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Physical stature and Big city stature? NYC without question.
I've never really thought of any Chicago-Boston comparisons when flying into Chi town.
Now NYC comparisons to Chi town? Hell yeah, all day, every day. It's always been like that.
Chicago has always been the 2nd city nationally and always been the Midwestern Mega City. Never thought of Boston as a mega city. And when I say city I mean all of the urbanity and big city feel that comes with it.
Sure there's all those other supporting metrics /arguments to be made, but I really don't think most people even consider those.
Physical stature and Big city stature? NYC without question.
I've never really thought of any Chicago-Boston comparisons when flying into Chi town.
Now NYC comparisons to Chi town? Hell yeah, all day, every day. It's always been like that.
Chicago has always been the 2nd city nationally and always been the Midwestern Mega City. Never thought of Boston as a mega city. And when I say city I mean all of the urbanity and big city feel that comes with it.
Sure there's all those other supporting metrics /arguments to be made, but I really don't think most people even consider those.
You really consider Chicago a Megacity? I definitely don't. It's really approachable and manageable/navigable. Its orderly flat land and most of it is mid to low-rise for miles and miles. No significantbodies of water to navigate, mostly sprawl. Add to that Its MSA is under 10M...
NYC is a megacity. Chicago is a large city. Thats a fact. Even flying into NYC vs Chicago....its not even close you get inundated with the sheer # of Skylines in NYC- You see Brooklyn, LIC, Jersey City, Downtown, Midtown, Jersey City and Newark skylines.
Chicago has 1 skyline
Chicago hasn't been the 2nd city nationally since like the bicentennial. LA blows it out of the water and laps it in that respect.
So many many many things thave to be totally thrown aside to make this argument and many others.
Last edited by BostonBornMassMade; 11-14-2023 at 11:48 AM..
Yea, on these rankings, NYC stomps any other US city, and it's most apparent when they show a composite score rather than just an ordinal ranking. Like, you can hide it a bit in the rankings for example with the Mori foundation ranking where you can accurately say among US cities, NYC is number 1, Chicago is number 3, and Boston is number 5, but then if you look at the composite score next to it, you can see more than just the ordinal ranking but rather a more raw metrics one with NYC at 1506.4, second place LA at 1071.7, Chicago at 1044.2, San Francisco at 1035.1, and then Boston at 1026.3
Well yea.. this is what I mean. The stature of Chicago I think is in large part imagined and based on older times.
Chicago cannot do for you what an LA or NYC does. But Boston can do for you what Chicago does. And its got just as many icons of pop culture as Chicago.
To be fair, I don’t think there’s one thing in Boston that every tourist must take a photo with before leaving similar to the Bean in Chicago.
I don’t think that puts Chicago closer to NYC than Boston.
Did some googling. I went to Millenium Park, did not notice or see the Bean. Tbf I was there for a VeganFest/Rick Ross concert. I also wouldntve guessed it was in a Park.
You really consider Chicago a Megacity? I definitely don't. It's really approachable and manageable/navigable. Its orderly flat land and most of it is mid to low-rise for miles and miles. No significantbodies of water to navigate, mostly sprawl. Add to that Its MSA is under 10M...
NYC is a megacity. Chicago is a large city. Thats a fact. Even flying into NYC vs Chicago....its not even close you get inundated with the sheer # of Skylines in NYC- You see Brooklyn, LIC, Jersey City, Downtown, Midtown, Jersey City and Newark skylines.
Chicago has 1 skyline
Chicago hasn't been the 2nd city nationally since like the bicentennial. LA blows it out of the water and laps it in that respect.
So many many many things thave to be totally thrown aside to make this argument and many others.
Yes because it is a Mega city in the true sense of the word. All that stuff you bring up about being flat and approachable, no one considers that when discussing a Mega city.
You're looking at the built environment and feel to determine a Mega city. LA couldn't hold a candle to Chicago as a true Urban mega city. it's a bunch of satellite nodes spread out all over the place. The famous line "a bunch of suburbs in search of a city" because it's the truth. That's not a city, that's boring, generic and so suburban in feel. It's like the Anti-Mega city.
You're describing Metro areas, not the actual city itself. I've never thought of any Metro area as being part of any big bad city. A city should be able to stand on its own, bottom line. Forget the surrounding areas.
Chicago, the city itself, is a Mega, world class city and blows LA out of the water in terms of big city, built environment. No contest.
Well yea.. this is what I mean. The stature of Chicago I think is in large part imagined and based on older times.
Chicago cannot do for you what an LA or NYC does. But Boston can do for you what Chicago does. And its got just as many icons of pop culture as Chicago.
