Mid Sized Cities/Metros

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by llamaorama

No love for Madison?
source: university of wisconsin campus photo library; taken by Jeff Miller.

Good one! This one of the American cities I thought of as well.

[Metro-One]

Great idea for a thread, but the idea of "mid sized" is far too ambiguous. For example, given Razor's post above. I would never lump in Halifax in with the same category as Vancouver and Portland Oregon.

Vancouver and Portland would be mid sized cities (IMO) and halifax (along with Victoria, and any other place between 200 000 and 700 000 roughly) would be big towns. Edmonton, Calgary, and Ottawa would be small cities (with Calgary pushing its way quickly into mid sized).

This is purely on metro population, leave the density, street details, colour of paint arguments for later.

[Centropolis]

http://thumbs.trulia-cdn.com

i guess Richmond gets overlooked, being just on the other end of BosWash but with blocks like theses, it's a bit of a sleeper.

[Centropolis]

I have ties to Lexington, KY, and have sort of "discovered" this little gem recently. It was established in 1782 and has around 400,000 in the MSA. It was the location of the first urban growth boundary in the US and disallowed expressways through downtown.


http://images.huffingtonpost.com


http://myamericanodyssey.com


http://www.gannett-cdn.com


https://www.flickr.com/photos/cr8on-m/


http://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com

http://media.kentucky.com

http://www.artplaceamerica.org

[kool maudit]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

OK, you guys are going to laugh at my choice, but the "city" of under 1 million that feels the "biggest" is Venice.

Why?

Because, to me, a "big city" or "metropolis" isn't defined by its buildings (although I'm pretty confident Venice will squeak by on this criterion) or economic metrics, but based on things like:

- does it have a significant, indigenous cultural history?
- has it traditionally been a gravitating spot for talent?
- does it have venerable institutions populated by a complex social hierarchy?
- has it developed its own set way of "doing things"? Stubborn quirks that newcomers must adapt to, rather than the other way around: locals adapting to others?

There are other reasons why a city might feel "big" but based on this Venice feels really "big", or at least like a city that should command respect. Even in the one that it probably strikes out on - attracting talent - there are still things we can list off like the Biennale, and other less noticeable things like writers workshops, semesters abroad for arts students, you name it. Of course, I'm not overlooking the fact that the city is down to a permanent population of 50,000, is completely overrun with tourists and has lost business and cultural prominence continuously for 2 centuries.

It is a damn shame that what was once the city of cities has retreated into the state that it's in. A lot of people dismiss Venice as an artificial destination like Disneyworld or Colonial Williamsburg, but I don't see how you can visit the place and be blind to the metropolitan qualities that its leaders bestowed upon it for an entire millennium. These things don't just disappear, even after 200 years.

really interesting response. i think there is something very modern, very industrial about the way we conflate feeling "like a city that should command respect" with large populations.

for much of european history, this correlation was much looser, and in venice's heyday it was indeed a city that many regarded as very central and iconic, even more so than larger conurbations.

[Crawford]

Venice, even today, feels fairly large and important, at least to me. I think there are few places on earth with comparable urbanity and perhaps none with comparable charm.

It isn't a theme park city, but you have to go off the well-worn path between the station and the square. That route is inundated with the hordes of day trippers. I stay in the old Jewish Quarter and there are more grandmas and laughing schoolkids than annoying tourists.

[Austinlee]

I've been to Lexington. it was very nice. Love that place.

[Razor]

Originally Posted by Metro-One

Great idea for a thread, but the idea of "mid sized" is far too ambiguous. For example, given Razor's post above. I would never lump in Halifax in with the same category as Vancouver and Portland Oregon.

Vancouver and Portland would be mid sized cities (IMO) and halifax (along with Victoria, and any other place between 200 000 and 700 000 roughly) would be big towns. Edmonton, Calgary, and Ottawa would be small cities (with Calgary pushing its way quickly into mid sized).

This is purely on metro population, leave the density, street details, colour of paint arguments for later.

