Quote:
Originally Posted by Crawford
I never referred to the City of London, which is also not an apples-to-apples comparison.
There is no apples-to-apples comparison with NYC. The City of London would be a silly comparison, and Greater London would be a silly comparison. One is essentially a neighborhood, and the other is a metropolitan governing structure.
I agree that Greater London is a less silly comparison, but still not reasonable. Half of Greater London is suburban or semi-rural, and it is legally a region, not a city. 9% of Greater London is farmland.
IMO the most reasonable comparison is metro-to-metro, so at least you can form some rough analogy. Most people peg London's MSA/CSA in the 12-16 million range or thereabouts, so it's extremely unlikely, even discounting Brexit, to assume a doubling of population in our lifetimes, while other metro areas around the world stagnate.
But, given that Brexit is a reality, it would be extremely foolish to assume London's incredible recent growth would continue. As everyone knows, its bedrock industry will disperse somewhat and its immigrant flows will be restricted and the UK is untethered from Europe. London basically grows because of financial services and immigration. Its growth rates going forward will probably be slow and steady, like on the Continent, as its advantages have been eliminated.
|
I don't agree with this at all. Greater London is a "metropolitan governing structure" in the same way that New York City is a "metropolitan governing structure". It just amalgamated later and took in more suburban areas. I mean let's be honest, Staten Island is just as suburban as anywhere in outer London and has huge swaths of open space.
You can never have an "apples-to-apples" comparison of cities if what you demand is that they have the same physical extent.
Anyway, like I said, London is bound to be more populous because it's bigger (and a real city, as opposed to similarly sized Houston), but metro London won't surpass metro NYC.