# Why does Germany lack a mega city?



## Mr Bricks (May 6, 2005)

Germany is full of old, beatiful, important and big cities but why isn´t there a major city? I mean France has got Paris and the UK has got London. Big and powerful nations tend to have one big city e.g. NYC, Tokyo, London, Paris etc...

I know that Berlin suffered a lot in WW2 and that most of its old architecture was wiped out, however, even before the war Berlin was smaller. Not that Berlin wasn´t important, it was concidered one of the greatest cities in the world, but it has always been smaller than Paris and London. 

Germany did not become a nation until 1871 (if my memory serves me well) but still one would imagine that Berlin would have had the time to develop.


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## sebvill (Apr 13, 2005)

The same happens with Italy and Spain, despite their big population

Two other big economies such as Australia and Canada do not have a mega city either, although in this cases is due to there small population.

In the developing World the same happens. Countries such as The Phillipines, Tailand, Malasia, Turkey, Argentina and Mexico have a mega city which dont have competition any where else in the country.

While China, South Africa, Colombia, India and Russia have various big cities within the country.

Brazil will be in the middle, having Sao Paulo as a big mega city but also many other big cities like Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, Belo Horizonte, Fortaleza and Recife (a bit like the US).


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## Mr Bricks (May 6, 2005)

But Germany has twice the the population of Spain and is also a much more powerful country, still Berlin is as big as Madrid (or is it even smaller?).


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## eklips (Mar 29, 2005)

Because of different policy and history.

When the french monarchy was starting to centralise the country in the 1750's around Paris, Germany was just part of the much looser holy roman empire. 

When France's centralisation policy started to really kick off during the 18th century, Germany was divided in numerous little states, and still today, the country is a federation, implying that no city can gain the importance of a Paris or London, with Italy's case being similar.

Spain, although not as historicaly divided as Italy or Germany, has never been centralised like France or the UK, today still, the country does not revolve around one but two cities (Madrid and Bercelona).


This is really a matter of policies and history since the end of the 18th century.


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## Accura4Matalan (Jan 7, 2004)

Personally I think that Germany's more decentralised structure is fantastic. It means that all cities in the country experience more benefits, rather than just one city.


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## Mekky II (Oct 29, 2003)

Federalism helps that. And countries that are less federalists (or completely centralists) have a big single city generally. Italy and Spain are in middle of both system, but the power of each italian/spanish region grow since few years indeed, because federalism seems good in those countries. There is special cases in all this, like Russia that has a single mega city, that mostly due to history and political choices, they did choose to make the city the main city, and so in a way, federalism was not respected fully by politicians, and indeed during communism, it was not respected at all. That can explain in a certain way why russian politicians have problem to let the economy be fully liberalized, I am sure they would prefer a centralized state around Moscow that a federal country like we have today... and i am sure they would have less fears to liberalize the economy after such a change. In the other way, China is considering centralized because communism but is not able to go on this way, and so is not able to have a major big city, indeed it would be insane to have a single mega city for a country of 1,3 billions people... If China become democratic one day, there is 99% luck it will turn into a federal state (even if a majority of han people, ethnicity has nothing to do inside this), and even more if democracy come with civil wars inside different regions. I forgot other examples of "lack" of respect toward federalist spirit or less federal states : argentina and mexico are federal and indeed have a mega city ... That should not be normally, and that can explain either (like inside russian example) why those countries can have some problems... 

Federalism seems to work really fine for European Union and India and centralism really fine in UK, France or Japan.


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## The Concerned Potato (Jun 1, 2006)

i wish the UK was more like Germany in this respect. in the UK it's London with top priority while the other major cities fight over the scraps.


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## LLoydGeorge (Jan 14, 2006)

Since NY, London, Paris and Tokyo are the only megacities, only four nations in the world have them.

Germany has two great cities (i.e., Munich and Berlin).


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## monkeyronin (May 18, 2006)

LLoydGeorge said:


> Since NY, London, Paris and Tokyo are the only megacities, only four nations in the world have them.
> 
> Germany has two great cities (i.e., Munich and Berlin).


Megacity = 10 million inhabitants +


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## Elmo (Feb 5, 2003)

The same goes for The Netherlands. Amsterdam is our nations capital, but the government seats in The Hague and Rotterdam has the biggest harbour, resulting in three cities of comparable size.


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## gonzo (Jul 30, 2006)

Might colonialism have something to do with it aswell??

London, Paris and Madrid were centres of empires not too long ago.

Btw, Madrid is clearly the financial/political capital of Spain....albeit Barcelona is clearly 2nd with little competition from Valencia/Seville.


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## eklips (Mar 29, 2005)

Madrid is maybe the economical capital of Spain, but Barcelona is not far behind, and you have very important regional cities that come to the competition.

The situation is not like in France or the UK with one big city that totaly dominates the rest of the country, in Spain you have two dominant cities, with one being more important.


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## samsonyuen (Sep 23, 2003)

It's an interesting case study. I guess the same reason for Canada, Australia and the US (several pieces becoming a whole) made the difference.


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## jmancuso (Jan 9, 2003)

i think it is to germany's benefit NOT to have a primate city like france and the UK do.


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

LLoydGeorge said:


> Since NY, London, Paris and Tokyo are the only megacities, only four nations in the world have them.
> 
> Germany has two great cities (i.e., Munich and Berlin).


How about Frankfurt? Ok Frankfurt may not be as populated as Munich or Berlin but it was classified as an "alpha" world city.


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## Küsel (Sep 16, 2004)

^^Exactly! Primate cities have a quite negative effect on the country, especially if the political AND economical power is concentrated in them as Bangkok, Paris, London and Moscow. The most ideal country has a size-rank order where the second is half the biggest and the third one third of the biggest city etc... is. Germany is as already mentioned a federative construction and this also has some influence on this pattern - already discribed by Christaller in the 1920s!


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## gonzo (Jul 30, 2006)

SuomiPoika said:


> But Germany has twice the the population of Spain and is also a much more powerful country, still Berlin is as big as Madrid (or is it even smaller?).


Madrid has a larger 'metro' and Berlin is larger at the municipal level.


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## bayviews (Mar 3, 2006)

Seems a lot has to do with the wars, hot & cold. Up to the late 1930s, Berlin was one of the leading, larger cities of Europe. Then came WW II. Afterwards, the German borders were redrawn westward, leaving Berlin rather isolated in the eastern edge of E. Germany & divided in two by the wall. W. Berlin was constricted by its boundaries & many of the youth left for W. Germany. E. Berlin was slow to reconstruct. So the population shrank. Meanwhile, Frankfurt emerged as the business center & airline hub of W. Germany. Although Berlin's regained its capital status since the German re-unification, it hasn’t regained its prior dominant economic position. Add to that the low German birthrate & that's why Berlin has never, & proably won't become a mega-city. But Berlin's blossomed culturally & is nice as it is.


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## Küsel (Sep 16, 2004)

Well, it has more something to do with spacial planning systems of the Bundesländer, the fast train network and the Autobahns. The first ones in successful urban planning were the Dutch. The Swiss also modelled their spacial planning after them and after the war came Germany with a similar concept of "decentral concentration". At least western Germany for the DDR was quite centralistic, resp. pseudo-hierarchic governed and planned.

BTW: Western Berlin, an enclave inside Eastern Germany would have been much more depopulated than the eastern part and only with some "gifts" from the government as the liberation from obligatory military service they could keep their people in the city.


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## Mr Bricks (May 6, 2005)

Thanks for re-opening the thread wjfox 

Did some researching and found out that Berlin isn´t that old. Founded in the 12th century which makes it 1000 younger than both Paris and London.

Demographics for the three cities: (city proper)

Berlin 1939 4.3 million

Paris 1936 2.8 million

London 1939 8.6 million

This is not a comparison of which city that is the biggest, it just gives us an overview of the situation. Worth mentioning is that the population jumped with over 2 million people between 1919 and 1925, from 1.9 millionto 4 million!!


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## eklips (Mar 29, 2005)

Be carefull with Paris' population though. I don't know what the urban area's population was at the time, but in 1939 Paris already extended much beyond the inner city's official boundaries.


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## Rat (Jun 26, 2004)

virtual said:


> Because of different policy and history.
> 
> When the french monarchy was starting to centralise the country in the 1750's around Paris, Germany was just part of the much looser holy roman empire.
> 
> ...


