Globally important medium size cities

[HK Boy]

We have now
1) Singapore
2) Dubai
3) Hong Kong
4) San Francisco
5) Berlin
6) Rome
7) Madrid
8) Houston
9) Osaka
10)Sydney
11)Melbourne
12)Boston
13)Philadelphia
14)Lisbon

[Monkey]

http://www.lboro.ac.uk/gawc/citylist.html

[schmidt]

Sydney, Rome, Berlin, Singapore, etc... Medium sized?

[Azn_chi_boi]

Sydney, Rome, Berlin, Singapore, etc... Medium sized?

Beside these cities, is Hong Kong, Portugal, Madrid, abd Melbourne medium??

The only cities I see are medium size are SF, Boston, Dubai,

[shibuya_suki]

actually i dont think hk and singapore is medium in terms of its size
something like SF,boston,dubai or berlin seems like medium


for important globally,hong kong is the most important one in this list..

[hkskyline]

What is a "medium-sized" city?

[luv2bebrown]

i would say medium = 1-2million people

[tocoto]

Boston metro 5.8 million (7.5 million with Providence).
Boston city, 47 sqmi, 600k.

Boston is bigger than Meb, Sidney, and probably Madrid and Berlin. SF is also a very small city geographically but has a large metro. I believe Sydney and Melb. city limits are also very small. The GMP of both Boston and SF are probably larger than almost all of the cities mentioned at >$300B annually.

[r2]

1-atlanta
2-boston
3-seattle
4-frankfurt
5-munich
6-singapore
7-melbourne
8-sydney

[Accura4Matalan]

Brussels

[HK Boy]

I would say depends on Area

[luv2bebrown]

so for u, a small sized city in china is 1,000,000
but a small size city elsewhere is 300,000-500,000?

and i guess its important to include metropopulations because suburbs are basically residential neighbourhoods of the main city.

[Jury]

^ not in usa,canada or australia. In these country's a city is the whole metro.

[antofasky]

and Santiago de Chile, have a population of 5 millions of inhabitants

[jiggawhat?]

Seattle

[DrJekyll]

aren´t you forgetting Zürich and Genève? extremely important medium sized cities.

[Monkey]

Jerusalem?

[willo]

madrid metro area has 6 millions of inhabitants

[vincebjs]

Hmm I think that Toronto would be on that list above Lisboa.

[Booyashako]

I guess it's being assumed that Toronto is a "large" size city...otherwise it should be somewhere in the top 10.

[demanjo]

"City of Sydney" has only about 140'000 residents - (Only was about (i think) 35'000 last year before borders expanded), so it is really difficult to group American & Australian cities together sometimes, as our border setting methods are quite different it appears. As a result, Sydney Metro has about 4.3mil, yet is one continuous city, and functions as one unit. Greater Sydney Metro has about 5.0 million, comprising of outskirt cities such as Newcastle, Gosford & Wollongong, each with effective transport to Sydney, and a large dependance on sydney for its functioning.

I would say sydney is a borderline large city, though tending towards the medium end of the scale. I would say a big city begins at around 6 million people. That is just my perception upon a glance.

[vincebjs]

Yeah, it's hard to compare international city sizes, especially since the U.S. definition of a "metro" is so lax. If Boston has 5.8 million people, then Sydney has 5.0 million (tho officially it only has 4.3 million) and Toronto has 6.2 million (officially only 5.1 million).

[LooselogInThePeg]

None of the cities mentioned on the original list could be classed as medium-sized. They are defiinitely all big cities. A medium sized city, on a global scale would be in the range of 500,000 to 1,500,000 people. Just because places like Tokyo have almost 30,000,000 inhabitants doesn't make San Francisco a backwoods village. Don't forget, when you're talking about places like New York, or Buenos Aires, you're talking about super-sized cities, not just large burgs.

What you mean is what's called a second-tier city. In that respect, virtually every city with the exception of three (New York, Tokyo, London) are large cities. A place like say Brussels would be a medium sized city.

[tocoto]

Boston is one of a handful of US cities that fills its metro and butts up against other large cities rather than its metro petering out long before the boundary of the metro is reached. The distance from the city of Boston to the city of Providence is only about 40 miles, and both cities are very small geographically. The dictance from the city of Boston to the edge of the Providence metro is about 20 miles. The two cities share commuter rail, airports, sports teams, etc. Boston could very easily have metro of 7.5 million and is counted that way on a number of world census sites. It's new metro of 5.8 million actually takes away some cities that were in the metro in 2000 and gives them to Providence and southwestern ME.

[vincebjs]

The distance from downtown Toronto to downtown Oshawa and Hamilton is only about 30 miles, yet they aren't part of the metro. Toronto has commuter rail ("GO Trains") that goes to both cities. The urban sprawl of Hamilton and Oshawa are separated by only 2 or 3 miles of parkland.

If Boston has 7.5 million, then Toronto gets to swallow up the Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge, Guelph, Saint-Catharines, and Barrie metros (each 50-60 miles away), having a population of around 7.5 million too.

Toronto surpassed Boston in metro size almost ten years ago.

[Leienaar]

For me, something like this would be an acceptable city classification on world scale:
>10 M supersize
3-10 M large
0.5-3 M medium
<0.5 M small

I am talking compact metro's here, not reaching 100's of km, but just the direct (sub)urban area around the main city where a large part of the population is depending on the central city.

So for globally important medium sized cities, I'd say cities like Brussels, Amsterdam, Geneva, Washington DC (don't know exact compact metro figures for this city), Frankfurt, etc. would qualify. Cities like Berlin, Sydney or Hong Kong seem to belong in the "large" class for me.

[offtopic]
Oh bytheway, on dutch scale this would be a sort of joke. We tend to call anything over 250.000 large and over 50.000 medium...

[tocoto]

If you add up all the seperate metros within 50 or 60 miles of Toronto you get about 7.5 million people. If you add up the metros withing 40 miles of Boston you get 7.5 million. This proves that Toronto surpassed Boston in metro population 10 years ago?

[eusebius]

http://www.lboro.ac.uk/gawc/citylist.html
hmm, weird to find Rotterdam below cities like Auckland. One's the harbour for an area with well over a hundred million, the other's one for 3 or 4 million (equals the provinces of Arnhem and Zwolle in NL for instance). Also weird to find Helsinki above Oslo! As if a Nobel prize means little .. Finland is emerging fast but in history never really built up any basis for power.

With for example the Enron scandal in mind, I have serious doubts about these data provided by the big accountancy firms :clown: :yes:

Anyway the conditions used to define the research seem a bit silly too! Like air travel supposedly matters but no mention of railways. As if the high speed network under construction throughtout most of the EU does not matter. As if the chunnel isn't one of the greatest achievements :ohno:

[ranny fash]

out of all of those i would say swansea.

[scorpion]

...amsterdam...

[KingWest]

My definitions (for the modern days):

10 million+ large cities
5-10 million medium cities
1-5 million small cities
0.5-1 million towns
<0.5 million communities

[AcesHigh]

so for u, a small sized city in china is 1,000,000
but a small size city elsewhere is 300,000-500,000?

and i guess its important to include metropopulations because suburbs are basically residential neighbourhoods of the main city.

only if you consider american suburbs.

