What is a big city?

[Zeffy]

Skyscrapers and the "hub/spoke" rule tend to weed them out. Incidentally, it keeps Newark NJ defined as a city instead of a suburb, which is very much true. (Though not a large city - population minimum and not "center of metro area")

What about Trenton or Camden? There are no skyscrapers in any of those cities, but they still are cities. I think that the actual size of the city (such as how much land the city uses in its limits) should help define a town vs. a city, but then the aforementioned features can define a city vs. a big city. And then you can go further and define a major city, but that's pushing it.

Also you said skyscrapers more than 10 stories tall - what is the minimum definition of a skyscraper? I would think 25+ stories would qualify, and even then it might qualify as just a high-rise.

[NE2]

Skyscrapers and the "hub/spoke" rule tend to weed them out. Incidentally, it keeps Newark NJ defined as a city instead of a suburb, which is very much true. (Though not a large city - population minimum and not "center of metro area")

I'd need to see a map with more colors and perhaps some more rigorous analysis, but Newark does seem to have a high prominence: http://www2.census.gov/geo/maps/dc10_thematic/2010_Profile/2010_Profile_Map_New_Jersey.pdf

[Alps]

Skyscrapers and the "hub/spoke" rule tend to weed them out. Incidentally, it keeps Newark NJ defined as a city instead of a suburb, which is very much true. (Though not a large city - population minimum and not "center of metro area")

What about Trenton or Camden? There are no skyscrapers in any of those cities, but they still are cities. I think that the actual size of the city (such as how much land the city uses in its limits) should help define a town vs. a city, but then the aforementioned features can define a city vs. a big city. And then you can go further and define a major city, but that's pushing it.

Also you said skyscrapers more than 10 stories tall - what is the minimum definition of a skyscraper? I would think 25+ stories would qualify, and even then it might qualify as just a high-rise.

Trenton and Camden are not LARGE cities. Camden was always second fiddle to Philadelphia, and it does have a few tall buildings near the waterfront, but it's not like Jersey City to NY with some legitimate high-risers. Camden is, however, a local hub for NB. Trenton actually isn't so much of a hub - it was chosen for its central location more than anything, the capital had been New Brunswick which is more of a hub. It's definitely a small city.

I'm not saying that a city can't be a city unless it meets one or more of my criteria. That's not today's topic.

[NE2]

4) Local transportation hub - roads and rail come into the city moreso than they bypass it (obviously almost all cities have some sort of bypass)

San Francisco says hi. Maybe you could argue that BART puts rail over the edge, but for normal rail Oakland is much more of a hub. Thanks, SF Bay!

[Urban Prairie Schooner]

It may be easier to classify metropolitan centersc into distinct categories by function. There will always be exceptions to the rules out there, so understand that these are broad-brush generalizations:

Major metropolitan centers - large, dense, urban cities with all the trappings of economic hubs: sports teams, corporate headquarters, center of a certain industry or industries (i.e. NYC with finance, SF with tech/internet, LA with entertainment/media), junction of two or more 2 digit interstates. Not all of these apply, but there should be a preponderance of them to qualify. Minimum population of 500K in city limits and/or 1 million in metropolitan area. Examples: NY, LA, Phoenix, Houston, Charlotte, Sacramento, Memphis, Miami, Atlanta, New Orleans, et al.

Secondary metropolitan centers - like the major centers but smaller, usually a minor league sport team or two, some smaller corporate HQs, located on an interstate (unless you happen to be Fresno ) City limit population of 250K/metro population of 1 million or less. Examples: Baton Rouge, Jackson MS, Birmingham, Colorado Springs, Knoxville, etc.

Satellite cities - large cities which are suburbs or adjacent to larger cities. Subcategories include former or current industrial centers (Newark, Camden, Gary, Long Beach, Joliet, Tacoma), historic centers past their prime/overshadowed by neighbors (Galveston) and megasuburbs (Mesa, Plano, Va. Beach, Naperville). Populations range from 100K to 300K.

Small metropolitan centers - no sports teams or corporate HQs, usually reliant on a single industry but slightly more diversified than smaller centers; often economically depressed unless reliant on a growing industrial sector, or if a university or tourist attraction is nearby. Populations 50K - 100K. Examples - Youngstown OH, Monroe LA, San Angelo TX, Asheville NC, Jackson TN, Macon GA. These cities can take on more importance in parts of the country where there are few larger metro centers, such as Montana or the Dakotas.

