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I'll go with (1) San Francisco (2) Philadelphia (3) DC (4) Miami (5) Seattle (6) Atlanta for sure. (I'm not sure where I would put Boston. I haven't been there).
That's one side of Houston. In a 100 square miles, including the inner loop. Houston has 4 different skylines. TMC, Downtown Houston, Greenway Plaza and Uptown Houston. Outside of this you can go 15-20 miles North and West, and still find decent skylines, in the city, such as Greenspoint, Westchase, Energy Corridor.
Now, Seattle beats Houston at it's city limits, but where it fails is outside of it. Houston to Galveston has been 50 miles of continuous development for damn near 20-30 years, and only a 2 mile gap, with a mall in the middle remains. Seattle has Olympia as it's closest 1:1 parallel. Areas outside of the central 100 square miles is what makes the city feel big. The fact that theirs's so many small clusters of mid-to-high rises well outside of the central 100 square miles but still in the city, gives it a big boost. On top of that, miles and miles of not only SFH, but garden-apartment style neighborhoods. Now Seattle also has Tacoma and Bellevue, but I don't think them or the other suburbs really makeup the size difference that Houston or Dallas or Atlanta has.
Have you been to South Korea? The drive from Incheon airport to city center Seoul is around 1 hour (50 miles or so). The entire drive is non-stop high rises the entire way (except for crossing the bridge from Incheon island). I can't think of many cities where you will see high-rises for 1 hour straight on a freeway drive.
I haven't been, but Seoul which is often expanded past it's traditional size to include a plethora of neighboring cities is ridiculous in scale. I have been to Istanbul which has similar levels of ridiculous 50,000 ppsm+ density for 30+miles. Because of how Mountainous, the area around Seoul/Istanbul and South Korea is in general. The city is physically large even though on paper it's much denser than a similar sized city like Mexico City. The airport is definitely on the far outskirts, of Seoul, though.
So the terrain definitely shapes it too. If it was in a much larger valley, like Tokyo's it might clock in at just around the size of Miami. Take in mind Incheon, which looks massive on a map, is still smaller than just the city of Houston, and the entire capital area is roughly the size of Harris County+Brazoria+Fort Bend+Montgomery+Galveston. So on paper it's still very comparable to Houston physically. But with all the valleys, and most of South Korea being so mountainous that it's basically a high density society even in the smallest cities, I'm not sure, whether we can say Seoul is definitely smaller than Houston.
Last edited by NigerianNightmare; 11-08-2021 at 01:02 PM..
That's just the downtown though.
Have you been to Houston?
The thread isn't about how a skyline looks. You can't judge the built area based on 1 percent of the area
Quote:
Originally Posted by NigerianNightmare
That's one side of Houston. In a 100 square miles, including the inner loop. Houston has 4 different skylines. TMC, Downtown Houston, Greenway Plaza and Uptown Houston. Outside of this you can go 15-20 miles North and West, and still find decent skylines, in the city, such as Greenspoint, Westchase, Energy Corridor.
Now, Seattle beats Houston at it's city limits, but where it fails is outside of it. Houston to Galveston has been 50 miles of continuous development for damn near 20-30 years, and only a 2 mile gap, with a mall in the middle remains. Seattle has Olympia as it's closest 1:1 parallel. Areas outside of the central 100 square miles is what makes the city feel big. The fact that theirs's so many small clusters of mid-to-high rises well outside of the central 100 square miles but still in the city, gives it a big boost. On top of that, miles and miles of not only SFH, but garden-apartment style neighborhoods. Now Seattle also has Tacoma and Bellevue, but I don't think them or the other suburbs really makeup the size difference that Houston or Dallas or Atlanta has.
But not everyone has a helicopter we can get in and know exactly where to fly our helicopters to show the Faux density. It's an illusion. Kind of like the angle of Buckhead & Downtown Atlanta when it looks like it's the same exact area. Though I will say the Atlanta skyline's are more impressive to me than Houston in general when driving around and the infill seems more significant between Atlanta's primary urban cores.
Those skylines are still a "small" percentage of Houston which we were told we can't judge Seattle for appearing visually larger but we can for Houston? And Kingwood may be a "small part" of Houston too, but isn't that how most of Houston is by far? Again, someone said Downtown was 1% of the area. Assuming those 3 other skylines are 1% also.... then the other 96% must look somewhat like Kingwood? They do to me.