All right!


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## Rat (Jun 26, 2004)

SuomiPoika said:


> Thanks for re-opening the thread wjfox
> 
> Did some researching and found out that Berlin isn´t that old. Founded in the 12th century which makes it 1000 younger than both Paris and London.
> 
> ...


Oh, i have never known this and these three cities are my favorite cities in the world


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## Kampflamm (Dec 28, 2003)

SuomiPoika said:


> Worth mentioning is that the population jumped with over 2 million people between 1919 and 1925, from 1.9 millionto 4 million!!


The population jumped because Berlin essentially annexed all the tows around it in 1920.

Dark red: Berlin pre-1920, Pink: Berlin after the "Greater Berlin Law"










In German: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groß-Berlin


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## Janis_LV (Aug 3, 2004)

Thats realy because of historical situation - centralised state with all the power and recources concentrated in one city came in germany much later than in France and London, and even if berlin managed to become one of the biggest cities in the world before the second world war, the last war ended the development of Berlin and it still has less inhabitants than before war and Berlin still is one of the shrinking cities. Similar situation is in italy, it is as big as france or UK, but also has no mega city, same reason again as withgermany late central state. what regards germany - looks that germans still dont know what is a capital city and what it means - in recent decision of the nations constitutional court was said that Berlin will need to pay back its own debts and the state is not helping. Logical decision, regarded that Constitutional court is in provincial border town in the west of germany called Karlsruhe and not capital, similar situation is with other state institutions - police employment agency, etc. They are not in the capital. Berlin is germanies capital and because it was capital it payed the highest price for mistakes made by all germans in the history,with its economical problems unemploymenr, we can say Berliners are paying for the mistakes of Muncheners, Hamburgers, Kolners too, because they live in the capital, it means Muncheners and Stuttgarters have to pay for rebuilding also their capital. But as long as germans wont understand that their biggest city will keep on shrinking,


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## Kampflamm (Dec 28, 2003)

> what regards germany - looks that germans still dont know what is a capital city and what it means - in recent decision of the nations constitutional court was said that Berlin will need to pay back its own debts and the state is not helping. Logical decision, regarded that Constitutional court is in provincial border town in the west of germany called Karlsruhe and not capital, similar situation is with other state institutions - police employment agency, etc. They are not in the capital. Berlin is germanies capital and because it was capital it payed the highest price for mistakes made by all germans in the history,with its economical problems unemploymenr, we can say Berliners are paying for the mistakes of Muncheners, Hamburgers, Kolners too, because they live in the capital, it means Muncheners and Stuttgarters have to pay for rebuilding also their capital. But as long as germans wont understand that their biggest city will keep on shrinking,


Sorry, but it seems to me like you don't know what's going on. The current administration in Berlin just wants to keep on spending money, thinking that it's their right to expect help from the federal government. Which is bs. Berlin's always been subsidized. East Berlin got boatloads of money from the government so that it didn't look like a third world city to western tourists while West Berlin received huge subsidies from Bonn. Every German city is facing spending cuts, so why should Berlin be an exception? Just because it has a couple of government buildings?


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## Boeing! (Aug 16, 2006)

Both Germany and Italy were divided in small states for centuries, and their unification is recent (1861 Italy and 1870 Germany).
I think that for these reasons mega cities lack.

In fact,in countries like UK,France,Spain there is a monocentric urban model while in countries like Germany and Italy there is a multicentric one (the old capital cities of the small states).


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## Mr Bricks (May 6, 2005)

virtual said:


> Be carefull with Paris' population though. I don't know what the urban area's population was at the time, but in 1939 Paris already extended much beyond the inner city's official boundaries.


You´re quite right. In 1936 the Paris urban area had a population of 6 million people.


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## polako (Apr 7, 2005)

Isn't the Rhein-Ruhr metro home to 12 million people?


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## Mr Bricks (May 6, 2005)

^^ 12 million or more from what I now, but it´s not an actual city with a huge impressive city centre etc..


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## brisavoine (Mar 19, 2006)

SuomiPoika said:


> Worth mentioning is that the population of Berlin jumped with over 2 million people between 1919 and 1925, from 1.9 millionto 4 million!!


That's simply because the government of Prussia annexed all the suburbs of Berlin to the city of Berlin in 1920. Thus, the administrative territory of Berlin was enlarged overnight from 67 km²/26 sq. miles (City of Berlin) to 878 km²/339 sq. miles (Groß-Berlin). The new annexed suburbs contained 1.9 million people. That explains the sudden increase in population.



SuomiPoika said:


> Demographics for the three cities: (city proper)
> 
> Berlin 1939 4.3 million
> 
> ...


Actually your figure for London is wrong. This 8.6 million figure is for the current territory of Greater London, which didn't exist back then. Back then there was the County of London, which wasn't a city strictly speaking, but that's another debate.

The County of London had a population of 3,022,306 people at the Sept. 1939 National Registration. This figure, however, underestimated the actual population of the County of London because it counted only the civilian population, excluding people serving in the arm forces. At the 1931 census there were 4,397,003 people in the County of London. At the 1951 census this figure had dwindled to 3,347,982, so I think for 1939 we can assume the actual population of the County of London was somewhere around 3,8 million people (before the start of the war in September).

Thus, the ranking within the then administrative borders was like this:
1- Berlin (Groß-Berlin): 4.3 million
2- London (County of London): 3.8 million
3- Paris (City of Paris): 2.8 million

Of course, needless to say that such a ranking is a bit meaningless. It's better to compare whole urban areas rather than just central administrative areas which may or may not contain suburbs (Berlin in 1939 contained all its suburbs within its administrative limits, whereas the County of London contained only a few suburbs, and the City of Paris contained no suburbs at all).

If you compare whole urban areas, the ranking in 1939 was actually like this:
1- urban area of London: 8.6 million
2- urban area of Paris: 6.0 million
3- urban area of Berlin: 4.3 million

This is the closest that the urban area of Berlin ever came to reach Paris and London. The following years were a complete disaster for Berlin. In 1946 the population of Berlin had dwindled to 3.1 million people (that's a 28% loss of population due to the war!), and it has never really recovered since.


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## metcalf (Feb 18, 2003)

well don't you think it has more todo with the fact that Germany was more decentralized than these other countries, Paris and London were the centres of the countries since these countries represented a force, But before German unification Germany was divided into a bunch of seperate Kingdoms, thus there was and still is a strong regionalism, that has not allowed for a conglamoration of service into one large city, both governmentally, but in terms of industry and commerce. Moreover in the recovory period after WW2, when germany got divided but also quartered up in west germany to different zones, this was to stop a centralization of power in one centre, because that's what hitler did, and if you had one beacon in germany giuding the country, germany would be to hard for the allies to conrol and germany might find itself and shake of the allied domination, so like they say many smaller factions are easy to manipulate and control than on strong centralized large one.


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## eomer (Nov 15, 2003)

SuomiPoika said:


> I know that Berlin suffered a lot in WW2 and that most of its old architecture was wiped out, however, even before the war Berlin was smaller. Not that Berlin wasn´t important, it was concidered one of the greatest cities in the world, but it has always been smaller than Paris and London.


Of course Berlin is not Paris or London. But, exepted this two major town, wich French and British cities can rivalize with Hamburg, Frankfurt, Essen, Koln, Munchen ? There are Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Bordeaux, Toulouse or Nantes in France, there are Birmingham, Glasgow, Manchester in UK but that's not exactly the same level.


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## brisavoine (Mar 19, 2006)

metcalf said:


> well don't you think it has more todo with the fact that Germany was more decentralized than these other countries, Paris and London were the centres of the countries since these countries represented a force, But before German unification Germany was divided into a bunch of seperate Kingdoms, thus there was and still is a strong regionalism, that has not allowed for a conglamoration of service into one large city, both governmentally, but in terms of industry and commerce. Moreover in the recovory period after WW2, when germany got divided but also quartered up in west germany to different zones, this was to stop a centralization of power in one centre, because that's what hitler did, and if you had one beacon in germany giuding the country, germany would be to hard for the allies to conrol and germany might find itself and shake of the allied domination, so like they say many smaller factions are easy to manipulate and control than on strong centralized large one.


