Who here lives in a big city?

[Meli]

I've never been to the USA.

Australia is huge, but with most of our population centred in the state capitals.

After being on here for awhile, my imaginary picture of the USA is like a cross between Europe, with some huge cities, but lots of smaller cities (under 1 million) all neat and tidy. Imagine the UK with big cities and lots of little compact towns and villiages in between.
Further south, I imagine dryer more sparsely populated areas like Texas and Arizona.

I can't comprehend Australia's size, you only get an idea flying over from Melb to London.
Three hours to get across diagonally, and mostly empty scrub and dessert, like ... no where.

So who of you live in big cities, 3 million plus.
and who lives in small towns?

I guess Canada is much the same as OZ, but with trees

[seanz]

I live in a small town that is near a small city that used to be bigger.

[P.I. Stazzer-Newt]

Hereabouts the notion of a city has taken a real hammering.

By administrative area London and Westminster are separate cities - in practice London now includes Northampton, Ipswich and Brighton.

Similarly - coastal South Wales is now a single entity from Newport to Llanelli. - the valleys are still different.

[Meli]

Yeah, but is that a suburb of Christ Church or a totally separate town. you know, with sheep and things in between?

[Meli]

Hereabouts the notion of a city has taken a real hammering.

By administrative area London and Westminster are separate cities - in practice London now includes Northampton, Ipswich and Brighton.

Similarly - coastal South Wales is now a single entity from Newport to Llanelli. - the valleys are still different.

I'n not talking about admin, I mean, a built up area, surrounded by Countryside.

Melbourne is one of the biggest cities in the world if you include the burbs, but only 4 million or so live here.

[seanz]

Yeah, but is that a suburb of Christ Church or a totally separate town. you know, with sheep and things in between?

Things? Everything in NZ has a proper name......in two languages at least.

It's a totally seperate town (satellite, though it may be), with a different district council from CCC (how I miss Caulfield ) and a Pop. of 10,000......maybe.....20% of the town has been condemned due to damaged land as a result of earthquakes..

[Meli]

Caulfield's a suburb, I know you know

I think the closest "separate" town to me would be ....Belgrave? or maybe Trafalger or one of those small towns in gypsland.

[seanz]

I "worked" for Caulfield City Council way back when......

[Michael Beckman]

Huge. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Ha...le,_Washington
And the nearest city is even biggerhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Townsend,_Washington

[BrianW]

I've never been to the USA.

Australia is huge, but with most of our population centred in the state capitals.

It's about the same size as the USA...



But don't forget to add Alaska...

[purri]

I bin ebbry where man, I bin ebbry where...

[Mrleft8]

Forgive my undoubtedly biased opinion in advance please, but....Nobody lives in a city. People exist in a city.

[Paul Pless]

So who of you live in big cities, 3 million plus.

There are only two cities in the U.S. with more than three million people, in the 'city proper'.

After being on here for awhile, my imaginary picture of the USA is like a cross between Europe, with some huge cities, but lots of smaller cities (under 1 million) all neat and tidy.

One of the biggest reason Europeans give for visiting America is to see 'wide open spaces'. . .

and who lives in small towns?

Where I grew up my closest neighbor was about a mile away. Katherine and I live in a 'township' that has 100 parcels of land. There are 66 land owners. We are a thirty minute drive to the 18th largest city in the United States.

I guess Canada is much the same as OZ, but with trees

More people live in California than in Canada. . .

[Rich Jones]

I was born in the country, then moved to Long Island NY as an adult. Lived there for over thirty years, not more than 40 miles from NY City. I avoided it like the plague. Had no use for the crowds, the rat-race. Now, I once again live in the country and am loving it. I'll be driving through NYC tomorrow to visit my son. Wish he'd move.

[Todd D]

I live in a pretty big city. There must be 200 people in Bass Harbor in the summer. Commerce is pretty big here too. Right now we have a convenience store and a restaurant. In the summer there are two more restaurants and a campground. There is a year round boat yard and a ferry terminal. For the last two years I have been able to see the neighbors house due to some blow down in the intervening forest

Locally, if we want city amenities, we go over to Southwest Harbor where they have four restaurants open in the winter and a GROCERY store.

We are close to the megalopolis of Bangor, ME too. The 40,000 or so people there are only 50 miles away.

[BrianW]

Hereabouts the notion of a city has taken a real hammering.

