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There is two reason people say Chicago is somewhat smaller. And that’s why the vibes are closer than the stats
1) the bigger the city the less people actually experience. I’d bet like 90% of non-staten island New Yorkers have even been to Staten Island. If you’re from Brooklyn you don’t really go to the Bronx, like at all it’s “too far”. “Where you will actually hang out in New York” probably has like a 1.4 million people. In Chicago probably 900,000 people
2) people experience size on a logarithmic scale. Which is why people don’t really draw a distinction between Philly and Dallas (1.5 million person gap) but do between Philly and Minneapolis (1.5 million person gap)
This is a really interesting thought experiment, but I think the gap is much much bigger than you are suggesting.
First, let's agree that the concept of "where people actually hang out" is quite subjective and dependent on how widely you want to cast the net. In the case of NYC you have popular destinations throughout at least 4 boroughs -- from the Yankee Stadium and the Zoo in the Bronx to Coney Island and the beaches in Brooklyn and Queens... If you add all these up and everything in between we could be talking about an area of at least 5-6 million. Heck you could even expand it to NJ with things like the Meadowlands, the American Dream Mall (a very popular new destination for NYers) and various things around JC and Hoboken.
The above is casting the net very wide though, so if instead we limit it to a typical tourist zone as a proxy -- as in "where would an average tourist go if visiting the city for 3 to 5 days?" -- then in NY it would be Manhattan south of 96th street and a few close-in neighborhoods in Brooklyn. That's an area of about 1.5 million. In Chicago, it would be the Loop, the Near North Side and a few adjacent neighborhoods. Even if you add the NSS, the NWS, Lincoln Park, Hyde Park and West Town (which I think is quite generous) we are talking about an area of about 400k -- and this is without taking into account the fact that outside of the Loop and the Near North Side the proportion of those other community areas where a typical tourist/visitor would hang out is absolutely tiny, so counting their entire population is somewhat misleading.
This is a really interesting thought experiment, but I think the gap is much much bigger than you are suggesting.
First, let's agree that the concept of "where people actually hang out" is quite subjective and dependent on how widely you want to cast the net. In the case of NYC you have popular destinations throughout at least 4 boroughs -- from the Yankee Stadium and the Zoo in the Bronx to Coney Island and the beaches in Brooklyn and Queens... If you add all these up and everything in between we could be talking about an area of at least 5-6 million. Heck you could even expand it to NJ with things like the Meadowlands, the American Dream Mall (a very popular new destination for NYers) and various things around JC and Hoboken.
The above is casting the net very wide though, so if instead we limit it to a typical tourist zone as a proxy -- as in "where would an average tourist go if visiting the city for 3 to 5 days?" -- then in NY it would be Manhattan south of 96th street and a few close-in neighborhoods in Brooklyn. That's an area of about 1.5 million. In Chicago, it would be the Loop, the Near North Side and a few adjacent neighborhoods. Even if you add the NSS, the NWS, Lincoln Park, Hyde Park and West Town (which I think is quite generous) we are talking about an area of about 400k -- and this is without taking into account the fact that outside of the Loop and the Near North Side the proportion of those other community areas that a typical tourist would visit is absolutely tiny, so counting their entire population is somewhat misleading.
Hoboken? I think you're being a bit generous. Some of the others are questionable, as well. At least, they would have no appeal to me, if I was visiting NYC. And, malls?
There is two reason people say Chicago is somewhat smaller. And that’s why the vibes are closer than the stats
1) the bigger the city the less people actually experience. I’d bet like 90% of non-staten island New Yorkers have even been to Staten Island. If you’re from Brooklyn you don’t really go to the Bronx, like at all it’s “too far”. “Where you will actually hang out in New York” probably has like a 1.4 million people. In Chicago probably 900,000 people
2) people experience size on a logarithmic scale. Which is why people don’t really draw a distinction between Philly and Dallas (1.5 million person gap) but do between Philly and Minneapolis (1.5 million person gap)
This doesn't necessarily refute your claim that people experience size on a logarithmic scale, but: aren't there better explanations for Philly and Dallas feeling about the same size and Minneapolis feeling smaller? For example, urban area population (5.7MM for both Philly and Dallas, 2.9MM for Minneapolis)?
Hoboken? I think you're being a bet generous. Some of the others are questionable, as well. At least, they would have no appeal to me, if I was visiting NYC. And, malls?
