Power Shift: Cities

[Docere]

Originally Posted by yuriandrade

Melbourne prepares to overtake Sydney as biggest city

It would be great to see the historic populations of Sydney and Melbourne, going back to the 19th century.

[McBane]

To the casual outsider, Sydney and Rio are the urban kings of their respective countries. Both feature iconic monuments that are known the world over. I'd imagine that tourism figures in Melbourne and Sao Paulo pale in comparison to Sydney and Rio (and I'm speaking specifically about leisure, not business travel).

Of course, public perception and tourism are not as significant as population and wealth, but it's something to acknowledge. If those attitudes ever change, it will take quite a long time to happen.

As interesting as it is to witness the "power shift" of cities in a certain country, it's equally interesting to see how public perception changes, or doesn't change.

[Yuri]

^^
That's the view from an outsider, which for a very insulated, self-centered country like Brazil counts very little.

São Paulo, since the takeover back in the 1960's, grew more and more important and today completely dominate the domestic scene in very single field. Rio de Janeiro became pretty much just another state capital while São Paulo's influence reaches every corner of the country.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by yuriandrade

^^
That's the view from an outsider, which for a very insulated, self-centered country like Brazil counts very little.

São Paulo, since the takeover back in the 1960's, grew more and more important and today completely dominate the domestic scene in very single field. Rio de Janeiro became pretty much just another state capital while São Paulo's influence reaches every corner of the country.

I think he has a good point, though, and the issue isn't Brazil's relative isolation. There's often a very long lag between perception and reality.

There are tons and tons of people who think NYC is still basically stuck in 1970 or something. I have had so many people ask "is it safe to come here", "can I walk in Central Park", "is Times Square dangerous", "dare I venture to Brooklyn" and other assorted silliness. Even crazier, they would never ask the same questions for U.S. cities with 10x the crime rate.

Similarly, people are often shocked when they go to LA and it isn't all blond surfers/beach babes. They are unable to fathom that LA is overwhelmingly nonwhite and it isn't the 1950's anymore.

Or people will think Atlanta is something out of "Gone with the Wind". I've also had people (seriously) ask if they should wear Lederhosen in Bavaria. People are (generally speaking) quite stupid. I'm sure the typical person thinks Brazil is all sexy bikini models and soccer stars, and Carnival is every day of the year.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I think he has a good point, though, and the issue isn't Brazil's relative isolation. There's often a very long lag between perception and reality.

There are tons and tons of people who think NYC is still basically stuck in 1970 or something. I have had so many people ask "is it safe to come here", "can I walk in Central Park", "is Times Square dangerous", "dare I venture to Brooklyn" and other assorted silliness. Even crazier, they would never ask the same questions for U.S. cities with 10x the crime rate.

Similarly, people are often shocked when they go to LA and it isn't all blond surfers/beach babes. They are unable to fathom that LA is overwhelmingly nonwhite and it isn't the 1950's anymore.

Or people will think Atlanta is something out of "Gone with the Wind". I've also had people (seriously) ask if they should wear Lederhosen in Bavaria. People are (generally speaking) quite stupid. I'm sure the typical person thinks Brazil is all sexy bikini models and soccer stars, and Carnival is every day of the year.

In terms of "lag", a lot of people around the world still seem to think that Toronto and Montreal are pretty equal in size. Whereas Toronto is at least 1/3 larger. In countries that have a relationship to France or the French language, it's probably even a safe assumption that a majority of people think Montreal is (still) the biggest city in Canada. Or at least, it's definitely the first Canadian city people think of when prompted.

Most of the residual "Montreal is equal to/bigger than Toronto" that is out there is rapidly fading now, with the exception of the francophone world where I doubt it's going to fade much any time soon.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Acajack

In terms of "lag", a lot of people around the world still seem to think that Toronto and Montreal are pretty equal in size. Whereas Toronto is at least 1/3 larger. In countries that have a relationship to France or the French language, it's probably even a safe assumption that a majority of people think Montreal is (still) the biggest city in Canada. Or at least, it's definitely the first Canadian city people think of when prompted.

Anecdotal, but I remember my wife (Mexican, very well traveled, and MBA from elite American university) expressing surprise that Montreal isn't the largest/most important Canadian city.

I don't know if that's a typical view in Latin America, but I see a "lag" as plausible.

It could also be that Montreal (like Rio) has an iconic "image". Sao Paulo and Toronto don't really have this.

[the urban politician]

Milwaukee will soon overtake New York as a cultural capital

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Anecdotal, but I remember my wife (Mexican, very well traveled, and MBA from elite American university) expressing surprise that Montreal isn't the largest/most important Canadian city.

I don't know if that's a typical view in Latin America, but I see a "lag" as plausible.

It could also be that Montreal (like Rio) has an iconic "image". Sao Paulo and Toronto don't really have this.

Montreal also has an obvious outlier/man-bites-dog aspect to it that registers in people's minds.

What the hell is a *French* (sic - yeah, I know...) city doing *there*????

[Centropolis]

speaking as a midwestern american, when i was a kid say like early 90s, i really liked the montreal expos team logo and gear (and where they played) for some reason and knew of montreal as being a big, important coastalish metropolitan city (with subways and rowhouses) like boston, standing within canada of course really didn't register i just thought of it as belonging to what i thought as the largest, most urban/important tier of cities. toronto wasn't really on the radar that i recall or at least i didn't really have an ideation of it until i started watching the tom green show. edit: was that ottawa? oops.

Originally Posted by Acajack

Montreal also has an obvious outlier/man-bites-dog aspect to it that registers in people's minds.

