# Urban Areas without a clear central city/center?



## Fallout (Sep 11, 2002)

Upper Silesia, Randstad and Ruhr are classic examples.


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## DiggerD21 (Apr 22, 2004)

Maybe Liverpool-Manchester-Sheffield is another example.


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## hkskyline (Sep 13, 2002)

New York - as many financial companies hover around Wall Street in Lower Manhattan while many others stay in Midtown. The argument of the true 'center' goes both ways.


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

hkskyline said:


> New York - as many financial companies hover around Wall Street in Lower Manhattan while many others stay in Midtown. The argument of the true 'center' goes both ways.


The whole of Manhattan has always been seen as the centre of NYC. Its play the role of almost all of NY's culture, business, trade, etc.


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

The Metro Manila urban area is the perfect example of this. The cities that composes Metro Manila have their own important roles. Makati for example is the main CBD or financial heart of the Metro. Other than Makati, other central business districts have sprouted up like such as Ortigas. The City of Manila despite being the capital is a historical and tourist core. Most government offices however are located in Quezon City as well as HQ of important services and organization like The Philippine National Police and The Armed Forces of The Philippines. The House of Representatives is also based in Quezon City. The Senate of The Philippines is based in Pasay City which lies in the western part of Metro Manila.


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

Chrissib said:


> OK but Hong Kong is a SAR so it's not really in China.


Yes its a SAR and so is Macao. But HK is a regional hub and alot of companies especially multinational ones within The Pearl River Delta report to HK


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## hkskyline (Sep 13, 2002)

WANCH said:


> The whole of Manhattan has always been seen as the centre of NYC. Its play the role of almost all of NY's culture, business, trade, etc.


Not really, especially when there have been decentralization attempts such as New Jersey wooing the NYSE [failed attempt], new offices in Queens, Hoboken, and Jersey City, etc.

It's like saying the whole of zone 1 Central London is the centre, which is definitely not the case. There is a lot of other non-commercial stuff mixed in there.


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## hkskyline (Sep 13, 2002)

WANCH said:


> Yes its a SAR and so is Macao. But HK is a regional hub and alot of companies especially multinational ones within The Pearl River Delta report to HK


Not really either. That idea is about a decade outdated. Many manufacturing companies are now exporting overseas without using Hong Kong, preferring to use Shenzhen's port facilities due to proximity to the factories and lower costs. That trend is quite evident in the growth figures.

Hong Kong remains a services hub though.


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## Streuth (Jul 4, 2007)

The major Australian cities are characterised by dense central business districts (CBD) surrounded by relatively low density residential areas. Melbourne and Sydney have some medium and high density areas close to the CBDs and I think Brisbane is starting to develop a stronger centre. Sydney has sub-centres such as Chatswood and Parramatta, but they don’t really challenge the main Sydney CDB. Melbourne is more mono-centric than Sydney.

Perhaps the most dispersed of the Australian cities is Canberra, but even Canberra has a sort of centre.


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## briker (Aug 21, 2008)

sao paulo, london, paris?


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## diz (Nov 1, 2005)

Metro Manila - two CBDs here. (back is Makati, front is Ortigas)


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## crawford (Dec 9, 2003)

hudkina said:


> Another example might be the Connecticut coast stretching from Greenwich to New Haven. They might be considered an extension of New York's urban expanse, but there are a dozen or so little cities that make up the area including Stamford, Bridgeport, and Norwalk.


The CT suburbs are part of the NYC MSA and are just another suburban region of NYC. It isn't clear why they would be differentiated from Long Island, NJ, Westchester, the Hudson Valley, etc.

Greenwich, CT is arguably the best-known wealthy suburb of NYC. It's the classic bedroom community for Wall Street.


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## Xusein (Sep 27, 2005)

Hampton Roads, Virginia. 

The largest city in population, Virginia Beach, is pretty much a giant suburb. The core city, Norfolk, has a smaller population probably because of smaller boundaries. Never been there, but looking at Google Earth, it looks very decentralized.


