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^^ Yeah and on the SF comparison, Philly is larger than Oakland and SF put together by a pretty wide margin and continuous. I really think people dont get a feel for how large the footprint spreads out by either coming from the airport to the South or a Bridge from Jersey. The majority of the city actually spreads out in the two other directions. Having traveled a lot only NYC and Chicago ever give me a feeling of the continuous at any level greater than Philly and in some ways Philly feels more like NY than Chicago in the developed space and coverage (Though have not truly experienced much of the outhside of Chicago below McCormick Place)
An odd tour and soundtrack for a tour of Central Philly
^^ Yeah and on the SF comparison, Philly is larger than Oakland and SF put together by a pretty wide margin and continuous. I really think people dont get a feel for how large the footprint spreads out by either coming from the airport to the South or a Bridge from Jersey. The majority of the city actually spreads out in the two other directions. Having traveled a lot only NYC and Chicago ever give me a feeling of the continuous at any level greater than Philly and in some ways Philly feels more like NY than Chicago in the developed space and coverage (Though have not truly experienced much of the outhside of Chicago below McCormick Place)
An odd tour and soundtrack for a tour of Central Philly
We've already been over the fact numerous times that if you add San Francisco, Oakland, and several bordering suburbs that seamlessly blend into SF and Oakland (Daly City, Colma, San Leandro, Alemeda, Berkeley, Emeryville, etc) together so that you match Philly's land area, you get almost the exact same population/population density as Philly. Philly still wins, but by a very small margin... small enough that it's not exactly noticeable in real life. As i've said before I find SF alone to feel a little bigger than Philly does, due to SF's larger amounts of bustle and population/structural density overall. SF also has a larger metro area than Philly does, a higher GDP, and the metro is more densely populated than Philadelphia's as well. So you can stop saying that Philly is larger than SF by "a large margin"....it really isn't. Objectively you really can't say Philly is larger than SF, unless you arbitrarily limit yourself to city propers, or if you reach and try to include NYC and/or Baltimore-DC with Philly (or if you're a homer who can't admit when you're wrong).
IMO Philadelphia feels much larger than Boston when looking at the respective cities but when looking at the entire metros Boston wins. Boston metro has tons of room for expansion as it is somewhat isolated for a Bos-Wash city. The Boston CSA has 3 state capitals in it which is pretty remarkable, I don't think any other city can say the same. This alone inflates Boston's sphere of influence throughout the New England area.
Though that is true, the same can be said for philadelphia. Though it is located right in the middle of the corridor, there is a lot of room for the metro to grow west and east. Much of chester and bucks county are still very rural with tons of room for expansion as we have already seen in the past 10-20 years. The same can be said for the counties in new jersey Burlington Gloucester Salem, camden not as much. Even southern new castle county has a lot of growing room. And if you were going to include lancaster county then that adds another huge growing county.
We've already been over the fact numerous times that if you add San Francisco, Oakland, and several bordering suburbs that seamlessly blend into SF and Oakland (Daly City, Colma, San Leandro, Alemeda, Berkeley, Emeryville, etc) together so that you match Philly's land area, you get almost the exact same population/population density as Philly. Philly still wins, but by a very small margin... small enough that it's not exactly noticeable in real life. As i've said before I find SF alone to feel a little bigger than Philly does, due to SF's larger amounts of bustle and population/structural density overall. SF also has a larger metro area than Philly does, a higher GDP, and the metro is more densely populated than Philadelphia's as well. So you can stop saying that Philly is larger than SF by "a large margin"....it really isn't. Objectively you really can't say Philly is larger than SF, unless you arbitrarily limit yourself to city propers, or if you reach and try to include NYC and/or Baltimore-DC with Philly (or if you're a homer who can't admit when you're wrong).
Agreed, same can be said of Boston in comparison to Philly as well. Boston is wealthier and has more affluent neighborhoods that flow seamlessly from FD Boston into a sea of closely knit inner ring burbs like Cambridge, which rests across the river from Boston. IMO more affluent energy coupled that of high marks on tourism both SF and Boston receive and student population for Boston, the day time density is significantly higher.
Needless to say Philly has plenty of affluent neighborhoods within city boundaries as well, but its not up there with Boston or SF, both statistically or in real life and the blue collar feel of Philly confirms that. Suburbs like Palo Alto and Cambridge are wealthy but can be said of any major city, all have affluent suburbs with droves of commuters within city centers.
We've already been over the fact numerous times that if you add San Francisco, Oakland, and several bordering suburbs that seamlessly blend into SF and Oakland (Daly City, Colma, San Leandro, Alemeda, Berkeley, Emeryville, etc) together so that you match Philly's land area, you get almost the exact same population/population density as Philly. Philly still wins, but by a very small margin... small enough that it's not exactly noticeable in real life. As i've said before I find SF alone to feel a little bigger than Philly does, due to SF's larger amounts of bustle and population/structural density overall. SF also has a larger metro area than Philly does, a higher GDP, and the metro is more densely populated than Philadelphia's as well. So you can stop saying that Philly is larger than SF by "a large margin"....it really isn't. Objectively you really can't say Philly is larger than SF, unless you arbitrarily limit yourself to city propers, or if you reach and try to include NYC and/or Baltimore-DC with Philly (or if you're a homer who can't admit when you're wrong).