By administrative area London and Westminster are separate cities - in practice London now includes Northampton, Ipswich and Brighton.

It's the same in the States. Take the "city" of Los Angeles proper, it's about 3,800,000 by itself. But it's surrounded by dozens of other smaller cities, and you'd never know you left one and entered the other if not paying attention to a sign on the road. I think altogether, the population is closer to 10,000,000 total.

Pretty sure New York is the same. Not sure about Chicago.

[Ron Williamson]

Rural area of a small town that was amalgamated with another small town and a township,in a rural county with a population around 70k .
We're right up against the Saugeen First Nation with a pop. of about 700.
Here's a map of the whole place,
http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/auth/englis...ter/population

70% live SOUTH of the 49th paralell

R

[Paul Pless]

70% live SOUTH of the 49th paralell

R

Trying to get as close to God's country as possible eh?

[S.V. Airlie]

town..classified as a village. population elderly high % gen population about 1000. Hasn't really changed in 100 years from being about 1000 if everyone is home at the same time.
A couple of points. There are not a lot of quaint villages Meli.The burger Kings, the KFCs, the MacDonalds, the billboards have taken out the "quaint" unless zoning has kept the chain commercial businesses out. It would be really hard to identify one small town from any other without a road sign.Now there are exceptions: tourist towns in the heart of the town may be considered quaint while the fringes may be what I described. A feudal town and believe me, they still exist, keep or pay off the chain hotels, the fast foods to stay out of the town's borders and build just far away from the town. Towns like these can be "quaint" but not like the ones you may be referring to..

[Paul Pless]

Hell, is not exactly 'quaint'. But, it ain't over commercialized either. We have a biker bar, a Hell's Angels club house, an ice cream stand and a post office; no corporate chains. . .

[Tom Montgomery]

[Paul Pless]

What a backwater!

[Ron Williamson]

Trying to get as close to God's country as possible eh?

Pfffft!
Jus' tryna stay warm.
R

[The Bigfella]

It won't be once the Chinese move in.

Jakarta is an interesting city. About 6 million people who can't afford to live there commute in for work every day. I managed to arrive during peak hour. Quite an experience. Some people make a living as transit lane "jockeys".. making up the numbers in a car for it to use a preferential traffic lane.

[Keith Wilson]

I live in a fairly big city (Minneapolis-St Paul), about 3.3 million total. If you look at Tom's map in #22, as you move west through the northern tier of states, it's the last big red dot before the empty spaces of the great plains. Politically it's divided into lots of smaller units, with two central cities- well, maybe 1.6; downtown St. Paul isn't much. The town I live in is a first-ring suburb, about half a mile from the northern St. Paul border. Minnesota really has only one city; more than half of the state's population is in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area.

[Paul Pless]

It won't be once the Chinese move in.

Thank God the Marines got there first!!!

[Gerarddm]

I will never forget the time I had to go to Houston, Texas on a business trip. While there I learned that the incorporated City of Houston was about the same size as the state of Rhode Island, where I was living at the time. Boggled my mind.

[Flying Orca]

Canada's got the wide-open spaces of Oz, only more so (a third again, roughly), with about half again the population. Biggest metropolitan area would be Toronto etc. at over 5.5 million.

One interesting thing about Winnipeg is its isolation; about 730,000 people in the metro area, so not tiny, but very far from any other city of the same or greater size. Like, 13 hours' drive from Calgary to the west, 8 hours from Minneapolis/St Paul to the south, and a couple of days' drive from Toronto to the east.

If you get outside the city, it's farms and tiny farm towns, mostly, with the odd small city (and I mean small - the next largest city in Manitoba has about 50,000 people). To the north farming gives way to mining and forestry, and the (even smaller) towns tend to be centred around one particular resource like a big mine.

I suspect the only other places on earth with cities the size of Winnipeg that are as isolated from other major cities would be Australia (maybe) or Russia (more likely).

[genglandoh]

There are 17 major metro areas in the US that are over the 3 million mark.

I would be willing to guess that because this is a boat building forum that most have a shop of some kind and are living where they have some room.
IE not in a major metro area.

The New York Metro area has 19 Million.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_o...tistical_Areas

[David G]

I will never forget the time I had to go to Houston, Texas on a business trip. While there I learned that the incorporated City of Houston was about the same size as the state of Rhode Island, where I was living at the time. Boggled my mind.

