What's a Big City?

My bad on forgetting Minneapolis with the 4 teams. Especially since I passed through in March and we also stole what is now the most successful franchise in pro sports from you 50 years ago.

how do you explain LA still being without an NFL team all these years?

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I knew someone would bring that up. The simple summary is that both sides (SoCal city/county govt's and the NFL) think the other side needs them more. No government entity here (and in the current economy even more so) is going to spend the kind of $ in subsidy that the NFL is used to getting from smaller metro areas chomping at the bit to have a franchise (St. Louis with the Rams being a classic example).

That said the L.A. Coliseum Commission (one third controlled by state, county and city each) is one of the most incompetent government bureaucracies to ever come down the pike. Since 1967 they have lost the Lakers, Kings, Rams, UCLA football, Raiders and Clippers as tenants. Last year even USC threatened to leave or try to buy the stadium outright in order to get some renovations done. In the first decade after the NFL departed, any time an NFL stadium was proposed within L.A. city limits, some L.A. politicians would obstruct the plan in order to try to get the NFL back to the Coliseum. Which will never happen given the history with the previous tenants. So if/when the NFL returns to greater L.A. it will be with mostly private financing and outside L.A. city limits.

ESMC's findings are as good as any IMHO. Hard to argue against any North American cities over 4M on that list being "big."
For those who want to :snowball fight: about the borderline cases:
Phoenix 3.570M
Montreal 3.385M
Seattle 3.100M
San Diego 2.950M
Minneapolis-St.Paul 2.645M
Tampa-St. Petersburg 2.340M
Denver 2.335M
Baltimore 2.280M
St. Louis 2.230M
Vancouver 2.080M.

Marc_C":266kdzkh said:

Interestingly, if you use a cutoff of 20M as suggested earlier, even NYC Metro doesn't make it!
I see that my suggestion of population density is already accounted for in the definition of urban area.

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Ha! My mistake. I think that we should say the top 50 cities in the world should qualify as "big" cities. Of course what I may think of as a big city is quite subjective albeit no less subjective than what someone else might think.

Would you consider Minneapolis a big city? I think it's the perfect size, smaller than Chicago, bigger than like, Iowa City.

minnescene":2ptzc5bv said:

Would you consider Minneapolis a big city? I think it's the perfect size, smaller than Chicago, bigger than like, Iowa City.

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I wouldn't. I would say it's mid-sized.

EMSC":2ptzc5bv said:

If you use a 10M cut off then there are only 24 "big" cities in the world today. 5M population cut off gives you 55 'Big" cities worldwide. My personal cut off of 2.5M would give 137 'big' cities worldwide according to the second link above (which goes down to 2M population or 188 cities on the wiki list).

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If 2.5M makes a big city, then what is a city with 5M? What do you then call a city with 10M. 5M=Really big? 10M= Really Really Big?

I don't know if I agree with the above assessment. There is certainly a large amount of subjectivity on the size of a city. I just think big cities should really only be big in comparison to other cities. The number 137 seems a bit to high for me.

In the US, I think "Big City" is the same as "Large Market MLB Baseball Team". That captures both population and economic vitality. Boston doesn't have the population but it has the economic vitality to make the list. The dominant MLB teams have the TV revenue stream to support a $100+ million payroll. They retain their best players and buy the good free agent players. They are usually in the playoff hunt every year.

Boston Metro is over 4M, clearly a big city by US standards. I think you have to consider all major sports franchises (are Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Kansas City "big" cities?) as with my list earlier in this thread. Some cities (Boston being the obvious example) are also the metro center for a large surrounding less densely populated region. In the opposite camp is San Diego, which baseball fans describe as "bordered on the west by ocean, east by desert, south by Mexico and north by Vin Scully." This factor tends to make Boston more and San Diego less a "big city" than raw population numbers would indicate.

Boston is also a "large market" for baseball because baseball is probably more prominent to fans there relative to other sports than nearly anywhere else.

Geoff":88mkiu34 said:

In the US, I think "Big City" is the same as "Large Market MLB Baseball Team". That captures both population and economic vitality. Boston doesn't have the population but it has the economic vitality to make the list. The dominant MLB teams have the TV revenue stream to support a $100+ million payroll. They retain their best players and buy the good free agent players. They are usually in the playoff hunt every year.

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Tony Crocker":88mkiu34 said:

I think you have to consider all major sports franchises (are Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Kansas City "big" cities?) as with my list earlier in this thread.

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New York Yankees $201,449,189
New York Mets $149,373,987
Chicago Cubs $134,809,000
Boston Red Sox $121,745,999
Detroit Tigers $115,085,145
Los Angeles Angels $113,709,00
Philadelphia Phillies $113,004,046
Houston Astros $102,996,414
Los Angeles Dodgers $100,414,592

I think Geoff could be onto something. Although, I think detroit has no business being there. I lived in Detroit, and it is no big city. It is a big crater that used to be a city, or maybe it's a really just a big hyper-segregated suburb.

