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Yeah but The Met is further from Battery Park than Wrigley is from Grant Park.
Like the Loop is still closer in scale to Boston than Manhattan
If you were to walk in the straightest line possible through what would be more urban than anything more than like 8 sq city blocks in any other city it would be like 7.5 miles from Barclays center to the Met.
Chicago is maybe 3-3.5 miles across the loop? Boston is what? 2 miles from the Pru to international place?
If you go by raw numbers restricting the cities to like 4-6 sq miles actually makes Chicago more like Boston than counting the metro does.
Yep.. see my last post. I said the same thing before I even read this..
By CSA, Cleveland has 3.6mil compared to Boston’s 8.4mil and Chicago’s 9.9mil. I guess you’re argument holds in the MSA level, though.
[quite]Nobody is going to spend time in Boston and Chicago and come away unclear which is the bigger city. Maybe that is true with DC, SF, Philly, or Montreal but not Chicago. The gap is just so large.
But the same can be said for Chicago and New York. No one would come away unclear of which is bigger.
[/quote]
CSA has its uses. But, I don't think it's a great measure for how big a city feels. DC Baltimore is now bigger than Chicago at the CSA level, but nobody would ever say DC feels bigger.
Yeah, I definitely don't think Chicago is closer to NYC. Just it is clearly above Boston and clearly below NYC. I like Boston it has a lot of character. But it doesn't really feel huge, especially at nice. Chicago feels like unabashedly big city with restaurants, nightlife, theaters galore. Not at NYCs level. But it's a grand urban city.
Boston is a very nice, provincial, somewhat sleepy US city.
Provincial means unsophisticated and ignorant of things outside of the capital city.
Ironically Boston has a more cosmopolitan population than Chicago-on every level, and a higher education level of every level. And the mayor is literally a Harvard educated Taiwanese American from Chicago.
Using the dictionary definition it’s hard to square Boston being more provincial than Chicago, there’s probably a better word to describe it because I understand what you mean.
I think the better term would be “insular” but again that’s hard to say about a city where half the population is an immigrant or child of an immigrant.
Last edited by BostonBornMassMade; 01-25-2023 at 06:30 AM..
As a native Chicagoan - Someone who is the first to say the good or bad - it seems to me this “bullying” thing is some kind of CD defense mechanism. Nobody is trying to minimize anything. This idea that people are out to get Chicago, because it’s contrary to your opinion?
If anything, my opinion is that despite the fact this is a metro debate, Chicagoans continue to point to the skyline and the loop in an effort to compare the cores attributes to Manhattan, while disregarding the rest of both the city and metro.
If I had to point a finger, I’d point it at Chicagoans for repeatedly trying to sell its size and scale using the minimum effort to do so. No talk of anything outside south over River North, east of West Loop. Which, frankly, is unnecessary. Everyone knows it’s a huge city and metro, and a great one, too.
Noticed an interesting trend on insta among accounts that post "city" pics. The ones that feature Chicago almost never post anything outside of the loop/skyline shots or if they do, it'll be something like Wrigley.
I also get the sense from many Chicago posters (and tbf this isn't unique to Chicago but relevant to the point above for those "selling" the city) that many don't know much of the city beyond where they stay, especially pertaining to the south and west sides.
Noticed an interesting trend on insta among accounts that post "city" pics. The ones that feature Chicago almost never post anything outside of the loop/skyline shots or if they do, it'll be something like Wrigley.
I also get the sense from many Chicago posters (and tbf this isn't unique to Chicago but relevant to the point above for those "selling" the city) that many don't know much of the city beyond where they stay, especially pertaining to the south and west sides.
If you listen to CD Boston consists of Downtown, Seaport, Eastern Cambridge and Somerville. That's it.
Chicago is the Loop, Logan Square, Evanston and Hyde Park.
Boston is a very nice, provincial, somewhat sleepy US city.
The efforts here to minimize Boston seem to abound, and I don't get why. Are people threatened by Boston, for some reason?? Boston does, and will always have one of the most beautiful streetscapes in the world, often ranking above NYC in that department. I can't think of anyone who thinks Boston and NYC are equals. I don't think anyone has said that. I think Boston, as an urban center, similarly sized as Chicago, Philly, DC, etc, but certainly not as big as NYC...no one has said it is. Boston can exist under NYC, as it always has. Not sure why the efforts here to bash and minimize, when clearly, it's not either city. It's smaller than NYC, and similar in size to the other major American cities. It kind of is what it is, and because a handful of people think they should try to imply that Boston itself has a brain and thinks it's as big as NYC is kind of how this is being represented. I'll call it Boston bullying, kind of. I don't know if people are threatened or insecure, but it sure doesn't make a lot of sense, to me.
Provincial means unsophisticated and ignorant of things outside of the capital city.
Ironically Boston has a more cosmopolitan population than Chicago-on every level, and a higher education level of every level. And the mayor is literally a Harvard educated Taiwanese American from Chicago.
Using the dictionary definition it’s hard to square Boston being more provincial than Chicago, there’s probably a better word to describe it because I understand what you mean.
I think the better term would be “insular” but again that’s hard to say about a city where half the population is an immigrant or child of an immigrant.
I don’t know what the word for it is. But Chicago certainly places emphasis on being a big city in a way Boston doesn’t. ( for example, the skyscraper race) Being a Big city is a critical piece to Chicago’s self image in DNA while Boston is a city that happens to be large.
Idk what the word tip describe the difference is but it’s a different vibe.
The efforts here to minimize Boston seem to abound, and I don't get why. Are people threatened by Boston, for some reason?? Boston does, and will always have one of the most beautiful streetscapes in the world, often ranking above NYC in that department. I can't think of anyone who thinks Boston and NYC are equals. I don't think anyone has said that. I think Boston, as an urban center, similarly sized as Chicago, Philly, DC, etc, but certainly not as big as NYC...no one has said it is. Boston can exist under NYC, as it always has. Not sure why the efforts here to bash and minimize, when clearly, it's not either city. It's smaller than NYC, and similar in size to the other major American cities. It kind of is what it is, and because a handful of people think they should try to imply that Boston itself has a brain and thinks it's as big as NYC is kind of how this is being represented. I'll call it Boston bullying, kind of. I don't know if people are threatened or insecure, but it sure doesn't make a lot of sense, to me.
I think you’re reading way too much into my one-sentence comment.
FWIW I really like Boston and would totally live there. New England is my favorite part of the east coast.
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