Kinston's downtown looks bigger than Greenville (NC)'s.
Asheville's downtown looks bigger than Fayetteville's and Greenville (NC)'s.
Cary has a tiny downtown, but the Fenton development and the redevelopment of the mall (Cary Towne Center) there will be a huge game changer for there.
Norfolk's downtown looks MUCH bigger than Chesapeake.
Atlanta's downtown looks MUCH bigger than Charlotte and Raleigh's.
Peoria Illinois. Probably because of Caterpillar.
Ithaca, NY is smaller then Utica, but the downtown feels bigger as the former is home to Cornell.
Probably almost every major mining town that still has a population. Example; downtown Sonora, CA gives the impression it is far larger than a city of 5,000 residents.
On the small end I think Galena IL. A tourist weekend destination. Only 3000. Also Hannibal MO.
Then there are those that have declined but have evidence of a larger past. Dallas City Illinois.
Richmond, Philadelphia, and Atlanta are older cities as well. That's probably why you see taller buildings there.
Bellevue, WA has a pretty monstrous downtown but the city itself is merely the fifth largest city in the state, still well behind Tacoma (which has a smaller, shorter, quieter downtown in comparison) and only just ahead of Kent, which has almost no downtown to speak of apart from a shopping center.
This is due, at least in part, to the city being totally surrounded by Kirkland, Redmond, Issaquah, and Newcastle, and none of their borders are more than 15 minutes drive from downtown. So the growth has primarily been vertical and dense infill. Such growth has been driven by the city being a focus for various corporations (Valve, Bungie, Microsoft, Amazon, Symetra, Eddie Bauer, OfferUp, T-Mobile, Expedia, etc), with many of the taller buildings downtown containing office space in addition to residential units.
Quote from: jakeroot on February 12, 2022, 04:31:29 PM
Bellevue, WA has a pretty monstrous downtown but the city itself is merely the fifth largest city in the state, still well behind Tacoma (which has a smaller, shorter, quieter downtown in comparison) and only just ahead of Kent, which has almost no downtown to speak of apart from a shopping center.
This is due, at least in part, to the city being totally surrounded by Kirkland, Redmond, Issaquah, and Newcastle, and none of their borders are more than 15 minutes drive from downtown. So the growth has primarily been vertical and dense infill. Such growth has been driven by the city being a focus for various corporations (Valve, Bungie, Microsoft, Amazon, Symetra, Eddie Bauer, OfferUp, T-Mobile, Expedia, etc), with many of the taller buildings downtown containing office space in addition to residential units.
Yeah, Bellevue really punches above its weight. Now that it will have some 600-foot towers to break up the plateau, the skyline should look real good.
(https://i.imgur.com/EtbpDa0.png)
The older the town and more importantly, the bigger it was a century ago, the more developed its downtown will be. Example: Prosper has really no "downtown" to speak of even though it's more than 100 years old, but that's because it was no more than a village. Frisco, a far more significant town 100 years ago, has a larger, fully developed "city center" as it calls it, as does Plano. Newer towns like Fairview and Lucas have no city centers to speak of and have had to develop centers of commerce out of whole cloth.
Quote from: tolbs17 on February 12, 2022, 09:29:10 AM
Atlanta's downtown looks MUCH bigger than Charlotte and Raleigh's.
Atlanta has been a big city for longer than Charlotte and Raleigh have, but I think the bigger factor here is that a tremendous amount of the Atlanta metro's population does not live in Atlanta proper, so the city population is not really a good number to use to compare. As a first order approximation, check out out the proportion of each city's census-defined metropolitan area that lives in the city proper:
City | City population | MSA population | Percentage of MSA in city proper |
Raleigh NC | 467,665 | 1,413,982 | 33.07% |
Charlotte NC | 874,579 | 2,660,329 | 32.87% |
Atlanta GA | 498,715 | 6,089,815 | 8.19% |
While I don't always like using MSAs for stuff like this, the point is that there are a crapload of suburbs with a huge chunk of the regional population around Atlanta that don't really exist on the same scale in Charlotte or Raleigh.
A ton of Midwest cities have skylines that would give me the impression that it's a bigger city than most of the numerically larger cities in the south. Pittsburgh is a good example for this. It makes more sense when looking at MSA populations though.
