In which of the 20 largest cities you'd agree to live? Multi-answer poll.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Sonic
Boris, why? Jersey, Hoboken, are just a river away from Manhetten. As I said before, suburbs are considered part of town if they connects with it...

They are independent cities that are in an entirely different state.

[Sonic]

So what it means that they are in different states? This is a realistic counting of population, administration divisions doesn't matter. City can be in several states and actually even in several countries (Berlin in cold war as an example). In your opinion if San Francisco for example would be suddenly splitted in halves between different states, it would no longer be a single city?

[Boris Godunov]

If it had two entirely different municipal governments, then absolutely. Look at St. Paul and Minneapolis. I wouldn't consider them the same city.

Judging "Metropolitan Area" seems to me very arbitrary and in this instance doesn't take into account the nuances of different cities and how they are organized, like London.

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by Buck Birdseed
It's a bad source then, as London has a population of just uder 12m if you count the whole urban area.

Stew is right about British city boundaries, most estimates of urban area can be way off the mark...Manchester for example is 600 000 odd, Greater Manchester is 2.2 million, all depends on what you count. Now Paris is nowhere near as big as London in reality...I don't know where they got 9m from...

Which of those cities? God knows...Tokyo is just too expensive...

[Spiffor]

Paris is 9 million when you count the dense suburbs. The commune of Paris is only 2 millions inhab. and falling (because offices are replacing residences), and the outstanding majority of Parisians are in fact suburbians (like me).
Since there is a French tradition of dividing between many communes, the whole Parisian conurbation has hundreds of communes composing it, Paris being the most important by far.

[Dauphin]

Edit - Beat me to it.

[Az]

I adore large cities, Urban sprawl and the like. So it would be Tokyo, LA, NY, and Paris (well, that's not because of the Urban sprawl. I just like the city )

About counting the sizes of cities, and it's often lack of logic.
I can see it in Israel for example: The municipality of Tel-Aviv-Jaffa counts a bit less than half a million people. In reality, there are around 2 million people if you take a 10 mile radius.

The case repeats with many cities. Moscow's suburbs also have lots of population, so the metropolitan area is actually much larger.

[Sten Sture]

Originally posted by Sonic
...if San Francisco for example would be suddenly splitted in halves...

Hey! Earthquake jokes are not that funny here.


It would be silly to do a study like this an not do it by Metropolitan Statistical Areas. Newark probably should be considered as part of the greater New York area, etc, but then again, you could consider Boston to Wash DC as one MSA.

I think that for MSAs, SF, Oakland and San Jose get split into three different pieces, but you have to draw the line somewhere.

[Eli]

I can see it in Israel for example: The municipality of Tel-Aviv-Jaffa counts a bit less than half a million people. In reality, there are around 2 million people if you take a 10 mile radius.

And roughly in 20-30 years the entire shore will be one big metropolis. Even today if you take a trip from Ashkelon to Nahariya you will barely find any empty land without some city or town.

[Az]

Yep. That's why we need MORE SKYSCRAPERS!!!!

[Brizey]

The arguments on where to draw the line on metropolitan areas will go on forever.

Here in the US, the census bureau makes it official.

http://eire.census.gov/popest/archives/metro/ma99-02.txt

I'm not much for any of the cities listed. I like medium to large (by US standards) cities. I currently live in a Dallas suburb. Here in the US, it seems that the political climate gets more and more left-leaning as the size of the city gets larger, which is probably some of the source of my distaste for large cities. I guess being in Texas helps to reign things in.

[Gangerolf]

none!

[Sonic]

Eli, something like that happened in UAE where Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman and Um Al Quaywan united into one metropolis...

[Provost Harrison]

Baghdad

One city that needs more skyscrapers and buildings of such height is London...there is not enough space there yet they won't allow anything over a few stories (although I am sure that law has been relaxed now)

[Brizey]

PH:

I believe that Paris has similar restrictions.