Well, it's true that historically the German realm was very "decentralized", as you put it. The fact is, however, after the 1871 unification, Germany became heavily centralized, with a concentration of industries and administration in Berlin. I think if the German Empire or the Nazi Regime had not crumbled, probably Berlin would have eventually reached Paris and London, and its metro area would probably have more than 10 million people today.

It's the war that was responsible for the doom of Berlin. All industries disappeared, not because of bombardment, but because the first thing the Russians did when they captured Berlin in April 1945 was to dismantle all the factories of Berlin and move everything to Russia as reparation in kind. This in effect put an end to the industrial destiny of Berlin. I know it's hard to believe now, but before the war Berlin was the prime industrial area of Germany, on par with the Ruhr.

The second consequence of the war was the loss of German territories in Eastern Europe, which meant that Berlin, instead of being at the center of a vast country, ended up being isolated in the very east of a reduced country. This is a key factor. Frankfurt now benefits from its position as the new center of Germany, but before WW2 it was Berlin that was at the center of the country, with almost as much German territory to the east of Berlin as to the west. To me it's the most important result of the war. Berlin lost its position as a transport hub. Added to the loss of its industry, no wonder the city never recovered after the war.

Then of course add to this the division of the country during the Cold War, making Berlin even more isolated to the east, and the loss of population during the war (which is to me the least important explanatory factor here; you can always recover population if you have key fundamentals such as good location and large economic base).

So in a nutshel, I don't think there was any "manifest destiny" for Germany not having a major world city. Germany could very well have had a major world city. It's only the catastrophic management of its elites, both in the 1910s and 1930s, which plunged the country into unwinnable world wars and prevented the country from growing a truly major world city. Had these elites acted differently, the situation would be quite different today I think, and everybody would think it normal if Berlin was the paramount city in Germany, same as Paris and London are the paramount cities in France and England.


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

polako said:


> Isn't the Rhein-Ruhr metro home to 12 million people?


That area mostly consist of cities about some 100.000 inhabitans to 300.000 inhabitants, and some larger ones (Dortmund, Duisburg, Essen, Düsseldorf, Wuppertal, Bochum). The largest city here (Köln) has almost 1 million inhabitants. 

But the Rhein-Wupper area isn't so connected to the Ruhr area (Ruhrgebiet), as the Ruhr area is. That's just one massive build-up area. It starts near Moers, and ends near Dortmund (some are counting Hamm too). It's quite a densely populated area, although the traffic isn't as bad as in the Netherlands. Such a dense area gives opportunity to public transportation, they have U and S-bahns (metro and lightrail).


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## LLoydGeorge (Jan 14, 2006)

Apart from the four megacities in the world, I think that Germany fares quite well in having to Tier 2 cities (i.e., Berlin and Munich), both of which are on par with Chicago, SF, Rome, Madrid, Barcelona, HK, etc.


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## Küsel (Sep 16, 2004)

What do you mean? If you look at the Metros then after Ruhr it's Berlin with about 4.2mio, Stuttgart 2.6mio, Hamburg 2.5mio, München and Frankfurt with 1.9mio. 

If you look at the city propers it's:
Berlin 3,388,477
Hamburg	1,734,083
München	1,247,873
Köln 965,954
Frankfurt 643,432
Dortmund 589,661
Essen 589,499
Stuttgart 589,161
Düsseldorf 572,511
Bremen 544,853
Hannover 516,160
Duisburg 506,496

The rank-size formula works much better than in most countries in Germany. It's as I said in an earlier post a perfect network of big-medium-small cities.

And the third look would go to the importance of German cities:
1. Frankfurt 9 points - secondary Alpha World City (as Chicago or Hong Kong)
2. Düsseldorf 6 points - primary Gamma World City (as Geneva or Washington)
3. Berlin, Munich, Hamburg 4 points - tertiary Gamma World City (as Barcelona and Buenos Aires)
4. Some evidence (2 points) has Stuttgart and Köln (as Lisboa or Strasbourg)
5. Minimal evidence (1 point): Dresden (as St.Petersburg or Cape Town)


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## Fallout (Sep 11, 2002)

I wonder why after WW2 the capital of West Germany was moved to a relatively small city like Bonn. Couldn't they make Frankfurt or Koln new capital? If few millions of refugees from the east were additionally resettled there then, West Germany could get a new big city, maybe not as big as London, but comparable with Madrid at least.


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## LordChaos80 (May 10, 2006)

@LloydGeorge: U seriously count HK a second tier city?? (btw I am German, not Chinese. I was just wondering as I think HK is far ahead of any German city, in certain aspects even ahead of Paris and London...)


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## Mr Bricks (May 6, 2005)

Look said:


> I wonder why after WW2 the capital of West Germany was moved to a relatively small city like Bonn.


Dunno but after WW1 Weimar became the capital because Berlin has always been associated with German miliraty power and politics while Weimar was known to be an artistic city with loads of art, music etc...so maybe it was changed after WW2 for the same reason.:dunno:


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## LordChaos80 (May 10, 2006)

Talking about Bonn as our former capital: I think that was an ideological decision: The new democratic Germany chose a humble and small capital to show to the world that it has learned from its own mistakes and wouldn´t fall to delusions of grandeur again.


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## Poryaa (Sep 26, 2004)

Berlin used to be divided between a western and eastern camp country until 1989. NYC, London, Tokyo, Paris and Hong Kong were in western camp countries. North Korea is a masterpiece of the eastern camp.


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## LuckyLuke (Mar 29, 2005)

Very interesting Wikipedia article in german about the "capital selection" in 1949.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauptstadtfrage_der_Bundesrepublik_Deutschland

4 cities applied to become West-Germany's new capital

* Bonn
* Frankfurt am Main
* Kassel
* Stuttgart

In the end Bonn won against Frankfurt with 33 to 29 votes.


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## Mr Bricks (May 6, 2005)

Rather communist/dictatorship and capitalistic/democratic than "east" and "west".


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## LLoydGeorge (Jan 14, 2006)

LordChaos80 said:


> @LloydGeorge: U seriously count HK a second tier city?? (btw I am German, not Chinese. I was just wondering as I think HK is far ahead of any German city, in certain aspects even ahead of Paris and London...)


I don't think that HK is better than Munich or Berlin. Why do you?

In terms of cultural offerings, Munich, for instance, is vastly superior to HK.


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## GNU (Nov 26, 2004)

Kampflamm said:


> Sorry, but it seems to me like you don't know what's going on. The current administration in Berlin just wants to keep on spending money, thinking that it's their right to expect help from the federal government. Which is bs. Berlin's always been subsidized.


Berlin lost most of its big companies to cities like Munich and Frankfurt during the Berlin blockade.
I might mention Allianz and Siemens who went to Munich and the Deutsche and the Dresdner Bank who went to Frankfurt.
These have been and still are amongst the mightiest companies in Germany.
And these are just the prominent examples.
Of course many more companies that could have generated shitloads of money for Berlin left during the blockade.
Berlin suffered whereas other cities pocketed the bills.
quite unfair imo.
And nowadays we have some bavarians who want to tell us that they built up all of that economic might themselves which is bs.
Its just right that we give something back after a city like Berlin had to pay the highest price in the last decades.
And a state like Bavaria for example profited quite a lot from Prussias downfall make no mistake about that.
Berlin will continue to suffer from that economic loss for decades.
Until that time we have to help out financially.
Theres nothing wrong with that.


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

LuckyLuke said:


> Very interesting Wikipedia article in german about the "capital selection" in 1949.
> http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauptstadtfrage_der_Bundesrepublik_Deutschland
> 
> 4 cities applied to become West-Germany's new capital
> ...


Why Kassel? That doesn't make sense to me. I can understand Frankfurt or Stuttgart, or even Hannover or Bremen, but Kassel...


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## brisavoine (Mar 19, 2006)

Chris1491 said:


> Why Kassel? That doesn't make sense to me. I can understand Frankfurt or Stuttgart, or even Hannover or Bremen, but Kassel...


Well, that's still a better choice than Freiburg im Breisgau, isn't it? Lol.


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## Surumi (Oct 26, 2006)

brisavoine said:


> Well, that's still a better choice than Freiburg im Breisgau, isn't it? Lol.


Yes, I agree.

In this case, Freiburg would have lost his life quality.


