2 cities/towns that are opposites in the same state

[craigs]

Originally Posted by edale

Yes, both are major cities and have the amenities that one would expect from major cities. The take away from that is not that they are similar, but that they are able to be compared in a way that makes sense. Reading comprehension is key!

Where did you do that? I haven't seen you make a case for them being more alike than not. Maybe you could quote the post where you made that point.

Consider yourself sued

You are the one who picked this pair of cities as "opposites" in a thread about cities that are opposites. You are free to try defend that assertion or not, but I'm not going to do any of your work for you. Let's see what you've got.

[RockMont]

Boulder and Grand Junction. Boulder is with the University of Colorado is radically liberal, and Grand Junction, with its many rural communities in its vicinity and its close proximity to Utah has the most Mormons per capita for the state of Colorado, in the city limits is rather conservative.

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Flint briefly overtook Grand Rapids to become Michigan's second largest city in the 1960s. GR caught up again after a large 1960s growth spurt fed by a large annexation of land in the 1950s. Flint went into free fall in the 1970s and never pulled out of the tailspin.

A Tale of Two Cities...in Michigan

[edale]

Originally Posted by craigs

You are the one who picked this pair of cities as "opposites" in a thread about cities that are opposites. You are free to try defend that assertion or not, but I'm not going to do any of your work for you. Let's see what you've got.

I already stated why I thought LA and San Francisco are somewhat opposite cities of each other. You claimed to provide a counter claim that they're more similar than they are alike, which of course you did not.

Your contribution to this thread, other than attacking my post, has been to say that San Francisco and freaking Calexico are opposites. Really solid work, bud. Great insights.

[craigs]

Originally Posted by edale

I already stated why I thought LA and San Francisco are somewhat opposite cities of each other. You claimed to provide a counter claim that they're more similar than they are alike, which of course you did not.

Your contribution to this thread, other than attacking my post, has been to say that San Francisco and freaking Calexico are opposites. Really solid work, bud. Great insights.

Oh, you're totally welcome! I'm glad to point out how your choice of city pairs is not in keeping with the thread about cities in the same state that are opposites culturally, ethnically, and economically.

Opposite means "totally different from or the reverse of someone or something else" and "diametrically different; of a contrary kind." None of what you posted so far proves San Francisco and Los Angeles are the reverse of each other, "diametrically different," or "of a contrary kind" culturally, ethnically, and economically.

My choice of San Francisco and Calexico fit that bill, though--one is culturally educated and liberal while the other is culturally conservative with low educational attainment; one is ethnically diverse, while the other is almost 100% one ethnicity; and one is an economic powerhouse hosting huge business entities leading global industries, while the other is merely an agricultural hub. Now, you don't find the thread topic interesting enough, apparently, because you wanted to change all the rules to limit the discussion to "roughly equal" cities in terms of size and other characteristics, but then you chose as an example two places that are not even remotely similar in size.

Just admit it--you just wanted to rehash SF v. LA. for the millionth time, but I didn't play along so you're getting nasty and personal about it.

[dktshb]

Yeah, I am beginning to think the SF v LA thing is more for people who live outside the 2 cities. Anyway they both are infused with rich Latin and Asian culture. They both have great universities; they both are pretty much politically aligned; they both have an amazing food scene and their differences are not too far and wide. Hell when you're in west portal in SF you would think you're in LA. LA is of course much bigger but it has a land area built environment of equal density to SF. LA's transit infrastructure is no joke either so I am not sure what differences would be so extreme that it would qualify the two cities for this thread. Of course what do we know having lived in both cities.

[homebucket]

That's how I settled on Berkeley and Irvine, although Irvine is roughly 3x the population. But both are generally regarded as small-medium sized cities with top tier public universities within city limits. But they have far more "opposites" than similarities.