But the point also missed is the urban (not metro or suburban footprint) doesnt end at the Philly borders (on the borders are areas higher in density than Philly proper actually) SF adds to get to the Philly footprint but the city extends in same way and this is never accounted for the comparative calculations. Philly goes to over 200 sq miles and over 2 million people. In the same way SF has areas that extend the borders the Philly footprint continues. And call me a homer but the CITY part of Philly IS larger. I find SF folks equally homers to not admit this, it can proved. In additon within the footprint on top of the population continuation there is more concentrated industrial complexes, ports, refineries, and two airports. Also is continuous and not sperated by water. On the linear developement (which i dont include in the 200 sq miles it also has a line of highly urban areas from Wilmington DE to Trenton (60 miles). I agree SF is large but knowing both places it really does not have the same city mass. It never to me feels comparable to Chicago the next largest whereas to me Philly does come closer. Yes the burbs of the Bay are more dense once you get out of the city portions but to me that doesnt make it feel larger. On the homer comment; Philly developed space connects right into the Jersey/NYC developed space just with more people. There are metrics to prove this point like radius populations etc. We can agree to disagree but i do feel tht Philly is notably larger in the city footprint (even with all the areas added in the Bay) by nearly 60 sq miles; an area larger than SF itself.
On structual density I disagree; to me that is where all the industrial etc facilities coupled with the resdential make the Philly footprint feel larger.
on SF alone feeling larger, there is no way, you obviously have never explored all of Philly, there is no way as a city SF feels larger. On DTs yes similarities and one can argue either way or even SF larger in the DT, on city no way, you drive through the city in a heart beat it is only 7 x 7.
1.nyc
2.chicago 3.houston 4.los angeles
5.miami
6.dallas
7.boston
8.philly
9.atlanta
10.san antonio
I can understand the large metro feel of a Houston, but from that perspective how in the world would it feel larger than LA which has a similar construct that is more dense and over a much larger footprint. To me this seems as silly as saying Philly feels larger than NYC because they have similar constructs but one with more density and much larger footprint.
Last edited by kidphilly; 08-23-2011 at 05:36 PM..
Agreed, same can be said of Boston in comparison to Philly as well. Boston is wealthier and has more affluent neighborhoods that flow seamlessly from FD Boston into a sea of closely knit inner ring burbs like Cambridge, which rests across the river from Boston. IMO more affluent energy coupled that of high marks on tourism both SF and Boston receive and student population for Boston, the day time density is significantly higher.
Needless to say Philly has plenty of affluent neighborhoods within city boundaries as well, but its not up there with Boston or SF, both statistically or in real life and the blue collar feel of Philly confirms that. Suburbs like Palo Alto and Cambridge are wealthy but can be said of any major city, all have affluent suburbs with droves of commuters within city centers.
Something to remember in Philly alone there are more than 600K that live in neighborhoods that are affluent by any measure. Yes there are larger populations in poverty, but this is also over a larger foot print and also agree that there are many areas directly adjoined on the PA and Jersey side that are also highly affluent. I find this tact a little overstated at times. Philly with more extreme poverty brings the mean way down but the affluent areas are basically on par and well above any national avearges. I find this view point to be a little short-sighted honestly.
On college population, there are 100K students in the city itself (not to mention a very large population in the metro), again a measure i dont quite understand how that is not present in Philly. It seems that people have a notion of Philly to just limited CC experience and some either pictures or something of North Philly, there is far more to the city than that.
Something to remember in Philly alone there are more than 600K that live in neighborhoods that are affluent by any measure. Yes there are larger populations in poverty, but this is also over a larger foot print and also agree that there are many areas directly adjoined on the PA and Jersey side that are also highly affluent. I find this tact a little overstated at times. Philly with more extreme poverty brings the mean way down but the affluent areas are basically on par and well above any national avearges. I find this view point to be a little short-sighted honestly.
On college population, there are 100K students in the city itself (not to mention a very large population in the metro), again a measure i dont quite understand how that is not present in Philly. It seems that people have a notion of Philly to just limited CC experience and some either pictures or something of North Philly, there is far more to the city than that.
Are you seriously putting the SF Bay Area at #10 and DC at #12 - behind Dallas, Detroit, and Phoenix?
Both SF Bay Area and DC have much bigger CSAs and generally feel like larger urban areas than any of those metros, besides NYC, LA, and Chicago.
I would put them both within 4-6.
We probably have a different perception of what we view to be "big city" feeling. To me, urbanized spans, or developed, non-rural area expanses represent "big city feeling".
In terms of a general contiguous urbanized region, with respect to the surrounding areas, Dallas, Detroit, and Phoenix look larger than DC by quite a bit. For example, along the freeway, the expanses to get from one area of built-up area to another is larger in Phoenix, Dallas, and Detroit than it is in DC, granted it is large as well, just a bit smaller. I don't consider Baltimore part of it, given that it is only minimally connected with DC in one direction that represents only about 20% of the outer-edge of the DC area. Baltimore, by and large, stands alone on most of its sides, or directions, away from DC. Furthermore, DC and Baltimore weren't really connected until the mid 90s.
The Bay area is large, if you're in areas that line the bay, but it's only around 10 miles across in most areas. The water of the bay takes up just as much area as the developed area of the bay itself, giving it a "larger" appearance to some. However, to those who analyze it truthfully, you simply have higher density tracts of development around the bay surrounded by hills or mountains on the opposite sides.
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