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## Kampflamm (Dec 28, 2003)

SuomiPoika said:


> Dunno but after WW1 Weimar became the capital because Berlin has always been associated with German miliraty power and politics while Weimar was known to be an artistic city with loads of art, music etc...so maybe it was changed after WW2 for the same reason.:dunno:


Weimar wasn't the capital. The constitution was drafted there because Berlin was in the midst of a revolution in 1919. Frankfurt was a contender for the capital after WW2 but eventually politicians chose Bonn...I guess they liked the cozy feel and it was pretty far away from the border.


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## Kampflamm (Dec 28, 2003)

Checker said:


> Berlin lost most of its big companies to cities like Munich and Frankfurt during the Berlin blockade.
> I might mention Allianz and Siemens who went to Munich and the Deutsche and the Dresdner Bank who went to Frankfurt.
> These have been and still are amongst the mightiest companies in Germany.
> And these are just the prominent examples.
> ...


So? Companies move all the time. All German cities suffered during the war. At least Berlin got sh*tloads of money from both governments while cities like Dresden and Leipzig were rotting away.


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## GNU (Nov 26, 2004)

Kampflamm said:


> Weimar wasn't the capital. The constitution was drafted there because Berlin was in the midst of a revolution in 1919. Frankfurt was a contender for the capital after WW2 but eventually politicians chose Bonn...I guess they liked the cozy feel and it was pretty far away from the border.


And some say that Adenauer was just too lazy to drive to Frankfurt.


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## GNU (Nov 26, 2004)

Kampflamm said:


> So? Companies move all the time. All German cities suffered during the war. At least Berlin got sh*tloads of money from both governments while cities like Dresden and Leipzig were rotting away.


Dresden and Leipzig never had the economical and political power that Berlin had.
They never attracted nearly as many big companies as Berlin.
Even when you put them together.
They are just not in the same league.
Leipzig and Dresden might have been rotting away, but those cities were never seperated in their midsts by a wall.

And those companies didnt move because they thought that Munich was more beautiful or whatever.
No, they simply moved because of the Berlin blockade which was a direct result of the second world war.
And the 2nd world war wasnt started by Berlin on its own.
Frankfurt,Munich and Hamburg were in the secure BRD and therefore they were able to keep their industries and even snatch away those from Berlin.
For Munich and Bavaria this is still paying off big time.
Thats why its ridiculous when a bavarian politician claims that theres no reason why the state of Bavaria amongst others has to subsidize Berlin imo.


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## flesh_is_weak (Jun 16, 2006)

if im right, there's this some kind of law that requires more prosperous regions of germany (or whatever they call their political divisions) to contribute to the less prosperous regions...must be one of the reasons why development cant be centralized on one area alone...


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## Kampflamm (Dec 28, 2003)

Checker said:


> Dresden and Leipzig never had the economical and political power that Berlin had.
> They never attracted nearly as many big companies as Berlin.
> Even when you put them together.
> They are just not in the same league.
> ...



Well, that's history. Doesn't mean though that we now have to give the Berlin government a blank cheque. They're facing a budgetary crisis, so are many other cities. Berlin however thinks that it can get away with it (and the government hasn't even made an effort trying to curb spending because they thought they'd get federal money). Tough luck, Wowi. The days of being a party queen are over, now he has to actually act like a mayor.


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## DiggerD21 (Apr 22, 2004)

pIrEnA said:


> if im right, there's this some kind of law that requires more prosperous regions of germany (or whatever they call their political divisions) to contribute to the less prosperous regions...must be one of the reasons why development cant be centralized on one area alone...


It is called "Länderfinanzausgleich". Currently five states (Bavaria, Baden-Würtemberg, Hesse, Northrhine-Westphalia, Hamburg) are subsidising the other 11 states


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## DiggerD21 (Apr 22, 2004)

Chris1491 said:


> Why Kassel? That doesn't make sense to me. I can understand Frankfurt or Stuttgart, or even Hannover or Bremen, but Kassel...


AFAIK Kassel is close to the geographic centre of Germany. So it makes sense again. Note that in 1949 there was still hope that the sowjet sector would join the newly founded Federal Republic.


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## GNU (Nov 26, 2004)

Kampflamm said:


> Well, that's history. Doesn't mean though that we now have to give the Berlin government a blank cheque. They're facing a budgetary crisis, so are many other cities. Berlin however thinks that it can get away with it (and the government hasn't even made an effort trying to curb spending because they thought they'd get federal money). Tough luck, Wowi. The days of being a party queen are over, now he has to actually act like a mayor.


I aggree that Berlin is spending too much money. Then again its the new capital and I see a point when city planers in Berlin are asking for a new airport for example.
Many people go to Berlin when they visit Germany and form their opinion of the country based on what theyve seen there.
Now if they arrive in some run-down airport theyll think that the rest of the country might be kind of the same.
So imo its ok to put in some money to bring the infrastructure up to date and 
build up the stuff that has been destroyed during ww2 and the division of the city.
In the eyes of a tourist or foreigner, Berlin is kind of represantative for the rest of the country because its the capital and officially the biggest city.
Therefore it shouldnt look too run down if you know what I mean.


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## Mr Bricks (May 6, 2005)

Kampflamm said:


> Weimar wasn't the capital. The constitution was drafted there because Berlin was in the midst of a revolution in 1919. Frankfurt was a contender for the capital after WW2 but eventually politicians chose Bonn...I guess they liked the cozy feel and it was pretty far away from the border.


Er...Weimar was the capital of the Weimar Republic after WW1, was it not?


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## SHiRO (Feb 7, 2003)

LordChaos80 said:


> @LloydGeorge: U seriously count HK a second tier city?? (btw I am German, not Chinese. I was just wondering as I think HK is far ahead of any German city, in certain aspects even ahead of Paris and London...)


Ever heard of the Big 4? Hong Kong is not in it and for good reason.
No way Hong Kong is or will ever be as all round a global city NY, London, Tokyo and Paris are.


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## Kampflamm (Dec 28, 2003)

SuomiPoika said:


> Er...Weimar was the capital of the Weimar Republic after WW1, was it not?


Nope, Berlin was the capital. It was only called the Weimar Republic because that was the place where the constitution was drafted.


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## LordChaos80 (May 10, 2006)

Yeah, but Big 4 is merely focused on economic power and influence. I am quite sure it´s only a question of time that Paris gets kicked by HK or SH. Even Frankfurt is rivalling Paris nowadays. What I was referring to was more the overall impression of a city: While Berlin or Munich are "just" nice (especially because of historical reliecs), HK is blowing one´s mind considering modernity and architecture...


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## SHiRO (Feb 7, 2003)

You are grossly underestimating Paris.


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## LordChaos80 (May 10, 2006)

Maybe, time will show... Anyway you should also consider that riots and open street wars won't help Paris to compete with other cities.


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## brisavoine (Mar 19, 2006)

LordChaos80 said:


> I am quite sure it´s only a question of time that Paris gets kicked by HK or SH. Even Frankfurt is rivalling Paris nowadays.





SHiRO said:


> You are grossly underestimating Paris.


Shiro is right on this. Whether it's in terms of population or economic size, Paris is far ahead of either Frankfurt or Hong Kong. As for Shanghai, it has more inhabitants than Paris, but its economic size is still nothing like the massive economic size of Paris.

Here are figures to compare these four cities, using the administrative units closest in extent to the metro areas.

Population (most recent figures):
- municipality of Shanghai: 17.8 million people (incl. rural areas)
- Île-de-France region (Greater Paris): 11.4 million people
- Hong Kong SAR: 6.9 million people
- Regierungsbezirk Darmstadt (Frankfurt metro area): 3.8 million people

GDP (2003, in US dollars):
- Île-de-France region (Greater Paris): 513.4 billion
- Hong Kong SAR: 158.6 billion
- Regierungsbezirk Darmstadt (Frankfurt metro area): 152.3 billion
- municipality of Shanghai: 76 billion

Airport traffic (2005):
- Île-de-France region (Greater Paris): 78.7 million passengers
- Regierungsbezirk Darmstadt (Frankfurt metro area): 52.2 million passengers
- municipality of Shanghai: 41.4 million passengers
- Hong Kong SAR: 40.3 million passengers


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## earthJoker (Dec 15, 2004)

[edit] already posted


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## Kenwen (May 1, 2005)

brisavoine said:


> Shiro is right on this. Whether it's in terms of population or economic size, Paris is far ahead of either Frankfurt or Hong Kong. As for Shanghai, it has more inhabitants than Paris, but its economic size is still nothing like the massive economic size of Paris.
> 
> Here are figures to compare these four cities, using the administrative units closest in extent to the metro areas.
> 
> ...


no, shanghai GDP is 140billion


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## SHiRO (Feb 7, 2003)

If we include company HQs, the picture becomes even more clear.
Paris is a totally different league from either Frankfurt or Hong Kong (not to mention Shanghai).