Houston has to be one of the most unpleasant places in the world. They apparently don't believe in zoning... let along urban planning. It seems to have sprawled everywhere. Housing developments next to leaking, steaming, reeking refineries. Freeways going every which way. Finding your way around is more than a challenge. Stinky, ugly, nasty. I had a friend who was newly hired by the Texas DOT, and assigned to Houston. His job was to design yet another beltway around the city. 6 lanes each way, this time. He said the traffic engineers were the most cynical, dispirited bunch of people he'd ever run across.

[Paul Pless]

They apparently don't believe in zoning... let along urban planning.

Ever been to Atlanta?

[Dan McCosh]

Detroit metro area is about 5 million. One of the lowest-density of such areas in the U.S., with mainly single-family homes on relatively large lots, interspersed with clusters of commercial, industrial and technical centers. With the occasional pheasant and coyote in the back yard, it hardly feels like a big city. It's about five blocks to the nearest jazz club.

[David G]

Ever been to Atlanta?

Only the airport, thanks. I'm thinking, though, that however much sprawl Atlanta has - they don't have the refineries and the ship's canal. But I do aspire to visit Savannah.

[Dan McCosh]

After being on here for awhile, my imaginary picture of the USA is like a cross between Europe, with some huge cities, but lots of smaller cities (under 1 million) all neat and tidy. Imagine the UK with big cities and lots of little compact towns and villiages in between.

That's a fascinating perspective. The reality is that the "cities" in the U.S. are mainly contiguous, sprawling development, making it virtually impossible to see where the "city" ends and "country" begins. It is nothing like the sharply defined, centralized urban cities in Europe. Likewise the countryside is dotted with small developments, individual houses, etc., in areas that would seem to be nearly wilderness. Coastal areas tend to be a solidly developed for thousands of miles, particularly on the East Coast, in an unending sprawl. Federal land in the central part of the country does have some genuine, extensive wilderness, and a few places have terrain unsuitable for building (OK, maybe not for someone in California,), but there isn't much neat and tidy about much of it.

[Soundbounder]

While there I learned that the incorporated City of Houston was about the same size as the state of Rhode Island, where I was living at the time. Boggled my mind.

A lot of sunbelt cities have outrageously large geographic areas. That's why it is misleading when you hear that San Diego is the 8th largest US city, San Antonio the 7th largest, Phoenix the 6th largest, etc. San Diego's geographic area is almost 400 square miles. People living nearly 20 miles apart are both within the city limits.

It distorts a lot of other statistics,as well. Crime stats are significantly lower for cities which dilute their numbers with outlying areas. When you hear that such-and-such city is the safest, wealthiest, most violent, etc, it's often a meaningless stat, which has more to do with the political boundaries than the actual subject.

[Norman Bernstein]

After being on here for awhile, my imaginary picture of the USA is like a cross between Europe, with some huge cities, but lots of smaller cities (under 1 million) all neat and tidy. Imagine the UK with big cities and lots of little compact towns and villiages in between.

It's more like that in the Northeast US, where cities like Boston and Providence are surrounded by densely settled suburbs... and there are MANY small towns which have what I would describe as 'charm'... it's the primary reason I settled up here.

Even further from the major cities in the Northeast, places like Vermont and New Hampshire, and Maine, small towns look like Norman Rockwell portraits... with a LOT of charm and visual appeal.

Much of the US, in terms of cities and towns, is frankly charmless (and I know some will disagree with this, but that is how I see it). One example of this would be the Palm Beach, FL area, where my parents lived, first, as snowbirds from NJ, and then full time. The land is absolutely flat.... the streets are an orthogonal gridwork... the landscape is completely dominated by major US chains and franchises, with a Wallgreens and CVS (pharmacy chains) on seemingly EVERY major intersection, and a big box store, Home Depot, Lowes, or similar huge store in the middle of each block. The area was really only developed in the past 30 years or so, so there's virtually nothing in the way of small, independently owned business with any sort of charm whatsoever. Without road signs, you'd never know you were crossing from one 'town' to another.... towns near there may consist of absolutely no geographic division; you simply cross one major intersection, and you're in the next 'town'. I always hated the place, myself.

