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Simply put, Chicago's 2.7 million population puts it closer in number to Boston, but the odds of a city that large at that density ever even occurring put it closer to NYC.
Same with the metro area.
The odds of one occurring like…Houston? Dare I say even Phoenix?
Or like dozens of cities across Asia and Africa and probably a few in Latin America?
Where? Because if Chicago is closer and population and immigration stats and transportation stats and economy stats to Boston….and it’s closer to Houston in terms of population, are we also going to say Houston’s closer in stature to NYC than Boston? You know what I mean Houston- to New York? or is it closer to Chicago?
and then there is Houston closer in stature to Boston or Chicago?
I’m saying like… as soon as you start adding some other cities into the mix, you start seeing how much closer Chicago is to the Boston and Houston and DCs and San Francisco than New York, currently:
Because there's not a fiber in my body that believes Chicago is closer to NYC. New York is so incredibly far ahead of any US city… I don't really think that Chicago is much more vibrant or has way more cultural offering than Boston. More vibrant where and how? Like compare Wacker Drive to Times Square there's is no comparison.
Infinitely closer to Downtown Crossing or Newbury Street or the Esplanade in pace and just # of people.
Cultural offerings is probably one area where Chicago and Boston are closest.its not Hollywood, there's no Julliard, no Met, it's not really a sports hub like Vegas Indy or Boston, no Smithsonian, there's not even the film presence and cultural presence I think that Atlanta has. Boston has immense cultural offerings for its size because it's an older and more international CITY with an abundance of highly rated museums, performance venues, and curated intelligent speakers at universities and diverse neighborhood events at all times. So I don't see what you're saying.
Transportation- Boston might be ahead of Chicago- those numbers were shared. Boston has a higher percentage of rider ship and very close to the same amount of track. Boston is at least as close to NYC there. Neither Boston nor Chicago is anywhere close to NYC though.
It's not bringing it down if you really believe it's already there. And frankly, it already is there objectively. Look be damned, really. And there's maybe a dozen lists from non-Bostonians literally the world over that say as much.
I think the discrepancy should be much more focused on how NYC changes the scale of things rather than how close Boston is. Without NYC's thumb on the scale, I can see how someone would think Chicago is substantially ahead on all those categories, and I think that causes some confusion. I can understand someone thinking that Chicago seems much more vibrant with more cultural offerings and a substantially more extensive and useful transit network than Boston has. I don't think Boston's that close overall to Chicago either.
The problem is that NYC is so much further up the scale on all of these things that the differences in comparison look pretty small. NYC's so large that most people's lived experience is going to be a tiny fraction of the vibrancy, cultural offerings, and transit reach the city offers.
I think the discrepancy should be much more focused on how NYC changes the scale of things rather than how close Boston is. Without NYC's thumb on the scale, I can see how someone would think Chicago is substantially ahead on all those categories, and I think that causes some confusion. I can understand someone thinking that Chicago seems much more vibrant with more cultural offerings and a substantially more extensive and useful transit network than Boston has. I don't think Boston's that close overall to Chicago either.
The problem is that NYC is so much further up the scale on all of these things that the differences in comparison look pretty small. NYC's so large that most people's lived experience is going to be a tiny fraction of the vibrancy, cultural offerings, and transit reach the city offers.
Maybe you can see how someone might think that, but does it actually bear out like if you actually think about it does it actually bear out-that’s all I’m saying. because nothing about the transportation network seems more useful or what have you I used both within the last 5 months. More people driving in Chicago than in Boston as a percentage so if it’s so useful…see what I’m getting at?
I really REALLY don’t see what the extra cultural offerings are other than lollapalooza. This must be some sort of euphemism or proxy for something else- I really don’t know.
Because I could see some people think that is why I put my vote for right in the middle, rather than you know the more objective factual answer
The odds of one occurring like…Houston? Dare I say even Phoenix?
Or like dozens of cities across Asia and Africa and probably a few in Latin America?