I think medium sized cities are cities between 100k and 1 million people. A big city is a city between 1 million and 5 million people. Cities with over 5 million people should be in their own category... the huge cities.

Btw, I am not talking about metro areas. Cuz I consider my city as a medium sized city (250k people). But my city is in the metropolitan area of Porto Alegre (1,3 million people) which totals 3,7 million people.

But my city IS NOT a fucking suburb. Its a fully developed city. In the same way, basically Shenzen and Hong Kong are in the same metro area, but do you consider one to be the suburb of another? And do you guys always consider the population of Hong Kong as being "Shenzen+Hong Kong"????




Why for some cities people always add the populations of nearby cities, but for Hong Kong and Shenzen they are considered separate?


for example, here is Novo Hamburgo, and in the left, background, you can see downtown São Leopoldo (200k people), and although not visibe in the picture, in the background amid haze, are Canoas and Porto Alegre... 330k and 1,3 million people respectively. Are these cities to be considered as only additional population for Porto Alegre (so we would say: Porto Alegre, 3,7 million people) or should we consider them separately, so Porto Alegre would be considered only 1,3 million people?
http://img245.echo.cx/img245/8747/12828453nr.jpg

and here is the metro seen from satellite.
http://img215.echo.cx/img215/7667/rmpoa5vl.jpg




Is my city a small 250k people village?? Or is it a medium sized 250k city? Or is it just part of big city Porto Alegre (3,7 million people) or part of small or medium city Porto Alegre of 3,7 million people?

[AcesHigh]

My definitions (for the modern days):

10 million+ large cities
5-10 million medium cities
1-5 million small cities
0.5-1 million towns
<0.5 million communities

I am sorry... but a city with 7 million people like Rio de Janeiro is a "medium city"??

I disagree

Here is my definition:
10 million+ = megalopolis
5-10 million = huge city
1-5 million = large city
100k-1 million = medium city
50k - 100k = small city
10k - 50k = town
1k - 10k = village
less than 1 k = community

[LooselogInThePeg]

I am sorry... but a city with 7 million people like Rio de Janeiro is a "medium city"??

I disagree

Here is my definition:
10 million+ = megalopolis
5-10 million = huge city
1-5 million = large city
100k-1 million = medium city
50k - 100k = small city
10k - 50k = town
1k - 10k = village
less than 1 k = community
Other than some minor tweaking (IMO) that's fair. The idea that a place with almost a million people is a town is ludicrous.

[sukh]

^Some people just have rediculous standards.

[FFCP4EVER]

Washington DC!!!!!!

[Küsel]

Here we learned the definition as follow:
< 50 000 small city
50 - 100k medium city
100k - 1mio big city
> 1 mio world city

But that goes only for city proper. For metros I would say:
< 500k small metro
500 - 1 mio medium metro
1 - 10 mio big metro
> 10 mio mega city

But pop alone isn't a good factor if you don't look at the country's definition. An agglomeration in the US is about the same as economic areas in Europe. A municipality in Brazil has the size of a canton in Switzerland etc etc.

But DC is for sure not a medium sized city with a metro of 7mio... Maybe it's fair if we count metros of 500 000 to 2mio as medium sized. So my metro list:
Brasilia (1.9mio) - The capital of one of the biggest economical powers and 5th biggest country
Frankfurt (1.9mio) - the banking center of Europe
Zürich (1.8mio) - similar to Frankfurt
Buxelles (1.8mio) - capital of the EU
Dubai (1.3mio) - the new and big economical power in the ME
Rotterdam (1.2mio) - Gate to Europe
Geneva (0.8mio) - international organizations headquarters

[Justme]

"City of Sydney" has only about 140'000 residents - (Only was about (i think) 35'000 last year before borders expanded), so it is really difficult to group American & Australian cities together sometimes, as our border setting methods are quite different it appears. As a result, Sydney Metro has about 4.3mil, yet is one continuous city, and functions as one unit. Greater Sydney Metro has about 5.0 million, comprising of outskirt cities such as Newcastle, Gosford & Wollongong, each with effective transport to Sydney, and a large dependance on sydney for its functioning.

I would say sydney is a borderline large city, though tending towards the medium end of the scale. I would say a big city begins at around 6 million people. That is just my perception upon a glance.

Actually, not quite. The 4.2million area around Sydney is the Sydney Statistical Division, which covers 12,144km² and includes the Blue Mountains, Gosford, the Central Coast, and if the entire area was to be classified, most of it would be considered rural in nature or National Park.
link (http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/free.nsf/log?openagent&NRP%5F105%2Exls&105&National%20Regional%20Profile&00BE32DEC14F1A63CA256E6D008373DD&0&2003&29%2E03%2E2005&Current)

There is no Greater Sydney area with 5million, unless you want to add the Wollongong W.S.D. to the S.S.D. (total 4.47million in 13,233km²) or joining the entire Illawarra Statistical Division to Sydney's, which would cover an area of approx 20,000km²~ bringing the 2003 population up to 4.6million. To cross the 5million mark, you would also have to add the Newcastle Statistical Division bring the total land area 24,000km²~ and approx 5.1million people.

What you have here then, is three seperate wider metropolitan area's, Sydney, Newcastle and Wollogong + Illawarra.

Sure, one could consider this as an area, but it is not the Greater Sydney area.

[Skopie]

Boston is one of a handful of US cities that fills its metro and butts up against other large cities rather than its metro petering out long before the boundary of the metro is reached. The distance from the city of Boston to the city of Providence is only about 40 miles, and both cities are very small geographically. The dictance from the city of Boston to the edge of the Providence metro is about 20 miles. The two cities share commuter rail, airports, sports teams, etc. Boston could very easily have metro of 7.5 million and is counted that way on a number of world census sites. It's new metro of 5.8 million actually takes away some cities that were in the metro in 2000 and gives them to Providence and southwestern ME.

20 miles is quite a long way away between boarders, many English cities are much closer than that. For example the centre of Leeds is only 10 or 12 miles away from the centre of Bradford, and their outskirts merge together, but you wouldn't consider Bradford as part of Leeds population.

[Faz90]

10 million+: large city
3- 10 million: big city
.5- 3 million: medium size city
100-500 thousand: small city
2000-100 thousand: town
100-2000: small town/community
<100: village

[Shawn]

Because of the American propensity for lower density suburban sprawl and highway travel, distance is much less important in defining a metro area; the real characterization of a metro in the US depends on economic connectivity (particularly commuter patterns) and cultural connectivity. Yes, to a European, seeing areas of SE New Hampshire 40 miles north of the city being counted as part of the Boston metro may seem absurd, but understand that practically the entire SE section of New Hampshire - nearly 1 million people strong - is dependent on Boston's economy for its own well-being. Over 35% of New Hampshirites work within 20 miles of Boston, and 20 miles is a very small distance to an American with a car. Culturally, SE New Hampshire is as "Bostonian" as Malden - an inner ring burb 5 miles north of Downtown. You'll find just as many rabid Sox and Pats fans in Nashua as you will in Somerville, and the accents are just as thick in Manchester as they are in Revere.