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

The term city centre is not just limited to central business districts. Usually this area is the centre of almost everything from business, finance, culture, entertainment, etc. That's how downtown Chicago plays. Its the centre of almost everything in the Chicagoland metro area.

On the other hand, cities like Los Angeles has a so called "downtown". But when we look at it, Downtown LA acts as a business and historic core. To many Angelenos, Downtown is merely a neighborhood or a district. LA's activities also spread to Hollywood to Century City to Westwood and to the Venice area, etc.

The same with Tokyo as well.


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## hudkina (Oct 28, 2003)

crawford said:


> The CT suburbs are part of the NYC MSA and are just another suburban region of NYC. It isn't clear why they would be differentiated from Long Island, NJ, Westchester, the Hudson Valley, etc.
> 
> Greenwich, CT is arguably the best-known wealthy suburb of NYC. It's the classic bedroom community for Wall Street.



While from a built environment standpoint, Connecticut is an extension of New York, technically the Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk MSA et al are separate from the New York MSA. It's especially ironic considering Pike County, PA is considered a part of New York's MSA. It is true though that the Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk MSA as well as the New Haven-Milford MSA and Torrington MSA are all a part of the New York CSA.

While the U.S. does have an exaggerated definition of "urban area", it is amazing how much they bleed together and yet the Census Bureau continues to define them separately.

For example:

It looks like it's one large urbanized area:









But according to the Census Bureau they are all separate:


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## hkskyline (Sep 13, 2002)

WANCH said:


> The term city centre is not just limited to central business districts. Usually this area is the centre of almost everything from business, finance, culture, entertainment, etc. That's how downtown Chicago plays. Its the centre of almost everything in the Chicagoland metro area.
> 
> On the other hand, cities like Los Angeles has a so called "downtown". But when we look at it, Downtown LA acts as a business and historic core. To many Angelenos, Downtown is merely a neighborhood or a district. LA's activities also spread to Hollywood to Century City to Westwood and to the Venice area, etc.
> 
> The same with Tokyo as well.


Usually the centre of commerce is also the centre for culture, entertainment, etc. That has been the traditional notion of 'downtown', since all these things are inter-related.

Older cities tend to have more variety. For example, in London, Leicester Square / SOHO is in an area of its own while the finance companies are primarily based in the City and Canary Wharf further east. That being said, we don't consider Leicester Square 'downtown' per se, although it is in Zone 1. It's Central London, but Canary Wharf isn't.


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## hudkina (Oct 28, 2003)

BTW, the six urban areas (Bridgeport-Stamford, New Haven, Danbury, Waterbury, Hartford, and Springfield) that make up the "Connecticut" corridor had a population of 3.2 million people in less than 1,800 sq. mi. as of 2000. In comparison Atlanta's urbanized area had 3.5 million people in just under 2,000 sq. mi.


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## Pavlov's Dog (Aug 2, 2007)

hudkina said:


> BTW, the six urban areas (Bridgeport-Stamford, New Haven, Danbury, Waterbury, Hartford, and Springfield) that make up the "Connecticut" corridor had a population of 3.2 million people in less than 1,800 sq. mi. as of 2000. In comparison Atlanta's urbanized area had 3.5 million people in just under 2,000 sq. mi.


Interesting. So the remainder of the population in Atlanta are not in an urbanized area?


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## WeimieLvr (May 26, 2008)

Pavlov's Dog said:


> Interesting. So the remainder of the population in Atlanta are not in an urbanized area?



The urbanized area of Atlanta has a population of about 4 million. The other 1.6 million live in suburban or exurban areas. Atlanta is clearly the central core of the metro area. There are a couple of suburban cities with populations of 100,000 or more, but they aren't important enough economically or culturally to compete with Atlanta as the center of the region.


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## hudkina (Oct 28, 2003)

The remainder of the population lives in rural areas as well as urban areas that are within the MSA that were not merged with the Atlanta urban area. A lot of eastern cities have a large rural population living outside of the core and Atlanta is no different.


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