As the Harvard discussion made apparent earlier: imagination and its role in reputation is part of "stature." As mentioned upthread what was invented at the University of Chicago in the last hundred years has had MUCH more global impact than any research done at Harvard. Nuclear fusion, supply-side economics and neoliberalism have totally transformed the world we live in. I cannot think of any equivalent research undertaken at Harvard with remotely that kind of scale of impact, but people don't know, so it doesn't count? Harvard is undoubtedly the most famous university in the US, but its importance is often partly also imagined.
As for your second claim:
Not really and definitely not at night. Remind me again which T lines run 24/7? What time is last call in Boston? Where are the best happy hour places?
By every objective measure (population, GDP being the big ones) Chicago is indeed closer to Boston than it is to New York, but in terms of being a 24 hour city, it is quite a bit closer to New York than it is to Boston. Boston generally shuts down depressingly early.
There is a lot more you can do in Chicago that you cannot do in Boston than vice versa. And even if you combine Chicago and Boston, you would not quite have New York.
You really consider Chicago a Megacity? I definitely don't. It's really approachable and manageable/navigable. Its orderly flat land and most of it is mid to low-rise for miles and miles. No significantbodies of water to navigate, mostly sprawl. Add to that Its MSA is under 10M...
NYC is a megacity. Chicago is a large city. Thats a fact. Even flying into NYC vs Chicago....its not even close you get inundated with the sheer # of Skylines in NYC- You see Brooklyn, LIC, Jersey City, Downtown, Midtown, Jersey City and Newark skylines.
Chicago has 1 skyline
Chicago hasn't been the 2nd city nationally since like the bicentennial. LA blows it out of the water and laps it in that respect.
So many many many things thave to be totally thrown aside to make this argument and many others.
Chicago isn't a megacity in the 10 million person metro sense, but it is numerically quite close to the threshold, and a really good, but not historically good decade would put it over the line. The broad sprawl of Chicago in regards to MSA and even more so CSA is very sprawling, but even then the majority of the population is within what would be in what would be a pretty reasonable urban area definition. Demographia, for example, puts Chicago at 8,954,000 and Boston at 7,429,000 (obviously including Providence area).
Also, totally not true about significant bodies of water to navigate--its waterfronts are a major feature of the city and the reason it was such a boomtown and as large as it is today.
I think LA's an interesting one, but it doesn't lap Chicago which I'll go into next.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BostonBornMassMade
Well yea.. this is what I mean. The stature of Chicago I think is in large part imagined and based on older times.
Chicago cannot do for you what an LA or NYC does. But Boston can do for you what Chicago does. And its got just as many icons of pop culture as Chicago.
LA isn't generally in the same tier as NYC. LA is in some ways first among the next tier in some ways but also sort of lowly in others, so it's basically roughly in the same tier. This is what I meant by instead of looking at ordinal rankings, look at the composite scores when they have them. The one from Mori had it at NYC at 1506.4, second place LA at 1071.7, Chicago at 1044.2, San Francisco at 1035.1, and then Boston at 1026.3, so obviously LA is much, much closer to Chicago and the others than it is NYC. The City Index is based a lot on perception of global brands and even though this is basically LA's prime industry, it's not close to NYC and is about as close to Chicago. GAWC meanwhile puts Chicago and LA on the same tier and both two tiers down from NYC while Boston is another tier down from that alongside SF though note that they ranked San Jose separately from SF. They then put DC a tier down alongside Miami, Atlanta, and Dallas, though I generally think GAWC's rankings are a bit odd. Certainly, I think DC is obviously at least prominent and influential as Boston and I think more so though roughly in the same tier.
What Boston and Chicago can do for you, and for other cities, is highly dependent on what you're trying to do. Chicago may on the surface seem like a jack-of-all-trades, and it does do well in many factors, but there is a specific sector where it excels among US metros which is the not very glamorous ag products and commodities. It's all those companies and brands I've mentioned that have aggregated in the Chicago area and then on top of that, a lot of futures trading of ag commodities among other things.
Boston has a pretty good first among equals of sorts bit for higher education though that's a much more diffuse industry and does a very good, maybe top, billing with biomedical research.
LA also has very prominent industries with the entertainment industry being very high up there, but it had lost a huge amount of its automotive (it was a beachhead for Japanese automakers coming into the US but they've almost all left the area), aerospace, and defense industries over the decades. It still has very prominent ports. It strangely enough has a very small number of Fortune 500 companies of any industry including in media which is mostly headquartered in NYC. I think the better way to think about LA and why it's in the similar tier is that it has very nice weather and is close to the border and close to East Asia and that's attracted a large amount of people even if its GDP seems quite small for its population size within the US and the number of major corporate headquarters are quite small and even its largest corporations aren't that large. Going from the other direction, Boston, DC, and Bay Area seem to generally punch above their demographic weight in GDP.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 11-14-2023 at 12:31 PM..
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