Same goes for Providence: 1/3 of all Rhode Islanders cross the Mass/RI border everyday to work in Boston and its burbs. The cities share MBTA Commuter Lines; radio and TV markets overlap extensively, even MassPort (the agency that runs Logan International) has a deep partnership with TF Green in Providence and Manchester International in NH to help even out flights throughout the area. The economies of Boston, Manchester (SE NH) and Providence are truly integrated in a single massive unit of over $340 billion per year. Take out Providence, and you still have an economy that produces over $300 billion annually, which is larger than Toronto's Golden Horseshoe's.

Europeans often underestimate the cultural and economic sway large American cities hold over their surroundings, and due the greater distances between larger American cities compared to their European counterparts and the willingness of Americans to commute longer distances than their European (or even Canadian) counterparts, it’s not absurd to consider areas 40 miles out from the central city as integrated parts of American metros.

[london-b]

None of the cities mentioned on the original list could be classed as medium-sized. They are defiinitely all big cities. A medium sized city, on a global scale would be in the range of 500,000 to 1,500,000 people. Just because places like Tokyo have almost 30,000,000 inhabitants doesn't make San Francisco a backwoods village. Don't forget, when you're talking about places like New York, or Buenos Aires, you're talking about super-sized cities, not just large burgs.

What you mean is what's called a second-tier city. In that respect, virtually every city with the exception of three (New York, Tokyo, London) are large cities. A place like say Brussels would be a medium sized city.

Sorry but I don't get the last bit??

[Bitxofo]

Barcelona and Metropolitan Area: 5,3 milion.
;)

[WANCH]

Hong Kong is actually a medium sized city but is globally important! San Francisco is another example!

[ROCguy]

^ not in usa,canada or australia. In these country's a city is the whole metro.

lol no it isn't. Who told you that? Our suburbs here in America at least, are seperate towns from the cities.

[Justme]

lol no it isn't. Who told you that? Our suburbs here in America at least, are seperate towns from the cities.

They are seperate towns in Australia as well, but Australian's never think of them as seperate despite having distinctive councils. In Australia they tend to only look at the whole metropolitan area. (But it is in the Australian culture to always look at the larger side of things)

From my experience, the U.S. uses both figures, the city proper and the metro area. Although I have also asked a few American's if they know how MA's are defined in the U.S. and outside of this forum, have yet to meet one who knows, despite knowing they exist.

Metro definitions are very new in Europe which is why the figures are not widely known, and many European's can't seem to grasp the formular behind them (much like few American's can understand the rules of cricket). It is also in the culture of many European countries, especially Germany these days to look at the smaller side of things, which is why Germany seems so provincial in many ways.

In fact, I would also suggest that most Australian's don't understand exactly "what" a metropolitan aea is, and presume it's just their city's population, despite deep down knowing they pay their rates to another council in the region.

From what can see, very few people actually understand metro's. Most think it's the urban area around their city which is completwly wrong. European's, new to the concept usually discount it, and when they hear MA figures being metioned for other countries like the U.S. or Australia, they presume it's the city propers (which is how most European's grew up with figures).

American's know of their existance, and the difference between the city proper and MA's, but few actually know what an MA is and how it is defined, and presume that every other country in the world uses the same methods as their own country.

And Australian's in general have no concept of city proper's, despite existing in the same way in their country. They tend to prefer to always look at the "larger" figures, and most seem to think that their MA's (despite not knowing how they are defined) are the city proper's and also presume that is how the rest of the world thinks.

It's a confusing thing. Mainly because MA's developed seperately in each country, often having different meanings in the early days (i.e. metropolitan counties in the U.K. have nothing to do with the current definition of a metropolitan areas)

One other point, few people also seem to understand (outside of the U.S. where it is actually a widely known concept) that several close cities can share a single MA with multiple cores. As described before in the Bradford/Leeds area, which has massive cross connections and certainly qualifies as a multicore metro just as San Francisco/San Jose/Oakland does (otherwise known as the Bay Area). It really does work as a single metro with more than one core, but you will hardly find an English person that understands that.

[Khanabadosh]

What about Amsterdam Rotterdam, Barcelona and Brusseles.

[christoph]

Berlin has 3,4 Mio. So it's not medium-sized.
I`d suggest Frankfurt-only about 670.000 people living there and it's an alpha-world city.

[Christian347]

Berlin has 3,4 Mio. So it's not medium-sized.
I`d suggest Frankfurt-only about 670.000 people living there and it's an alpha-world city.

That's the population of the proper cities. Both Frankfurt and Berlin metro areas are about 5 million I think.

[Justme]

Frankfurt's metro is known as the Rhein Main, and is 4.9million. Berlin's metro is approx 4million to 4.5million. There is no official mention of this that I have seen, so it is based just on other sources.

[PanaManiac]

Both my cities are of medium size (by most standards) and global importance, with San Francisco (Pop. 778,900) being the more obvious, even if only due to it's noteriety. Panama City (Pop. 1,225,000) would not occur to most people for reasons I will pass on speculating on. As the cosmopolitan hub of the Americas, it's an international banking center at the Pacific entrance to the Panama Canal. If those attributes alone don't make Panama City globally important, Washington DC is not the capital of the country whose engineering feat is responsible for the existence of the Panama Canal.

[Zaki]

delete

[JBOB]

n. pl. cit·ies
1. A center of population, commerce, and culture; a town of significant size and importance.

Noun 1. city - a large and densely populated urban area; may include several independent administrative districts; "Ancient Troy was a great city"

All major cities are the dictionary term for their state or they wouldn't be major cities (pop 100,000 or more.)

On this forum I notice there are alot of anal retentive comments about city numbers to the point of absurdness. Basically it all comes down to your own definition of what a city is. The dictionary is just a guidline for our basis of analysis.

IMO after a city reaches 1 million people and have a population density over 10,000 people it's large, huge or whatever you want to call it. Because if there is a city with 12 million people and 3000 square miles of coverage, is it a big city because of the numbers or by just the dictionary terms another words do you really feel the city in terms of, the people, the dictionary term,
the action, etc...

Or if you have a city with 1 million people, 20 sq mi, pop density 50,000 per square mile. Would this be large city, I think so. We know the dictionary term is there. In order for people to gather that close there has to be something great to it.

My Analysis of what CITY PROPER is

Large City, CITY POP over 1 million with density 10,000 plus per sq. mi
Medium City, City POP 500,000 to 1 million, density 5,000 plus per sq.mi
Small City, City POP 100,000 to 499,000, density 1,000 to 4,999

There are some cities who are large in pop density but medium in city numbers like boston, D.C. and san francisco who have that large city feel but are classified as medium cities and are limited by city area. Another words in large cities over a million in any given area can get boston, san francisco and D.C. city numbers and pop densities. Also a bigger city experience.


South Philly, U.S.A.
Believe it or not A great place to live!
http://www.getit--here.com/r1g.jpg

[mic]

How can a suburb be a town???

