Different styles of "big", which one of these look more impressive? CHICAGO vs LOS ANGELES

[Slyman11]

I spat out my latte when I saw that first picture, always knew Chicago was massive but that picture only seconds to NY in the U.S. IMO. You make me want to live there with these pictures grapico. BTW grapicos post above is what I'm looking for in this thread, its a discussion that radiates from pictographic evidence because that's how our eyes see it. Talking about long drives through the city, traffic, endless amount of lights, flyovers, or modernity of these cities is also ok.

Talking about density BS is not ok and is not welcome in this thread, my thread. There are several other [much to many] of those threads already around, just add to those. For many that have yet to capture what this thread is about, do yourself a favor and see your way out of this thread because it isnt for you or your world of warcraft calculator crunching antics IMO

[Overcooked_Oatmeal]

When it comes to comparing the West Coast and Midwest metros and their growth/development, I've always thought that LA/SoCal had more in common with Detroit rather than Chicago, which was always more comparable to the SF Bay Area to me. While LA's sprawl was partially due to the result of the Red Car/Pacific Electric Railway, it was the development of the freeways that really pushed the sprawl down to Orange County and up north to the San Fernando Valley. Like Detroit, LA has been defined by the automobile and Detroit focused on an extensive network of freeways to connect the city and suburbs with each other just like LA. The automobile factories that fueled the growth of Detroit were scattered throughout the city and metro area, so while there is a downtown, it wasn't necessarily the center of it all like Chicago's Loop or San Francisco's Financial District. Los Angeles has a downtown, but it has a number of multiple employment centers (Hollywood, Century City, Westside, etc.)

Also like Los Angeles, single-family homes were the focus of development in Detroit rather than the multi-family two and three-flats and high-rises that make up many parts of Chicago. Obviously, there are HUGE differences in how LA and Detroit evolved due to a number of factors, but I've always thought the way the development went were somewhat similar.

While Chicago has a lot of sprawling areas, it has a "heart" - The Loop. Even though the shipyards, factories, and canneries of Oakland employed a lot of people, before the boom of Silicon Valley, Downtown San Francisco (the City) was the main "heart" of the Bay Area. BART was designed to funnel commuters from the East Bay to DT San Francisco for this very reason. Chicago's expressway system and it's El Train were designed to funnel people from the outer areas into The Loop. It wasn't until the 80's when other employment centers really competed with the Loop like the Golden Corridor or Naperville, so like the Bay Area, it's "heart" is a lot more well-defined compared to LA. While the Silicon Valley is a major employment center for the Bay Area, it's auto-centric, multiple-node environment actually has a lot more in common with Los Angeles than it does with nearby San Francisco. Like Chicago, while there is a "heart" to the Bay, there are other parts that are sprawling outside of it. Obviously, there are differences between the flat plains of Chicago compared to the Bay Area which is hemmed in by water and mountains.