I frankly feel the same way about California, especially southern California. The Los Angeles area looks like a movie set for a disaster film; the worst imaginable urban sprawl. Santa Barbara, about 90 minutes north of Los Angeles, is a wealthy oceanside town with a great deal of 'fake' charm, IMHO... too consciously exclusive and elite, too 'dressed up' like a movie set.

[seanz]

I suspect the only other places on earth with cities the size of Winnipeg that are as isolated from other major cities would be Australia (maybe) or Russia (more likely).

I think Perth in Western Australia has some distinction as most isolated capital (provincial) city in the world.

I'd fact-check that but it's ba$tard o'clock here and I can't be stuffed.

[David G]

Portland has about 2.2 million in the metro area. Maybe 600,000 within the city limits. Probably the 25th largest city in the U.S. Pretty sharp distinctions between city/suburb/county(country).

[leikec]

I'd guess the St. Louis metro area is about 2.8-3 million--split between Missouri and Illinois. St. Louis always seems small to me, after living in Detroit, and spending time working in Chicago and Dallas-Ft. Worth.

Jeff C

[hokiefan]

I grew up in a little town, 7000 people. Went to school in Blacksburg, Va with a population of 40,000 including 20,000 students. The big city in comparison! Then I moved to Savannah, I think 150,000ish in the city proper but about 400,000 in the metro area. Worked in Jacksonville for 5 years, about 1.5 million in the area. Much harder city than Savannah. Now I'm in Peoria, the area is essentially the same size as Savannah. The plant I'm working in is in Mapleton, Ill which is about 12 miles south of Peoria. Population 250!!! I've been to Chicago twice, thats just a different world.

Cheers,

Bobby

[Tom Montgomery]

Notice the population density of the State of Alaska. The entire State has a population under 800,000 people. That is closely equivalent to the population of greater Louisville, Kentucky (aka Kentuckiana). Of course, the population of the State of Alaska is somewhat more spread out.

All this goes some way to understanding why so many in the lower 48 are skeptical that Alaskan politicians can relate to the rest of the USA.

[Phil Y]

Flying over the US at night, you see lights everywhere, must be almost no-one more than 10 miles from their nearest neighbor. Flying over Australia at night, its all dark, for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of miles. But thats about as much sense of a place as you'll get from an airplane. I think to get a feel for a place you've got to drive, or preferably ride it. And preferably avoiding the major roads.

[fishrswim]

Nope. I live in a town of about 2000. On an island about 45 miles long. Our thoroughfare hass two lanes.

I've lived in cities, St Louis, San Antonio, LA, Anchorage, Alexandria VA, Salt Lake, etc. Smaller is better.

[Soundbounder]

Flying over the US at night, you see lights everywhere, must be almost no-one more than 10 miles from their nearest neighbor.

Your flight path may have followed an interstate highway. The western half of the interior US has vast areas of desert, mountains, and plains which are sparsely populated

I drove cross country in the 1990's (I-80) and there were long stretches of uninhabited land. I still remember the signs stating "No Gas, Water For Next 120 Miles". Most of Nevada and southern Utah is barren.
Crossing the country through Montana, Wyoming, and the Dakotas is even more desolate, as is the southern route through west Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.

[Meli]

Flying over the US at night, you see lights everywhere, must be almost no-one more than 10 miles from their nearest neighbor. Flying over Australia at night, its all dark, for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of miles. But thats about as much sense of a place as you'll get from an airplane. I think to get a feel for a place you've got to drive, or preferably ride it. And preferably avoiding the major roads.

Avoid the major roads, OK got it. remind me to take a compass, 100ltrs water and a back up vehicle

http://maps.google.com.au/maps?hl=en&tab=wl

[brad9798]

Until I built 'out west,' I lived in an URBAN area until 2003, once I became married ... but I grew up west of the city in question ... on my parent's awesome estate ... but whateva!

[Chip-skiff]

First city I lived in was Auckland, NZ. I was ready to hate it but ended up enjoying my time there. Reminded me of San Francisco, but smaller and cleaner.

We lived on the heights, in Grafton, in the loft of a 1907 Victorian and it was downhill to good pubs and cafes all 'round. It was a short hop to the Domain, a big, wonderful park. We could walk to the Viaduct Harbour with posh cafes in about 20-25 minutes. Same to Parnell and Ponsonby. We walked far more in Auck than we do in our rural retreat. And when we got tired, the buses were excellent, mostly on time, and they ran 'til late at night.