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  #41  
Old Posted Nov 15, 2021, 6:56 PM
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Wigs Wigs is offline
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Originally Posted by Steely Dan View Post
in 1920, 7 of the the nation's 13 largest cities were classic rustbelters:

1. New York: 5,620,048
2. Chicago: 2,701,705
3. Philadelphia: 1,823,779
4. Detroit: 993,078
5. Cleveland: 796,841
6. St. Louis: 772,897

7. Boston: 748,060
8. Baltimore: 733,826
9. Pittsburgh: 588,343
10. Los Angeles: 576,673
11. Buffalo: 506,775
12. San Francisco: 506,676
13. Milwaukee: 457,147


today, other than chicago, none of the other 6 are even in the top 25 anymore for city proper. and by MSA, only detroit (#14) and st. louis (#21) make the top 25 MSAs.
At least Buffalo (and Erie County) are finally both growing again for the first time in decades. Buffalo has some of the oldest housing stock in the country, and thus some of the best, coolest wood-frame houses in North America.

2000 292,648 −10.8%
2010 261,310 −10.7%
2020 278,349 6.5%

Instagram: buffalohomes
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  #42  
Old Posted Nov 15, 2021, 7:08 PM
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Originally Posted by edale View Post
I never spent any considerable amount of time in Toledo, but I do know it has a very well regarded art museum and zoo.
Toledo Museum of Art was (co)designed by one of Buffalo's best architects, E.B. Green who also designed Buffalo's amazing Albright-Knox Art Gallery, now transforming into the Albright Knox Gundlach or AKG Art Museum
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  #43  
Old Posted Nov 15, 2021, 8:27 PM
westak westak is offline
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Originally Posted by Dariusb View Post
At what point population wise in your opinion does a metro become midsized or large?
I think there's some nuance to the answer of this question as many other have said. I would agree with those who make that point that population size is a part of this but not the determining factor. Cultural amenities, Public Transportaion and Vibrancy all are big factors in if a particular City/Metro not only feels but opperates in a particular weightclass.
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  #44  
Old Posted Nov 15, 2021, 8:54 PM
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Originally Posted by Wigs View Post
At least Buffalo (and Erie County) are finally both growing again for the first time in decades.
yeah, that was really great to see! chicago was the only other major rustbelter to do the same.

Cincy did it as well, but not everyone sees it as a major rustbelter in the same way. But hey, any city growth after decades of decline is always worth celebrating anywhere out here in flyover country.

hopefully those cities are signaling the nadir for rustbelt city population decline. how awesome it would be to see positive city proper growth in the others in 2030!
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Last edited by Steely Dan; Nov 15, 2021 at 9:17 PM.
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  #45  
Old Posted Nov 15, 2021, 9:03 PM
DCReid DCReid is offline
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Originally Posted by Wigs View Post
At least Buffalo (and Erie County) are finally both growing again for the first time in decades. Buffalo has some of the oldest housing stock in the country, and thus some of the best, coolest wood-frame houses in North America.

2000 292,648 −10.8%
2010 261,310 −10.7%
2020 278,349 6.5%

Instagram: buffalohomes
Nice houses in Buffalo! If only it did not snow so much in the winter. For the longest time in the past, it seemed that Rochester would pass Buffalo as the second largest city and metro in NY. It had more white-collar industries like Kodak and Xerox, and its cultural institutions were just as good. But it never has...
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  #46  
Old Posted Nov 15, 2021, 9:12 PM
ATXboom ATXboom is offline
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Originally Posted by edale View Post
I never spent any considerable amount of time in Toledo, but I do know it has a very well regarded art museum and zoo. The art museum, in particular, gets lots of praise, and they have a very impressive glass pavilion, as Toledo is known as 'the glass city' due to its role in producing windows and windshields for the auto industry.

Their Old West End neighborhood is pretty, and has some gorgeous old homes:

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.6612...7i16384!8i8192

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.6625...7i16384!8i8192

The museum, zoo, old wealthy neighborhoods, relatively big downtown...these are all legacies of when Toledo was much more prosperous and growing. Its fate is very much tied to Detroit and the auto industry, but it lacks the size, wealth, and coolness factor of Detroit. It's a pretty stagnant city/region, but even still, I imagine it still has quite a bit that a place like Fargo does not.