A suburb is the extention of the Downtown area. In Australia we have inner suburbs, middle suburbs and outer suburbs, cotinuously connected by small terraces turing slowy into small homes, then into middle sized homes and eventually into normal sized suburban homes. This is what a CITY is. A town is a small urbanised area surrounded by farmland..etc... I live in a suburb of Melbourne, but I live in Melbourne because the suburb is Melbourne...in the sense that it is part of Melbourne's metro.

In Australia a city proper isn't like Manhattan, we dont have anything like it. We have a downtown with apartments and offices ( we call it a Central Business District) and then we have suburbs. Melbourne city Council (City Proper) would have 60,000 people, but that is not the population of Melbourne. The city has a population of 3.7 Million. Without the suburbs, Melbourne would not be a city...

[Justme]

How can a suburb be a town???

A suburb is the extention of the Downtown area. In Australia we have inner suburbs, middle suburbs and outer suburbs, cotinuously connected by small terraces turing slowy into small homes, then into middle sized homes and eventually into normal sized suburban homes. This is what a CITY is. A town is a small urbanised area surrounded by farmland..etc... I live in a suburb of Melbourne, but I live in Melbourne because the suburb is Melbourne...in the sense that it is part of Melbourne's metro.

In Australia a city proper isn't like Manhattan, we dont have anything like it. We have a downtown with apartments and offices ( we call it a Central Business District) and then we have suburbs. Melbourne city Council (City Proper) would have 60,000 people, but that is not the population of Melbourne. The city has a population of 3.7 Million. Without the suburbs, Melbourne would not be a city...

Actually, this is not technically true. Australia has city proper's just like any other country in the world, with a local council, mayor etc that is fully independent of the other cities in the metro.

However, Australian's tend to think only in terms of the wider picture, i.e. the full metro area (although few Australian's, like anywhere else, actually know the difference between an Urban Area and Metropolitan Area)

The general terms used in Australia is a city (downtown and CBD*) and the surrounding suburbs, but that is just a generic term used in layman conversations. In reality, the city is made up of city propers, with the central city taking the name and of obvious dominance.

When you say you live in the suburbs, you probably actually live in a different city or municaplity, with it's own mayor and council. It is not in any "technical form" Melbourne. (unless you live in a suburb of the city of Melbourne itself)

Who do you pay your rates to?
Who is your mayor?
and when put your return address on an envelope, do you write "Melbourne", as technically you shouldn't unless you actually live in Melbourne proper.

Here is a list of the different cities in Greater Melbourne, most of them a full fledge cities complete with their own mayor's and councils. This is no different than say metro Los Angeles which is made up of multiple cities:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Government_Areas_of_Victoria

Keep in mind that there is no real governing body of the Melbourne metropolitan area, this is really just a statistical area and is usually derived from the M.S.D (Melbourne Statistical Division) although there are different statistical regions such as "Greater Melbourne. This, however is not your council, and is not your city proper, and is like almost all other cities in the world where there is limited or no governing body for the metropolitan area's.

Now, the word suburbs have different meanings in different country's, and in Australia, it does generally mean exactly what you describe, that is, the lower density area's surrounding the city center where the bulk of the people live. In general though, a suburb is a smaller urban area (sub-urban area) within a city.

I'll use Sydney's council website as an example here, as being from Sydney I know it more...
http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/AboutSydney/CityResearch/AtAGlance.asp

Here it describes quite well what the city of Sydney is. Other area's within this city proper are Sydney's suburbs such as Pyrmont or Surry Hills. However, other suburbs such as Manly or Rosehill, are technically not suburbs of the city of Sydney, but Manly is a municipality and Rosehill is a suburb of Parramatta.

Here is the website for another city, Parramatta, also in Sydney's Metro: http://www.parracity.nsw.gov.au/ Harris Park, Rosehill etc are suburbs of Parrmatta.

If someone lives in Parramatta, they don't pay their rates to Sydney council, they don't elect a mayor of Sydney, and they shouldn't write their address as Sydney but:

Bob Smith
21 Clarris Street
Harris Park
Parramatta
NSW 2050

(No Sydney mentioned)

Of cause, in reality and in laymans terms, everyone, including myself simply refers to all of these area's as "suburbs of Sydney", and in all realistic purposes they are. Just as they are in every other country in the world, unless we are talking multi-core polycentric metropolitan area's like the Bay Area in California and Rhein Ruhr in Germany where there is no single dominant city that could be considered the full center.

So, I know this went on a bit, but essentually you were incorrect. In technical terms as far as administration goes, Australian cities are not much different to other country's around the world. However, in perception they area, people are less likely to think in political terms regarding their cities in Australia, but in most other country's people are brought up to do so.

[softee]

My population ranking standards:

Mega City: 10,000,000+
Huge City: 5-9,999,999
Big City: 1-4,999,999
Medium City: 200,000-999,999
Small City: 50,000-199,999
Large Town: 10,000-49,999
Small Town: 1000-9,999
Village: 500-999
Hamlet: 100-499

[polako]

My population ranking standards:

Mega City: 10,000,000+
Huge City: 5-9,999,999
Big City: 1-4,999,999
Medium City: 200,000-999,999
Small City: 50,000-199,999
Large Town: 10,000-49,999
Small Town: 1000-9,999
Village: 500-999
Hamlet: 100-499

Using your standards:

Rome was the first big city.
London was the first huge city.
NYC was the first mega city.
And the rest is history.

[mic]

Justme---

I live in the City of Whittlesea, but Whittlesea does not have a downtown, the only downtown near me is Melbourne, hence I may live in a local council that is not Melbourne city council, by my city and my life is tied to Melbourne hence Melbourne has a population of 3.7 million people.

Our surrounding cities have no Downtowns, the only one is Melbourne, My uni is Melbourne University, my dad works in the CBD as does my mum, my brother goes to La Trobe University in Melbourne (although it is in Whittlesea, the campus is called- La Trobe Bundoora-Melbourne Campus), this is Melbourne. I live in Melbournes surrounds, I use Melbourne international airport, not Whittlesea International-Whittlesea doesnt even have an airport.

In my council, the border lies 20km from Melbourne GPO, there is about 4-5 kms of Housing in the southern half, then farm land. The mayor is Cr Alessi, but this is not my city, it is a local council (that's what we call them here in Australia), it is one of several local councils that make up Metro Melbourne.

Oh return address is 11......st, Thomastown, VIC, 3074

But when someone askes me abroad where I am from, I always say Melbourne. As does everyone one else. Ask someone who lives in Sylvania, or Hornsby where they are from and they will say Sydeny. That's how it is in Aus.

http://www.whittlesea.vic.gov.au/content/content.asp?cid=369&tid=369&tpid=369&sid=&spid=&cnid=949

About Whittlesea

The City of Whittlesea is located on the metropolitan fringe approximately 20 kilometres to the north of the Melbourne CBD. Covering an area of approximately 487 square kilometres, the City is geographically one of the largest municipalities in metropolitan Melbourne.

The municipality was formed at a public meeting on January 20, 1875, when Yan Yean Reservoir was Melbourne’s major water storage and the Plenty Valley was the source of much of the growing colony of Victoria’s food.

