Metro Population Growth Stats - US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by chris08876

One country that I have been too a lot is Spain, and some cities feel massive, yet they only have 400 to 800k people. Even 100k sometimes feels way bigger than it really is on paper.

Spain has the best cities, pound for pound, of any place I've ever been to.

A lot of their hustle and bustle has to do with cultural things that are difficult to integrate into American society. For example, Spaniards organize their day totally differently and have extremely late dinners. It's not unusual to see families with small children finishing off their dinner in a public square at 11pm. The fact that it isn't just singles and couples aged 21-40 out at nighttime means a place like Seville, population 1.2 million, has a nightlife that feels like the Lower East Side on a Friday night.

[dc_denizen]

^ exactly. spain is not all of europe. go to Finland or Sweden or Northern Germany...not the same kind of outdoor dining culture.

part of the issue is just the size of the US vs individual European countries. A metro with 250,000 people in a European country of 5 million might be the second largest city (in a country with its own language, culture etc). this city will possess cultural amenities that go with its status (music studios; TV and movie production; national government institutions, universities etc). In the US, these features are going to be concentrated in the second largest city (chicago/LA) rather than in South Bend or wherever other 250,000-person metro.

Also partially as a result, in the US, the largest cities are just bigger than in Europe. New York feels much bigger than any European city. LA and Chicago are huge, with multiple active centers. The amount of activity leached from the rest of the country (and from smaller places) appears in the larger centers, increasing their production of said cultural amenities per capita compared to the smaller urban areas.

Next, Europe lacks the phenomenon of retirees flocking to live full time in sunny climates. this itself has consequences (older people like to drive, are politically right wing, etc) for places like Florida and Arizona.

[Jonesy55]

There are plenty of North European retirees in coastal mainland Spain, Balearics, Canaries etc, Portugal's Algarve too and smaller numbers in Greek islands, parts of Italy and Croatia, or South Coast of France (for the rich). Even within the UK retirees flock to relatively sunny parts of the South Coast of England, West Wales etc rather than stay in the cities where they spent their working years and i guess other European countries also have similar domestic spots favoured by retirees. Maybe not to the same concentrations as parts of Florida but you are still talking a few million people across Europe as whole.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Spain has the best cities, pound for pound, of any place I've ever been to.

I would agree, with Italy and France next in line.

Spain has a bunch of problems, but not with urban form. Their cities are basically all fantastic. And almost no SFH in urban areas.

[Jonesy55]

^^ Except in those recently built coastal communities housing lots of North European retirees where you will find a lot of detached villa type houses.

But yeah, traditional Spanish urban areas are very dense, even small ones, with the model of 5-6 floor apartment buildings hosting retail at the ground floor level often extending pretty much all the way from the centre right to the edge of the built up area. In the Basque Country I found even small towns of 10,000 people would usually be like that.

You do however often also get big box type hypermarkets, home improvement stores etc at the outer edges of urban areas though France has a lot more of that, I think they are the edge of town big box kings of all the European countries I've been to.

[johnnypd]

The density of Spanish cities often makes them look about five to ten times bigger than they actually are. The centre of Oviedo, population 220,000, could easily be that of a 2 million plus conurbation.

However, many Spanish cities are quite ugly. Inner city housing blocks can sometimes look poorly designed, bleak and oppressive. Italian cities deliver similar densities but are much prettier and more historic (though they often look on the verge of ruin).

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by johnnypd

The density of Spanish cities often makes them look about five to ten times bigger than they actually are. The centre of Oviedo, population 220,000, could easily be that of a 2 million plus conurbation.

However, many Spanish cities are quite ugly. Inner city housing blocks can sometimes look poorly designed, bleak and oppressive. Italian cities deliver similar densities but are much prettier and more historic (though they often look on the verge of ruin).

It's true that those endless rows of red brick apartment buildings in the suburbs can look bleak and certainly don't hide Spain's working class poverty. On the other hand, they usually have bars, restaurants and stores for the locals, and they're reasonably lively.