And we even haven't begun to factor in things like culture or government...


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## SHiRO (Feb 7, 2003)

Kenwen said:


> no, shanghai GDP is 140billion


source?

And be sure we are comparing like for like here, so no PPP.


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## LLoydGeorge (Jan 14, 2006)

LordChaos80 said:


> Yeah, but Big 4 is merely focused on economic power and influence. I am quite sure it´s only a question of time that Paris gets kicked by HK or SH. Even Frankfurt is rivalling Paris nowadays. What I was referring to was more the overall impression of a city: While Berlin or Munich are "just" nice (especially because of historical reliecs), HK is blowing one´s mind considering modernity and architecture...



The Big 4 has more than economic influence. They have political influence (NY's stemming from the UN), and not including Tokyo, they have utterly unrivalled cultural dominance.


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## LordChaos80 (May 10, 2006)

Hell yes, Paris will probably be able to defend its fourth rank for quite a while, but don't be too sure that it has an eternal bookmark on it. Asia is not sleeping and Frankfurt is gaining importance due to EU east expansion. Also there are other factors that have entered scientific world city discussion where Paris has already fallen behind, mainly dealing about connectivity (Pay attention on HK here):



















source: Globalization and World Cities - Study Group & Network of Loughborough University

@LloydGeorge: Speaking about culture, u r absolutely right. There´s no doubt about the dominance of New York, London and Paris. Perhaps Milan also deserves some attention here.


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## GNU (Nov 26, 2004)

brisavoine said:


> Here are figures to compare these four cities, using the administrative units closest in extent to the metro areas.
> 
> Population (most recent figures):
> - municipality of Shanghai: 17.8 million people (incl. rural areas)
> ...



These stats are incorrect.
*Frankfurt has around 5,5 to 6,5 million in its metro and not 3,8 million.*
You can actually say that 3,5million are living in the city proper.
Theres no urban boundary between Frankfurt and Darmstadt for example.
From the Frankfurt main station you can be in Darmstadt in 20 minutes on the bicycle.
So the stats are probably not represantative.
Frankfurt also has the highest gdp per head in Europe. (in 2001 that was, dont know if it changed)


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## GNU (Nov 26, 2004)

SHiRO said:


> If we include company HQs, the picture becomes even more clear.
> Paris is a totally different league from either Frankfurt or Hong Kong (not to mention Shanghai).


difficult question.
Economically Frankfurt is probably on par with Paris imo. (Think about the ECB for exmaple)
And if its behind then not by much.
When we talk about companies then HK probably cant keep up with Frankfurt or Paris.
And Paris is also ahead of Frankfurt in this regard as its the capital of a centralized country.
That means that almost all big companies in France can be found in, or near Paris.
In federal Germany thats quite different. But Frankfurt isnt that far behind in this regard imo.


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## DELCROID (Apr 9, 2006)

Germany doesn´t need to have a mega city. The whole country is already dense and urbanized. There are towns and cities every five kilometers so it is as if the whole country was a large urban/suburban sprawl.


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## GM (Feb 29, 2004)

LordChaos80 said:


> Maybe, time will show... Anyway you should also consider that riots and open street wars won't help Paris to compete with other cities.


LOL... you sound like a guy who has probably watched too much Fox News or other crappy things like that... "Open street wars"...:sleepy: 

Paris is certainly not more dangerous or violent than New York or London. Concerning criminality, Paris has exactly the same problems than any other mega-city in the world... not more, not less (and actually a lot less than New York, surely more than Tokyo, and probably on par with London).

As for the guys who said than Hong Kong or even Frankfurt are on par with Paris, well... they are pretty delusioned.
Actually, Paris, which is world-wide know for its culture, its beauty, etc...,
is severely underestimated when it comes to its real economical and demographic weight.
People (outside France) tend to think of Paris as this beautiful cliché city for tourists, but they generally forget that Paris is also a real megacity in a full-developped country.


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## eklips (Mar 29, 2005)

Paris is an economic powerhouse


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## brisavoine (Mar 19, 2006)

Checker said:


> These stats are incorrect.
> *Frankfurt has around 5,5 to 6,5 million in its metro and not 3,8 million.*
> You can actually say that 3,5million are living in the city proper.
> Theres no urban boundary between Frankfurt and Darmstadt for example.
> ...


No, 3.8 million is the figure for the entire Regierungsezirk Darmstadt, which is a large administrative region including the cities of Frankurt, Darmstadt, Offenbach, Wiesbaden, Bad Homburg, Hanau, Rüsselsheim, and so on. This administrative region is what corresponds best to the Frankfurt metro area.

The population in the city proper of Frankfurt (248 km²/96 sq. miles) is only 648,325 inhabitants (mid-2005). That's not much. Marseille, in southern France, whose city proper covers a territory of 241 km², i.e almost the same land area as the city proper of Frankfurt, has a population of 808,700 inhabitants (mid-2004). In England, the city proper of Birmingham, whose land area is 268 km², i.e. also quite similar to Frankfurt's city proper, has a population of 1,001,200 (mid-2005). Just for perspective...

As for the GDP per capita, here are 2003 figures for the 4 metro areas mentioned (in US dollars per inhabitant):
- Île-de-France region (Greater Paris): 45,700
- Regierungsbezirk Darmstadt (Frankfurt metro area): 41,060
- Hong Kong SAR: 25,430
- municipality of Shanghai: 4,500


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## Lostboy (Sep 14, 2002)

_People (outside France) tend to think of Paris as this beautiful cliché city for tourists, but they generally forget that Paris is also a real megacity in a full-developped country._

Yes.

But this is what Paris promotes itself for, and perhaps with good reasoning, it is better for Paris to be seen as a cultural city than as a business one, even if it is quite clearly both.


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## GNU (Nov 26, 2004)

brisavoine said:


> No, 3.8 million is the figure for the entire Regierungsezirk Darmstadt, which is a large administrative region including the cities of Frankurt, Darmstadt, Offenbach, Wiesbaden, Bad Homburg, Hanau, Rüsselsheim, and so on. This administrative region is what corresponds best to the Frankfurt metro area.


Nope thats wrong. We had long discussions about this here already and the metro of Frankfurt is around 5,5 million.
the city proper corresponds to around 3,5 million.
Ive already stated that Darmstadt is officially an independant city but you wont realize it as theres no boundary whatsoever between both cities.
That apllies to other districts aswell.

From Wiki:



> Die engere Stadtregion hat etwa *1,8 Millionen *Einwohner, die Gesamtregion Frankfurt Rhein-Main über *5 Millionen Einwohner *- sie ist nach Rhein-Ruhr die zweitgrößte deutsche Metropolregion.


translation: the close city region has 1,8 million inhabitants, the Frankfurt Rhein-Main metro has over 5 million inhabitants.
After Rhein-Rhur, Rhein-Main is Germanys second biggest metropolitan agglomeration.  



And Frankfurt is known for its suburban sprawl. thats why you might find that other (smaller) cities are a bit denser populated.
On daytime Frankfurt is packed with businessmen who all leave the city after the work.
At nighttime Frankfurt looses quite a lot of its inhabitants.
It has a large belly of suburban sprawl where most people live who work in the city.
However those regions are officially not belonging to Frankfurt.


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## brisavoine (Mar 19, 2006)

GM said:


> People (outside France) tend to think of Paris as this beautiful cliché city for tourists, but they generally forget that Paris is also a real megacity in a full-developped country.





Lostboy said:


> Yes.
> 
> But this is what Paris promotes itself for, and perhaps with good reasoning, it is better for Paris to be seen as a cultural city than as a business one, even if it is quite clearly both.