I have always thought that Detroit has a rather small downtown for a city of it's size. Lansing's downtown makes the city appear larger than it is, so does Ann Arbor. Grand Rapids has a downtown that is pretty close to the same as Detroit's downtown but not as tall of buildings.
Huntsville, AL has an unimpressive downtown for a city its size. But then again, annexation has played a role in its population.
Quote from: golden eagle on February 13, 2022, 01:49:07 PM
Huntsville, AL has an unimpressive downtown for a city its size. But then again, annexation has played a role in its population.
and its now the largest city in Alabama...
Youngstown, OH.
Clayton, MO. It's the county seat for St Louis County (which doesn't include St Louis City). It only has 17,355 according to the latest census, but STC has about a million residents. This is the downtown.
(https://explorestlouis.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/ClaytonAerial.jpg)
White Plains, NY where my Dad worked has a bunch of high rises but less than 60,000 residents.
Quote from: tolbs17 on February 13, 2022, 03:00:53 PM
Quote from: JayhawkCO on February 13, 2022, 02:49:12 PM
Youngstown, OH.
Again also an old city.
The most obvious examples are rust belt cities. What do you want then, more cities in North Carolina (or the south in general) as examples?
Quote from: SkyPesos on February 13, 2022, 03:02:21 PM
Quote from: tolbs17 on February 13, 2022, 03:00:53 PM
Quote from: JayhawkCO on February 13, 2022, 02:49:12 PM
Youngstown, OH.
Again also an old city.
The most obvious examples are rust belt cities. What do you want then, more cities in North Carolina (or the south in general) as examples?
Other than Kinston and Greenville, yes. Btw take a look at Asheville.
Quote from: tolbs17 on February 13, 2022, 03:03:52 PM
Quote from: SkyPesos on February 13, 2022, 03:02:21 PM
Quote from: tolbs17 on February 13, 2022, 03:00:53 PM
Quote from: JayhawkCO on February 13, 2022, 02:49:12 PM
Youngstown, OH.
Again also an old city.
The most obvious examples are rust belt cities. What do you want then, more cities in North Carolina (or the south in general) as examples?
Other than Kinston and Greenville, yes. Btw take a look at Asheville.
Tolbs IRL:
Bartlesville, Oklahoma. Its population is 37,290 as of 2020, yet it has seven 10+ floor buildings and as such its skyline resembles that of a larger city due to the presence of ConocoPhillips and its predecessors. The tallest building is the former headquarters of ConocoPhillips, standing at 292 feet tall (data from Emporis).
Quote from: ozarkman417 on February 13, 2022, 03:26:30 PM
Bartlesville, Oklahoma. Its population is 37,290 as of 2020, yet it has seven 10+ floor buildings and as such its skyline resembles that of a larger city due to the presence of ConocoPhillips and its predecessors. The tallest building is the former headquarters of ConocoPhillips, standing at 292 feet tall (data from Emporis).
Suggested Categories of Oversized Downtown
Small City Big Metros:
Atlanta
Pittsburgh
Shrinkage:
Youngstown
Buffalo
Company Town:
Bartlesville, OK
Rochester, MN
Suburban Edge City:
Bellevue, WA
Clayton, MO
Quote from: westerninterloper on February 13, 2022, 05:35:29 PM
Suburban Edge City:
Bellevue, WA
Clayton, MO
Some NYC and DC suburbs could also be placed in this category
NYC suburbs:
White Plains, Jersey City
DC suburbs:
Bethesda, Arlington (specifically Crystal City), Tysons
A California example:
Sacramento has a much more robust downtown than Fresno, even though Fresno's city proper has more people than Sacramento's (525K vs. 500K in recent estimates). (Sacramento also has I-5 and I-80, while I-5 was rerouted away from following today's 99 through Fresno between 1957-1958 in favor of the West Side Freeway routing)
- Sacramento's importance as the state capital and as one of California's first major cities in the 1850s are massive factors here. Fresno's major period of growth has been after 1970. (Fresno has never been seriously considered for major pro sports, while the Sacramento Kings have been in town since 1985 - albeit with a period 2009-2013 where their future in the city was questionable)
- Sacramento also is surrounded by many unincorporated suburbs that have resisted annexation from Sac itself (Arden-Arcade in particular) that still use Sacramento mailing addresses confusingly enough. This makes the entire concept of the city seem far larger than the official city proper numbers
---
In the Bay Area, San Jose has a modest downtown while Oakland has a few taller buildings, even though Oakland now has a population of just 425K while San Jose has 1.028 million.
- San Jose's downtown is height-restricted due to the airport being close by, and much of SJ's growth has been through sprawl. Oakland is entirely surrounded by older locales such as Berkeley
- Oakland was a much more important industrial center in the 1940s-1960s period, which led to them getting teams in all four major pro sports at one point (of which the A's are now the last one remaining).
- The Silicon Valley's massive growth is primarily 1980s-present, and some of the major companies out there are in San Jose suburbs instead of the core city (i.e. Apple in Cupertino)
- BART was primarily designed with Oakland as its core area, while San Jose only received its first BART station during the pandemic (after at least 30+ years of planning).
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on February 12, 2022, 10:41:53 AM
Probably almost every major mining town that still has a population. Example; downtown Sonora, CA gives the impression it is far larger than a city of 5,000 residents.
Calumet, MI gave me that same feeling.
Quote from: TheHighwayMan394 on February 13, 2022, 07:49:03 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on February 12, 2022, 10:41:53 AM
Probably almost every major mining town that still has a population. Example; downtown Sonora, CA gives the impression it is far larger than a city of 5,000 residents.
Calumet, MI gave me that same feeling.
Laurium, Lake Linden, Hubbel and Dollar Bay too in the immediate area.
The city of Cambridge, MA has a very impressive skyline for a city its size. Given that it’s home to MIT and Harvard, two Ivy League Schools, the buildings of MIT make the skyline almost as big as Boston’s. The city has also built new apartments, making it feel even larger that that. Even with all that and a gigantic downtown area, it still only has 118K people.
Quote from: tolbs17 on February 13, 2022, 01:58:11 PM
Quote from: golden eagle on February 13, 2022, 01:49:07 PM
Huntsville, AL has an unimpressive downtown for a city its size. But then again, annexation has played a role in its population.
and its now the largest city in Alabama...
Yep. It was only a matter time since other larger Alabama cities were dropping or barely rising.
Quote from: BlueOutback7 on February 13, 2022, 08:39:18 PM
The city of Cambridge, MA has a very impressive skyline for a city its size. Given that it's home to MIT and Harvard, two Ivy League Schools, the buildings of MIT make the skyline almost as big as Boston's. The city has also built new apartments, making it feel even larger that that. Even with all that and a gigantic downtown area, it still only has 118K people.
I don't know. Cambridge's skyline is on par with Syracuse, NY's, which is roughly a similarly sized city. Harvard and MIT have little to do with the taller buildings that make up Cambridge's skyline.
Evidence of Wilson's downtown looking bigger than Greenville until they were destroyed to make room for low-rise mixed use development. I wish I could have fixed up those buildings instead of them imploding them. They were perfect for the skyline!!!
https://www.wral.com/former-bb-t-offices-in-wilson-imploded/19436176/
Little Rock's downtown is huge even though their population is just 200,000.
Quote from: BlueOutback7 on February 13, 2022, 08:39:18 PM
The city of Cambridge, MA has a very impressive skyline for a city its size. Given that it's home to MIT and Harvard, two Ivy League Schools, the buildings of MIT make the skyline almost as big as Boston's. The city has also built new apartments, making it feel even larger that that. Even with all that and a gigantic downtown area, it still only has 118K people.
MIT isn't in the Ivy League.
Quote from: TheStranger on February 13, 2022, 06:17:41 PM
A California example:
Sacramento has a much more robust downtown than Fresno, even though Fresno's city proper has more people than Sacramento's (525K vs. 500K in recent estimates). (Sacramento also has I-5 and I-80, while I-5 was rerouted away from following today's 99 through Fresno between 1957-1958 in favor of the West Side Freeway routing)
- Sacramento's importance as the state capital and as one of California's first major cities in the 1850s are massive factors here. Fresno's major period of growth has been after 1970. (Fresno has never been seriously considered for major pro sports, while the Sacramento Kings have been in town since 1985 - albeit with a period 2009-2013 where their future in the city was questionable)
- Sacramento also is surrounded by many unincorporated suburbs that have resisted annexation from Sac itself (Arden-Arcade in particular) that still use Sacramento mailing addresses confusingly enough. This makes the entire concept of the city seem far larger than the official city proper numbers
---
In the Bay Area, San Jose has a modest downtown while Oakland has a few taller buildings, even though Oakland now has a population of just 425K while San Jose has 1.028 million.
- San Jose's downtown is height-restricted due to the airport being close by, and much of SJ's growth has been through sprawl. Oakland is entirely surrounded by older locales such as Berkeley
- Oakland was a much more important industrial center in the 1940s-1960s period, which led to them getting teams in all four major pro sports at one point (of which the A's are now the last one remaining).
- The Silicon Valley's massive growth is primarily 1980s-present, and some of the major companies out there are in San Jose suburbs instead of the core city (i.e. Apple in Cupertino)
- BART was primarily designed with Oakland as its core area, while San Jose only received its first BART station during the pandemic (after at least 30+ years of planning).
San Francisco is also on this list its official population is at 874k in the 2020 census but the city implies that its the center of the Bay Area given the tall buildings in the Financial District and SOMA. However as mentioned in this thread San Jose is officially the largest city in Northern California.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco)
In the case of Sacramento its suburban sprawl goes all the way to Solano County like Vacaville and Dixon given that parts of Solano County is inside the Sacramento Valley and the other half of Solano County where Benicia and Vallejo are are listed as being in the Bay Area.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makati
Here is a Philippines Example. Makati City has a population of 625K but its downtown area seems to imply that Makati City is the biggest city in the Philippines due to where major financial services have their main offices located.
However Manila City Proper has a population of 1.8 Million People and the official largest city in the Philippines Quezon City has a population of 2.9 Million as of 2022.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quezon_City
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manila
Surprised nobody's mentioned Yellowknife yet. Very large skyline for a town of its remoteness and size.
When I was in high school, I traveled through Brattleboro, Vt. and thought its downtown reminded me of Boston. Relative to Vermont, it is a big city although it is tiny compared to Boston.
Quote from: index on March 17, 2022, 03:33:59 AM
Surprised nobody's mentioned Yellowknife yet. Very large skyline for a town of its remoteness and size.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowknife
Dang Yellowknifes downtown looks like it was meant for a city like Fresno if you look at the skyline.
Quote from: TheStranger on February 13, 2022, 06:17:41 PM
A California example:
Sacramento has a much more robust downtown than Fresno, even though Fresno's city proper has more people than Sacramento's (525K vs. 500K in recent estimates). (Sacramento also has I-5 and I-80, while I-5 was rerouted away from following today's 99 through Fresno between 1957-1958 in favor of the West Side Freeway routing)
- Sacramento's importance as the state capital and as one of California's first major cities in the 1850s are massive factors here. Fresno's major period of growth has been after 1970. (Fresno has never been seriously considered for major pro sports, while the Sacramento Kings have been in town since 1985 - albeit with a period 2009-2013 where their future in the city was questionable)
- Sacramento also is surrounded by many unincorporated suburbs that have resisted annexation from Sac itself (Arden-Arcade in particular) that still use Sacramento mailing addresses confusingly enough. This makes the entire concept of the city seem far larger than the official city proper numbers
---
In the Bay Area, San Jose has a modest downtown while Oakland has a few taller buildings, even though Oakland now has a population of just 425K while San Jose has 1.028 million.
- San Jose's downtown is height-restricted due to the airport being close by, and much of SJ's growth has been through sprawl. Oakland is entirely surrounded by older locales such as Berkeley
- Oakland was a much more important industrial center in the 1940s-1960s period, which led to them getting teams in all four major pro sports at one point (of which the A's are now the last one remaining).
- The Silicon Valley's massive growth is primarily 1980s-present, and some of the major companies out there are in San Jose suburbs instead of the core city (i.e. Apple in Cupertino)
- BART was primarily designed with Oakland as its core area, while San Jose only received its first BART station during the pandemic (after at least 30+ years of planning).
https://repository.uchastings.edu/ca_ballot_props/793/
There was a point where Sacramento County and Sacramento City wanted to have a city county consolidation but that didn't work out in that case.
How about Tysons Corner, Virginia (pop 26,374). They compare to other cities and towns in Virginia: Winchester (28,120), Fredericksburg (27,982), Staunton (25,750), Salem (25,346), Herndon (24,655), Fairfax (24,146), Christiansburg (23,348) and Hopewell (23,033). Although both Herndon and Fairfax have decent skylines for their size, Tysons is the quintessential example of an edge city with almost no population.
Quote from: tolbs17 on February 13, 2022, 01:58:11 PM
Quote from: golden eagle on February 13, 2022, 01:49:07 PM
Huntsville, AL has an unimpressive downtown for a city its size. But then again, annexation has played a role in its population.
and its now the largest city in Alabama...
That seems impossible, I've always thought of Huntsville as like the 4th largest city in AL. Wow
Quote from: thspfc on March 18, 2022, 12:36:40 PM
Quote from: tolbs17 on February 13, 2022, 01:58:11 PM
Quote from: golden eagle on February 13, 2022, 01:49:07 PM
Huntsville, AL has an unimpressive downtown for a city its size. But then again, annexation has played a role in its population.
and its now the largest city in Alabama...
That seems impossible, I've always thought of Huntsville as like the 4th largest city in AL. Wow
Metro-wise it's the second largest - half the size of Birmingham. I'm not too big a fan of comparing cities proper because it almost never gives the full picture of an area. This is especially true with places like Atlanta and Miami where the metro population is far, far above the population of the city proper.
Quote from: bing101 on March 17, 2022, 07:05:14 AM
Quote from: index on March 17, 2022, 03:33:59 AM
Surprised nobody's mentioned Yellowknife yet. Very large skyline for a town of its remoteness and size.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowknife
Dang Yellowknifes downtown looks like it was meant for a city like Fresno if you look at the skyline.
Density makes sense when its cold as balls 6 months of the year. Make bigger buildings closer together and then you don't have to go outside as much. :)
I assumed Bellevue, WA would get shouted out and it did. Hard to believe that's the skyline of a suburb. It dwarfs most Midwest cities.
When looking at Tysons, its like comparing it to Greensboro.
Quote from: tolbs17 on March 21, 2022, 09:36:16 PM
When looking at Tysons, its like comparing it to Greensboro.
Lots of DC suburbs have noticeably tall skylines (probably to make up for DC's height limit?), reinforcing that they're also CBDs of the metro area. Arlington/Crystal City, Tysons, Reston, Bethesda, to name a few.
Quote from: SkyPesos on March 21, 2022, 10:44:06 PM
Quote from: tolbs17 on March 21, 2022, 09:36:16 PM
When looking at Tysons, its like comparing it to Greensboro.
Lots of DC suburbs have noticeably tall skylines (probably to make up for DC's height limit?), reinforcing that they're also CBDs of the metro area. Arlington/Crystal City, Tysons, Reston, Bethesda, to name a few.
The Elm is definitely a game changer there.
Quote from: bing101 on March 17, 2022, 07:05:14 AM
Quote from: index on March 17, 2022, 03:33:59 AM
Surprised nobody's mentioned Yellowknife yet. Very large skyline for a town of its remoteness and size.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowknife
Dang Yellowknifes downtown looks like it was meant for a city like Fresno if you look at the skyline.
Yes. Partly, I suppose, as the capital of a vast territory. Also practical, with the insanely cold winters making it so difficult to build pipes that won't freeze you want to cluster together a few tall buildings rather than sprawling out over the landscape.
If the Buckhead section of Atlanta were its own city, it only have about 79,000 people, but an very impressive skyline.
Burbank and Glendale has some tall buildings. But those buildings on average look like they are on average the same as Downtown San Jose. Their heights are limited dud to the Burbank Airport and Van Nuys Airport nearby.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burbank,_California
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glendale,_California
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downtown_Long_Beach
Long Beach has a sizable downtown and you can easily compare the skyline to Downtown Sacramento in the profile.
Somebody mentioned Little Rock on another thread. Little Rock's population is about 200,000, but it does have an impressive skyline for a city its size. The thing to know is the city is landlocked by a number of suburbs, the Arkansas River, floodplains to the east and mountains to the west, and a completely separate 60-70K city of North Little Rock lies across the river. Plus it's the capital city of the state and sees a lot of commerce.