What the hell is a *French* (sic - yeah, I know...) city doing *there*????

as far as it being "french," growing up in a city and region that (sort of) celebrates its french heritage and had native french speakers (rural areas outside of st. louis where people spoke french at home) well into the twentieth century and new orleans looming so large in the mississippi valley that part didn't really seem strange.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by yuriandrade

^^
That's the view from an outsider, which for a very insulated, self-centered country like Brazil counts very little.

São Paulo, since the takeover back in the 1960's, grew more and more important and today completely dominate the domestic scene in very single field. Rio de Janeiro became pretty much just another state capital while São Paulo's influence reaches every corner of the country.

Sao Paulo has been the biggest city in Brazil for my entire lifetime and being a city geek I have always known this.

That said for the average non-Brazilian person out there it's interesting how much iconic stuff there is associated with Rio de Janeiro (perhaps wrongly in some cases): Maracana, Ipanema, Sugarloaf, the statue of Christ, Copacabana, Carnaval, the samba(drome), etc.

I can't think of anything iconic in Sao Paulo that Joe Schmo would blurt out if questioned out the blue.

Yes, I realize that Sao Paulo is now almost twice as big, is extremely dynamic, has awesome restaurants, the Pinacoteca, the Jardims districts are lovely, etc. But I would never have known any of this had I not been there.

And I know a lot about iconic stuff around the world.

[Sun Belt]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Anecdotal, but I remember my wife (Mexican, very well traveled, and MBA from elite American university) expressing surprise that Montreal isn't the largest/most important Canadian city.

I don't know if that's a typical view in Latin America, but I see a "lag" as plausible.

It could also be that Montreal (like Rio) has an iconic "image". Sao Paulo and Toronto don't really have this.

Most people don't care about that stuff. Canada is a cold far away place from a Mexican's perspective. Your wife not knowing that Toronto is larger than Montreal is no big deal.

My perception of Australian cities [also some far away place] was that Melbourne was larger than Sydney because I knew some Aussies and they would always say Melbourne was like the New York of Australia and I never bothered to look it up. The NY of Australia to an American suggests that it's the largest most dominate city in the nation.

Interestingly they are almost 1:1 now.
Sydney - 5,131,326
Melbourne - 4,850,740
Combined population represents about 40% of the total Australian population.

[dimondpark]

Originally Posted by yuriandrade

^^
That's the view from an outsider, which for a very insulated, self-centered country like Brazil counts very little.

São Paulo, since the takeover back in the 1960's, grew more and more important and today completely dominate the domestic scene in very single field. Rio de Janeiro became pretty much just another state capital while São Paulo's influence reaches every corner of the country.

Rio is not just 'another state capital'...c'mon.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Sun Belt

Interestingly they are almost 1:1 now.
Sydney - 5,131,326
Melbourne - 4,850,740
Combined population represents about 40% of the total Australian population.

that's nuts.

can you imagine if NYC & LA constituted 40% of america's population?

they'd both need metro populations of around 65 million!

australia really is big and empty.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by dimondpark

Rio is not just 'another state capital'...c'mon.

Yeah, Rio is arguably one of the top 10 iconic cities in the world, and easily the most iconic Brazilian city.

[Sun Belt]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

that's nuts.

can you imagine if NYC & LA constituted 40% of america's population?

they'd both need metro populations of around 65 million!

australia really is big and empty.

Yeah that really stood out at me as well. Those two cities hold so much weight of all things Australian. Distant 3rd place is Brisbane at nearly 10% of the total population.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

that's nuts.

can you imagine if NYC & LA constituted 40% of america's population?

they'd both need metro populations of around 65 million!

australia really is big and empty.

For the sake of comparison, the metro areas of Toronto and Montreal have about a third of Canada's population. If you include all of the Golden Horseshoe which Toronto anchors, you're pushing 40%.

The third largest metro, Vancouver, is not even at 10% of Canada's population.

The Quebec City-Windsor corridor, about 1000 km or so long, has half of Canada's population.

[Centropolis]

australia, and canada for that matter don't have the great "manifest destiny" swaths of arable land that the united states does that there was a mad rush to bloodily overtake and transform as quickly as possible. it's also why many people from those commonwealth places (and here for that matter) don't understand the politics of the u.s.

[Steely Dan]

to get to 40% of the US population, you'd have to combine our 22 largest MSA's.

in australia? only their 2 largest.

and the land areas of the two nation's are comparable, we're not comparing some tiny european principality to a continental nation.



EDIT:

wow, canada is similar, i never really added that up in my mind.

the US is unique in the anglosphere in that our population is very widely distributed.

it's a small miracle this shithole of a nation has been able to hold itself together for nearly 250 years.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Sun Belt

Most people don't care about that stuff. Canada is a cold far away place from a Mexican's perspective. Your wife not knowing that Toronto is larger than Montreal is no big deal.

My perception of Australian cities [also some far away place] was that Melbourne was larger than Sydney because I knew some Aussies and they would always say Melbourne was like the New York of Australia and I never bothered to look it up. The NY of Australia to an American suggests that it's the largest most dominate city in the nation.

Interestingly they are almost 1:1 now.
Sydney - 5,131,326
Melbourne - 4,850,740
Combined population represents about 40% of the total Australian population.

My sense is that around the world few people off the cuff would name Melbourne as the largest city in Australia. Though it depends on people you've known and your interests. Melbourne does have some significant stuff that contributes to its renown: the F1 Grand Prix, Australian Open tennis, Aussie rules football is largely based there, and it has hosted the summer Olympics (though Sydney's are more recent).

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

to get to 40% of the US population, you'd have to combine our 22 largest MSA's.

in australia? only their 2 largest.

and the land areas of the two nation's are comparable, we're not comparing some tiny european principality to a continental nation.

but vast swaths of australia are not arable in the way the eastern/middle and far western u.s. is, hence the 19th century population bottleneck. canada fares a bit better but the best farmland is smaller in area than one prime midwestern state.