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I would choose San Francisco as it feels substantially denser than Philly and is more consistantly bustling. I'd also argue that SF sustains its vibrancy, density and urbanity across a broader area. Someone mentioned the Financial District earlier and I actually find that to be one of the less vibrant parts of the Downtown core. Union Square/Powell Street, Tenderloin, Chinatown, North Beach, SOMA, Market Street, Polk Street and several other areas all combine to make a very crowded, bustling inner core. And the drop-off in the next set of neighborhoods is minimal. Lower Haight, Upper Haight, the Mission, Castro, Fillmore, etc. are all very urban, bustling neighborhoods. Philly just didn't have that consistancy of urbanity or that scale.
Overall, I just find SF to have more of that "I'm in a big city" feel when walking around compared to Philly, although Philly is certainly not too far behind. Montreal is a great City and is actually fairly large and dense, but it doesn't feel quite as "big city" as the other two.
Philly certainly has very impressive structural density (as does SF), but I'm talking about more at street level in terms of vibrancy, bustle, commercial activity/nodes. In addition, there are also a lot more places where Philly's urban fabric is broken (i.e. an abandoned building or an undeveloped lot) than in SF.
In terms of structural density, here's a good one of SF:
I would choose San Francisco as it feels substantially denser than Philly and is more consistantly bustling. I'd also argue that SF sustains its vibrancy, density and urbanity across a broader area. Someone mentioned the Financial District earlier and I actually find that to be one of the less vibrant parts of the Downtown core. Union Square/Powell Street, Tenderloin, Chinatown, North Beach, SOMA, Market Street, Polk Street and several other areas all combine to make a very crowded, bustling inner core. And the drop-off in the next set of neighborhoods is minimal. Lower Haight, Upper Haight, the Mission, Castro, Fillmore, etc. are all very urban, bustling neighborhoods. Philly just didn't have that consistancy of urbanity or that scale.
Overall, I just find SF to have more of that "I'm in a big city" feel when walking around compared to Philly, although Philly is certainly not too far behind. Montreal is a great City and is actually fairly large and dense, but it doesn't feel quite as "big city" as the other two.
Not sure I could really disagree all that much with this -
There are some similarities even to the street name
Market for Example - Main drag in either respective CBDs and for Philly east Market has some similarities to Market in SF say away from Powell
Just for fun a neighborhood comparison
Fin District/Market West
Union Sq/Rittenhouse Sq
Chinatown/Chinatown with Market East
North Beach/Old City
Mission/Passyunk Sq
Haight/Manyunk
Tenderloin/Wash West (no good match for either IMHO)
Filmore/No Libs
Castro/Art Museum
Not sure what I would match with U City and some of these dont match
Best are probably the first 6 or 7 albeit imperfect
Thing I see is 15 or 20 years ago this match by neighborhood would have been much more limited for Philly, so a good thing as I thinks its actually expanding good areas with vibrancy quicker than SF (which came from abtter starting in this time)
Either way I am hard pressed to argue either Philly or SF as the so called winner on this, to Montreal is just a little step below on feel of size
Location: northern Vermont - previously NM, WA, & MA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by lrfox
Montreal feels quite a bit smaller in every aspect. To me, it feels closer to the size of a city like Baltimore at the center. Definitely a larger city, but not as big as SF or Philly. It has some dense urban neighborhoods surrounding a sizeable urban center, but it then starts to quickly fade into suburbia. The metro area feels very small. When I go to Montreal, I approach from the South East usually using Highway 10. It's amazing how you drive through what seems like endless stretches of farmland until you turn a corner (still surrounded by farmland) and all of a sudden the Skyline comes into view. This is pretty typical of many Canadian cities. Still, in my experience, there's not really a comparison between these three when it comes to size. Montreal feels quite a bit smaller because it is quite a bit smaller.
I think Montreal feels much much larger than Baltimore, I'd say a lot closer to Boston in big city feeling. The heavy rail subway network is expansive and actually quite comparable to Philadelphia and San Francisco's mass transit systems. The metro area sprawls more to the West and North. If you take the freeways out of town heading towards Ottawa & Toronto on the western side of the island you see a lot more urban/suburban development. Also to the north the metro sprawls quite a ways going into Laval. South of the St. Lawrence River coming up from Vermont, yes it is indeed very rural until a just few miles before the bridges into the city. Anyhow, Montreal is and does feel smaller than Philly and San Francisco, but certainly feels a lot bigger than Baltimore.
never been to montreal, but i was living in NYC when i flew to SF and i thought " this reminds me of philly"
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