Quote:
Originally Posted by Yuri
As Acajack mentioned how small Los Angeles, São Paulo and Mexico City were back in 1900, Berlin was the opposite: its metro area (they still hadn't merged by that time) was getting close to 3 million.
For comparison, London, the largest city in the world, had 6.2 million; New York (plus Hudson and Essex) had 4.2 million, Paris 4 million, Chicago (Cook) 1.8 million, Vienna 1.8 million, Tokyo 1.6 million, Philadelphia 1.6 million, St. Petersburg 1.5 million.
Berlin was once world's 4th largest city.
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But then WWII. After the loss of the war Germany was not just split into two but decentralised on top giving rise to the trade in Hamburg, industry to Dusseldorf, business to Frankfurt, politics to Bonn and old money/ culture to Munich. If Berlin had stayed centralised I'm sure it would have become a megacity by now (even after annihilation in WWII).
Vienna is a similar story, once capital of the Hapsburg empire and on track to also become a megacity. But of course it all fractured into the modern day nations of Central Europe after WWI. If you go nowadays to Vienna or Budapest (the second city of Hapsburgia) and witness how grand it all is, whose historic core areas are on par with London or Moscow's (if not larger) you'll think it much larger a city than the 2 million. As Bill Bryson noted about Vienna, if aliens came down they'd think it the world capital.
Vienna is not just the huge palaces, elegant squares, grand vistas and ceremonial routes, but the infill has the most ornate and sizable buildings for block after block:
Your typical Viennese streetblock that just goes on and on endlessly (the usual 6 storeys is equivalent to a modern 9/10 storey), even into the narrow backstreets
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