I don't think that Paris promotes itself only for tourism and cultural things. Check this video clip released by the Greater Paris promotion agency. It was part of a promotion campaign on CNBC in 2005.
http://www.biomarchand.com/europinvest/FR/Document/Campagnes%20télévisées/campagne%20CNBC.mpg

You can also check this video clip shown on Qatar Airways flights in 2004 and promoting the Greater Paris real estate market. It was part of a campaign to attract investors from the Gulf.
http://www.europinvest-paris.info/FR/Document/Campagnes%20télévisées/paris_idf3.mpg


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## brisavoine (Mar 19, 2006)

Checker said:


> the city proper corresponds to around 3,5 million.


Look, you're free to believe whatever you want to believe. After all there are still some people who believe that the US never landed on the moon. In the real world, however, the city proper of Frankfurt (Gemeinde Frankfurt am Main) has a territory of 248 km² with only 648,325 inhabitants living in it. That's official figures from the statistical office of the State of Hesse:
http://www.statistik-hessen.de/themenauswahl/bevoelkerung-gebiet/regionaldaten/bevoelkerung-der-hessischen-gemeinden/default.htm.

Even the Frankfurt city hall's website recognize that:
"Die Mini-Metropole am Main ist nicht groß. Nur ca. 660.000 Frankfurterinnen und Frankfurter leben hier zwischen dem größten Stadtwald des Landes und dem Mittelgebirge Taunus." (source)
which means, for those who can't read German:
"The mini-metropolis on the Main [river] is not big. Only approx. 660,000 male and female Frankfurters live here, between the largest municipal forest of the State and the low-lying Taunus mountain range."


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## GNU (Nov 26, 2004)

brisavoine said:


> Look, you're free to believe whatever you want to believe. After all there are still some people who believe that the US never landed on the moon. In the real world, however, the city proper of Frankfurt (Gemeinde Frankfurt am Main) has a territory of 248 km² with only 648,325 inhabitants living in it. That's official figures from the statistical office of the State of Hesse:
> http://www.statistik-hessen.de/themenauswahl/bevoelkerung-gebiet/regionaldaten/bevoelkerung-der-hessischen-gemeinden/default.htm.
> 
> Even the Frankfurt city hall's website recognize that:
> ...


Ive never said that Frankfurt hasnt got around 600.000 officially.
Ive argued though that Frankfurts metro has more than 5 million.
And there are around 3,5 million people living in what would be the official city proper in other cities.


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## Kenwen (May 1, 2005)

SHiRO said:


> source?
> 
> And be sure we are comparing like for like here, so no PPP.


of course not ppp, the gdp of shanghai is already larger than singapore, not far from hk, since the growth of sh is over 20% nowaday


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## SHiRO (Feb 7, 2003)

Checker said:


> difficult question.
> Economically Frankfurt is probably on par with Paris imo. (Think about the ECB for exmaple)
> And if its behind then not by much.
> When we talk about companies then HK probably cant keep up with Frankfurt or Paris.
> ...


You are again someone who underestimates Paris. I even dare say it has more F500 companies then Frankfurt and HK combined (need to check that so hold on).

And Frankfurt metro at 5,5 million, can be, but it is a combined metro (Rhein-Main, not one enterly focussed on Frankfurt.


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## SHiRO (Feb 7, 2003)

Here you go:

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/2006/cities/

Not entirely accurate method* because they only view city proper (and I think they include La Defense with Paris!). But you get the idea. No Hong Kong in sight eventhough its metro area is equal to its "city proper". Don't know how many Frankfurt exactely would have if it did include the entire metro, but I doubt 27 or more.


(*Amsterdam for example is not on the list but it has 6 F500 companies in its metro area and it makes iirc the top 5 going by revenue).


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## spongeg (May 1, 2006)

I think a lot of it had to with the cold war and berlin being split up and so many restrictions being put on Germany after WW2 and only now - the wall only fell relatively a short time ago - can Berlin start to emerge


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## Justme (Sep 11, 2002)

LordChaos80 said:


> Yeah, but Big 4 is merely focused on economic power and influence. I am quite sure it´s only a question of time that Paris gets kicked by HK or SH. *Even Frankfurt is rivalling Paris nowadays*. What I was referring to was more the overall impression of a city: While Berlin or Munich are "just" nice (especially because of historical reliecs), HK is blowing one´s mind considering modernity and architecture...


I have to disagree there. Frankfurt has nothing over Paris. It maybe "technically" the most important financial hub in continental Europe due to the European Bank being based here, but outside of that it is a very mundane city of which Paris excels over in almost every regard.


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## Justme (Sep 11, 2002)

As for the population of Frankfurt, brisavoine is entirely correct in the city proper figure.

The metro area is a real confusing situation for Germany. One of the main problems is that Germany's definition of metropolitan area isn't directly related to commuter statistics like the international standard is.

The 5.2million figure for the Rhein Main is the closest equivalent to the U.S. C.M.S.A. which is in effect the larger metro area which has directly adjoining and related MA's connected. Where as the 3.8million (and confusingly named "Regierungsbezirk Darmstadt" - as Darmstadt is not the core, nor largerst urban center of the region) can be seen as the basic metropolitan area. However, keep in mind that the Regierungsbezirk Darmstadt area is even less associated with a proper metropolitan area as it is based on the State of Hessen. In other words, regardless of how much cross commuting contributes from interstate borders, the Regierungsbezirk Darmstadt will never include them, it only is relevant to Hessen population. And Frankfurt is located close to two other States after Hessen.

The Urban Area around Frankfurt is anywhere between 1.9million and 3million depending on how you count.

Rhein Main Metropolitan Area

German Metropolitan Regions

The question could be asked, which figure should be used? The Rhein Main which is the wider metropolitan figure, or the Regierungsbezirk Darmstadt, which is closer to a standard metropolitan figure in some ways, yet is State restricted so doesn't include all commuting area's? It's difficult to say, but most American's use the C.M.S.A. standard to define their cities metropolitan area's, so the Rhein Main is the closest here, but many European cities use the smaller Metropolitan Area to describe theirs.
There is unfortunately, no straight easy line to draw here.


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## great184 (Oct 7, 2005)

I kinda like how there is no "major" city in germany, major in the sense that it is a city where "everything" is in it. When i get to travel to Germany one day I would go to a lot of the cities rather than one (ex Berlin, Franfurt, etc.) as each city as its own unique cultural and historical identity which makes up the congloromate and wonderful country that is Germany


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## Küsel (Sep 16, 2004)

At least you have clearly defined Metropolitan areas! Italy doesn't even define agglomerations and in Switzerland you can find official numbers for agglomerations (Zurich: 1.1mio) and Metros (1.7mio) by the BfS, then the economical definition by Greater Zurich Area (3.2mio) and this year was pronounced to define a Metropolitanregion after the model of the German ones that include the whole region from Basel to Konstanz (similar to Rhein-Main) with about 3.8mio.


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## WotaN (Jun 15, 2004)

Because really large cities are difficult to govern, plan and develop. That's why Vienna around 1910 decided to let some suburbs be autonomous and therefore shrunk itself from about 2.2mln to some 1.7 mln inhabitants. Statistics claim that most 'livable and lovable' cities vary from 0.5 mln to 2.5 mln. Not many would like to live in Tokyo or Mexico.
In this subject I'd like to recommend a book: Leon Krier: Architecture - Choice or Fate. I really enjoyed reading it.


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## Küsel (Sep 16, 2004)

Thanks, sounds very interesting - is it related to Robert Ezra Park's human ecology and urbanism theories?


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## WotaN (Jun 15, 2004)

I don't know , haven't read Ezra. But it puts much pressure on dencetralisation and mono-zoning.


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## brisavoine (Mar 19, 2006)

SHiRO said:


> Here you go:
> 
> http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/2006/cities/
> 
> ...


