How big is a town? How small are cities?

[Arwon]

I think, for USA at least, you're conflating "city of" with "CSA" and "MSA". For example, most larger cities have what's referred as a "greater metropolitan area" or "metropolitan statistical area", but the whole area, particularly to non-natives, is referred as "Los Angeles" or "Chicago" or "Houston" or "Philadelphia", which are actually a number of smaller, outlying cities/towns. These fall into a third category of city structure, "metropolis". A guy from Arlington Heights, Illinois passes into Bowlingbrook Illinois, and he knows these are two municipalities, but a guy from Germany pretty much sees, and calls, the whole thing as "Chicago".

Yes, because those SAs define the actual urban areas. I'm familiar with the existence of multiple municipalities, I just don't see why they're any more relevant than in London (which has about 30 municipal governments) or Sydney (which has like 30 or 40, depending on where the mergers are at now). The guy in Berlin knows he is in Neuköln or Spandau burrough, with an elected council in each case, but he's still in Berlin.

 

[AppleDumplingHead]

Yes, because those SAs define the actual urban areas. I'm familiar with the existence of multiple municipalities, I just don't see why they're any more relevant than in London (which has about 30 municipal governments) or Sydney (which has like 30 or 40, depending on where the mergers are at now). The guy in Berlin knows he is in Neuköln or Spandau burrough, with an elected council in each case, but he's still in Berlin.

Maybe Germany does it differently. I didn't know London has 30 municipal governments, although I guess I'd kinda expect it to be the same as Chicago. If I was somewhere around London which didn't have dairy cows, I'd pretty much figure I'm still in London.

 

[Vectors]

Yes, because those SAs define the actual urban areas. I'm familiar with the existence of multiple municipalities, I just don't see why they're any more relevant than in London (which has about 30 municipal governments) or Sydney (which has like 30 or 40, depending on where the mergers are at now). The guy in Berlin knows he is in Neuköln or Spandau burrough, with an elected council in each case, but he's still in Berlin.

London has Boroughs which are definitely part of London, Long Beach is part of LA Metro, but it is not part of the city of LA. The Bronx is part of New York City and part of NYC Metro

 

[Timsup2nothin]

The "greater metropolitan area" is pretty much just a statistical housekeeping aid. It doesn't indicate any political or economic connection that I'm aware of.

 

[schlaufuchs]

It's hard to say living in the Bay Area because the region is defined by 3 giant metropolis-sprawl corridors. San Jose-Santa Clara-Campbell-Sunnyvale-Mountain View-Milpitas sprawl, SF-South SF-Daly City-San Mateo-Palo Alto sprawl, and the Richmond-Berkeley-Oakland-Alameda-Hayward-Union City-Fremont sprawl. So for me it's less "cities" as it is endless development along freeways where the divides between "cities" seems rather arbitrary. I guess I'd say 100k+ would be around the point where I'd start calling something a "city". 20-30k is the lower end of "town" and below that is po-dunk.

 

[AppleDumplingHead]

Arlington Heights, which I mentioned in the post above, is actually a "village" with 75,000 people. I wasn't aware of that until I looked it up. Also, I misspelled Bolingbrook. I lived, right there, in Naperville for 4 years and still didn't know they're not "cities".

 

[Timsup2nothin]

You do realize that outside the bay area all of that is referred to as "San Francisco," right?

 

[schlaufuchs]

You do realize that outside the bay area all of that is referred to as "San Francisco," right?

It's not my fault that people are bad at geography and don't realize how goddamn enormous this region is. The Golden Gate Bridge to South San Jose is 67 miles. It's like calling Newark and Philadelphia the same city.

Then again you're in LA and people do the same thing with Orange County, San Diego, LA, and to a lesser extent Santa Barbara.

 

[Arwon]

The "greater metropolitan area" is pretty much just a statistical housekeeping aid. It doesn't indicate any political or economic connection that I'm aware of.

Metropolitan Areas are defined by economic interdependence and integration, measured by work commutes which are obtained via census data. They're pretty much best practice for defining cities and comparing them internationally, because the method is pretty similar across countries.

 

[Flying Pig]

That sounds like what Tim said a moment ago:

So for a city to feel like a city it has to be the city for at least some reasonable distance.

Presumably, those work commutes also reflect where people shop, go to the doctor's, go to the cinema and so on.

 

[Arwon]

It's not my fault that people are bad at geography and don't realize how goddamn enormous this region is. The Golden Gate Bridge to South San Jose is 67 miles. It's like calling Newark and Philadelphia the same city.

Then again you're in LA and people do the same thing with Orange County, San Diego, LA, and to a lesser extent Santa Barbara.

I think this just reflects lower density and longer driving distances connecting a larger area than in many other parts of the world including the US East Coast. Of course greater car centricity and lower density means larger urban areas. You can travel over 50 miles within Sydney and it's only got half the population of the SF-SJ-Oakland metro area, so 67 miles for a city of 8 million people doesn't sound far fetched to me, especially since it's a continuous built up area and elongated because of the shape of the water. Honolulu for instance is about 27 miles across with a small fraction of the population of the Bay Area, again because of the water.

Istanbul, on the other hand has ~12m people and is only about 60 miles across its most elongated axis, because of greater density. Beijing with 20m people and no such elongation looks about 50 miles across.

 

[Vectors]

It's hard to say living in the Bay Area because the region is defined by 3 giant metropolis-sprawl corridors. San Jose-Santa Clara-Campbell-Sunnyvale-Mountain View-Milpitas sprawl, SF-South SF-Daly City-San Mateo-Palo Alto sprawl, and the Richmond-Berkeley-Oakland-Alameda-Hayward-Union City-Fremont sprawl. So for me it's less "cities" as it is endless development along freeways where the divides between "cities" seems rather arbitrary. I guess I'd say 100k+ would be around the point where I'd start calling something a "city". 20-30k is the lower end of "town" and below that is po-dunk.