Regional centers - usually university towns or cities centered on some single industry (or even a single employer); also includes some state capitals. Should have at least one regional shopping center to qualify. These can range in population from 20K-50K. Examples: Hammond LA, Bloomington IN, Prescott AZ, Grand Junction CO.

[agentsteel53]

4) Local transportation hub - roads and rail come into the city moreso than they bypass it (obviously almost all cities have some sort of bypass)

San Francisco says hi. Maybe you could argue that BART puts rail over the edge, but for normal rail Oakland is much more of a hub. Thanks, SF Bay!

Scottsbluff, NE also says hi.  you like trains?  go to Scottsbluff.

[agentsteel53]

Someone living in New York City may consider Boston to be a punny little village (and will add in Red Sox Suck any chance they get).

People in New York don't really consider Boston much, period.

I'm from Boston, and lived there for 18 years, and I still don't consider it a city in the New York sense. 

[Duke87]

I'd probably set some minimum density, as well as prominence (in much the same way as topographic prominence is defined) to ward off suburbs.

Skyscrapers and the "hub/spoke" rule tend to weed them out. Incidentally, it keeps Newark NJ defined as a city instead of a suburb, which is very much true. (Though not a large city - population minimum and not "center of metro area")

Personally, my way of "warding off suburbs" is: if traveling from one population center to another does not involve passing through a rural area (farmland, forest, empty desert, whatever), then they are not independent from each other and one must be a suburb or satellite city of the other - or, less frequently, a twin city to the other. The exception is if the two metro areas are conjoined only by a small isthmus of suburbanism (this keeps NYC and Philadelphia separate, and prevents the likes of Hartford and Springfield from being considered satellites of NYC).

Newark is a city, certainly, but it is a satellite of New York, not a centerpoint in its own right.

I'm from Boston, and lived there for 18 years, and I still don't consider it a city in the New York sense. 

In what "sense" is this? I'm not sure I follow.

[golden eagle]

100000+, and not within 15 miles of one with at least twice its population (because then it would be a suburb).

I was pondering if suburbs can be considered big cities. But Mesa, AZ, has a population larger than cities like Atlanta, Miami and St. Louis, which many would consider major cities. I've concluded that it would be rather unfair to not call Mesa a big city. I wouldn't have an issue with them not be referred to as a major city. After all, no one flies into Mesa or go watch the Suns or Cardinals play in Mesa.

[NE2]

Mesa is a suburb of Phoenix. And its supposed downtown is suburban as hell.

[golden eagle]

Mesa is a suburb of Phoenix. And its supposed downtown is suburban as hell.

So even when it surpasses Tucson (not if, but when), Mesa can't be a big city?

[realjd]

My personal arbitrary cutoffs: a big city is any with a metro area over 1 million and a well defined urban core. A small city is any with a metro area under 500k or so and a well defined urban core. Under 100k and it becomes a large town.

I mention a well defined urban core because I don't consider nonsense suburban metro areas like Riverside, CA to be big cities.

[NE2]

Mesa is a suburb of Phoenix. And its supposed downtown is suburban as hell.

So even when it surpasses Tucson (not if, but when), Mesa can't be a big city?

Correct, unless they build a real downtown.

[froggie]

Are there big cities without pro sports teams? Austin, TX may be an example. Las Vegas is definitely one

Depending on how you define the region, the Hampton Roads area is 1.5 million without a pro sports team (a couple minor-league teams in baseball and hockey is all they got).

[english si]

1) Downtown with skyscrapers. They don't have to be 80 stories, but let's say more than 10 stories. I'm thinking of Charlotte as I write this. Otherwise it's just an average city at best.

This gets in the way of historic cities like London and Paris which are mostly mid-rise.

London, I guess, has picked up some clusters in the centre, especially in The City (though you can argue that the West End is the main CBD and The City just an auxiliary one, and the West End has only one or two skyscraper in its centre, and only a couple on the edge).

Paris proper has one non-residential, non-hotel skyscraper, and that is somewhat on the edge. It has an impressive residential cluster, though.

Of course, La Defense, and Canary Wharf are impressive skyscraper areas - but they are clearly not 'downtown', or even central.

I'd need to see a map with more colors and perhaps some more rigorous analysis, but Newark does seem to have a high prominence: http://www2.census.gov/geo/maps/dc10_thematic/2010_Profile/2010_Profile_Map_New_Jersey.pdf

Misses off the elephant across the Hudson.