There are 17 suburbs and 13 postal districts in the City of Whittlesea and today the City embraces the townships of Bundoora, Thomastown, Lalor, Mill Park, Epping, South Morang, Doreen, Mernda, Wollert, Yan Yean, Eden Park, Whittlesea, Woodstock, Donnybrook and Humevale.

Residents of the Council come from a diverse range of cultural backgrounds, with a very high percentage of residents born in other countries, particularly Macedonia, Italy, and Greece. Demographically, over half of the residents are from non-English speaking backgrounds.

At the local level the influences of a diverse cultural heritage are more evident in the urban areas in Thomastown, Lalor and Epping. These suburbs contain a greater proportion of non-English speaking backgrounds than other parts of the Council. These residents bring with them many aspects of their own cultures, which contribute greatly to the character and identity of the City of Whittlesea.

The municipality’s population has grown at a rapid rate during the past 30 years, more than quadrupling from 27,000 in 1969 to approximately 120,000 in 2003. In the next 3-5 years (from 2005) the City of Whittlesea will become Victoria's fastest growing municipality. The City’s current population of over 127,000 (2005) is forecast to double in the next 20 years.

Council is preparing itself for significant development in a number of growth areas in the coming years including Epping North where VicUrban (formerly the Urban and Regional Land Corporation) purchased land for a planned community of 25,000 persons.

The municipality’s southern border is 14.5 kilometres from the Melbourne CBD and the completion of the Metropolitan Ring Road provides direct freeway links to airports, docks and central Melbourne.

The City of Whittlesea’s vision for the Plenty Valley Growth Corridor is of a complete and sustainable community, offering residential, work and recreational opportunities for its residents, as well as all of the services they will need in daily life in accordance with the governments planning scheme, Melbourne 2030.

http://www.whittlesea.vic.gov.au/files/398_nine_ward_map.pdf

[Justme]

^mic, I agree with you, but this is no different anywhere else.

It's called perception more than anything. Look at a map of any city in the U.S. and you will usually see different colours for the different cities in the urban area or Metro, but in most cases, the downtown of the core city, is still called "downtown".

I don't know about Melbourne cities, but in Sydney, the larger cities in the metro do in fact have their own downtowns. North Sydney, Parramatta, Chatswood etc, although when someone say's "downtown", they generally mean downtown Sydney as it's the core of the metro, which most Australian's percieve as the city.

My point was that you presumed Australia was somehow different. It's not, it's just that in Australia, most people think in terms of the metro and forget that they have administration centers throughout this metro.

However, there is no governing body for any of these Australian metro area's. There may be government departments that assist in co-ordination throughout the metro, but no actual council itself.

Again, this is exactly the same in most other metro's in the world.

Here in Frankfurt, where German's have very little perception of metropolitan area's, they still exist. People think in terms of city proper only because it's the way they grew up, but cities have different councils here as well.

Right next to Frankfurt and 10minutes away by car or train is Offenbach, which is a fully seperate city just as North Sydney is to Sydney. In all technical respects it's the same, but perception is different. A person from Offenbach, who shops and works in central Frankfurt, can see the skyscrapers of Frankfurt's CBD 10minutes away, and uses Frankfurt airport will still say they live in Offenbach, where's a person in Whittlesea, which is exactly the same situation as Offenbach, would say they live in Melbourne.

The only difference is perception.

To be honest, the Australian system is more logical. Remember, I'm Australian, so I was brought up thinking the Australian way. When I first came to Germany, I was to meet a friend. All he told me was that he lived in Bad Homburg. When he described his city, he described Bad Homburg and little else. I thought this was some fully seperate city somewhere in germany, maybe like Wagga or something because it only had 60,000 people or so.

I searched everywhere on a national map, but couldn't find it. Finally, after giving up, I called him, and he said just fly to Frankfurt airport and he'll pick me up. Turns out Bad Homburg is part of The Frankfurt urban area 20minutes from the city or airport. He lived in Bad Homburg, but worked in Frankfurt, shopped in Frankfurt and used Frankfurt airport, but it never dawned on him to just tell me, someone from the otherside of the world, that he lived in Frankfurt - that's German logic for you ;)

By the way, Bad Homburg doesn't have a downtown either. It does have a main shopping area where the council is located, but again, this is no different than many other cities surrounding Frankfurt or cities surrounding Sydney (possibly Melbourne metro is the same? Where is the council building in Whittlesea? Are there main shops in Whittlesea?)

By the way, Bad Homburg is not only on Frankfurt's suburban rail network, it is also on Frankfurt's urban metro network as well.

So, in conclusion, Whittlesea is your city, not Melbourne, however Melbourne is your metro area, and you are probably part of the Melbourne Urban Area, so there is nothing wrong about calling your “city” Melbourne, especially if you are talking to people from other parts of Australia or the world (I don’t think anyone would know where Whittlesea is, just like I never knew where Bad Homburg was).

[mic]

^^

I agree

[Küsel]

I agree as well!

Also here the people are totally proud to say that they are from this and that town. But explaining that they come from Dietikon, Bollingen, Liestal or Emmen doesn't help anybody who lives outside of the country - why not saying Zurich, Bern, Basel, Luzern?! In the Romandie it's a bit better, the localpatriotism or identification with the hometown is not so strong. No one would say he comes from Meyrin Prilly - it's Geneve or Lausanne.

But it's a different story: these towns exist as long as the big cities - some even longer (Augst near Basel, Nyon near Geneva have been populated even before the Romans) and have their own history, identity, even dialect while in the US or in Australia the identity of a place has been taken over by the big center - maybe with some exception as Cambridge (Boston) and Jersey City (New York). The other reason is that people have been moving out of the central city into the suburban belt for 30 years (Basel or Zurich lost 1/4 of the pop in the 70s and 80s!). The urban sprawl is unstoppable since then, a big problem for a country whose area is very limited (60% Alps and 10% Jura mountains leave 15'000 km2 of midlands for 7mio+ pop, it's a polycenter metro as the Randstad and also planned as that once...). But these suburban commuters think they live "in the countryside" (German: "Im Grünen") because they are proud not to be a habitant of the poor, dirty, criminal center city in their perception.

And yes I know a lot of people who said they NEVER would live in the city of Zurich - too dangerous, to much traffic and drugs etc. But it's the same people who probably would't care to visit the red light districts Bangkok, Bahia or the Central Park or the Center of Rio at night without thinking twice. I don't say that you shouldn't - but their perception is absolutly rotten in my eyes :)

[Justme]

^ very true. Although you'd be surprised to find many "suburban cities" in Australian metro's that are just as old, older or nearly as old as the main centers, and with their own identity as well.

Parramatta in Sydney's metro is one. It's as big in population (was much larger until recently when Sydney annexed the city of South Sydney), larger in geographical size, has it's own downtown and many residents say they are from Parramatta first - I know one personally who I worked with. But then, there is a vast East/West divide in Sydney's metro. Those in the western suburbs hardly ever visit the city center of Sydney.

The central coast north of the Sydney suburbs is fully disconnected from the urban area by a large national park and water, but with today's commuting, is included in Sydney metro statistics (based on the S.S.D. of 4.2million). Few people there, or those in the Blue Mountains also officially in the S.S.D. would ever say they live in Sydney, but they are counted as part of Sydney's metro.