Tony Crocker":3h8bj5eo said:

Boston Metro is over 4M, clearly a big city by US standards. I think you have to consider all major sports franchises (are Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Kansas City "big" cities?) as with my list earlier in this thread. Some cities (Boston being the obvious example) are also the metro center for a large surrounding less densely populated region. In the opposite camp is San Diego, which baseball fans describe as "bordered on the west by ocean, east by desert, south by Mexico and north by Vin Scully." This factor tends to make Boston more and San Diego less a "big city" than raw population numbers would indicate.

Boston is also a "large market" for baseball because baseball is probably more prominent to fans there relative to other sports than nearly anywhere else.

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Boston is bordered by the Evil Empire to the west and the Atlantic Ocean to the east.

Boston metro is #10 in the US by population. That makes it relatively small compared to New York, Chicago, and LA and invisible by world standards. The MLB $100 million+ payroll teams are all in the top 6 major metro areas other than Boston (#10) and Detroit (#11). Boston gets the eyeballs watching their captive CATV network to support a payroll all out of whack with the population base. Detroit isn't sustainable. They don't have either the TV deal or the gate receipts.

Geoff":2hq7cziw said:

Detroit isn't sustainable.

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Literally, Detroit isn't sustainable. Every year the population drops like snow on the Wasatch. It doesn't have a functioning downtown. The City has virtually no community, and the suburbs are really no better. There aren't any mountains, and lake St. Clair ain't all it's cracked up to be. There has been a major brain drain in Michigan, as well as much of the midwest, because there isn't much there to keep young intellectuals excited. The only jobs worth having are in the auto industry, and well do I need to say anything about that.

BTW, Boston has never struck me as a large city.

BTW, Boston has never struck me as a large city.

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I would be inclined to disagree. My gut impression is that in terms of cultural amenities, "big city" vitality etc. Boston makes the cut. I'll let the New Englanders who know more than I to argue the specifics.

Detroit probably was a "big city" 40-50 years ago. Geoff has summarized its current status well though. The hockey team is "big market" in terms of payroll and success. Anyone (Patrick?) know how they manage that?

Tony Crocker":16g0pw2l said:

BTW, Boston has never struck me as a large city.

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I would be inclined to disagree. My gut impression is that in terms of cultural amenities, "big city" vitality etc. Boston makes the cut. I'll let the New Englanders who know more than I to argue the specifics.

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It has a large enough downtown which makes it seems urban and bigger. In america, that sometimes is enough to make a city seem big. Philly is a city which somewhat reminds me of Boston. It is an older city with an integrated downtown. This makes it seem to have a big city vitality. However, these cities are not big cities compared to L.A., Chicago, and New York. As geoff said, Boston is

Geoff":16g0pw2l said:

nvisible by world standards.

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Patrick":2zws6mnd said:

Number 16 in Metro areas (CMAs in Canada - MSAs in the US). Who's above Montreal?

1-New York Metro Area, Greater New York
2-Greater Los Angeles
3-Chicago metropolitan area
4-Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX MSA
5-Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD MSA
6-Greater Houston
7-Greater Toronto
8-Miami metro
9-Metro Atlanta
10-Greater Washington
11-Greater Boston
12-Metro Detroit
13-Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, AZ MSA
14-San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA MSA
15-Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA MSA
16- Greater Montreal

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Boston is at 4.5 and Detroit is at 4.4, however if you combine the Detroit metro with Windsor metro, population of Detroit is greater than Greater Boston with 4.8 million, not a small cities or market.

Tony Crocker":2zws6mnd said:

Boston is also a "large market" for baseball because baseball is probably more prominent to fans there relative to other sports than nearly anywhere else.

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Because baseball is more prominent? I don't think you can say that the Bruins or Celtics are small market teams for their respectable sports? It's true that I was amazed how Boston was so "Red Sox" on my 2 visits in the last year. Definitely not the case on my previous visits back in 1990 or 1995. I guess the fan base of the Red Sox surpasses geographical boundaries also, I have 2 coworkers that are huge Red Sox fans. This wide fan base also applies to the Canadiens in hockey, there is always a fairly large base in visiting arenas. The importance of the Habs (and the baseball strike) in the early 90s probably contributed to the Expos moves out of town. If it would have been the late 90s-early 00s, they might have had more of a spotlight.

Although, I think detroit has no business being there. I lived in Detroit, and it is no big city. It is a big crater that used to be a city, or maybe it's a really just a big hyper-segregated suburb.

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Literally, Detroit isn't sustainable. Every year the population drops like snow on the Wasatch. It doesn't have a functioning downtown. The City has virtually no community, and the suburbs are really no better.

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Tony Crocker":2zws6mnd said:

BTW, Boston has never struck me as a large city.

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I would be inclined to disagree. My gut impression is that in terms of cultural amenities, "big city" vitality etc. Boston makes the cut. I'll let the New Englanders who know more than I to argue the specifics.