I grew up in Toledo... live in Austin now. Toledo has a better museum and zoo than any of the big cities in Texas by a long shot IMO. Don't forget fiberglass... insulation is really where the glass thing came from. That is because of all the ideal glass making sand on the western end of lake Erie. It benefits from proximity... 45 min to Detoit, 90 min to Cleveland, 3.5 hrs to Chicago. Right on 2 main interstates (75 and 80/90). Ottawa Hills and the Old West End have great housing stock. Love some Tony Packos and Mudhens (great stadium setting downtown), but too damn flat and grey up there though lol. Gotta love the ability to get right onto the lake and head to the islands or cedard point amusement park... Feels like a coastal city in Connecticut.

Regarding the actual topic I think the US Census draws line at 500K, 2M, 5M and 10M.... but those are just man made arbitaries. IMO what makes a city feel big vs small is the mixed use density, transit options and amount of global business... population is a poor metric.

Last edited by ATXboom; Nov 15, 2021 at 9:23 PM.
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  #47  
Old Posted Nov 16, 2021, 4:29 AM
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Originally Posted by DCReid View Post
Nice houses in Buffalo! If only it did not snow so much in the winter. For the longest time in the past, it seemed that Rochester would pass Buffalo as the second largest city and metro in NY. It had more white-collar industries like Kodak and Xerox, and its cultural institutions were just as good. But it never has...
Yeah there's so many interesting houses of various architectural styles/eras, painted in a variety of colors. Tons of civic pride in Buffalo!

more on this topic
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  #48  
Old Posted Nov 16, 2021, 4:34 AM
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Originally Posted by Steely Dan View Post
yeah, that was really great to see! chicago was the only other major rustbelter to do the same.
...
hopefully those cities are signaling the nadir for rustbelt city population decline. how awesome it would be to see positive city proper growth in the others in 2030!
indeed

Having visited Pittsburgh just months before the pandemic, it definitely has tons of potential for serious population growth.
I question if there's some serious Census undercount going on
photoLith would know better.
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  #49  
Old Posted Nov 16, 2021, 4:15 PM
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Feeling "big" and urbanity are two different things.

When I visited Houston, I knew that I was in a big, important city, even if most of the businesses were in strip malls and most neighbourhoods didn't even have sidewalks.

On the flipside, I've been in Spanish towns of 30,000 where every street was lined with midrises that came up to the sidewalk and throngs of pedestrians crowded the bars and cafes late into the night, but you knew you were somewhere small and provincial.

Some of the giveaways: the clothes people wear, the variety of cars on the roads, people of different ethnic or cultural backgrounds (not always racial, I'm including things like counter-cultures and 'scenes' in this), the variety of businesses catering to those different cultural groups/niches, etc.
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  #50  
Old Posted Nov 16, 2021, 4:21 PM
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Originally Posted by ATXboom View Post
I grew up in Toledo... live in Austin now. Toledo has a better museum and zoo than any of the big cities in Texas by a long shot IMO. Don't forget fiberglass... insulation is really where the glass thing came from. That is because of all the ideal glass making sand on the western end of lake Erie. It benefits from proximity... 45 min to Detoit, 90 min to Cleveland, 3.5 hrs to Chicago. Right on 2 main interstates (75 and 80/90). Ottawa Hills and the Old West End have great housing stock. Love some Tony Packos and Mudhens (great stadium setting downtown), but too damn flat and grey up there though lol. Gotta love the ability to get right onto the lake and head to the islands or cedard point amusement park... Feels like a coastal city in Connecticut.

Regarding the actual topic I think the US Census draws line at 500K, 2M, 5M and 10M.... but those are just man made arbitaries. IMO what makes a city feel big vs small is the mixed use density, transit options and amount of global business... population is a poor metric.
haha, you basically just ran down what i did a page back!
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  #51  
Old Posted Nov 16, 2021, 4:29 PM
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^^ the urbanism/vibrancy thing doesn't work so much when comparing utterly massive US sprawlscapes of millions against medieval Spanish towns of tens of thousands.

But when the sizes of two place are more similar, a more vibrant and densely built traditionally urban core can help push one place over another in terms of "feeling" bigger.