If I were to get into a skyscraper in downtown Houston and look out the window. I'm just saying. Philly would look way bigger and Seattle too would look bigger to me also.
Not a hater, I'm just stating my opinion on why Seattle looks visually larger to me as a city, etc.
If we're gonna use continuous miles (up to 50 miles as used for Houston) of development as a way of being visually larger, then maybe Baltimore would have a case for appearing visually larger than Houston?
Last edited by Charlotte485; 11-08-2021 at 12:05 PM..
That's silly, Houston goes on for quite a bit more than Baltimore. I am not certain you are as familiar with it as you say you are. Try going from Galveston to Conroe.
FYI, Philadelphia's built environment is more expansive than Houston’s. Seattle isn't. Stop trying to squeeze a square peg into a round hole
That's silly, Houston goes on for quite a bit more than Baltimore. I am not certain you are as familiar with it as you say you are. Try going from Galveston to Conroe.
FYI, Philadelphia's built environment is more expansive than Houston’s. Seattle isn't. Stop trying to squeeze a square peg into a round hole
The only one trying to fit anything into any holes are posters claiming Houston feels expansive because all the development down to Galveston.
But next time Im driving between kingwood & Pasadena. I’ll be sure to take in the pure awe of how large of a city Houston feels like. So visually YUGE!
But that’s just our ways of subjectively deciding what feels bigger.
You think Pasadena to Humble has a visually large city feel.
I feel the urban core of Seattle makes it visually a larger city.
The only one trying to fit anything into any holes are posters claiming Houston feels expansive because all the development down to Galveston.
But next time Im driving between kingwood & Pasadena. I’ll be sure to take in the pure awe of how large of a city Houston feels like. So visually YUGE!
But that’s just our ways of subjectively deciding what feels bigger.
You think Pasadena to Humble has a visually large city feel.
I feel the urban core of Seattle makes it visually a larger city.
Differences of opinions
A drive, definitely matters. Geneva is a city that feels massive in it's core. It isn't that big, at all. It isn't physically big either.
Hong Kong on paper should look like the biggest city in the world. It isn't. It is however part of one of the world's largest conurbations if you include Shenzhen and Guangzhou. But one would argue because of how mountainous the city of Hong Kong is it might not feel as contiguous as a city literally right next to it.
Damn near all Turkish/Middle Eastern cities with 500,000+ people have midrise only cores with no breaks. You cannot tell the difference in size between, unless their big enough to start having Skyscrapers, and the poorest ones don't. I've been to Kayseri as well as Bursa, Konya and Ankara. Their largely indistinguishable, even Ankara which has a plethora of shiny new buildings isn't that different in 90% of the city.
You need to explore the city by car, or some sort of public transport to actually see the scale differences. Ankara has 10x the population of Kayseri, and it feels like it, just not in a random neighborhood, since the default for 90% of Turkey's neighborhoods in cities is midrise.
By this argument Seoul must feel bigger than Tokyo, since Seoul has far less single-family homes and is consistently denser than Tokyo....
A drive, definitely matters. Geneva is a city that feels massive in it's core. It isn't that big, at all. It isn't physically big either.
Hong Kong on paper should look like the biggest city in the world. It isn't. It is however part of one of the world's largest conurbations if you include Shenzhen and Guangzhou. But one would argue because of how mountainous the city of Hong Kong is it might not feel as contiguous as a city literally right next to it.
Damn near all Turkish/Middle Eastern cities with 500,000+ people have midrise only cores with no breaks. You cannot tell the difference in size between, unless their big enough to start having Skyscrapers, and the poorest ones don't. I've been to Kayseri as well as Bursa, Konya and Ankara. Their largely indistinguishable, even Ankara which has a plethora of shiny new buildings isn't that different in 90% of the city.
You need to explore the city by car, or some sort of public transport to actually see the scale differences. Ankara has 10x the population of Kayseri, and it feels like it, just not in a random neighborhood, since the default for 90% of Turkey's neighborhoods in cities is midrise.
By this argument Seoul must feel bigger than Tokyo, since Seoul has far less single-family homes and is consistently denser than Tokyo....