The historic parts of Italy's cities are terrific, but Italy is let down somewhat by a lack of upkeep and also just how badly cars creep into their public realm. Spanish cities are much more tidy and they've done a good job at keeping delivery trucks and cars out of the way. In Rome there are some piazzas that might be some of the nicest spaces in the world, except that the Romans use them as parking lots. Italy has one of the highest car ownership rates in the world, and it shows.

[dc_denizen]

another thing - the streetcar suburban cities that IMO represent the best of American urbanism, eg Los Angeles and Portland and Denver and many others, have a linear concentration of activity along commercial streets. there is no equivalent in Europe, for example, to Milwaukee Avenue in Chicago or Hawthorne St in Portland, with a long series of office/stores/residences surrounded by dense single family housing. European cities have more of a circular concentration of activity centered around downtown.



(credit: Segun, I believe)

[10023]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

another thing - the streetcar suburban cities that IMO represent the best of American urbanism, eg Los Angeles and Portland and Denver and many others, have a linear concentration of activity along commercial streets. there is no equivalent in Europe, for example, to Milwaukee Avenue in Chicago or Hawthorne St in Portland, with a long series of office/stores/residences surrounded by dense single family housing. European cities have more of a circular concentration of activity centered around downtown.



(credit: Segun, I believe)

This is inaccurate. London's principal roads are exactly the same. High streets are long chains of commercial activity surrounded by residential neighborhoods with mid/high density. And it's the same 5 miles from the center as it is a mile from the center.

[muppet]

^ I was just about to say, that's exactly like most of Europe.

[10023]

If anything, American cities have MUCH more of a centralized built environment. Downtown is a cluster of skyscrapers, and depending on the size of the city, one very quickly finds themselves in a suburban neighborhood of single family homes.

[mhays]

Europe is FULL of high streets all over basically every city I've been to. Pound for pound, these are far busier than their US equivalents with few exceptions. dc_denizen, have you not actually traveled?

[The North One]

The biggest issue with US cities is that we need to fucking put a lid on suburban sprawl, and there is still no real movement for this.

Suburban sprawl literally ruined this country, totally fucked us up.

[mhays]

Many cities have put restrictions on sprawl. The specifics and "tightness" of the limits vary. But speaking for my city, it's done a lot of good.

[muppet]

This is my hometown, just outside London, with a population of 30,000. I used to work in that castle, and US tourists would ask where in the 'city' would be a good place to
eat/ etc. Took me a while to realise it was because they were unused to the constant crowds of the High Street, the river district, nightlife area, and train terminals to
London combined with the deluge of visitors to the castle, from which you could see down the main shopping streets, and assumed the buzz was from a much larger place
than it was.

Our town had 50 restaurants (from Korean to French to Tex Mex to Malaysian to Turkish to Angolan to Kobe to Indian celebrity chefs to German bakeries, to posh Polish ),
60 bars & pubs, a zillion cafes, 4 nightclubs and even 2 gay DJ bars, a celebrity haunt, and an awful upmarket strip bar, all was crowded each day and night of the week.
It had two mainline train stations, a large and historic department store, 2 shopping centres (open air), a football stadium (er...okay a terrace), 3 sports complexes, a
historic theatre, an arts centre (in a converted fire station), two cathedral sized chapels, several large hotels, a funfair /skating rink, big theme park, horse racing grounds,
an arts/boho district, 3 markets, 2 Old Towns, 2 hospitals and 2 army barracks. Every now and then there was even a big fuck off music festival, plus a carnival, half
marathon, santa run, night market, farmers market, German Xmas market, horse show, car show, dog show, soldier show, boat race(s) and fireworks bonanzas.
Nightlife got so big they even started doing specific nightclubs (read: daytime) for 1,500 children (12-15 year olds dressing like adults with no alcohol sold).