Take Providence and Jacksonville, they're nearly identical in size at the MSA level, but spend three hours walking the streets of the urban cores of those two cities, and it's likely you'd walk away with different impressions about the "feeling" of bigness between the two. At least I would.
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  #52  
Old Posted Nov 16, 2021, 4:35 PM
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Houston and Dallas still "feel" massive even without much of the traditional urban vibrancy, even if it is through a car window. You still feel the endless urban area and seas of office buildings and houses. They are just very different kinds of cities.
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  #53  
Old Posted Nov 16, 2021, 6:19 PM
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give me traditional urban vibrancy over endless urban area and seas of office buildings and houses, any day of the week (if I had to choose one over the other). The coolness and attractiveness of cities is defined by their urban cores, not by their big box barf hinterlands.
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  #54  
Old Posted Nov 16, 2021, 6:50 PM
mrnyc mrnyc is offline
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Originally Posted by MolsonExport View Post
give me traditional urban vibrancy over endless urban area and seas of office buildings and houses, any day of the week (if I had to choose one over the other). The coolness and attractiveness of cities is defined by their urban cores, not by their big box barf hinterlands.
nope. i'll take both. livability is important, but so are jobs. and the combo just makes the urban-ness bigger anyway. i like a wide mix, not just some chi chi downtown walkability. also, the fringe areas between the two is often more interesting.
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  #55  
Old Posted Nov 16, 2021, 7:08 PM
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if youre in a niche industry its kind of hard to downshift below a certain population. for me thats probably a 2m metro…others its 5m, etc. our other offices “nearby” are only in chicago, kc, nashville, etc and so is our competition.
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  #56  
Old Posted Nov 16, 2021, 8:42 PM
DCReid DCReid is offline
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Originally Posted by Centropolis View Post
if youre in a niche industry its kind of hard to downshift below a certain population. for me thats probably a 2m metro…others its 5m, etc. our other offices “nearby” are only in chicago, kc, nashville, etc and so is our competition.
you will probably have better options moving forward. I think the work from home trend is hear to stay, and businesses are increasingly in need of great talent anywhere. You probably will be able to work from home but have to come into one of the offices maybe a few times a year.
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  #57  
Old Posted Nov 16, 2021, 8:49 PM
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2 million sounds about right for a large metro. Las Vegas and Austin are just over 2 million. San Diego and Denver are around 3 million. They're all similar tier cities to me.
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  #58  
Old Posted Nov 16, 2021, 9:12 PM
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Yep, some other between 2-3million
-Salt Lake City
-Portland
-St. Louis


We would all consider these "Major" metros but once you go to one step down say 1 million or so :
-Fresno
-Tucson
-Birmingham
-Greenville
-Grand Rapids

They are large cities but not "major" metros.
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  #59  
Old Posted Nov 16, 2021, 11:11 PM
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Originally Posted by biguc View Post
Large happens somewhere around 3 million. At this point you can count on expansive urban areas or multiple very dense nodes. You also get the critical mass of people to support vernacular culture. For example, unique subgenres of music emerge in larger cities based on the market within that city alone.
You made a good point. There are more cultural amenities in larger cities. Underground sub cultures and different scenes are more accessible in large metros even if they are still fringe. They are non existent in smaller metros. I'll use music for example..If Blues, punk rock or metal are your thing, your more apt to find clubs that cater to that crowd ALL the time vs "punk rock Tuesdays" at some random club in a smaller metro.
There are also more special interest clubs catering to niche hobbies. Having a bonafide big production live theatre scene also adds to bigger city experience. Also, having a noticeable financial district means that you are in place approaching megacity status maybe?

Last edited by Razor; Nov 17, 2021 at 11:54 AM.
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  #60  
Old Posted Nov 17, 2021, 1:06 AM
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Originally Posted by Steely Dan View Post
^^ the urbanism/vibrancy thing doesn't work so much when comparing utterly massive US sprawlscapes of millions against medieval Spanish towns of tens of thousands.

But when the sizes of two place are more similar, a more vibrant and densely built traditionally urban core can help push one place over another in terms of "feeling" bigger.

Take Providence and Jacksonville, they're nearly identical in size at the MSA level, but spend three hours walking the streets of the urban cores of those two cities, and it's likely you'd walk away with different impressions about the "feeling" of bigness between the two. At least I would.
To me, Providence overall feels smaller than JAX which has more of a Houston/ Dallas vibe which gives it the impression of being more massive/ sprawled while PVD has a more quaint/ more compact vibe to it belying just how big it really is. Though there's nothing in Jacksonville that remotely comes close to the urban fabric of Downcity in Providence which punches well above its weight.
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