What's a Big City?

Marc_C

Active member
Patrick":21ak0nyp said:
Marc_C":21ak0nyp said:
BTW, I thought Paris sucked.
Why am I not surprise by this statement. :roll:
In general, I don't like big cities.
There are two I really like, several I don't mind, and a lot that I despise.
:hijack:

My top 10%, in descending order of preference:
Vancouver
Den Haag (and maybe Amsterdam, but I didn't spend enough time there to really form an opinion)
Seattle
Montreal
Toronto
Portland
San Francisco

In the bottom 20%, in random order
LA
New York
Boston
Chicago
Quebec
Phoenix
Miami
D.C.
Paris
Atlanta
Denver

Notes:
There are quite a few little neighborhoods in a lot of cities that are just fine, but overall, they don't really make up for the rest of the city.
Climate or proximity to skiing do not factor into either of these lists. Strictly based on ambiance and the overall gestalt I felt.
SLC is not a big city, hence it's absence on either list! (Plus, I live in the Salt Lake Valley, not SLC proper.)
 
Marc_C":2dql7q82 said:
Patrick":2dql7q82 said:
Marc_C":2dql7q82 said:
BTW, I thought Paris sucked.
Why am I not surprise by this statement. :roll:
In general, I don't like big cities.
There are two I really like, several I don't mind, and a lot that I despise.
:hijack:

My top 10%, in descending order of preference:
Vancouver
Den Haag (and maybe Amsterdam, but I didn't spend enough time there to really form an opinion)
Seattle
Montreal
Toronto
Portland
San Francisco

On that list I wouldn't necessarily call any of those cities, save Toronto, as a "big" city.
 
While not in the same category as NYC, I think that you can safely put Montreal and San Francisco in the big-city column.
 
Marc_C":1sbus7n9 said:
rfarren":1sbus7n9 said:
On that list I wouldn't necessarily call any of those cities, save Toronto, as a "big" city.
Spoken like a New Yorker.

26780201.jpg
 
rfarren":350dmxrz said:
Marc_C":350dmxrz said:
rfarren":350dmxrz said:
On that list I wouldn't necessarily call any of those cities, save Toronto, as a "big" city.
Spoken like a New Yorker.

True, but if your going to call portland a "big" city....
By population:
Portland is the 30th largest city in the US. San Francisco is #13.
Salt Lake City is #125
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population

This gets messy quickly when you start to consider metro areas. EG: in that wiki list, Riverside is listed separately from LA. West Valley City is #196, but when combined with SLC collectively becomes #60 or so - Pittsburgh size.
 
Marc_C":2w7mrlzy said:
rfarren":2w7mrlzy said:
On that list I wouldn't necessarily call any of those cities, save Toronto, as a "big" city.

True, but if your going to call portland a "big" city....
By population:
Portland is the 30th largest city in the US. San Francisco is #13.
Salt Lake City is #125
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population[/quote]

Using the same criteria as Marc (population of city, not entire metro area) and list (2007 US data versus 2006 for Canada).

Montreal is # 5 in North America. :shock: :shock: That is a surprise.

As of the 2006 Canadian Census, 1,620,693 people resided in the city of Montreal proper[1], ranking it the 2nd largest city in Canada and 6th overall in North America.

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


And MLB kept calling Montreal a small market. ](*,) So many people fudged up the Montreal Expos here from the owners (with firesales every year and constant complaining about the Stadium), the league and the strike. Fans were pissed off and owners and league did everything to ruin the franchise. A lot of bad blood with the public. I remember seeing the Expos below freezing in October with 58,000 people in the good old 80s.


:hijack:
 
The city vs. metropolitan area thing is a sticky wicket. Places like Los Angeles (and that includes most North American cities outside of the northeast) are a completely different beast than those with a defined center and public transportation that radiates out from it.

Here's an interesting view on the dreaded metroplex model from former Talking Head David Byrne:
http://journal.davidbyrne.com/2009/06/0 ... -free.html

I think I hear a moderator coming to separate this discussion from Harvey's thread.
 
