Quote:
Originally Posted by tocoto
I go to Atlanta often for business. It has lots of freeways and low density sprawl that gives way to the sticks 40 miles from the city. 40 miles from Boston is Providence with a metro of 1.6 million. To the west is Worcester with a metro over 500,000. To the north is Portland, ME metro over 500,000. There really is no comparison between metro Boston and Metro Atlanta. Boston is much more extensive and dense. After you get done looking at pictures and reading US census statistics for what that's worth, try driving from Warwick, RI to Portland, ME at 5PM any weekday or on a holiday. Even on one of the loop freeways that goes around Boston it's about 150 miles of endless congestion.
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I don't think he's disputing which city is bigger at all, because it's not much of a question. Obviously Boston is more built up, and has much larger/urban areas surrounding the city. Atlanta is built up in a completely different way. As you mentioned, if you move outside of the central part of Atlanta, it becomes very low density, borderline rural in many areas. But if you continue to travel on a main street, you'll probably run into a little mini-city cluster which is basically just a glorified Suburban Office park, only with larger buildings. This is what I think Dante was trying to say...not that it's built up more than anywhere else, but the fact that you can leave the main city, be in a very low density/rural area, but if you follow a main road you're just going to run into another little area like you were before. Whenever I go through or visit Atlanta (which is only a couple hours from my university), I'm always amazed by how decentralized the city is...it's very unique in the sense that it's developed in the most cookie-cutter style possible. I know not everyone in the world loves urbanity, but I hope that few cities choose to develop in this manner.