[golden eagle]

Are there big cities without pro sports teams? Austin, TX may be an example. Las Vegas is definitely one

Depending on how you define the region, the Hampton Roads area is 1.5 million without a pro sports team (a couple minor-league teams in baseball and hockey is all they got).

Albuquerque, Tucson and El Paso are a few more cities without a pro team.

[1995hoo]

Are there big cities without pro sports teams? Austin, TX may be an example. Las Vegas is definitely one

Depending on how you define the region, the Hampton Roads area is 1.5 million without a pro sports team (a couple minor-league teams in baseball and hockey is all they got).

Albuquerque, Tucson and El Paso are a few more cities without a pro team.

Hartford as well, although of course they used to have a team (the Whalers) that moved to North Carolina in 1997. That's another one that depends on how you define the region, as froggie mentioned. I think the Census Bureau combines Hartford and Springfield into one area, while some other commentators view Hartford and New Haven as more of the relevant area.

I believe in terms of US metropolitan areas with no sports teams Las Vegas tops the list, while Austin tops the list if you restrict it to the actual city itself. (While it's not an issue as to Austin, for discussion purposes I would suggest that we're not talking about whether the team actually plays within the physical city limits versus whether the team is considered to represent that city. It's obviously pretty common for a team to play outside the city limits, such as the Dallas Cowboys, or even in another state....odd trivia: Only one NFL team plays in the State of New York.)

[J N Winkler]

Several years ago, I created a topic asking what constitutes a major city. In that topic, factors such as pro sports teams, major airports and newspaper circulations were mentioned. Now, I want know what criteria needs to be met to just simply be a big city. I'm sure the criteria isn't as stringent as being a major city. There would need to be a population minimum, but how much? In that case, can a suburb be a big city, and would they need to have a downtown with high-rise buildings? What others must there be to qualify?

I'd look to an extension of the global city concept since the various other criteria suggested have problems (population minimum needs to take account of suburbs; not all world cities have skyscrapers, and the ones that do frequently don't have them in central downtown locations; not all major cities have pro sports teams or local papers that are also newspapers of record; major airports are occasionally exurban in location).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_city

Global city status is essentially based on a holistic assessment of the city's regional, national, and international importance.  The Wikipedia article cited above reproduces several attempts at classifying cities by global importance; it strikes me that the GaWC study, which uses the Greek alphabet to express city rank, is probably the most nearly compatible with the criteria sought by the OP.  To take some examples which have already been cited in this thread, London and New York City are alpha double-plus, Paris is alpha-plus, Los Angeles is alpha, Boston is alpha-minus, Newark (NJ) is not listed at all, and Phoenix is gamma-plus.  Kansas City (not already mentioned, and probably the most important metropolitan area outside Texas that overlaps part of the frontier-states tier) is gamma-minus.  Southampton (UK) classifies as "High sufficiency," a ranking inferior to gamma-minus, while Las Vegas (Nevada) is at "Sufficiency," the next level down.

[DTComposer]

I created a ranking system that took into account:
-City proper population
-Metro area population (MSA, not CSA) and the city's role within that area (so secondary cities/suburbs of large metro areas wouldn't receive a deceptively high score)
-Ranally city ranking (city's business influence on a national level)
-GaWC ranking (city's business influence on a global level)

I scaled the scores so New York would be the benchmark at 80 points, and here's the top 50 (alphabetically within groups):

Group 1 (80 points): New York

Group 2 (50-56 points): Los Angeles, Chicago

Group 3 (35-39 points): Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Washington

Group 4 (22-26 points): Baltimore, Cleveland, Denver, Detroit, Minneapolis, Phoenix, San Diego, Seattle, St Louis

Group 5 (17-20 points): Charlotte, Cincinnati, Columbus, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, Portland, San Antonio, San Jose, Tampa

Group 6 (rest of top 50): Austin, Birmingham, Fort Worth, Hartford, Jacksonville, Las Vegas, Memphis, Nashville, New Orleans, Newark, Oakland, Oklahoma City, Orlando, Providence, Raleigh, Richmond, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, Tulsa

Admittedly, it's my arbitrary opinion of what to include in these rankings, but the scores did group themselves in a way that mostly makes sense to my eye.