That's why I made a distinction between "where a typical New Yorker might hang out" -- which one can draw as widely as their individual lifestyle may dictate -- and "where would a typical tourist go" which would be a much more limited area.
I live in Manhattan and I've taken my 6-yr old daughter to the American Dream Mall twice in the last few weeks. But I acknowledge of course that a typical tourist coming to NYC is unlikely to go there.
Hoboken? I think you're being a bit generous. Some of the others are questionable, as well. At least, they would have no appeal to me, if I was visiting NYC. And, malls?
Yeah... so as I was saying in my opinion would be reasonable reasons. I'm sure one can find similar oppurtunities in Chicago listed above with the ability to advance in those careers aswell.
And really? About crime? Just head back to the NYC forums on here for the limitless count of posters' personal experiences with crime and lawlessness in just about anywhere in the city. Here's one for example. I had to actually Google to locate where this thread was only to realize that it's burried 17 pages in, with many other personal accounts on widespread NYC crime or all things "ghetto".
Like I said, what's on paper doesn't always print in person.
Did you read the thread you linked? Bunch of uptight moralizers complaining about people skateboarding, smoking weed and drinking in a public park. Sounds like an interesting scene to me. (I may well have had a drink in that park myself the one time I was there, in 2010...spent many hours that day/night walking around Manhattan with open containers)
As an aside, open container laws are a joke and should not exist...to my knowledge, two of the only municipalities in the country that do not have them are small municipalities outside my hometown of Buffalo (East Aurora and, more recently, Angola)...now there's a crusade that should be undertaken by the non-teetotaling masses--let's make more places like East Aurora, Angola, and, of course, New Orleans and Vegas on the open container front
Last edited by Matt Marcinkiewicz; 03-07-2023 at 09:22 AM..
This is a really interesting thought experiment, but I think the gap is much much bigger than you are suggesting.
First, let's agree that the concept of "where people actually hang out" is quite subjective and dependent on how widely you want to cast the net. In the case of NYC you have popular destinations throughout at least 4 boroughs -- from the Yankee Stadium and the Zoo in the Bronx to Coney Island and the beaches in Brooklyn and Queens... If you add all these up and everything in between we could be talking about an area of at least 5-6 million. Heck you could even expand it to NJ with things like the Meadowlands, the American Dream Mall (a very popular new destination for NYers) and various things around JC and Hoboken.
The above is casting the net very wide though, so if instead we limit it to a typical tourist zone as a proxy -- as in "where would an average tourist go if visiting the city for 3 to 5 days?" -- then in NY it would be Manhattan south of 96th street and a few close-in neighborhoods in Brooklyn. That's an area of about 1.5 million. In Chicago, it would be the Loop, the Near North Side and a few adjacent neighborhoods. Even if you add the NSS, the NWS, Lincoln Park, Hyde Park and West Town (which I think is quite generous) we are talking about an area of about 400k -- and this is without taking into account the fact that outside of the Loop and the Near North Side the proportion of those other community areas where a typical tourist/visitor would hang out is absolutely tiny, so counting their entire population is somewhat misleading.
I really don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say a similar amount of Queens residents would be able to give you a decent restaurant suggestion for Statton VT as they would Hoboken.
Just like nobody from Wriglyville would be able to tell you where to shop in East Chicago.
But the smaller the city the larger the breadth of things that you just don’t do.
I'm not seeing how my opinion/statement about New Yorkers or transplants would be inaccurate as I didn't even mention them. Just basically saying that Manhatten would be your place, if you're specifically interested in the "brand" of city they have to offer.
In no way am I discounting Chicago as "off brand" or "Great Value" niether. It's just personally IMO, I would think that would be the only valid reason to pay a higher price for NY, the city.
So aside from loving NYC in it's specificity as a city, there would be no other reasonable point to choose NYC over Chicago other than the salary ratio as mentioned.
On another note, I noticed how people constantly mention how certain parts of Chicago are extreme dead zones to be avoided at all cost. I think that's just unfortunate for so many to be deathly afraid to enter the south/westside or what not. I know NYC has a lower crime statistic on paper but what's on paper usually doesn't translate well in reality. NYC is condensed enough that the crime could appear at a higher rate in any random neighborhood/street even compared to Chicago.
You can just as easily find yourself in a "situation" with anyone to be honest. It does not take a gang member or what not for that to materialize. So IMO, the Chicago crime situation is vastly over blown as much as NYC's "greatness".