Where? Because if Chicago is closer and population and immigration stats and transportation stats and economy stats to Boston….and it’s closer to Houston in terms of population, are we also going to say Houston’s closer in stature to NYC than Boston? You know what I mean Houston- to New York? or is it closer to Chicago?
and then there is Houston closer in stature to Boston or Chicago?
I’m saying like… as soon as you start adding some other cities into the mix, you start seeing how much closer Chicago is to the Boston and Houston and DCs and San Francisco than New York, currently:
When Houston meets Chicago's population density it will be nearly the size of NYC. I think we're a while away from that.
So yes, the odds of a 3.6 million population, or even a 2.7 million population city within 227 miles occurring in the United States is closer to the realm of NYC than Boston.
Of course there are all kinds of ways to repackage population areas in order to stamp the word "Boston" across it, but I don't think that gets to the point-when these places made their reputations, attention was overwhelmingly on the city.
When Houston meets Chicago's population density it will be nearly the size of NYC. I think we're a while away from that.
So yes, the odds of a 3.6 million population, or even a 2.7 million population city within 227 miles occurring in the United States is closer to the realm of NYC than Boston.
Of course there are all kinds of ways to repackage population areas in order to stamp the word "Boston" across it, but I don't think that gets to the point-when these places made their reputations, attention was overwhelmingly on the city.
But yeah, you’re saying the odds of that occurring are so low but the fact is, it’s already occurred.
a city of Chicago Chicago size does exist right now in Houston and it’s happened since the city was coined the second city, which is kind of our point- that cities have caught up to it and will continue to catch up to it.
And you’re not going to have a New York sized side city ever manifest here and unlikely to happen elsewhere. It’s a big big fundamental difference.
Again, Chicago is clearly a bigger, grander city than Boston no doubt about it
but it’s not a city where people go on there like it’s just too big it’s too much it’s a great place to visit, but I would never live like due to the size the way that people talk about New York, where they’re just massively, overwhelmed and even off put by it.
Chicago in terms of it manageability- is so much more manageable and approachable but still- much larger than Boston. By a multiple.
And so I was in Boston visiting family for Thanksgiving and I go downtown to return some clothes I bought at Primark in Maryland to the one downtown Boston. didn’t fit and as I’m walking through downtown Crossing, I’m hearing a huge huge array of languages on the train while I’m walking around down there it stands out to me I guess because this is so far from the case in Baltimor. But I did think like it’s just like a world of linguistic diversity and that’s something. I really didn’t experience in my five or six days in Chicago moving around from the south side to the near north side and through the loop and that in that respect Boston felt closer to Manhattan then Chicago did in that one aspect.
I’m also aware that had I went to the other side of the Common to the west of it or to the north of it things would’ve become pretty homogenous and white bread pretty quickly until I got out of that part of the city of Boston and into Everett Chelsea and Cambridge.
Houston has come about in the age of 500+ square mile cities.
At Chicago's peak population, it was a 16,000 ppsm city over 227 square miles. Without reaching into the grab bag of CSAs, MSAs, UAs, weighted density, etc there's no peer to that outside of NYC or LA since. Detroit and Philly were pretty close, but no cigar.
Like I said earlier, when these places made their reps, metro areas were almost completely irrelevant.
Does anyone think that in 1920, someone was saying "excuse me sir, I must dispute your contention that London is the world's largest city as I have new information from our statistical bureau that Danbury, CT can now be counted as part of a theoretical population area with NYC."
I don't.
Another city that approximates Chicago's specific structural/population dimensions is very unlikely to ever occur again in this country, while there have been half a dozen or more that have done so with Boston.
Houston has come about in the age of 500+ square mile cities.
At Chicago's peak population, it was a 16,000 ppsm city over 227 square miles. Without reaching into the grab bag of CSAs, MSAs, UAs, weighted density, etc there's no peer to that outside of NYC or LA since. Detroit and Philly were pretty close, but no cigar.