Counting all Fortune 500 world headquarters within the four metro areas already mentioned, here are the results:
*- Greater Paris: 38* (Total, AXA, Crédit Agricole, Carrefour, BNP Paribas, Dexia, Peugeot, Société Générale, EDF, France Télécom, Suez, Renault, CNP Assurances, Saint-Gobain, EADS, Sanofi-Aventis, Groupe Caisse d'Épargne, Veolia Environnement, Bouygues, Foncière Euris, GDF, Vinci, Air France-KLM Group, SNCF, Vivendi, La Poste, PPR, Groupama, Lafarge, Christian Dior, L'Oréal, Alstom, Groupe Danone, Alcatel, Lagardère Groupe, Sodexho Alliance, Schneider Electric, AREVA)
*- Frankfurt Rhein Main metro area: 4* (Deutsche Bank, DZ Bank, Commerzbank, KFW Bankengruppe)
*- Shanghai: 2* (Baosteel Group, Shanghai Automotive)
*- Hong Kong: 1* (Hutchison Whampoa)


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## GNU (Nov 26, 2004)

brisavoine said:


> Counting all Fortune 500 world headquarters within the four metro areas already mentioned, here are the results:
> *- Greater Paris: 36* (Total, AXA, Crédit Agricole, Carrefour, BNP Paribas, Peugeot, Société Générale, EDF, France Télécom, Suez, Renault, CNP Assurances, Saint-Gobain, Sanofi-Aventis, Groupe Caisse d'Épargne, Veolia Environnement, Bouygues, Foncière Euris, GDF, Vinci, Air France-KLM Group, SNCF, Vivendi, La Poste, PPR, Groupama, Lafarge, Christian Dior, L'Oréal, Alstom, Groupe Danone, Alcatel, Lagardère Groupe, Sodexho Alliance, Schneider Electric, AREVA)
> *- Frankfurt Rhein Main metro area: 4* (Deutsche Bank, DZ Bank, Commerzbank, KFW Bankengruppe)
> *- Shanghai: 2* (Baosteel Group, Shanghai Automotive)
> *- Hong Kong: 1* (Hutchison Whampoa)


For starters the Forbes 500 list doesnt include any private companies.
So this comparison is not representative imo.


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## GNU (Nov 26, 2004)

Anyways this thread isnt about Paris, HongKong or whatever.
Which means that we should go back to topic.


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## brisavoine (Mar 19, 2006)

Checker said:


> For starters the Forbes 500 list doesnt include any private companies.


The list I gave is Fortune Global 500, it's not Forbes 500.


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## GNU (Nov 26, 2004)

brisavoine said:


> ?? You're joking, aren't you?


No. If you are talking about the worlds 500 biggest companies list, then Im not joking.


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## Poryaa (Sep 26, 2004)

> Originally Posted by Checker
> difficult question.
> Economically Frankfurt is probably on par with Paris imo. (Think about the ECB for exmaple)


You must be a high school graduate and blue collar.


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## GNU (Nov 26, 2004)

Poryaa said:


> You must be a high school graduate and blue collar.


Interesting theory.

But I guess that it hasnt got anything to do with the topic....


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## elfabyanos (Jun 18, 2006)

Mekky I see where you're coming from though, if you quadrupled Germany in every way so that it's population was the same as the US, the number and size of it's big cities would be similar. New York is the most influential, but financially the US has some important second cities like Chicago and to a lesser extent Houston, and culturally LA. That is similar in Germany, whereas London and Paris are more overwhelmingly the center of nearly everything in their countries.


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## vtower (Jan 31, 2006)

Unless it's well planned (like London and Paris), megacity is nothing more than messy and ugly. I believe that is why Germany lacks a megacity.


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## Justme (Sep 11, 2002)

brisavoine said:


> Look, if you claim that London has a combined metropolitan area population of 18 millions *(a figure reached by the GLA only by including Portsmouth, Southampton, Dover, Colchester, Oxford, and even, oh dear, the entire Isle of Wight!), then probably New York could claim a combined metropolitan area of 30 million including Philadelphia and Rhode Island, Los Angeles could claim a combined metropolitan area of 21 million including San Diego,*


Brisavoine, I quite respect your knowledge in this field, so I'm certainly not going to talk you down here. But I would like to point out the the US already uses such definitions called the combined metropolitan statistical area or C.M.S.A. This is different to the metropolitan statistical area or M.S.A. The C.M.S.A. of Los Angeles is the 17million figure. The 18million figure for London is the equivalent which uses NUT-3 statistical regions (which closely coincides with U.S. counties, particularly on the East Coast) and therefor excellent for direct comparison.



brisavoine said:


> In the real world, though, these figures are simply ludicrous claims, politically motivated at best. Since you're Dutch, why don't you write to the Geography department at the University of Utrecht and ask them what they think about your 18 million figure for London? Don't forget to post their answer...


Actually, it is the official release by the GLA (Government of London) that provided this figure, and details of how they defined their equivalent to the C.M.S.A.



brisavoine said:


> Problem is, nobody has ever applied that method to London or to any European city, except some wannabe forumers here who:
> a- are not statisticians, but only amateurs
> b- don't have access to the complex commuter data needed to make such calculations


Negative. This was released by the GLA. Information regarding the criteria used can be found in official documents WP9 and WP13 which can be obtained from the GLA. They were officially released by the office of the Mayor of London, The London development Agency and Transport for London.

These people are not amateurs.



brisavoine said:


> You'd rather not talk about subjects that you're not familiar with. This map from the GLA shows the area containing 18 million people which they claim to be the metropolitan region of London. As can be seen on the map, it includes the Isle of Wight, Dover, Southampton, Portsmouth, and many more. It's on p. 28 of the pdf (p. 42 of the document):


Actually, that map shows traffic movement for the whole of the South East and East, not the metropolitan area discussed. If you add up all the counties in those two regions plus London, you get 21million, not 18million. Obviously the extremities are not included in the Metropolitan Region discussed.

Now, if it were just some forumers here trying to claim such a thing, then we would certainly have a point of argument. However, these are official figures and statistics released by London's Government. 

It is also important to realise, that this is the equivalent of a C.M.S.A region, which is *combined* metropolitan Statistical area. It is a larger area than the Paris aire urbaine (Metropolitan Area) and should not be confused with it, however, it *does *follow the paths of U.S. C.M.S.A's and is a direct comparison. 

We must compare apples with apples, and oranges with oranges. One should compare a C.M.S.A. with another C.M.S.A.

I hope this helps


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## L8Hatter (Mar 11, 2005)

Purely out of interest, does the 18m figure for London include Luton and Milton Keynes?


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## Riton (Feb 8, 2006)

Justme said:


> Brisavoine, I quite respect your knowledge in this field, so I'm certainly not going to talk you down here. But I would like to point out the the US already uses such definitions called the combined metropolitan statistical area or C.M.S.A. This is different to the metropolitan statistical area or M.S.A. The C.M.S.A. of Los Angeles is the 17million figure. The 18million figure for London is the equivalent which uses NUT-3 statistical regions (which closely coincides with U.S. counties, particularly on the East Coast) and therefor excellent for direct comparison.


Hi Justme, I'm still curious though as to which NUTS-3 units are excluded in the extended London metropolitan region as defined by the GLA. Is there an official published list? In other words, which areas must be added up to get 18 milliion? Thanks.

Sorry guys for being off-topic here.


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## brisavoine (Mar 19, 2006)

L8Hatter said:


> Purely out of interest, does the 18m figure for London include Luton and Milton Keynes?


Yes, it includes Luton and Milton Keynes. It also includes such far-flung places as Cochester, Banbury, Oxford, Newbury, Porstmouth, Southampton, Newport on the Isle of Wight, Eastbourne, Dover, Canterbury, or Bognor Regis (Bognor Regis! for Christ's sake...).



Riton said:


> Hi Justme, I'm still curious though as to which NUTS-3 units are excluded in the extended London metropolitan region as defined by the GLA. Is there an official published list? In other words, which areas must be added up to get 18 milliion? Thanks.


In order to get that 18 million area defined by the GLA, you need to add Greater London plus the following ceremonial counties (all of them in their entirety):
- Essex
- Hertfordshire
- Bedfordshire
- Buckinghamshire
- Oxfordshire
- Berkshire
- Surrey
- Hampshire
- Isle of Wight
- West Sussex
- East Sussex
- Kent


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## Metropolitan (Sep 21, 2004)

This argument about a London metro area of 18 million people is totally childish. How a region wider than the Netherlands and not significantly more populated than this country could be considered as a metropolitan area ? This is totally beyond me.

*The Greater London Authority has NEVER stated that the London metro area represents 18 million people.*

It has claimed that London was *part* of a *metropolitan region* representing 18 million people.