But basically Berkeley is considered one of the most socially progressive cities in the US whereas Irvine is historically conservative (although recently that has been shifting). Berkeley is traditionally urban adhering to a dense grid with only one freeway literally at the border of the city and high walk/bike/transit scores and mixed use commercial corridors whereas Irvine is a master-planned suburb with wide roads and strip malls and sprawling neighborhoods dominated by automobiles and freeways. Berkeley has 3 heavy rail subway stations whereas Irvine has none. The landscape of Berkeley is also more dramatically hilly whereas Irvine is mostly flat with some gentler rolling hills in the periphery. Berkeley has a waterfront and Irvine does not. Berkeley has grit, Irvine is sterile.

[iheartthed]

If we're just limiting this to just municipalities, the Bay Area's big three are pretty different from each other:

• San Francisco is the well manicured, dense, and walkable urban place that many people liken to one of the major cities in the Northeast Corridor.
• Oakland is a big urban place that is less polished than its neighbor and can often resemble those Rust Belt cities with "good bones" in the Midwest and Northeast.
• San Jose is a quintessential Sun Belt city in that it is a municipality covering a large land area made of mostly medium density neighborhoods developed in the mid 20th century, and doesn't have a particular strong urban identity. Much of the city is indistinguishable from neighboring "suburbs".

[goat314]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

hah, this may be the biggest one in the midwest since one of the locations really isnt the midwest. one is one of the (relatively speaking) wealthiest places in the world, and the other is (lets face it) a post-apocalyptic waste at the top of the delta being slowly consumed by kudzu.

That's one of my biggest complaints about Illinois state government. Power and influence is so concentrated in the Chicagoland area that nothing else seems to matter. Like the Metro East suburbs of St. Louis are heavily neglected and are not living up to their potential at all.

[lio45]

San Francisco being the opposite of Calexico is not really relevant to the topic IMO (and I was going to point out that the starkest example in the nation would be NYC's opposite being any tiny Northern NY hamlet, of which there are tons to pick from, but edale beat me to exactly that comparison), but from my travels in the Bay Area, I found it fascinating how pockets of it really feel like Southern California / The Sunbelt, while SF Proper has a lot of aspects of an older, East Coast city.

(Other people beat me to saying exactly this.)

It's pretty unusual. All other cities don't have this feature. It would be as if Boston's suburbs felt more like NYC or Philly than they do Boston, etc. Strange/rare and noteworthy, IMO!

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by pj3000

Sure, there are going to be big differences between Miami and say, Tallahassee or Gainesville, which are more "Southern" and inland. But they're also just so much smaller cities that it's hard to say that they're somehow opposites of Miami.

I don't think Florida really has any true opposites when considering its large cities. Larger Florida cities are pretty similar overall to me.

Miami and Jacksonville?

[Quixote]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

If we're just limiting this to just municipalities, the Bay Area's big three are pretty different from each other:

• Oakland is a big urban place that is less polished than its neighbor and can often resemble those Rust Belt cities with "good bones" in the Midwest and Northeast.

Oakland looks a lot more like LA (particularly Westlake, Echo Park, Silver Lake, parts of K-town, Boyle Heights, Lincoln Heights, and Highland Park) than any Rust Belt city.

If Oakland is urban, then so is LA.

[jd3189]

Miami and Jacksonville makes sense to me. They're the two top cities in FL, but Miami is the more famous, more major/international Latin/Caribbean town while Jacksonville is more low key, Southern, and can be forgotten as a major city despite being larger geographically and more populated. However, it's not as dense as Miami nor does its metro area even comes close to the size and significance of South Florida.

As for SF and LA, being familiar with both cities now, I do agree that they have a lot of similarities and differences.

LA isn't all old school urbanism like SF, but its urban core is still on par, with good amounts of small apartments interspersed with SFHs. And the SFHs here in SoCal often have smaller lots, so it's still pretty close knit, but yet somewhat spacious compared to the wall to wall urbanism you would find in SF, NYC, or Boston.

LA is probably one of the most urban car-centric cities in the country, and possibly the world. Its inner core could be compared to SF's and it still sprawls out into decent suburban nodes throughout the basin and county. Probably Queens and Toronto are comparable. All the other Sunbelt cities have to at least try to get to LA's level.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Quixote

Oakland looks a lot more like LA (particularly Westlake, Echo Park, Silver Lake, parts of K-town, Boyle Heights, Lincoln Heights, and Highland Park) than any Rust Belt city.

