Does Chicago feel like the third largest city?

[Master Jay]

andrew61, Ive never gone so far south as Hegewisch. I'd like to see it, though!

[brodie734]

Originally Posted by gwillyfromphilly

I really do believe a lot of people who voted for the 2nd largest option have probably never been to Los Angeles or is at least a serious homer.

I think it's because LA is so diffuse that it's hard to really think of it as one coherent city. As I said above, you will meet many Angelinos who legitimately do not know that some parts of the city (particularly the San Fernando Valley) are in the city limits. Chicago feels like a cohesive whole... if you drive down Western Avenue from the Evanston border to the Blue Island border, you never really question whether you've left Chicago. Huge swaths of Los Angeles are functionally just suburbs, there is nothing to distinguish North Hollywood from Burbank and Burbank from Glendale and Glendale from Pasadena, etc stretching on to, like, Redlands and Mission Viejo... it serves to make Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino Counties feel like one giant indistinguishable suburban mass surrounding the most urban parts of LA. But I can see why someone might not consider that to feel like a second "city". Los Angeles goes on forever, but it doesn't fulfill the New York Jr functions Chicago does.

[personone]

Originally Posted by gwillyfromphilly

I don't think having a bigger skyline means a city feels larger. Miami has a huge skyline but I don't think it feels larger than cities like Boston or San Francisco. If the thread topic was "does Chicago feel like it has the 2nd largest downtown?" then your argument would hold more weight. "Traditional cities" tend to feel more urban, not necessarily larger.

I really do believe a lot of people who voted for the 2nd largest option have probably never been to Los Angeles or is at least a serious homer.

I don't know that it is homerism, but more likely the nature of how people are viewing LA. I actually do feel that LA is clearly the second largest city, but I can see how from other people's perspective, having multiple nodes can make it feel like multiple cities (plural) rather than one large city.

When you are in Lincoln Park, Ravenswood, Logan Square, Little Village, Tri-Taylor, or the countless other neighborhoods...you still feel like you are in Chicago, first-and-foremost.

In places like Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Westwood, Van Nuys/San Fernando Valley, etc... while still technically in LA, they feel like more independent regions (almost their own individual cities, rather than neighborhoods). So I can see how some people may have viewed that has LA "feeling" smaller (if it is being viewed as multiple mini-cities that form the larger LA).

Again, I think it's based on how you interpret the original question. I think the multiple nodes of LA make it feel really big (like the 2nd largest city).

[thinkertinker]

So this is how I would put it. When you are in Chicago's downtown vs. LA's downtown, Chicago definitely feels like the 2nd largest city. But outside of that LA definitely feels like it.

For example when you drive from O'Hare to downtown Chicago vs. LAX to downtown LA, LA feels so much larger. Part of it is the mountains helps frame LA's seize and that you can see the expanse that LA's metro is. So it really depends what you are doing. If you are driving from downtown LA to Santa Monica, LA it just feels so much bigger. On the neighborhood level Chicago feels "bigger", but I dunno, I spent a month in LA, and when you start to drive around the metro and what not, you quickly start to realize how huge the place is. You really don't get that feeling driving around Chicago as much. You get a feeling that Chicago is BIG driving around, but not this insane expanse that you feel like when doing that in LA.

Part of that is that Chicago's urbanity is pretty centralized so once you start to drive 5 miles out of downtown, it doesn't feel as big. But 5 miles outside of downtown and even beyond that you have several other "downtowns" while not huge, they contribute to the immense size of LA.

[ShenardL]

In terms of "city-feel," Chicago feels like the 2nd biggest city behind New York. Tall skyscrapers, the subway system, dense and urban. However, if you go to LA, you know how massive it is, it's a monster.

So, in terms of "city-feel," Chicago feels the 2nd largest. But in terms of how big I feel a city is in just scale, I think LA feels the 2nd largest. A great combination of this is Seoul. The airport in Incheon is 40 miles from the city center Seoul but the entire drive from the airport to the center there was nothing but high-rises the entire 1-hour drive. That is where I felt the huge discrepancy between East Asian and American cities, they're just on another level. Look at the number of high rises in Seoul: https://www.archdaily.com/896442/whi...ost-high-rises

Also, I recently visited Toronto and was very impressed. There is a huge construction boom there and it feels a lot like Chicago.

[OyCrumbler]

Originally Posted by ShenardL

In terms of "city-feel," Chicago feels like the 2nd biggest city behind New York. Tall skyscrapers, the subway system, dense and urban. However, if you go to LA, you know how massive it is, it's a monster.

So, in terms of "city-feel," Chicago feels the 2nd largest. But in terms of how big I feel a city is in just scale, I think LA feels the 2nd largest. A great combination of this is Seoul. The airport in Incheon is 40 miles from the city center Seoul but the entire drive from the airport to the center there was nothing but high-rises the entire 1-hour drive. That is where I felt the huge discrepancy between East Asian and American cities, they're just on another level. Look at the number of high rises in Seoul: https://www.archdaily.com/896442/whi...ost-high-rises

Also, I recently visited Toronto and was very impressed. There is a huge construction boom there and it feels a lot like Chicago.

I fully agree with this on all points.

I’ve also thought that Chicago could benefit from having larger secondary nodes. For example, if Metra were operated more like a RER/S-Bahn system along with the South Shore Line and the Green Line branch in Woodlawn were re-extended back to the 63rd st station, then that would be a strong, viable candidate for a densely built secondary CBD. It’d go even further if the rapid transit line for the Green Line branches were connected as an east-west service that then went up to Midway possibly as an Orange Line extension. This would be quite different from what’s going on now with the Loop simply getting larger and larger and edging west and south.