A metropolitan region is a similar concept to what the INSEE defines as an "espace urbain" (urban space). The urban space of which Paris is part of represents 16 million people and is called "Grand Bassin Parisien" (Greater Paris region). This is by no mean a metro area, it simply groups cities which have a high connectivity between them.

I would never claim that the Paris metro area represents 16 million people despite this for the simple reason that cities such as Chartres, Rouen, Dreux or Orléans, which are all included in that figure, have all their own economical "gravity". If we start considering such wide groupings as metro areas, or even as CSA, then the whole concept becomes meaningless. Indeed, It would mean that the Southern Netherlands, a large part of Belgium, Northern France and Western Germany are altogether making a single CSA of more than 30 million people.

The fact that some people in the USA sum up their metro areas as being their CSA doesn't mean that we should do the same in Europe. Indeed, the USA is a very wide and sparsely populated country. As such, there are large empty spaces which gives a credibility to the concept of CSAs. In Europe, there are no such empty spaces... there's always some kind of "noise" made by secondary towns and villages. As a result, if you export that concept in Europe and say with no blinking that Beauvais is part of Paris metro and that Oxford is part of London metro, then you distort the truth... since you take advantage of the fact the European countryside is much more populated than the American countryside.

Now frankly, if it was only about me, I would believe that it would be more objective to consider American cities only in considering the MSAs, and not in considering their CSAs, which is much more a regional concept than an urban concept. Of course, Colchester or Reims are economically influenced by London and Paris metro areas. That's obvious, however, they are neither in the urban areas of those cities, nor in their commuter belts. They just share commuters, and their economical development is limited by those of London and Paris. As such, I fail to see what are the arguments to say Colchester is London or Reims is Paris. And since we can't say this, we cannot say London has 18 million people or Paris has 16 million people. That's a lie.


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## Justme (Sep 11, 2002)

Metropolitan said:


> This argument about a London metro area of 18 million people is totally childish. How a region wider than the Netherlands and not significantly more populated than this country could be considered as a metropolitan area ? This is totally beyond me.
> 
> *The Greater London Authority has NEVER stated that the London metro area represents 18 million people.*
> 
> ...


Actually, the US North East is pretty dense and comparable to Europe. And these C.M.S.A's work perfectly well there.

However, I do agree that we should compare apple's with apple's. In other words, I agree that the 18million Metropolitan Region of London should not be compared with the 11million aire urbaine of Paris. They are simply different statistics. And honestly, I havn't investigated the exact formula that makes up the espace urbain, but if it is equivalent to how C.M.S.A's are defined, then by all means, that is what it should be compared to.

But the point of this region is still extremely valid. If London or Paris was to compare with a U.S. C.M.S.A. then it would have to use the equivalent statistic. It would be wrong to compare London and Paris's M.S.A. with Los Angeles's C.M.S.A.

However, if we are comparing M.S.A's, then that is what we should use for all cities.

This whole argument came about, when someone suggested that LA's metro was bigger than London's because it had 17million vrs London's 12.5million. But that was technically incorrect. The 17million figure for LA was not the M.S.A. but the C.M.S.A. and the 18million figure for London was also the C.M.S.A. equivalent.

Now on a personal level, what we all consider the definition of a city is, is exactly that, purely personal. Some people only consider the political area of the city proper. German's especially - to them, the suburbs directly adjoining but outside the council area are NOT part of the city in any meaningful way, even if they are directly joined and 10minutes from downtown. Other cultures see the entire urban area, whilst others consider the metro area. 

But none of this is really what this thread is about.


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## Justme (Sep 11, 2002)

brisavoine said:


> Yes, it includes Luton and Milton Keynes. It also includes such far-flung places as Cochester, Banbury, Oxford, Newbury, Porstmouth, Southampton, Newport on the Isle of Wight, Eastbourne, Dover, Canterbury, or Bognor Regis (Bognor Regis! for Christ's sake...).
> 
> 
> In order to get that 18 million area defined by the GLA, you need to add Greater London plus the following ceremonial counties (all of them in their entirety):
> ...


No, this is not true. You can add up the populations yourself. But the method the GLA used, was to disect some of the further counties to not include all of them.

Full counties are:
Herts
Essex
East Sussex
West Sussex (incorporating Brighton and Hove)
Surrey
Berkshire
Bucks
Bedfordshire
(These include unitary authorities of Thurrock, Southend-on-Sea, Medway, Milton Keynes)

and parts of, *but not all of*
Hampshire
Kent
Cambridgeshire
Oxfordshire

To bring a total of 18.23million. This at least was what was explained to me when I wrote to the GLA requesting this information. It *does not* include such far flung parts of Hampshire and Kent, and certainly does not include the Ilse of Wight.

You can also write to the GLA, and they will most likely reply to you like they did to me.

Please try to understand, this is London's equivilent to a C.M.S.A.


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## delahaye (Mar 12, 2006)

speaking of population centres in europe:

I was just reading in the financial times that in a radius of 200km around paris and london there are 24 million people, while frankfurt has 35 million people within a 200km radius. düsseldorf has 40 million people, and maastricht in the netherlands has a whopping 50 million ppl in the 200km radius!


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## brisavoine (Mar 19, 2006)

delahaye said:


> speaking of population centres in europe:
> 
> I was just reading in the financial times that in a radius of 200km around paris and london there are 24 million people, while frankfurt has 35 million people within a 200km radius. düsseldorf has 40 million people, and maastricht in the netherlands has a whopping 50 million ppl in the 200km radius!


This is exactly why it makes no sense, in Europe, to use the North American concept of combined metropolitan areas, because in a dense environment, adding up territories will give enormous amounts of people but is completely meaningless. Can Maastricht claim to have a larger metro area than London simply because it has 50 million people in a 200 km radius when London has only 24 million? Of course not. The higher the population density, the more strict you have to be about metro area limits, otherwise you end up with crazy results. For example, in the great plain of northern China, the population density reaches a whopping 800 to 1,000 inhabitants per sq. km. If you take a radius of 200 km around, say, the village of Cuihou in Henan province, you'll find around 100 million people within this 200 km radius. Does it mean anything? No, it means nothing, except that the great plain of northern China is very dense indeed. Does it mean anything to say that London is part of a metropolitan region of 18 million people as large as the Nertherlands? No, it means nothing, except that England is very dense indeed.


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## brisavoine (Mar 19, 2006)

Justme said:


> Actually, the US North East is pretty dense and comparable to Europe.


You must be joking. The population density in England is 387 inh./km², in the Netherlands it is 393 inh./km², in West Germany it is 264 inh./km².
In the US Northeast, as defined by the US census bureau, the population density is only 131 inh./km².


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## SHiRO (Feb 7, 2003)

Justme you are a more patient man then I am...



As far as I'm concerned trolling a topic (and countless threads) to death should be outlawed here on SSC. Everyone can have an opinion about what is a city but to keep denying facts and adding misinformation after misinformation is just plain trolling. Especially in a thread with a very different topic. People like brisavoine and metropolitan should be ashamed of themselves.

-The GLA defines a metro area for London of 18 million people that is an equivalent to US CSA's *FACT*



All the misinformation and distortions brisavoine and Metropolitan have provided against this:

-This area is as large as the Netherlands - _no it's not, this area is 27,000 km² , the NL is 41,526 km²_
-The Isle of Wight etc are part of this area - _no it's not_
-If we accept London have an 18 million "metro area" then New York is 30 million - _no it's not because LDN is 18 million with the same method which gives New York 21 million - not hard to understand is it?_
-Maastricht should have a larger metro area then - _don't be a retard - the GLA number is defined with commuter statistics, you can't add up random population in a 200 km radius :|_

I don't even want to comment on the guy who said London's metro area is 8,5 million...:|



brisavoine, Metropolitan and co...please stop trolling...:sleepy:


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## SHiRO (Feb 7, 2003)

brisavoine said:


> You must be joking. The population density in England is 387 inh./km², in the Netherlands it is 393 inh./km², in West Germany it is 264 inh./km².
> In the US Northeast, as defined by the US census bureau, the population density is only 131 inh./km².


:sleepy:
Stop distorting the truth.
You know as well as anyone here that there is a huge area in the NE with similar densities to NW Europe. Who cares if that is not the whole of the US Census defined NE.


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