If Oakland is urban, then so is LA.

Oakland and LA have similar layouts and architectural vernacular, but that's not what I meant by saying Oakland resembles a Rust Belt town. It resembles a Rust Belt city by having a lot of surface parking lots and under utilized commercial zones and an under utilized downtown. It is also still pretty scarred by having a couple of humongous interstates carving through the city. It seems very distinct from LA on those two measures, and resembles something more like a Newark, South Side Chicago, Cleveland, etc. Like Newark, Oakland doesn't have abandoned housing, though. That's where the Rust Belt comparison ends.

[Quixote]

LA by virtue of good early-20th-century bones, size, diversity, cosmopolitan amenities, housing spaced closer together, traffic congestion, a vast grid delineated by bus lines, increasingly viable rail options, etc. together are enough to make it feel sufficiently urban. It feels like you’re in a very populated place.

[UrbanImpact]

Originally Posted by jd3189

Miami and Jacksonville makes sense to me. They're the two top cities in FL, but Miami is the more famous, more major/international Latin/Caribbean town while Jacksonville is more low key, Southern, and can be forgotten as a major city despite being larger geographically and more populated. However, it's not as dense as Miami nor does its metro area even comes close to the size and significance of South Florida.

Is Jacksonville more important than Orlando or Tampa???

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by UrbanImpact

Is Jacksonville more important than Orlando or Tampa???

it has a better skyline and more futuristic public transport.

[UrbanImpact]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

it has a better skyline and more futuristic public transport.

Orlando has higher (lol) speed rail to Miami and a larger skyline.

[homebucket]

That wouldn't be opposite though. Just similar but to different degrees.

[sopas ej]

Homebucket beat me to it; I was also gonna bring up Irvine, California, but I was gonna compare/contrast it to another CA city...

I figured I would compare 2 cities that are relatively around the same population (give or take 100K), share a notable characteristic, but are completely different in built environments.

Irvine is often at the top or near the top of the list of the US' "safest cities"---as is Glendale, California. But whenever I would hear that on the news, I would always think 'but Irvine is an exurb, and Glendale is more of a traditional city, so the fact that Glendale ranks among the US' safest cities is more notable, being that it's not a new-ish exurb.' In fact, over the years, Irvine has been trending downwards as a safe city, and Glendale is consistently still in the top 10. Here's their ranking for 2023, per smartasset.com; Glendale is 8th safest city, and Irvine is 13th safest: 100 Safest Cities in the US 2023

As homebucket already pointed out, Irvine is very suburban; it's basically a collection of 1960s and later-designed driver-oriented master-planned communities, all linked together by very wide "stroads" where the speed limit is 50 mph or more.
Irvine, CA

Glendale has a traditional pedestrian-oriented downtown. Its main drag, Brand Boulevard, is very wide, but only because it used to have a streetcar right-of-way down its center. Even though Brand Blvd. is wide, it's not a stroad; traffic moves along slowly, and there's diagonal parking along the curbs.
Glendale, CA

Both are in Greater Los Angeles, but both have very different vibes. Their ethnic makeups are pretty different. Glendale's population is more than a third Armenian. Irvine is nearly three-quarters Asian. Dreamworks Animation is headquartered in Glendale, as is KABC/ABC7, which is the west coast flagship of ABC. Irvine has one of the campuses of the UC system, and is its largest employer.

In my opinion, Glendale has a lot more character than Irvine. I go into Glendale fairly regularly for its restaurants (and I can't wait until the new Armenian American Museum opens)... I haven't been to Irvine in a while, maybe 4 or 5 years ago (and I don't remember what for). I used to go to Irvine a lot in the early 1990s, being that 2 really good friends of mine at the time, were going to UCI. It's certainly a lot more developed now, and Irvine has grown a lot in population, due to a lot of housing construction, plus land annexations. My nephew is now a sophomore at UCI, but I have yet to visit him there (we've met each other in LA).