[english si]

Newark (NJ) is not listed at all,
Southampton (UK) classifies as "High sufficiency,"

I'd imagine that this relates to prominence - both these cities are in close proximity to the most global cities in the world (though Southampton seems to be hitting above it's weight, as the most important one not on the greek scale and Reading, which I would consider somewhere just as important, isn't on the list, probably due to being overshadowed by London).

While I'd agree that the global city method is a good way of seeing a cities importance, the question is more about size.

Liverpool is a big city and feels like it - it has a full-on metro, it has grandeur from its days when the term 'world city' was invented for it and it just about trumped NYC for the second biggest city in the world. It is probably the one city in the UK, other than London, that has its own distinct culture. OK, its not a major city (which the OP says is higher up), and 'sustainable' seems a reasonable estimation of its current importance, but it is a big city.

My 'big' criteria would be as follows
- population: it has to actually be a big city
- prominence: able to not be seen as another city's suburbia
- commuters: lots travel from hinterland to the city for work, not many travel out
- connectivity: forms a regional hub on transport networks, people travel there to get to other places
- gravity: forms a hub in the region for retail, leisure, sports, nightlife, government stuff, etc
- grandeur: the feeling of importance and size coming from bustle, buildings, etc.

[cpzilliacus]

What about Tysons Corner, Virginia?

It is in unincorporated Fairfax County.

Has much more employment than many of the "real" cities mentioned above, and according to its Wikipedia article, is the 12th largest employment center in the United States.

IMO, it meets the gravity and grandeur tests mentioned by english si above.

Stands at the junction of an Interstate highway (I-495, Capital Beltway) and a major tolled freeway (Va. 267, Dulles Toll Road).

Will very soon have four Metro (heavy rail subway) stops.

[DTComposer]

What about Tysons Corner, Virginia?

It is in unincorporated Fairfax County.

Has much more employment than many of the "real" cities mentioned above, and according to its Wikipedia article, is the 12th largest employment center in the United States.

IMO, it meets the gravity and grandeur tests mentioned by english si above.

Stands at the junction of an Interstate highway (I-495, Capital Beltway) and a major tolled freeway (Va. 267, Dulles Toll Road).

Will very soon have four Metro (heavy rail subway) stops.

Except it fails the first two criteria he listed: not only is the resident population barely 20,000; it isn't incorporated, and according to the Wikipedia article, wasn't even an acceptable city name for USPS purposes until recently.

And as far as prominence goes, it most definitely is seen as a suburb (or at best, an edge city) of Washington.

[berberry]

Or look at it another way, maybe any metro area with a million people or more is 'big'.  I think the US has over 50 of those.

Big 3 would be New York, Chicago, and LA, top 10 ads Houston, Atlanta, Minneapolis/St. Paul, etc.
Omaha metro is just shy of a million and is IIRC around #60 or so in DMA size.

Chicago and Houston are pretty darned close in population, aren't they?  I seem to remember they've swapped the No. 3 position, after NYC and LA, a few times over the decades.

In my own mind, I've always thought of major cities, generically, as being those Top 10 metros.  In geopolitics, a major city would also be one where a major stock exchange, central government bank and/or seat of major government is located, so I think even a small city can be considered a major city.  Also, to me, a large city (New Orleans, Birmingham) has metro pop one million or more.  A medium city 500k or more (Baton Rouge, Jackson, Little Rock), plain old city 100k or more (Hattiesburg, Shreveport) and anything less is a small city or town.

[Pete from Boston]

Or look at it another way, maybe any metro area with a million people or more is 'big'.  I think the US has over 50 of those.

Big 3 would be New York, Chicago, and LA, top 10 ads Houston, Atlanta, Minneapolis/St. Paul, etc.
Omaha metro is just shy of a million and is IIRC around #60 or so in DMA size.

Chicago and Houston are pretty darned close in population, aren't they?  I seem to remember they've swapped the No. 3 position, after NYC and LA, a few times over the decades.

I would be very surprised if they have.  Even with a substantial comparative growth lag, Chicago is still 25% larger than Houston.  both Houston and Dallas metros, which are close in size, are several million smaller than Greater Chicago.

[froggie]

Except it fails the first two criteria he listed: not only is the resident population barely 20,000; it isn't incorporated, and according to the Wikipedia article, wasn't even an acceptable city name for USPS purposes until recently.

And as far as prominence goes, it most definitely is seen as a suburb (or at best, an edge city) of Washington.

And aside from retail, it doesn't really meet gravity either...