Fremantle in Perth is another one, which has the most historical buildings in the metro (I think the city is older than Perth) and a very strong local "feeling". But Fremantle is much closer to Perth than say Penrith in Sydney's outer metro.

Of cause, in Europe, these types of metropolitan centers with long histories are far more common, even today, Sachsenhäusen, now a suburb of the city of Frankfurt, was once a fully seperate city, and some locals (especially the older ones) don't consider themselves Frankfurters but Sachsenhäuseners, which is really crap because it takes far too long to say that word ;) These old people though are few and far between who think like this.

I apologize to others here for taking this thread off on a tangent, but it is an interesting discussion for those into demographics.

[Beacon]

In Australia a city proper isn't like Manhattan, we dont have anything like it. We have a downtown with apartments and offices ( we call it a Central Business District) and then we have suburbs. Melbourne city Council (City Proper) would have 60,000 people, but that is not the population of Melbourne. The city has a population of 3.7 Million. Without the suburbs, Melbourne would not be a city...

That's exactly the point. Even if you live in the suburbs, you still live in Melbourne. If you travel overseas and someone asks you where you live, do you say "Williamstown, which is near Melbourne", or do you say "Melbourne", and then qualify the suburb? If the suburbs weren't a part of Melbourne, then there would be no CBD, with a predominantly commercial and financial purpose. That's a New World phenomenon, and it exists in Australia, the US and Canada. It can be hard to explain to Europeans and Asians who've never been.

[BRISBANE]

Brisbane is 2.0 million and will bebigger than melbourne in 2015

[Bartolo]

That's exactly the point. Even if you live in the suburbs, you still live in Melbourne. If you travel overseas and someone asks you where you live, do you say "Williamstown, which is near Melbourne", or do you say "Melbourne", and then qualify the suburb? If the suburbs weren't a part of Melbourne, then there would be no CBD, with a predominantly commercial and financial purpose. That's a New World phenomenon, and it exists in Australia, the US and Canada. It can be hard to explain to Europeans and Asians who've never been.


I disagree with the fact that if i lived, in Mississauga, which is a rather large city, with its own CBD, population of close to 700k, it is still a suburb, but if you went overseas, would I say i lived in Missy, or would I say Toronto, Id say Mississauga, the suburb. This really only works in the west and east, due to the fact that much of the west burbs are large, and the east burbs are mostly a seperate CMA, but people from Markham or Vaughan, would most likely either say north of Toronto, or there respective city. A place like Milton, where I used to live, I would most likely say, I live in milton, 25 minutes west of Toronto. So In Canada, most people more associate with their respective towns, cities, villages, more so than the central city.

[crazyjoeda]

I would say a medium city is 1.5million or more, a large city is 5million+ and a mega city is 10million+(metro area of course).

An example of a globally important small city would be Amsterdam, an important medium city is Vancouver, a important large city is Toronto and an important mega city is London. Thats what I think anyway.

My list for medium cities.

Vancouver
Havana
Seattle
Frankfurt
Cape Town
Manchester
Montreal
Brasília
Dubai
Melbourne
Singapore

[SHiRO]

Dude Amsterdam is larger than Vancouver!
2.5 M vs under 2 M.
Also Amsterdam is part of Deltametropolis which boasts 8 million (comparable too Bay Area).

Furthermore, on your list...Frankfurt is 5M+ metro and so is Singapore.
Most of those cities you mention are at least large "medium cities"...;)

[Dean]

Brisbane is 2.0 million and will bebigger than melbourne in 2015

really?

so going by your logic, Brisbane, which you say has 2 million people (1.7M actually), will grow at 170,000 people per year for the next 10 years(it's actually growing at around 35,000 people per year) to catch Melbourne's population of 3.7 million by 2015. and in the next 10 years Melbourne wont add a single soul to its population.(and its currently growing at around 52,000 people per year.)

honestly.. think b4 you write. you just make a fool of yourself

[snitsky]

Very big city- 6 million +
Big City- 2-5 million
Medium city- 1 million to 2 million
Small city less than 1 million.

[♣628.8m]

City Proper only.

Very Large City(Megacity)- 3 million+
Large City- 700,000- 3 million
Medium city- 300,000- 700,000
Small city- 50,000- 300,000

[alexbn]

There is no official mention of this that I have seen, so it is based just on other sources.I have looked it up on Google ("Metropolregionen in Deutschland", "Metropolregion München", usw) and have found some information on it, but I don't know whether it is official or not.

[Dubai_Boy]

Abu Dhabi should be added to the list . its pop is almost 2000,000

[Küsel]

City Proper only.

Very Large City(Megacity)- 3 million+
Large City- 700,000- 3 million
Medium city- 300,000- 700,000
Small city- 50,000- 300,000
You can't go by city propers - some countries have huge areas as China or Brazil and others very small like Italy, Spain or Switzerland according to the politics of the country. Here it is for example it's like: small city 10-30k, medium city 30-100k and big city 100k+ but few municipalities have more than 15km2 of area (as about Basel or Geneva - with 180k on this area quite dense popultated but 4-5times bigger metro area), so it's clear that they can't reach a big size in pop and agglomerations have to be defined.

Paris and Barcelona are extremly small in size but very dense populated and with a metro area several times bigger than the city proper that is overbuilt by some 80% or more.

[crazyjoeda]

Dude Amsterdam is larger than Vancouver!
2.5 M vs under 2 M.
Also Amsterdam is part of Deltametropolis which boasts 8 million (comparable too Bay Area).

Furthermore, on your list...Frankfurt is 5M+ metro and so is Singapore.
Most of those cities you mention are at least large "medium cities"...;)

Well I got all my population stats from Epmoris :)
Vancouver is acctauly 2.2 and will be over 2.5 by 2010, doubt Amsterdam is growing at the same rate as Vancouver. I love Amsterdam though after London its my favorite city in Europe.

[staff]

Geneva (must be the most important city in the world compared to its size)? Copenhagen? Zürich?

[Küsel]

Back to the topic? Good idea ;)

Geneva (no doubt about that one)
Bruxelles (EU capital)
Jerusalem (three religions, political neuralgical point)
Mekka (Hadsh for millions of people every year)
Singapore (already on the upper limit in size)
Brasilia (architecutural model city, capital of the biggest economical power in SA)

[Cee_em_bee]

Brisbane is 2.0 million and will bebigger than melbourne in 2015

Well you would have to count the GC and both would have gain 1.7 million in population, which both are relatively possible.

[DarkFenX]

Very big city- 6 million +
Big City- 2-5 million
Medium city- 1 million to 2 million
Small city less than 1 million.
That is a really crappy standard. If this was in the US, only cities like NYC, Dallas, Chicago, Atlanta, Philly, San Antonio, Houston, Phoenix and San Diego are consider medium city+. So SF, Baltimore, Boston, Miami, Seattle, Indianopolis and so on are small?

[neilio]

Brisbane is 2.0 million and will bebigger than melbourne in 2015

YUP!! and the kangeroos around Brisbane are going to grow larger brains, become the dominant species and learn to fly by 2015 to!