www.windsor.gov.uk, www.geograph,org

http://www.shanlyhomes.com


When I think back on it now, it was even impressive for Europe, but back then it was a norm. Basically our little town was normal for SE England, but went that extra mile in
the nightlife options, thanks to its proximity to another town (pop 130,000) that was so dire their inhabitants chose to party in ours than theirs. Thus although our
population was 30,000 our catchment was 140,000 - 270,000. This is symptomatic with much of SE England, everyone swaps around the local towns thanks to the
proximity afforded by the 'Green Belts' (not really a belt but a mass of disparate towns and villages in a dense peppering at densities higher than NYC metro, across
47 million people). All the town centres thus share their populations.



http://www.windsorexpress.co.uk/news...-to-build.html


https://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/2...royal-windsor/


www.windsor.gov.uk




events:


http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/win...-festival.html



http://i.dailymail.co.uk

Nightlife/ drinking holes:





https://cdn-az.allevents.in





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vU3i_KJ4z4, www.thescotchbar.co.uk


However, I went back about 7 years ago, and the nightlife had died en masse. I've never been able to work out why. The place itself was great, but the people a godawful
mix of snobs and chavs. The kind of place Elton John, Daniel Craig, Alex Pettyfer and Pixie Lott live in/ came from but also where council estate riots as recent as the 00s
happened. For all it's cosmopolitan credentials it's still one of the most socially divided places in SE England - a suburb in all but form. This is semi-pretty small town Europe.

However my hometown stands out from the norm as it was a royal town, thus attracting many of the elite, but also was surrounded by army estates and barracks. This was a
potent mix when I was growing up - one of the few places in the south where class and race correlated on hierarchical lines, right on the doorstep of London metro's highest
minority majority ward (80% Pakistani in the next town 5 miles away). Although much improved now (dare I say it, almost nonexistent?) in my generation there was pretty
much an undeclared silent race war, and prejudice was legion - at school, at work, on the street, out at night, and inverse racism likewise. But that was when I was growing
up. Nowadays things have gotten so expensive the poor have been mostly pushed out entirely. = no social problems then wa-hey!.



https://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/fl...or/perrycroft/


https://www.flickr.com/photos/synx508/8252037791

[Centropolis]

joyeux 14 juillet!

fuck the queen.

[dc_denizen]

Originally Posted by muppet

^ I was just about to say, that's exactly like most of Europe.

you think northern Europe or Germany or France have 5-7 mile long commercial streets surrounded by dense single family homes??

I am just making the point that the density in the US is more linear. Not controversial.

milwaukee avenue

central LA

[dc_denizen]

Originally Posted by mhays

Europe is FULL of high streets all over basically every city I've been to. Pound for pound, these are far busier than their US equivalents with few exceptions. dc_denizen, have you not actually traveled?

of course I have. maybe you should try to understand the point that I'm trying to make re: linearity vs concentrated nodes.

Places like London, while they have high streets, don't funnel activity to major blvds in such a linear way as US cities do. you have residential/commercial uses mixed to a greater degree, and you don't have such a standard street grid as in the US.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

you think northern Europe or Germany or France have 5-7 mile long commercial streets surrounded by dense single family homes??

Berlin would qualify. There are many commercial corridors going for miles, then a few blocks of multifamily, then SFH. This is only in West Berlin (the commies didn't build SFH), but appears to be a pretty typical setup.

And I can think of major corridors in Munich, Cologne and Hamburg that aren't dissimilar.

The U.S. is probably more "linear" because linear growth is a product of autocentric design. Autocentricity concentrates development along isolated corridors, with strict zoning and separation of uses. European development is older and more organic.

[johnnypd]

The US does those linear inner city suburbs built to a grid really well, with good quality, spacious housing either side of a commercial strip. Often the Downtown area can be a little underwhelming, especially when you see the impressive skylines but on the ground they can be somewhat quiet and lacking in real activity or character. But then you have the really livable, interesting areas outside of that. I'd imagine the typology is derived from the British high street, with the difference that in the US the roads are longer and straighter. I think on here there's a bit of an inferiority complex about US cities and yes they have problems, have been impacted by the car, white flight, decay and so on. But personally I'd rather live in inner Chicago than say, the equivalent neighbourhood in Madrid.