Like I said earlier, when these places made their reps, metro areas were almost completely irrelevant.
Does anyone think that in 1920, someone was saying "excuse me sir, I must dispute your contention that London is the world's largest city as I have new information from our statistical bureau that Danbury, CT can now be counted as part of a theoretical population area with NYC."
I don't.
Another city that approximates Chicago's specific structural/population dimensions is very unlikely to ever occur again in this country, while there have been half a dozen or more that have done so with Boston.
But Chicago isn’t at its peak anymore.
Rome was once a much superior city to New York but nobody would consider themselves remotely peers.
Also London had like 8,000 people technically in 1800. Nobody ever measured by city proper. Westminster where Queen Victoria rules from was not actually part of London until 1900. But everybody considered London the Capital of England while that was not technically true until 1900 (and technically it still isn’t in the City of London but rather the metropolitan borough, which is kind of like a US state)
Chicago is *probably* closer in stature to Boston, merely because of size. But as far as scope, vibrancy, cultural offerings, transportation, etc., feels much closer to NYC. Why are the Boston posters so offended and hell-bent on bringing Chicago down to its level? Not a good look.
Because it’s frustrating when something *is* one way, but others keep telling you that it *feels* different.
Maybe you can see how someone might think that, but does it actually bear out like if you actually think about it does it actually bear out-that’s all I’m saying. because nothing about the transportation network seems more useful or what have you I used both within the last 5 months. More people driving in Chicago than in Boston as a percentage so if it’s so useful…see what I’m getting at?
I really REALLY don’t see what the extra cultural offerings are other than lollapalooza. This must be some sort of euphemism or proxy for something else- I really don’t know.
Because I could see some people think that is why I put my vote for right in the middle, rather than you know the more objective factual answer
Yea, the Chicago transportation network is a lot more extensive and has higher ridership especially pre-pandemic. Buses seem to go along a lot faster partially because of how straight the routes are, and I reckon we can probably find stats on average bus speeds if we dig deep enough. The L serves more people and places and for some reason seemingly goes faster than the T which in the last few years seems to be plodding along slowly and somewhat infrequently on every single visit on every single ride. It's also nuts the Blue Line still has not connected to the Red Line. A lot of what makes a transit system work is the network aspect, and it's crazy that with so very few lines, Boston hasn't managed to connect them all.
The percentage doesn't matter that much in this comparison. We both know that Chicago the municipality is a much larger and more populous than the municipality of Boston and that Chicago includes quite a bit of suburban area, but its urban, built up expanse is larger than that of the Boston area and that what functions as Boston goes well outside the municipal boundaries of Boston. The percentage hides that difference in scale, so it's not really meaningful. It's like saying everyone knows Jacksonville is a bigger city than Boston. Technically true, but we all know just saying that would generally leave an impression that's not actually true.
The bit about Chicago cultural offerings being greater and more influential has already been discussed before. If all you see still is Lollapalooza, then I don't think revisiting that conversation goes anywhere.
Again, it's really how much greater in all these categories NYC is to both Boston and Chicago that it essentially changes the entire scale of measurement. It's like when you plot graphs to fit the range of values and it's adjusting to that range--as soon as you put in NYC, it just makes what formerly looked like substantial differences into minuscule ones. I don't think Chicago is *right in the middle* as that would imply splitting the distance between Boston and New York City. Chicago is much closer overall to Boston. This doesn't mean Boston or Chicago are bad cities or lacking in stature. It's just that it's a comparison to what's arguably the wrong tier.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 11-28-2023 at 03:38 PM..
Rome was once a much superior city to New York but nobody would consider themselves remotely peers.
Also London had like 8,000 people technically in 1800. Nobody ever measured by city proper. Westminster where Queen Victoria rules from was not actually part of London until 1900. But everybody considered London the Capital of England while that was not technically true until 1900 (and technically it still isn’t in the City of London but rather the metropolitan borough, which is kind of like a US state)
Boston isn't either, so I suppose it all evens out.
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