[Harkeb]

Johannesburg & Cape Town. Eventhough their populations are fairly big
+- 5 & 3 million, the majority are poor migrants. Nonetheless these cities are globally important as an economic powerhouse & a sea port on a main sea route.

[snitsky]

That is a really crappy standard. If this was in the US, only cities like NYC, Dallas, Chicago, Atlanta, Philly, San Antonio, Houston, Phoenix and San Diego are consider medium city+. So SF, Baltimore, Boston, Miami, Seattle, Indianopolis and so on are small?

What are you talking about, i said cities that have six million people or over are very big cities, cities that have 2 million to 5 million are big cities, 1 million to 1.9 million are medium sized and less than one million is small. How could anyone think San Fransisco, Baltimore, Boston, Miami, Seattle, Indianapolis are small, they need to have their head checked if they do. I am talking about metro populations, just to let you know, not city proper.

[Swede]

That is a really crappy standard. If this was in the US, only cities like NYC, Dallas, Chicago, Atlanta, Philly, San Antonio, Houston, Phoenix and San Diego are consider medium city+. So SF, Baltimore, Boston, Miami, Seattle, Indianopolis and so on are small?
Uh, no? We're not going by the political/administrative City, but rather the actual city ie. the metro areas. So e.g. SF, Boston & Miami are clearly in the top level.

[Chewbacca]

@justme: but you do realize, that the relation city proper <-> metro does matter?

(replace "city proper" by "dense urban core" if you will. the latter describes more than just arbitrary administartion boundaries, like the 7000 (?) inhabitants for sydney or the 2,5 millions for paris for another example)

[Küsel]

But then you have also to differ between "day population" and "night population". The latter is here much bigger because the city has more office space than living areas (and the metro adds 4 times the pop). Barcelona is extremly dense as a city proper, but also small in space (the metro adds 2 times the pop). The closer suburbs are exactly as dense populated as the center. To compare them to Berlin for example which is a huge area with lots of green spaces in the city proper and a metro that adds only some 40% of pop would be unfair.

[Chewbacca]

where is "here" in your case?

[Kanji]

How can a suburb be a town???

A suburb is the extention of the Downtown area. In Australia we have inner suburbs, middle suburbs and outer suburbs, cotinuously connected by small terraces turing slowy into small homes, then into middle sized homes and eventually into normal sized suburban homes. This is what a CITY is. A town is a small urbanised area surrounded by farmland..etc... I live in a suburb of Melbourne, but I live in Melbourne because the suburb is Melbourne...in the sense that it is part of Melbourne's metro.

In Australia a city proper isn't like Manhattan, we dont have anything like it. We have a downtown with apartments and offices ( we call it a Central Business District) and then we have suburbs. Melbourne city Council (City Proper) would have 60,000 people, but that is not the population of Melbourne. The city has a population of 3.7 Million. Without the suburbs, Melbourne would not be a city...

Agree

[Citystyle]

In australia perth will grow in improtance as our un tapped natural resources are needed more and more. Melbourne is a very un-important city as far as international future goes(residents think other wise). Brisban will probably out grow sydney within 60 years, in skyline and population.

[Citystyle]

In 2060 perths population will be pushing 4 million.

[Justme]

@justme: but you do realize, that the relation city proper <-> metro does matter?

(replace "city proper" by "dense urban core" if you will. the latter describes more than just arbitrary administartion boundaries, like the 7000 (?) inhabitants for sydney or the 2,5 millions for paris for another example)

No, in most cases, the relation means nothing.

Take Perth & Brisbane, albough Brisbane is a bit bigger (1.7m to 1.4m) the difference in city proper is huge (7000 vrs 900,000).

But does Brisbane feel 128 times larger a city? No. So where is the importance in city proper here?

Compare again Brisbane vrs Sydney. Sydney's city proper is about 140,000. Does Brisbane still feel 6 times larger than Sydney?

Closer to home, would you feel that Berlin is a bigger city than Paris? Berlin has the larger city proper by quite a margin. Paris on the other hand has the far bigger metro, and Paris certainly feels a lot bigger even in the central city.

A city proper has importance when looking at political infrastructure, but only for planners and politicians - not for the average resident.

As typically shown in Australian cities where many of the city propers are small in residential populations, people far outside the core city proper, even living in other cities within the metro, despite voting in elections for their own city (and never the mayor of the core city), despite paying their rates to their own council, and in so many cases, hardly ever visiting the CBD, they still consider themselves as part of the core city.

Kuesel pointed it out quite correct in regarding central city commuters. Perth has a far larger daytime population than night time, but then again, so does most other cities centers in the world. If you were to look at the daytime population of central Frankfurt, it would be enormously larger than the night time population.

[_tictac_]

Copenhagen-Malmö, although the metro exceeds 2 million (3.6).

[mic]

In australia perth will grow in improtance as our un tapped natural resources are needed more and more. Melbourne is a very un-important city as far as international future goes(residents think other wise). Brisban will probably out grow sydney within 60 years, in skyline and population.

Why do people from the BOOMING cities of Australia still believe that they will be BOOMING in 100 years????

It wont happen, sorry all BOOMS come to an end.......Melbourne and Sydney were BOOMING in the Post-war years and now growing at a more sustainable rate...just as Perth and Brisbane will do in years to come, its the cycle of population movements. Why would someone from Melbourne want to move to Brisbane when Brisbane will be a big city with pollution, expensive house prices and the same problems as Melbourne, for the sun??? I doubt it. Why would someone from Sydney and Melbourne move to Perth when the untapped mineral wealth is being mined when the larger and the most important companies are located in both Sydney and Melbourne, managers, executives can be employed and control their staff over the net and on phone confrences..why move??

[OBman]

adelaide will have a decline in population.
maybe even below 1 mil.

the majority of the population will be those who are retired.
young talent and students will migrate to nearby big cities, melb and syd..

[♣628.8m]

I doubt it. Why would someone from Sydney and Melbourne move to Perth when the untapped mineral wealth is being mined when the larger and the most important companies are located in both Sydney and Melbourne, managers, executives can be employed and control their staff over the net and on phone confrences..why move??

I'm sure Sydney and Melbourne will further expand, as they have the best climate among major Austalian cities (Except Hobart, if you consider it as a major city), and, Melbourne is just beautiful. Pollution? I don't think Brisbane is much better than Melbourne.

[Stratosphere 2020]

Atlanta
Brussels
Frankfurt
The Hague
Boston
San Francisco

[cello1974]

Medium sized would have been Frankfurt, Frisco, Lisboa, Amsterdam, Brussels,... But Berlin? A non-megacity isn't automatically a medium sized city! :bash:

[thryve]

Waterloo, Ontario, and Kitchener (K-W, Ontario) Population 350,000

Technology centre... part of the Technology Triange.

[SHiRO]

I'm sure those are fine cities, but they are not globally important.

[Der wahre Heino]

burp

[Chewbacca]

@justme: thank you for your answer.


Take Perth & Brisbane, albough Brisbane is a bit bigger (1.7m to 1.4m) the difference in city proper is huge (7000 vrs 900,000).

