Aspirational vs not aspirational cities? (2013, hotels, zoning)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
As for Baltimore as a whole feels much physically larger than Boston because it is. And it population isn't too far off. Its downtown feels much smaller though- mostly because its shorter, emptier, and there is not much to do.
Yeah I wasn’t saying Boston and Pittsburgh *are* the same size but people don’t really mention size until you maybe get down to Buffalo. People don’t seem to conceptualize Boston as a “big city”.
If you ever talk to a Chicagoan about like anywhere they’d talk about how much bigger Chicago is (unless they’re talking about New York. If you look at say Chicago Reddit it’s riddled with threads about how Boston/SF/DC are *so much smaller* in a way that a Bostonian wouldn’t talk about a proportionally smaller metro area of like 2.5-3 million like Pittsburgh or Minneapolis or Baltimore.
Chicago simply sees themselves in a totally different class as cities beneath it while Boston and Philly don’t.
There used to be a lot of movies filmed in Austin. But, that dwindled as they couldn’t or wouldn’t match the tax breaks given by other locations. Amazon? Austin did not go crazy on offering packages as well
I think that was more a change at the state level than the city, though it definitely impacted Austin the most as Austin was probably the state's hottest film market.
It's true that Austin offered no incentives to Amazon and even Tesla and Samsung got incentives from the state and other local entities, not the city of Austin.
But, I don't know if this is "Austin doesn't want growth" so much as "Austin is already overwhelmed with growth", and directly incentivizing more growth would be pouring gas on an out of control fire.
Yeah I wasn’t saying Boston and Pittsburgh *are* the same size but people don’t really mention size until you maybe get down to Buffalo. People don’t seem to conceptualize Boston as a “big city”.
If you ever talk to a Chicagoan about like anywhere they’d talk about how much bigger Chicago is (unless they’re talking about New York. If you look at say Chicago Reddit it’s riddled with threads about how Boston/SF/DC are *so much smaller* in a way that a Bostonian wouldn’t talk about a proportionally smaller metro area of like 2.5-3 million like Pittsburgh or Minneapolis or Baltimore.
Chicago simply sees themselves in a totally different class as cities beneath it while Boston and Philly don’t.
Yea idk about this.. people I meet in Baltimore are surprised, very surprised at that when I say Boston is smaller than Bmore and until like 10 years ago had fewer people. Their jaws drop, they call Baltimore "Smaltimore"
Really everyone I meet thinks Boston is bigher than it is ad a big city- Only people from very Big Cities don't and even then, that's typically only once they actually get here.
SF DC BOS are all big cities to me and I think most of America. Chicago LA and NYC are seen as more of 'megacities' in the North American Context.
I think the core of this is cities are positioned differently. Clevland probably has more to aspire for than a more successful and populated city.
More successful, famous, cohesive, and established cities have achieved a lot of what younger cities and failed cities haven't yet or had and lost..
I think there are 5 categories though
1) relative decline and upset about it: this is Cleveland and Chicago (maybe others) who have seen an erosion of their importance in the last 30-40 years and are fighting it with all they got and refuse to be resigned to their new station in life
2) relative decline and gave up: St Louis, Cincinnati: very comfortable where they are don’t seem to be striving very much
3) treading water cities: Boston, Minneapolis, Philly: not very aspirational places they just kind of are.
4) Growth driven by people who are escaping the rat race: this is Florida, Arizona, SC, San Diego: the general appeal of those cities is to just kind of chill and have fun (although SD’s real estate prices make that very hard)
5) “I gotta make my mark cities”- this is Raleigh, Denver, Nashville Seattle, types, as big as they’ve ever been and want to cement themselves in that tier (or the next one)
Yeah I wasn’t saying Boston and Pittsburgh *are* the same size but people don’t really mention size until you maybe get down to Buffalo. People don’t seem to conceptualize Boston as a “big city”.
If you ever talk to a Chicagoan about like anywhere they’d talk about how much bigger Chicago is (unless they’re talking about New York. If you look at say Chicago Reddit it’s riddled with threads about how Boston/SF/DC are *so much smaller* in a way that a Bostonian wouldn’t talk about a proportionally smaller metro area of like 2.5-3 million like Pittsburgh or Minneapolis or Baltimore.
Chicago simply sees themselves in a totally different class as cities beneath it while Boston and Philly don’t.
Uhh as someone from the Boston area, yeah people from Boston do think of places very close in size as being much much smaller. Many people from Boston, when they hear Minneapolis, they think of Des Moines. And when they think of Des Moines they think of Kearney NE or something.
Maybe I'm missing something, but downtown Boston doesn't look like it's that much larger than downtown Pittsburgh. Larger, yes, but it doesn't look any more than twice as large than. In fact, the statistics seem to bear it out; Pittsburgh has 26 skyscrapers that are at least 330' (100m) tall, while Boston has 51. And that view you linked to on the edge of downtown Pittsburgh is about to get filled in by a new 340' skyscraper. There's also a new 418' skyscraper under construction on the site of the old Civic Arena.
Visitors don't think of "Boston" as just the city-of. And they don't think of Downtown Boston as a narrow area. Both are much, much larger than Pittsburgh.
Visitors don't think of "Boston" as just the city-of. And they don't think of Downtown Boston as a narrow area. Both are much, much larger than Pittsburgh.
It's roughly twice as large across the board. The Boston MSA has 4,900,000 people; the Pittsburgh MSA has 2,400,000 people. The city of Boston has 670,000 people; the city of Pittsburgh has 305,000 people. Boston has 51 skyscrapers that are at least 330' (100m) tall; Pittsburgh has 26. And the city of Pittsburgh is underbounded just like the city of Boston, so it's kind of hard to think of "Pittsburgh" as just the city proper either.
Seattle aspires to be a compassionate and enlightened city, but can't seem to take the steps to make it work in reality. There are homeless tent cities under the freeway overpasses that start on fire periodically. That seems to be status quo.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