As for the OP. Yes Chicago would be a great choice to live and yes you can fly to NYC or LA whenever you like, like the majority of people do.
It's inaccurate because you phrased it as "you would only want" "if you're a fan of" rather than something specific to just yourself. I explicitly mention both transplants and natives alike, because what you said doesn't necessarily hold true for either. Manhattan does have a brand, but that isn't necessarily why people are there as it's not strictly or for some people at all (as in people who dislike the mythos and reputation behind Manhattan or dislike Manhattan itself). There are a lot of other realistic reasonable criteria for being in NYC that have little or nothing to do or have to overcome dislike of the "brand" of Manhattan. These have mentioned already multiple times like certain industries where the ceiling is much, much higher in NYC than in Chicago and potentially almost anywhere else in the world depending on the industry. There are also people who do not or cannot drive and for whatever reason need to be in the US, and NYC is heads and shoulders above any other city in the US in terms of getting around to different places without driving with a much. much larger expanse of walkable areas than other areas. There are also certain established or emerging communities that for whatever reason have a much larger presence in NYC than elsewhere. This can be related to industry, hobbies, or simply just family or community. I think you grossly overstate the brand of Manhattan as an attraction for the vast majority of people living in NYC as if people who make the move are exceedingly irrational actors or brand conscious.
Your statement about crime is also very inaccurate. Generally, people often use homicide rates as a barometer since it's the crime most likely to be accurately reported. On that metric, Chicago in absolute numbers with a far smaller population and smaller physical land area, last year reported about 50% larger number of homicides in total than NYC. In abstract, the concept of variance and having high variance and hyper concentrated crime could work against a larger, more populous city as it may make single neighborhoods incredibly bad if there is greater total crime and it is densely concentrated, but the thing is, NYC has actually much *lower* total homicide counts than Chicago over a much larger area and population and there is no distinctively massive, higher variance for this in NYC than in Chicago, but rather somewhat *less* variance and with a lower total homicide count. In regards to personal safety, I think how overblown it is depends a lot on personal comfort levels as well as lifestyle. The US for a developed country does have abnormally high rates of fairly extreme violence partly because guns are a wonderful force multiplier and having a lot of access to them means things can escalate pretty quickly. I'm relatively street smart living in what were considered very dangerous urban neighborhoods in the past and so my personal comfort level is probably much higher than most people and I felt pretty comfortable in most Chicago neighborhoods. For me, the problem I had with a few Chicago neighborhoods wasn't the feeling of danger which I recognize other people can have, but more the sense and visual cues of abandonment which even in the most dangerous parts of NYC is exceedingly rare.
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Originally Posted by masssachoicetts
^^^^ this. People in NYC, not transplants who are making it worse, do not go do these things. NYC has a lot of quantity but residents do not take advantage of that stuff. Im the only one here who went to a state school with real New Yorkers from the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn and the reality of NYC is very different then people here. The job scene is also competitive because lets be real, while a lot of jobs pay well in NY, theres always people looking for better jobs cause rent is wild and for the population there really isnt all that many good jobs, they are all competitive. One jobs could have thousands of applicants that are all local.
Chicago really cant compare to NYC. I find NYC has the quantity but Chicago has the quality.
The glamorization of NYC is kinda offensive :/
Yea, a lot of jobs are extremely competitive and so if you're not aiming for the ceiling of an industry and don't have other reasons to be here or don't put a strong premium on some of its cultural advantages or built form, then the cost is really not commensurate to what would be the drop in the quality of life. I disagree with the idea that Chicago has the quality while putting NYC in the quantity bucket. NYC has quality as well and I argue has a higher "ceiling" for quality, but it's more expensive for the same quality "level" if that makes sense.
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Originally Posted by ForeignCrunch
It's the 29th largest metro area in the world. Obviously it's going to gave a large economy. But the idea that population size or eccomy size is the primary way to measure whether a city is "world class" is pretty obviously silly. US cities punch far above their weight economically mainly because the US has created an economic model that prioritizes productivity over social progress, equity, etc. That's why cities that are indisputably "world class" like Singapore, Buenos Aires, and Sydney have smaller economies than Chicago and Houston. It's really a very weak and uniquely American way of measuring global "class." The fact that Chicago remains such a provincial city (in terms of tourism, immigration, business growth, media, etc.) DESPITE having such a massive population and economy only proves my point that Chicago is, all in all, a bit of a dud. Cities like Boston, for example, hit far above their weight in terms of their internationalism and I think the choice between living in Boston vs NYC is much harder than Chicago vs NYC. Virtually nobody chooses Chicago over NYC unless they're from Chicago and the surrounding region. The reasons for that are obvious.
