Future of Boston &(MSA vs CSA) why so different?

[boulevardofdef]

Originally Posted by timberline742

Boy, I only lived in Chicago briefly, but visited a lot from Wisconsin, but I don't see this at all. Chicago is an exceptional city. Chicago has a much better nightlife scene, much better food scene, better music scene... for starters.

I lived in the Chicago area for four years and have been back many times since.

Nightlife, I guess, though I personally was always a little confused by criticism of Boston nightlife because I've never gone for the sort of nightlife that Boston allegedly doesn't do well. I like cocktail bars and hate loud dance clubs and I'm nearly always done before 2 a.m., like seriously, I've maybe been at a bar later than 2 around three times in my entire life.

The food scene, sure, though I'm not sure the gap is as big as everyone thinks it is. I'm going to tell you something that I've never admitted to anybody, which is that I kind of think Chicago's food scene might be a little overrated. Maybe that's because I'm from New York and could never help but weighing Chicago's food against that. A lot of people will try to be edgy and tell you that Chicago has better food than New York, but that's silly, they're just trying to be edgy.

Music scene, see nightlife times a million. I know very little about any city's music scene and my experience with live music of the popular variety is mostly limited to trying to look cool on dates when I was 23.

I like urban streetscapes and parks and waterfronts and walkability and museums and high-culture-type performances and architecture and fun shopping districts and public transit and especially food. Those are what I judge a city by. Chicago beats Boston in some of those categories but not all, and I don't think the advantage is huge in any of them (except live theater, that's a very big gap). For the record, I love Chicago; it was my second home before I moved to New England, and now it's my third home, which is still pretty good as far as home rankings go.

[darkone]

NYC is and feels like a much larger metro area and it feels limitless in what it can offer in terms of global amenities and cultures. Boston is not bad for what it is - but it really feels like a toy model city as compared to NYC. This doesn't mean it does not hold its weight globally in the realm of medicine, biotech, higher ed., high tech, finance etc. But it does not belong in the mega city category. CSA population is one thing but it includes many far flung places. Boston metro area feels like it has around 4-5 million people. Which it does. 8 million is a ridiculous number that should not be ascribed to the Boston metro area as it doesn't have the sustained density, amenities, traffic volumes etc. to feel this way.

[AlwaysByChance]

Originally Posted by darkone

NYC is and feels like a much larger metro area and it feels limitless in what it can offer in terms of global amenities and cultures. Boston is not bad for what it is - but it really feels like a toy model city as compared to NYC. This doesn't mean it does not hold its weight globally in the realm of medicine, biotech, higher ed., high tech, finance etc. But it does not belong in the mega city category. CSA population is one thing but it includes many far flung places. Boston metro area feels like it has around 4-5 million people. Which it does. 8 million is a ridiculous number that should not be ascribed to the Boston metro area as it doesn't have the sustained density, amenities, traffic volumes etc. to feel this way.

Based on my research, I disagree. Also, numbers are numbers, you can't disregard the CSA. The CSA is legit in my eyes. Also, if you disregard the CSA, NYC only has 20 million people compared to say, Chicago's MSA of 9.5 million. If you add all those extra counties that depend on NYC you get 4 million more people. With Chicago you only get 300,000 more people in the CSA. And Los Angeles has an MSA of 13 million people. But when you add the CSA, Los Angeles jumps to 19 million people. NYC is the only major US city that survived White Flight and Black Flight and completely recovered. NYC has 8.6 million people now. NYC alone is 3 times larger than Chicago is now in population, excluding the metro area.That doesn't mean Chicago doesn't compete for business with NYC. The Greater Boston CSA are all places that are culturally linked to Boston. Be it with sports teams or employment or other reasons. Boston is the cultural center of all of New England. The city of Cologne, Germany only has 1 million people, yet it is a part of the greater Rhine-Ruhr metro of 11.5 million people. Numbers don't lie, Boston will become a Megacity fairly soon in this century.

[LexWest]

You would need to visit this area for yourself to see what people are expressing in regards to overall feel: you cannot assume Boston is nearly a megacity simply because its CSA is 8 million people.

As mentioned, the Boston area has a lot of dense cities and towns, but they are clustered in varying degrees. It is not a continuous sprawl that simply gets denser once you reach the City. Yes, you have small cities that are right outside of Boston that rival it's density (Cambridge, Somerville, Malden, etc). Then you have towns within 20 miles of the City with very low density (Weston, Lincoln, Bedford, etc). You also have smaller cities about 30 miles from Boston that are denser than their immediate suburbs (Lowell, Lawrence, Haverill, etc). Drive around Rtes, 1,3 and 128 and you'll understand.

When people say "Greater Boston", they mean areas that are most tied to the city (generally through commute and cultural association). This generally means Rte 128/I-95 and I-495. CSA are a collection of smaller city metros that gradually connected to a larger metro (Greater Nashua, Greater Lowell, Greater Providence, etc). These micro areas have their own media influence, but feed into a larger area for other purposes (more culture, bigger news, better healthcare), etc.

While there are people who may drive from Southern NH to Boston, it's smaller than those already living in Eastern MA. In reality, most people in NH stay in NH, or commute to I-495. Then others may commute further to 128, and some others beyond. Hence the differences between MSA and CSA in attitudes. People in the CSA may visit Boston on certain occasions, root for Boston Sports, but they are not Boston focused on most/all aspects of life in the same way someone living within or around 128 would certainly be (or I-495 might possibly be).

[GeoffD]

Originally Posted by boulevardofdef

The food scene, sure, though I'm not sure the gap is as big as everyone thinks it is. I'm going to tell you something that I've never admitted to anybody, which is that I kind of think Chicago's food scene might be a little overrated. Maybe that's because I'm from New York and could never help but weighing Chicago's food against that. A lot of people will try to be edgy and tell you that Chicago has better food than New York, but that's silly, they're just trying to be edgy.

In Boston, you have to drive at least as far as Chicopee to get decent kielbasa and the only deep dish is Uno's.

I have the business trip view of the Chicago dining scene. New York has world class of pretty much any cuisine you'd ever want. In the snow belt where you don't have much farm to table, it's easily the best in the country. I think the Chicago food scene is more like a big version of Boston... way better than it used to be but not New York. I think a long list of places in California are better than New York for what I like. Fresh local produce and the enormous Asian population.