I think I hear a moderator coming to separate this discussion from Harvey's thread.
At your service. :wink:

The metro area definitions are slippery. I always thought the SF Bay area by a broad definition was something like #4. I'm surprised even excluding San Jose/Silicon Valley it could be as low as #14.

One criteria many businesses would use is media market: served by the same radio/TV stations. Another crude criteria would be number of major league sports teams (in italics):

1-New York Metro Area, Greater New York 9
2-Greater Los Angeles 6
3-Chicago metropolitan area 5
4-Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX MSA 4
5-Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD MSA 4
6-Greater Houston 3
7-Greater Toronto 3*
8-Miami metro 4
9-Metro Atlanta 4
10-Greater Washington 4
11-Greater Boston 4
12-Metro Detroit 4
13-Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, AZ MSA 4
14-San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA MSA 6
15-Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA MSA 0, clearly part of L.A. media/sports market, Orange County has 2 of the 6
16- Greater Montreal 1*

In general a "big city" usually has exactly 4, one in each sport (Denver also has 4). And note that SF metro is the only one other than the obvious 3 with more than 4, supporting my impression that it was #4. My gut reaction is that places like Portland and SLC (1 team) are not "big cities." Not necessarily a criticism. They have many if not all of the positives, and fewer of the negatives, like traffic and overpriced real estate.

*With regard to Canada, I assume there's little argument that Toronto could easily support an NFL franchise. I suspect the CFL doesn't want the NFL in Canada. I agree with most of Patrick's comments about the Expos. Baseball has already failed twice in DC, and the current franchise seems headed in the same direction. Though in Montreal's climate a baseball team needs a domed stadium, and after the 1976 Olympic financial debacle it was always going to be tough to get one. Where would Vancouver be on this list? Compared to Seattle, which I assume like Denver just missed?
 
While I agree that the sports-team model has some application here (SLC, Portland), how do you explain LA still being without an NFL team all these years?

I bet that if the Expos had managed to get a decent stadium built downtown (and I don't think a dome was really necessary), the franchise would have succeeded. Some claim that the minute the team left Jarry Park with Le Grand Orange, they were doomed. That Olympic Stadium was ghastly.
 
jamesdeluxe":9hihhjjf said:
The city vs. metropolitan area thing is a sticky wicket.

Poor definition in Gov't rules to be sure. If I recall official 'MSA' defenition revolves around how economically inter-tied various cities/burb's are, so could be very much in the spawl of LA but if not enough inter tied business and commuting go on then the gov't won't lump them together.

Another huge factor for biggest 'city' lists is the historical ability being radically different between states on the ability of city center gov'ts to annex surrounding open land or entire suburb communities into themselves. Thus I never trust any of the city-only stats.

All of that said, what's people's personal cut-off for Big vs Medium vs Small cities? It'll obviously be radically different perspective for Rfarren than it will for someone like Sharon (Rfarren probably being ~8M vs Sharon probably being about 500K). Having lived in a few different cities my personal cut for Big is roughly 2M to 2.5M metro population makes a big city. Something about the busy-ness of the area and options for significantly advanced/extensive entertainment options, etc.. start to come into play (not that there aren't plenty of things to do in smaller than that size cities. Heck I'd prefer to live rural, but that ain't where the jobs are in my field).

My 2cents
 
IMO, the comparison of North American cities by population alone often results in a significant apples to oranges problem. This is true even if the surrounding metropolitan area (i.e., the burbs) are not considered in the equation. Many sunbelt cities have annexed suburbs as they have grown, leading to large "cities" as measured by population and geographic size, but population densities that yield neighborhoods that are often more suburban in character. Older cities on the coasts and in the midwest are in metropolitan areas defined by much higher degrees of political fragmentation.

Minneapolis/St. Paul are an interesting example. On Marc C's wikipedia list, Minneapolis ranks 46 with a population of 377,392. St. Paul is 68 on the list with a population of 277,251. While they are two distinct cities in terms of government, provision of services, etc., they are one continuous urban area. So, even excluding the burbs (i.e., the metropolitan area), the combined population of the cities is 654,643. If counted as one city, twintown would be number 20 on the list (bigger than Boston, Baltimore, Seattle, or Denver).

