Cities that have more in common than not
 

All cities are unique, but many cities are similar.

Please consider all the things that make a city great: the urban/suburban built environment, transportation (highways and transit), demographics (people really makes a city tick), colleges and universities, institutions, history, and overall infrastructure of the city.

Things to do, places to see: museums, arts districts, sports & entertainment, conventions, parks, unique structures, etc.

This is not a city vs city thread. This thread is meant to discuss the similarities of some of the major cities in the U.S., and rather they are more alike or not.

Enjoy and be nice.:cheers:

You can vote fore more than one grouping.

I don't like any of your pairs.

The poll needs an "other" option.

Because I'd vote for Buffalo & Milwaukee.

Brothers from another mother at opposite ends of the lakes.

Of these, I'd say SF / Boston have the most similar vibe. They're pretty different but SF is clearly the Boston of the west coast and Boston is clearly the SF of the east coast...

And landing at Logan feels a lot like landing at SFO.

If lived in Milwaukee for a couple of years and couldn't think of a comparable city, but Milwaukee and Buffalo are more similar than not.

Also, I forgot to pair Detroit and Philly, and Cleveland and Baltimore.

But I digress...

I'm glad someone made this thread, but I don't like most of the pairings. But, of this list, it's Boston and SF for me.

I get the boston/SF comparison for all of their intangible similarities, but I think I'm just WAY too oriented to architecture/built environment to really buy it.

When I'm in one, I know I'm not in the other, and vice versa.

But both are really fantastic! Two of my faves for sure.

From the OP's poll options, I might go with Denver/Minneapolis.

Yeah, the mountains outside of denver have no counterpart in minnesota, and minneapolis has the whole second downtown thing with its twin, St. Paul, but if we concentrate on just the cities themselves, IMO they pair the best overall from that list.

I would say Houston is more like Dallas than it is like Los Angeles and Dallas is more like Houston than it is like Atlanta.

For me, regarding Los Angeles, the most obvious city that's more alike than not is San Diego. Each city has a different vibe, but both are still laid back, casual, outdoor-oriented, not so downtown-oriented, different nodes, rail transit exists but more people still drive, the landscape looks very similar, hills, mountains, beaches, etc.

I've never been to Houston, which LA seems to be compared to often (at least on skyscraperpage), but another city that LA seems to be compared to is Phoenix, but I've been to Phoenix and I find nothing in common between the two.

I'd add Chicago and Toronto as a pairing.

I don't feel Boston and SF are really that similar. I mean, yeah, they're white collar, liberal, affluent techie metros, but they have very different vibes. Boston is very overtly white ethnic, tribal, traditional, formal, rigid, SF is none of that.

And the NY-Chicago comparison is kind of a lazy "huge, older American metros with big skylines." They don't feel particularly similar.

Philly-Detroit, I don't see any similarities except both known for urban decay, maybe?

Really the only comparisons I sorta like are Austin-Nashville and St. Louis-Memphis.

I'd probably pair Seattle more closely with SF than Boston with SF.

I don't think Chicago and New York are similar at all, except for "skyscrapers." But even those are different in each city (NY tall/skinny, Chicago shorter/wide). New York has no counterpart in North America, IMO. Someone said Chicago and Toronto and I think that's a good one.

Boston/SF maybe, that's an interesting comparison. Clearly different cities with different building styles, but similar feelings of density distribution and demographics (as far as class and education go).

I'd hesitantly compare Cincinnati and Baltimore.

The great lakes cities are probably more alike than different--Milwaukee, Cleveland, Buffalo all have lots of similarities.

Philly reminds me a lot of pre-2000s Detroit. I can see why people might not agree about the 2021 comparison of the two cities, though.

San Diego and Miami

South Boston, aka Southie, is essentially Boston's closest neighborhood to SF. Hilly, colorful, similar architecture.

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3321...7i16384!8i8192

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3330...7i16384!8i8192

I know there are major differences in terms of the racial/ethnic composition and general vibe of each city, but I do find SF and Boston to feel similar. They feel similarly sized and the populations of both skew very well educated. You have the Cal and Stanford research powerhouses outside, but close to, SF, which is similar to the MIT/Harvard dynamic in Cambridge. Both cities feel somewhat boutique-y. Idk...the last time I was in Boston I kept feeling the SF comparison.

Cleveland and Baltimore are literally nothing alike at all. Not in built form, industry, demographics...nothing really. I think Baltimore and Philly could be a decent comparison. Pittsburgh and Cincinnati is another one. Detroit and Cleveland.

There are parts of St. Louis that look VERY similar to inner Cleveland burbs of Cleveland Heights and Shaker Heights.

St. Louis

https://www.google.com/maps/@38.6364...7i16384!8i8192

https://www.google.com/maps/@38.6496...7i13312!8i6656


Cleveland Heights

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.5079...7i16384!8i8192

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.5102...7i16384!8i8192

If Dallas had lots of hills and forests, the comparison with Atlanta would be obvious. Similar sprawl and multiple nodes. Vast freeway systems. Most significantly, they have so many of the same types of economic drivers- huge airports, airline headquarters, logistical powerhouses for rail and motor transport, huge regional distribution centers, large and growing tech presence, regional wholesale and market centers, regional banking powerhouses, headquarters for many very large corporations, and massive branch office operations for global corporations. Yes, Atlanta has MARTA and higher quality universities, but Dallas has extensive light rail and commuter rail. Downtown and Midtown Atlanta are really quite similar to Downtown Dallas and adjacent midtown, Turtle Creek, Oak Lawn, etc. Both cities have similarly large gay communities. Both have relatively liberal inner city populations surrounded by much more politically conservative suburbs. Finally, both cities are historically "Southern" cities that were originally populated by similar types of people, a fact that continues to define these cities as they grow into something altogether more diverse and cosmopolitan.

Yeah, not having spent a good deal of time in either city, Cleveland and St. Louis do remind me of each other. Though I'd guess St. Louis is more similar to Cincinnati due to the "high school" question :).


As for SF and Boston, I moved from the bay area to Boston from undergrad to grad school, and a bunch of people made the same move (and presumably a bunch of people made the reverse move), so there's a lot of cross-pollination there that maybe makes the metros feel more similar.

Toronto and Jacksonville. Brothers from another mother.

New York has similarities to other northeastern cities just on a much bigger scale.