The bolded above is what I take to be the topic at hand. Which city visually appears to be the largest.
Barcelona is 40 sq. Miles and has 1.6 Million people
Houston is over 670 sq. Miles and has 2.3 Million people
Barcelona MSA has 5.5 Million people
Houston MSA has 7.1 million people
Visually, Barcelona looks like a much larger city to me
There is no drive through the 10,000 sq. Miles of Houston that will look visually larger than Barcelona to me. There is no exurb, there is no drive from Galveston to Katy that’ll make me think “well, obviously Houston is the larger city”
Same is applicable to US cities to me. Some cities like Charlotte are more populated than San Francisco technically. Some cities have huge sprawling city limits, some have huge sprawling metropolitan areas, some have sprawling cities in sprawling metropolitan areas and others are dense and visually larger...
Yeah Geneva for example feels large, but you would be surprised how quickly you can walk across the city. The public transportation in Switzerland as a whole is fantastic, but Switzerland or Bern, etc you can cover a lot of the city just with your feet.
I don't think Charlotte is understanding the gist of the thread. Looks like she is confusing expensive with dense or just acting that way
Per this, it’s also about 65 million square feet. .
Boston + Cambridge, Somerville, etc + Rt128 + Rt495 was ~134M sq ft of Class A office space---*from a few months back in an article i read quoting Collier's figures.
But you can also go to Colliers and get it--after a bit of i digging.
If you cluster Boston, Cambridge, etc into a ball, it compares quite favorably with NYC.
Just kidding. Insert Montreal
(the biggest City almost no one in USA will ever visit:
Not because we have anything against fantastically snobby French Canadiens,
or that we're not special enough......
or that their players always dive on the ice to get fake penalties.....
but because we've seen them driving in the Northeast,
and just the thought of that on a grand scale is abjectly terrifying).
*Greater Canada doesn't officially recognize the existence of Montreal either less would consider ever going there.... and you certainly can't blame them (or USA for that).
**This message was brought to you by Bruins & Maple Leafs fans the world over. You can include whatever bias they have: go B's.
There is no drive through the 10,000 sq. Miles of Houston that will look visually larger than Barcelona to me. There is no exurb, there is no drive from Galveston to Katy that’ll make me think “well, obviously Houston is the larger city”
Same is applicable to US cities to me. Some cities like Charlotte are more populated than San Francisco technically. Some cities have huge sprawling city limits, some have huge sprawling metropolitan areas, some have sprawling cities in sprawling metropolitan areas and others are dense and visually larger...
I've been to Barcelona too, under any circumstances it doesn't feel significantly larger than Houston. That's because the city is extremely dense. from the airport it only took us 20 odd minutes to get to the center of the city, and their was rural land around the airport. Also the city is not the Metro area. While the inner city architecture is nice, were Barcelona seemed massive to me was having so many large buildings in this area, as well as the entire ride to the city center. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gornal...t_de_Llobregat)
A massive, midrise historic core can be found in so many cities. I grew up in the 3rd world. The core of Barcelona is extremely beautiful, but it's not a signifier of size without some sort of scale.
Here is Malaga. Tell me why, I would believe it's any smaller than Barcelona without getting in some sort of vehicle and traveling, or walking the 20 minutes out of the core into a lower density neighborhood. Density matters, but their are literal countries where every city over 300,000 has a dense historic core of 40,000 ppsm+. The only thing that differentiates cities size in those countries from about 500,000-20,000,000, is the scale of the city. The literal distance you have to travel to get places.
Half the time the other distinguishing factor is how many Skyscrapers, they have because large cities, with larger businesses, that need a large amount of space always need a big building to house their workers/companies. Kayseri might not have any legitimate skyscrapers, but Istanbul has multiple high rise districts dotting it's skyline, and massive structures for it's larger global pull.
Anytime, I hear someone mention why they feel Tokyo feels larger than NYC, it's always the scale they talk about. Tokyo has smaller buildings but what, NYC doesn't have is 10 different train stops that feel like Times Square. How can you travel 20 miles and still feel like your in the center of the city, and the middle of the action... that's a dizzying experience. Galveston to Conroe is no Tokyo, but it's insane to drive 90 miles and only see development, hence it's size. Miami also has that perk, as well as Seattle.
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