When I quickly thought of Halifax as being one, I was thinking it in a Canadian context only....you are correct though..Ottawa, Calgary, and Edmonton are all small cities in the grand scheme, while cities like Vancouver,Denver and Portland are classic examples of mid sized metros. IMO anyways.

[pdxtex]

mid-sized to me is like 200k up to 800k metro. that might be a stretch though. past a million and its a major city.

[SHiRO]

Venice might only have 60,000 in the historic city but it has 270,000 in its municipality which includes mainland territories. It also forms a metropolitan area with Padua and Treviso with a total population of 1.6 million. The wider region is very densely populated as well.

It's not exclusively a museum city either. Plenty of innovation going on, for example in water management.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOSE_Project

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by Austinlee

I've been to Lexington. it was very nice. Love that place.

although its an older city and has kind of a southern gentry, it also has a laid back liberalish southern college town vibe kind of like the way i imagine austin used to have. it has the foothills of the appalachians and the red river gorge not too far away, sort of like the hill country, a decent number of craft breweries (not to mention the flood of bourbon), and good restaurants/bbq. it kind of does it's own thing in a place many would consider improbable.

i have also always thought that its layout was unique, almost like a small city in the UK (no pun intended), with a ring road and the expressway on the outskirts of town.



http://www.mc.uky.edu

[pdxtex]

i have a feeling kentucky is an extremely overlooked state. its almost like the epicenter of americana. its not really the deep south, its not really the north, its definitely applaichia but not so coal driven as some other places. dunno, i guess the combination of alot of history, a central locale, some top universities and some very pretty topography probably lend themselves to some good living. ive only been to louisville and some of the horse country it was super pretty. its also regarded as the most affordable state to live in. huh.....

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by pdxtex

i have a feeling kentucky is an extremely overlooked state. its almost like the epicenter of americana. its not really the deep south, its not really the north, its definitely applaichia but not so coal driven as some other places. dunno, i guess the combination of alot of history, a central locale, some top universities and some very pretty topography probably lend themselves to some good living. ive only been to louisville and some of the horse country it was super pretty.

it is. there really is a lot to be fascinated by, i always come across interesting places, things, and certainly people. it's a well settled region with lots of solid pre-war architecture, well groomed old worldish countryside in the bluegrass region around lexington, and even it's own kind of huge oak furniture. as you move into the appalachians you are moving into a seperate region apart from bluegrass, or the more german-midwestern influenced ohio valley area.

you definitely get the feeling that some areas of kentucky are melding midwestern architecture with southern culture or something along those lines, but it's so well blended as to be its own thing. missouri is sort of an extension of that but the oil and water so to speak didn't blend the same way that it did in kentucky.

another interesting thing: part of kentucky was once called transylvania.

[Centropolis]

wikimedia.org

[dc_denizen]

An interesting comparison:

Madison, WI

Tampere, Finland

Both have densities of around 3000/square mile, with Madison (400,000 people) slightly larger than Tampere (300,000)

[fflint]

Originally Posted by pdxtex

mid-sized to me is like 200k up to 800k metro. that might be a stretch though. past a million and its a major city.

By that standard, Elkhart is a mid-sized American city and Fresno is a major city.

[Urbanguy]

In the case of Honolulu, its skyline is quite large for it's population size & not just because of the tourist factor. If you were take the condos out of Waikiki there would still be hundreds of buildings 12 stories and over left (let alone many apartment complexes shy of that height threshold) -- high rise/apartment-living is quite the norm there & there are many more on the way. Also, Waikiki has over 20,000 people living in it too & is one of the most densely populated areas of the city. A lot of it has to do with the fact that growth is quite restricted because it's on an island & because there's a mountain range on one side & the ocean on the other so growth is limited to a narrow strip of land.

[kcexpress69]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

Norwalk, CT



link

Isn't this Stamford, CT? Great photos you're posting though!

[Crawford]

Yeah, that's Stamford, not Norwalk.

[llamaorama]

Here's my two cents

A small city is any place that is functionally and just a little bit physically urban even if it has a tiny population. Nuuk, Greenland is basically a very small city because of its economic and political function as the only major settlement in that corner of the globe.