Detroit probably was a "big city" 40-50 years ago. Geoff has summarized its current status well though. The hockey team is "big market" in terms of payroll and success. Anyone (Patrick?) know how they manage that?

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I mostly agree with Tony. I would still consider Detroit as a big city, regardless of it's decline and economy vitally. The metro area of Detroit-Windsor is slightly higher than Boston at almost 5million. If you start using economic vitality, you might find that many of the World's super size cities in the Developing Countries don't have much weight for their size.

Big market for payrolls in baseball and hockey. Southwest Ontario is definitely a hotbed of Red Wings fans (and maybe Tigers?). RIM (Blackberry) founder is trying to get the Phoenix Coyote (ex-Winnipeg Jets) to move to Hamilton Ontario. The league doesn't want to, although hockey in the Sun Belt is a failure.

Hamilton might be much smaller than Phoenix (700k), but Southern Ontario between Toronto-London-Niagara is one of the highest growth areas in Canada. People are trying to get a new team in Quebec City and Winnipeg also. Funny how the deal was so fast to let the teams leave these markets and expanded in non-natural markets.

BTW, Boston has never struck me as a large city.

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Specifically on that point or empty donuts like Detroit, etc... This is product of urban planing. Car was king in Detroit, highways, surburds...this resulted in emptying the downtown areas. This is the case in many cities, large or even small. Planning was different in cities like Boston and Montreal. London (England) doesn't have the big city feel also, even with it's 13 millions inhabitants. High density residential areas in central neighbourhoods, important number of green spaces, less dependent on the car, good public transit network.

Patrick":1yibr7xf said:

BTW, Boston has never struck me as a large city.

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Specifically on that point or empty donuts like Detroit, etc... This is product of urban planing. Car was king in Detroit, highways, surburds...this resulted in emptying the downtown areas. This is the case in many cities, large or even small. Planning was different in cities like Boston and Montreal. London (England) doesn't have the big city feel also, even with it's 13 millions inhabitants. High density residential areas in central neighbourhoods, important number of green spaces, less dependent on the car, good public transit network.

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I've spent a rediculous amount of time in London over the years. It's a huge city. What it doesn't have is that soul-free US "edge city" feel. I've never understood urban planning where you had a cluster of huge office buildings and no residential housing. Everybody arrives by car at 8am and leaves by car at 5pm. Hartford, CT is a classic example. At 6pm midweek, it looks like a neutron bomb hit the place. The only people who actually live in the city are the poor.

The thing that killed a lot of US cities was the mis-guided "urban renewal" of the 1960's and 1970's. It flattened the existing housing stock. It replaced it with segregated office buildings and housing projects. Many cities completely lost any sense of neighborhood community. It pushed anyone who could afford it out into the suburbs and created that other awful US artifact, suburban sprawl with no sense of a village cluster.

Geoff":157pj7rf said:

I've spent a rediculous amount of time in London over the years. It's a huge city. What it doesn't have is that soul-free US "edge city" feel. I've never understood urban planning where you had a cluster of huge office buildings and no residential housing. Everybody arrives by car at 8am and leaves by car at 5pm. Hartford, CT is a classic example. At 6pm midweek, it looks like a neutron bomb hit the place. The only people who actually live in the city are the poor.

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I too have never understood that too. I think, however, there are cities on the EC that avoid that. In large part because they were built prior to the invention of the car.

Geoff":157pj7rf said:

The thing that killed a lot of US cities was the mis-guided "urban renewal" of the 1960's and 1970's. It flattened the existing housing stock. It replaced it with segregated office buildings and housing projects. Many cities completely lost any sense of neighborhood community. It pushed anyone who could afford it out into the suburbs and created that other awful US artifact, suburban sprawl with no sense of a village cluster.

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I think one of the worst parts of the "mis-guided 'urban renewal'" was the cheaply built public housing. We, in NYC, have a huge quantity of these areas thanks to Robert Moses. As neighborhoods around them renew and fix themselves organically, public housing begins to stick out like a sore thumb. Sometimes, they maintain dangerous pockets of crime in already renewed neighborhoods. I for one am not a big fan of Robert Moses. Thank god Jane Jacobs stood up to him.

I for one am not a big fan of Robert Moses.

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Neither should the old Dodger fans be. My understanding is that Robert Moses blocked Walter O'Malley's plan to build a stadium on top of the LIRR station. Isn't a new NBA arena proposed for that spot in Brooklyn now?

Tony Crocker":37hcd355 said:

I for one am not a big fan of Robert Moses.

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Neither should the old Dodger fans be. My understanding is that Robert Moses blocked Walter O'Malley's plan to build a stadium on top of the LIRR station. Isn't a new NBA arena proposed for that spot in Brooklyn now?

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Don't get me started over that one. It's a complete joke. Originally they acquired the land via eminent domain for a Frank Gehry design. Then they change the plan once they get the money. It's a total joke... they got all the land for the price of one townhouse on the UES. It's a completely unethical use of eminent domain. :twisted: