Towns that look bigger than others (downtownwise) but have a smaller population

[tolbs17]

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.

[3467]

Peoria Illinois. Probably because of Caterpillar.

[MATraveler128]

Ithaca, NY is smaller then Utica, but the downtown feels bigger as the former is home to Cornell.

[Max Rockatansky]

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.

[3467]

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.

[tolbs17]

Richmond, Philadelphia, and Atlanta are older cities as well.  That's probably why you see taller buildings there.

[jakeroot]

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.

[Bruce]

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.

[Road Hog]

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.

[US 89]

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.

[SkyPesos]

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.

[Flint1979]

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.

[golden eagle]

Huntsville, AL has an unimpressive downtown for a city its size. But then again, annexation has played a role in its population.

[tolbs17]

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...

[JayhawkCO]

Youngstown, OH.

[skluth]

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.

[Max Rockatansky]

White Plains, NY where my Dad worked has a bunch of high rises but less than 60,000 residents.

[tolbs17]

Youngstown, OH.

Again also an old city.

[SkyPesos]

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?

[Max Rockatansky]

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 as examples?

Tolbs IRL:

[tolbs17]

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.

[Max Rockatansky]

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:

[ozarkman417]

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).

[westerninterloper]

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

[SkyPesos]

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