It's not just population size and economic size, but being fairly prominent in both does correlate with having a lot going on and so they are good indicators that Chicago is a world class city. If you're going by comparisons of cities around the world for world class, then Chicago's tourism numbers, immigration and total economic growth in dollarized total value though not rate are very good compared to the vast majority of cities in the world.
It's also a complete crock that virtually nobody choose Chicago over NYC. As stated before, not everyone puts as high a premium on the qualities NYC has over Chicago and especially not for the price premium. Not only that, but there are actually industries and major companies where Chicago is stronger. There are Chicago area universities that have stronger specific departments than anything in NYC. I think Chicago is a great city and its greater downtown area is perhaps one of the finest in the world. It's issues are the more abandoned, rougher neighborhoods in parts of the West and South Side and the relatively bland and ecologically disastrous suburbia outside of the historic streetcar suburbs which is something shared with a lot of US cities.
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Originally Posted by TheTimidBlueBars
To be fair, a lot of that is because Chicago for all intents and purposes is just a smaller NYC, so it's not the #1 for any particular type of person (except on COL grounds). People do pick Orlando or Bend, OR over NYC and they are far below Chicago in scale, economy, and diversity, but they serve particular niches very well.
Yea, and Chicago has developed a kind of interesting, though perhaps unglamorous industrial niche in recent years where agricultural products / food products have concentrated their headquarters in Chicago over the last couple of decades. That's been a pretty odd thing. That agglomeration for that industry is interesting to me personally though perhaps to some doesn't seem as "glamorous" as media, publishing, film/tv, international relations, finances, or tech (these all exist in Chicago to a good degree, but generally aren't at the "top" of the US industry).
Quote:
Originally Posted by btownboss4
There is two reason people say Chicago is somewhat smaller. And that’s why the vibes are closer than the stats
1) the bigger the city the less people actually experience. I’d bet like 90% of non-staten island New Yorkers have even been to Staten Island. If you’re from Brooklyn you don’t really go to the Bronx, like at all it’s “too far”. “Where you will actually hang out in New York” probably has like a 1.4 million people. In Chicago probably 900,000 people
2) people experience size on a logarithmic scale. Which is why people don’t really draw a distinction between Philly and Dallas (1.5 million person gap) but do between Philly and Minneapolis (1.5 million person gap)
Yea, this is spot on. Most people live fairly routine lives and that's not a bad thing. Most people aren't going to prize or have the time to constantly going around different neighborhoods and seeing new places within the city, so having a lot more variety and number of interesting neighborhoods in NYC doesn't mean anything for most people. I really enjoy traveling and biking around NYC and the Tri-State area to different neighborhoods so this works for me.
I am no expert on where Chicagoans hang out but from a tourist perspective I can confidently say that the percentage of Chicago that a typical tourist would visit is tiny, certainly lower than NY and LA, and probably lower than Boston, DC and SF as well. I would even say that 90% of Chicago tourists probably do not venture outside of a half a mile radius beyond the Loop and Near North Side, which is an area of about 5 sq miles.
While I think there's some truth to your comments overall, the presence of Wrigley Field alone, located 2 1/2 miles outside the northern boundary of the Near North Side, invalidates this specific claim.
My point if people living in a place don’t actually go everywhere. The larger the city the smaller fraction they actually experience. If you live in the Bronx, Coney Island is a day trip. Not like a place you swing by. And most of Brooklyn might as well be Cleveland. But for a rather large portion of Chicagoans, Navy Pier is pretty assessable.
People who move to New York Brag about having like a “Bodega Guy” who knows their breakfast order or whatever. But if there are 6000 Bodegas in New York, every time you go to your bodega you’re not visiting a different one. The fact New York has 3x more Bodega/Corner stores whatever is pretty much irrelevant. Cause you’re going to a fraction approaching 0 of them. You may end up going to like 5 of them.
If you ask someone from Washington Heights what their favorite place to eat in Jamaica is, they won’t have an answer. If you ask someone from Riverdale what their favorite place in Borough Park is? You won’t get an answer.
It does not scale linearly, your experienced area and the metro population
Last edited by JMT; 03-08-2023 at 07:13 AM..
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