Hey, come on, it was ME who first said:
replace "city proper" by "dense urban core" if you will. the latter describes more than just arbitrary administartion boundaries, like the 7000 (?) inhabitants for sydney or the 2,5 millions for paris for another example for a good reason. :)

I thought i was making myself clear at least in so far that I was not asking for the meaning of political boundaries within cities, but rather for "real cities" within metros.
Closer to home, would you feel that Berlin is a bigger city than Paris? Berlin has the larger city proper by quite a margin. Paris on the other hand has the far bigger metro, and Paris certainly feels a lot bigger even in the central city.

I already told you (see above!) that i agree, that in the case of Paris, the city proper figure means nothing. Not only is the city figure quite a joke, but even the planning of the city works somehow very well even beyond the city limits as a unit (otherwise La Defense wouldnt have ever worked as the extension of the grand axis). right so far?
If yes, then that comparison doesnt work, because that makes Paris a City of I dont exactly know how many, but a lot more than the 2,5 , but rather somewhat like 8-9millions, that make up the urban area, that is given credit to in every modern city guide, that is considered as "Paris" by every reasonable wookie.

Let me give you a counterxample: Even closer to my and your current home, would you feel that Frankfurt is a bigger city than Berlin? Berlin has the larger city proper by quite a margin. Frankfurt on the other hand has the bigger metro, but Berlin certainly feels a lot bigger not only in the central city. ;)

BTW: although i like your lists of pros and cons in city vs. city(I like to read them) generally, it seems to me like you are stuck to city boundaries in frankfurt yourself!
You refer to every single matter , be it shopping: (you mention the Zeil, never heard you talking about Wiesbaden, Mainz, Darmstadt in that regard), natural beauty: (only the Main, never the Rhein or Rheinghau for another example) Thats not comparing the city proper of say Sydney and Frankfurt , but city proper Frankfurt vs. Sydney Metro
But you often invent the point "surroundings" for Frankfurt in City vs. City threads and summarize everything outside Frankfurts city proper there. (Wiesbaden, Saalburg, Bad Homburg, And, and, and......!)

no?


If you were to look at the daytime population of central Frankfurt, it would be enormously larger than the night time population.

certainly it would. But dont exaggerate it. Frankfurt is a City of about 650000 ppl., has a peak daytime pop of maybe a million within its boundaries, which it wouldnt have without its metro. but so what? That doesnt make it a 5-million-City.

That IS simply something different.

There is a difference between a small or medium-cized city whith a huge metro, and a huge city with a metro of the same size.

[Justme]

Let me give you a counterxample: Even closer to my and your current home, would you feel that Frankfurt is a bigger city than Berlin? Berlin has the larger city proper by quite a margin. Frankfurt on the other hand has the bigger metro, but Berlin certainly feels a lot bigger not only in the central city. ;)

Yes, Berlin certainly feels the bigger city. But Berlin is also an odd case here. Being divided by the wall for so many years, Berlin developed two central cities which are pretty much side by side, often doubling the number of services and convienences. This does make for a much larger feel. Berlin, also being the national capital of a nation of over 80million people, has a large amount of office space and administrative buildings that otherwise it would not have. these two things make Berlin feel larger than almost any other city of similar size.

Looking at the difference between Frankfurt and Australian cities. Frankfurt does feel bigger than any other Australian city other than Sydney. As for Sydney, I would almost suggest that that city feels a tad bigger than Frankfurt (talking about central area only here) Mainly because it has so much more shopping than central Frankfurt. It's urban area does feel bigger as well, because of the green belt in Frankfurt. However, the density in Frankfurt and it's metro makes it feel bigger in other ways.


BTW: although i like your lists of pros and cons in city vs. city(I like to read them) generally, it seems to me like you are stuck to city boundaries in frankfurt yourself!
You refer to every single matter , be it shopping: (you mention the Zeil, never heard you talking about Wiesbaden, Mainz, Darmstadt in that regard), natural beauty: (only the Main, never the Rhein or Rheinghau for another example) Thats not comparing the city proper of say Sydney and Frankfurt , but city proper Frankfurt vs. Sydney Metro
But you often invent the point "surroundings" for Frankfurt in City vs. City threads and summarize everything outside Frankfurts city proper there. (Wiesbaden, Saalburg, Bad Homburg, And, and, and......!)

no?

No, I don't really understand what you mean here. For both cities, I usually refer mainly to the central cores of either one. Even in say Sydney, I would often mention that the attractions like beaches are in the "metro area". I have done this a few times, refering to say Barcelona's beaches as part of that city center, and Sydney's (or otherwise) as part of the metro.

As for the shopping. I don't mention the metro area because although Frankfurt has nice shopping in the metro (Wiesbaden, Mainz, Bad Homburg etc) So do most other cities. Sydney has just the same in Chatswood, Parramatta, Penrith etc. I could also start comparing the metropolitan region shopping area's as well, but that would make a much larger post. If you want, I'll try and do that in future.

By the way, I usually mention the Rhein in Frankfurt discussions, in most cases I refer it to the metropolitan area of the city, and in a good deal of cases I usually give Frankfurt's Rhein Main (mentioning the stunning Rhein) as the winning point.


certainly it would. But dont exaggerate it. Frankfurt is a City of about 650000 ppl., has a peak daytime pop of maybe a million within its boundaries, which it wouldnt have without its metro. but so what? That doesnt make it a 5-million-City.

That IS simply something different.



No, please read my post. I was refering to central Frankfurt. Not the city proper. The city proper has no reflection in comparisons at all. It is simply a political boundary. However, the central area's of a city can easily be compared to each other. You simply draw a line around the downtown part where most of the business and shopping area's are.

Why would I include the whole city proper. No one on this planet outside of Frankfurt can know or even imagine where the boundary's are. They are totally pointless boundary's for any city comparison like we do here.


There is a difference between a small or medium-cized city whith a huge metro, and a huge city with a metro of the same size.
No. This I fail to see. Most people don't care about local politics on an international scale.

When you arrive in Sydney, do you start asking around to find out where the invisible political boundry of the City of Sydney extends to? No you don't. You wouldn't know, and couldn't care less where this boundary is, and that's the same for pretty much any city on earth.

There are actually very few cities that have a city proper population close to the metropolitan population (close enough to be considered the same) And this means absolutely nothing in real life terms.

[Intoxication]

Dubai

[scott9409]

Panama City , Panama

[Küsel]

No offense: but Panama City, Dubai or Atlanta are not globally important cities.

[SHiRO]

Atlanta is...to some degree...kind of...:D

[Küsel]

Because it has one of the world's biggest airport hub and hosted the olympics maybe ;)

Oh, I forgot.... Gone with the Wind! :lol:

[DiggerD21]

Because it has one of the world's biggest airport hub and hosted the olympics maybe ;)

Oh, I forgot.... Gone with the Wind! :lol:

You forgot Coca-Cola.

[Küsel]

TRUE! ;)

Okay, definitly more important than Panama or Dubai! :lol:

[SHiRO]

It's a GAWC gamma world city and host to many multinationals such as Coca Cola and CNN.
Definately several leagues above Dubai and Panama City.