent Office, Copyright Office and so many others. All the presidents, senators, congress people who ever served did so in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C. is already the dominant player in the economies of Maryland and Virginia and it will continue to grow. It is already the wealthiest metro area in the U.S. in terms of median income. No one knows how large it may become eventually.
A metropolitan areas are not based on land size or on density but on commuting pattern, more exactly the ratio of people from an area commuting to another area.
This is how is calculated metropolitan area.
Note that American metropiltan areas do not require that the outer areas commute to the center city, they only require that 25% commute to other counties in the metro area. Fairfield County, CT just fails this test because it has some major job centers. Similarly distant Suffolk County passes this test because it has fewer jobs, but many of those commuting elsewhere are working in Nassau County not Manhattan [Fairfield County probably has more locals commuting to Manhattan, and just more business ties back and forth]. Both contain a large population in built up areas continuing outward from NYC.
Using this threshold in the UK would probably create absurd results due to the closeness of cities.
Yes, but that's not the point, is it? It's about overall size. It's because that area is a lot more connected in NYC than London. Even this broad area includes only 9 million:
Well one would probably have to look at commuting patterns in London vs NYC...I suspect their 'shed' would be similar. But in terms of continuous built-up area, NYC clearly wins, and encompasses far more people. London also has a green-belt which sort of prevented a lot of continuous linking up of Greater metro and many of the satellite towns/cities beyond.
Absolutely in terms of continuous built up area NYC wins that I've never doubted.. Houston probably has more continuous built up area than London lol... I think density and real urbanity should be considered more important to 'big' city feel than continuous sparsely populated but 'connected'
Fortunately for NYC it does have density and urbanity but at the same time so does London so when comparing the two from that vantage.. I'll stick to the same guns I have all along..
Rhine-Ruhr is larger than Paris? Maybe as a commute region, but as one big city, no.
Yes, my point was, if you wanna use this figure, which is 13.7 million not 15 million, you have to compare it with the whole of the NYC metro, not just that area. fusion2 also slyly reduced the 22 million to 18 million, making the two seem a lot more similar than they are. NYC is definitely just one tier up, a true mega city. London is a megacity, and rivals NYC in importance, but in sheer size, London is not on the level of NYC, Mexico City, Tokyo, Seoul.etc
The U.S. government is never going to relocate anywhere else - in our lifetimes anyway. Washington, D.C. will remain the political capital of the United States as it has been for the last 224 years.
Washington, D.C. does not compete with cities like New York and London. However, it is the second most powerful city on the east coast of the U.S. It is the seat of all branches of the U.S. government, including the U.S. Supreme Court, the headquarters of the CIA, FBI, NSA, NASA, the World Bank, the IMF, the Pentagon, the U.S. Treasury, the U.S. Patent Office, Copyright Office and so many others. All the presidents, senators, congress people who ever served did so in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C. is already the dominant player in the economies of Maryland and Virginia and it will continue to grow. It is already the wealthiest metro area in the U.S. in terms of median income. No one knows how large it may become eventually.
Don't forget a lot of these institutions are American ie. FBI, CIA, NSA, NASA, U.S Gov, Supreme court, The Pentagon so I think even though they have enormous national clout from a political and institutional perspective, there is less of an argument for 'global' political clout. Sure, If the NSA is listening in on Putins phone conversation it is global endeavour... but yeah... lol... Economic and cultural decisions made in NYC and London impact the world every minute of every day in more profound ways imo.. I suspect other publications ranking global cities see things the same way as NYC and London always trump D.C as top tier globalized cities. Hey - what do they know though right
I get what your saying though and I never doubted the importance of D.C and it is almost always listed in the top 10-15 most global cities in most rankings I've seen but never 1, 2 or 3..... NYC and London always top 3... always.
Measuring commuting patterns certainly has its place from a statistical p.o.v - but it doesn't do much in projecting a big city urban feel. If you are driving from a small city 80 miles away from the 'city' with extremely sparse density connected between it and the 'city' I don't find that exactly doing much to be honest. Really you are connected to the urbanized area by your car and a highway and not much more!
More than using the density of a region.
Bangladesh has more than 1,000 people per km², could we conclude that Dhaka cover all the Bangladesh and is a big city of 150 million inhabitants? The reality is no.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nei
The 9 million is low because a green belt surrounds London breaking up the built up area. Metropiltan areas can create odd results for Europe:
Rhine-Ruhr is larger than Paris? Maybe as a commute region, but as one big city, no.
Germany doesn't calculate metropolitan area, those number are not based on commute patterns but only a X number of inhabitants in a Y area.
Nothing prove that Rhine-Ruhr would form a big single commuter area and I don't think it would.
Because to have 12 million inhabitants you have to combine Cologne with Dusseldorf and the big Ruhr conurbation (Essen, Dortmund, Duisburg).
While close of each other, those cities are clearly disconned in use.
I don't think that many people from Cologne commute to Essen everyday and otherwise, they don't have to because they are already in a full function city.
A dense region doesn't necessarily form a big metropolitan area.
how do you define powerful?
I would say it is the seat of government of the most powerful nation on earth-
so that is Washington D.C.
unless you mean some other kind of power.
More than using the density of a region.
Bangladesh has more than 1,000 people per km², could we conclude that Dhaka cover all the Bangladesh and is a big city of 150 million inhabitants? The reality is no.
.
No but Dhaka is a huge city with unbelievable human density and some respectable urbanity.. I'm sure however that even Dhaka starts to taper off in density that is not exactly urban anymore that doesn't extend to all of Bangladesh - don't be silly.. Human density and built form urbanity (high/mid-rise contiguous urbanity) in combination would be a pretty potent duo imo over endless highways linking sparsely populated areas finally to the urbanized core. I wouldn't consider endless swaths of High density slums exactly 'big' either but I digress. Cities like NYC and London both hit the built form and human density sweet spot quite well actually.
how do you define powerful?
I would say it is the seat of government of the most powerful nation on earth-
so that is Washington D.C.
unless you mean some other kind of power.
Money makes the world go around... I think it was Carville who said "Its the economy stupid" so in that regard NYC and London are tops...
D.C has powerful political influence but not so sure it is as power centric as it used to be... Russia and Syria etc.. Actually Moscow is flexing its muscle these days and is carrying around some hefty political clout though I wouldn't rank it as global a city as say NYC, London, Tokyo or Paris... Beijing too but on the scale of the big 4 - not really.
Last edited by fusion2; 05-15-2014 at 08:09 PM..
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