The SFBA could really benefit from some amalgamation (Piedmont, stop pretending you aren't Oakland) and a regional government of some sort handling mass transit (the place is a mess by mass transit).

 

[Vectors]

I think this just reflects lower density and longer driving distances connecting a larger area than in many other parts of the world including the US East Coast. Of course greater car centricity and lower density means larger urban areas. You can travel over 50 miles within Sydney and it's only got half the population of the SF-SJ-Oakland metro area, so 67 miles for a city of 8 million people doesn't sound far fetched to me, especially since it's a continuous built up area and elongated because of the shape of the water. Honolulu for instance is about 27 miles across with a small fraction of the population of the Bay Area, again because of the water.

Istanbul, on the other hand has ~12m people and is only about 60 miles across its most elongated axis, because of greater density. Beijing with 20m people and no such elongation looks about 50 miles across.

67 is just built up, if we go by government definitions and include both Cloverdale and Gilroy it is 160 miles and both Gilroy and Cloverdale are smack in the middle of nowhere.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

It's not my fault that people are bad at geography and don't realize how goddamn enormous this region is. The Golden Gate Bridge to South San Jose is 67 miles. It's like calling Newark and Philadelphia the same city.

Then again you're in LA and people do the same thing with Orange County, San Diego, LA, and to a lesser extent Santa Barbara.

Not San Diego or Santa Barbara, but certainly most of the populated parts of Orange County. Again, for the same reasons I stated earlier. When someone in Santa Ana turns on their local news at eleven the station is out of LA, even though their studios are probably in Burbank. When they turn on the radio in their car on the way to work the station they get their traffic info from is out of LA, even though if it's my car the station is actually in Culver City. When they stop and get a coffee and pick up their local paper it's more likely to be the LA Times than the Orange County Register. Their identity is Los Angeles, even though they probably consider themselves to be "the better part."

 

[Arwon]

Let's be honest San Diego would have been subsumed into Greater LA already if Camp Pendleton wasn't there. And they're about to get the Chargers.

(While we're at it let's talk about SD and TJ as a single urban area...)

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Let's be honest San Diego would have been subsumed into Greater LA already if Camp Pendleton wasn't there. And they're about to get the Chargers.

(While we're at it let's talk about SD and TJ as a single urban area...)

On what grounds? No one would commute from San Diego to jobs anywhere close to LA. Heck, people in northern San Diego County wouldn't commute to jobs anywhere close to LA. You'd have to place a repeater somewhere for radio and TV stations to be picked up out of LA in San Diego, and they have a paper that has a longer history than the LA Times that is universally accepted as the local paper. They have their own international airport, their own interstate highway connection headed east. Other than being in the same very large end of the same extremely large state there's hardly any connection between San Diego and LA at all.

 

[Arwon]

Because if Pendleton wasn't there it'd likely be continuous conurbation. It's already not far off continuous, up the 15.

Being slightly facetious, because after two years in SD I know how much not being LA means to them.

 

[schlaufuchs]

Because if Pendleton wasn't there it'd likely be continuous conurbation. It's already not far off continuous, up the 15.

Being slightly facetious, because after two years in SD I know how much not being LA means to them.

Yeah. Welcome to living in SJ. Only if SD were actually larger than LA.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

In terms of legal definitions the distinguishing characteristic is organizational, not population. But that doesn't address the question asked.

As Narz already pointed out, there's a feel that also is not a function of size. It also isn't just a matter of densities. I think the most important factor might come down to relativity.

I live in a city (it is incorporated, has a city charter) of 150,000 or so. It feels like a town, and it would still feel like a town if it had half a million people and was densely urban. I know, because Long Beach does have half a million people and is densely urban and it still feels like a town. The reason these places will never feel like cities is because they will never get out of the shadow of Los Angeles. Our "local" television stations are Los Angeles stations (yes, the cable companies have dedicated "local" channels that no one watches, mostly they carry the city council meetings). Our local newspapers are Los Angeles papers (yes, Long Beach and Palmdale both have their own papers that are read by far fewer residents than get the LA Times). Most of our citizens when asked where we are from by anyone not within 200 miles will say "Los Angeles" because it's just easier.

So for a city to feel like a city it has to be the city for at least some reasonable distance.

I actually lived in Long Beach and I felt it was a distinct city. Very much in LA's shadow, but a city in it's own right - particularly along the scenic waterfront away from the port. But I don't really disagree with you and Arwon either, Long Beach basically is LA to everyone.


LA is colossal though. Holy cow. Yeah, I list Torrance on Facebook as my city but generally when asked by someone not from here I just say I'm in LA. 12 miles is close enough to the city that it may as well be. There are still high rises where I'm at though not at the same scale as downtown.


Hey, I actually do watch the Torrance city council meetings on the antenna! I kid you not. The council has this cool rotating dais platform that swings all of their desks in one big arc to watch presentations off to their side. They also have a really good policy of replacing dead trees with drought tolerant varieties and making sure there are green spaces everywhere. They're really into keeping scenic foliage around here while still reacting to the drought in a reasonable way.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Yeah. Welcome to living in SJ. Only if SD were actually larger than LA.

Oh yeah SJ/SF does have that kind of relationship in the public's perception.

I hate to admit this but I've told people I work with I want to go hang out with my friends in 'San Francisco' at some point in the near future.

I need to go hang out in the desert with Tim too but it's understood he's in 'LA' when I talk about him to friends.