Oh, and we've got 4 major-league teams, including the Twins, who will start playing in their new, taxpayer-funded, open-air ballpark next season.
 
Tony Crocker":3i1205x0 said:
*With regard to Canada, I assume there's little argument that Toronto could easily support an NFL franchise.

Toronto already supports an NFL franchise. The Buffalo Bills.
 
flyover":1eeqjo01 said:
IMO, the comparison of North American cities by population alone often results in a significant apples to oranges problem. This is true even if the surrounding metropolitan area (i.e., the burbs) are not considered in the equation. Many sunbelt cities have annexed suburbs as they have grown, leading to large "cities" as measured by population and geographic size, but population densities that yield neighborhoods that are often more suburban in character. Older cities on the coasts and in the midwest are in metropolitan areas defined by much higher degrees of political fragmentation.

Minneapolis/St. Paul are an interesting example. On Marc C's wikipedia list, Minneapolis ranks 46 with a population of 377,392. St. Paul is 68 on the list with a population of 277,251. While they are two distinct cities in terms of government, provision of services, etc., they are one continuous urban area. So, even excluding the burbs (i.e., the metropolitan area), the combined population of the cities is 654,643. If counted as one city, twintown would be number 20 on the list (bigger than Boston, Baltimore, Seattle, or Denver).

Oh, and we've got 4 major-league teams, including the Twins, who will start playing in their new, taxpayer-funded, open-air ballpark next season.

One can't really think of Minneapolis without St. Paul. That outdoor stadium is going to be really interesting during the early part of the season. brrrrr. :snowball fight:
That's not a snowball fight, but my version of mlb in april up there!

I think when you talk about cities in north america you're really talking about metropolitan areas. There are very few cities in America where the downtown is a real integrated part of the city where the majority of people "walk." Seriously, what is a big city? What number is the cutoff for you? For me a big city should be around the size of paris, london, madrid, etc.... and up. There are many in china, and few of them in America. If you count metropolitan areas my guess is that these cities have more than 20 million. I could be wrong, as I haven't looked it up. Tony any help on stats?
 
rfarren":22j83owm said:
Seriously, what is a big city? What number is the cutoff for you? For me a big city should be around the size of paris, london, madrid, etc.... and up. There are many in china, and few of them in America. If you count metropolitan areas my guess is that these cities have more than 20 million. I could be wrong, as I haven't looked it up. Tony any help on stats?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Los_Angeles_Area
20M is probably high, as it would leave out a lot of metro areas that are recognized as "big cities". The LA metro area has a population of 12.5M according to 2005 numbers.
 
Marc_C":18uvis7y said:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Los_Angeles_Area
20M is probably high, as it would leave out a lot of metro areas that are recognized as "big cities". The LA metro area has a population of 12.5M according to 2005 numbers.

Fair enough. What if we said 10 million? Where would that lead us.

I do think there is a certain amount of subjectivity in say what a big city is. If you're from a small town Indianapolis can seem like a "big" city. However, IMHO a "big" city should be big compared to other cities. Not just a city. I think a city is technically called a city when it has 100,000 people. I don't think that definition is adequate. Frankly, in the modern world I don't really think 1 million people makes a large city.
 
rfarren":eicyci46 said:
Frankly, in the modern world I don't really think 1 million people makes a large city.
Agreed. I think population density might be a better metric.
 
I think a city is technically called a city when it has 100,000 people.

Actually a lot of places in the US a 'City' can be incorporated at only 10,000 population. For example I live in the 'city' of Lafayette, CO which is ~25,000 people (and it mostly does have enough open space around it too so as not to be just a place name suburb that blends into everything else).

Not the Wikipedia is the end all - be all, but discussion of the definitional issues we are talking about here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World's_largest_cities

and a decent list of huge world metro's/Cities here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_urban_areas_by_population

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).
 
EMSC":36jy4row said:
Not the Wikipedia is the end all - be all, but discussion of the definitional issues we are talking about here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World's_largest_cities

and a decent list of huge world metro's/Cities here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_urban_areas_by_population

If you use a 10M cut off then there are only 24 "big" cities in the world today.
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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