US Cities that are Helped/Hurt by being near Larger US Cities

[Yuri]

It states US cities but pretty much is all covered on the first page, so let’s go down here:

Campinas (3 million people metro area, 60 miles north São Paulo) greatly benefited from being that close to the state capital. It captured all of São
Paulo deindustrialization and it became an economic powerhouse on its own.

I’m not thinking of other examples elsewhere.

[mhays]

There are two discussions here. To acknowledge the obvious:

One is big core cities that are their own areas but are impacted by proximity to others -- Milwaukee, San Diego, Philadelphia. If their bigger neighbors weren't there, I suspect they'd be much larger to serve some of the roles those cities now serve.

Another is smaller cities in others' constallations, which are really secondary cores and often bedrooms for their whole CSAs. Tacoma, Fort Worth, Oakland, San Jose, Newark, etc. Or frankly any swath of suburbia like the Inland Empire even if it doesn't really have much of a center.

And some are in the middle, like Providence.

The life of a secondary/peripheral core or swath is difficult. The big city takes a lot of their cool stuff. On the other hand, they also ride the big city's coat tails, with access to stuff they wouldn't have -- whether it's just that they're close to the big city or that otherwise-unattainable stuff locates in the secondary area (San Francisco 49ers being basically in San Jose for example).

[dimondpark]

Originally Posted by craigs

Oakland's greatest strengths--its good bones and strong economic health--are due to its proximity to San Francisco.

The reason Oakland is more than a big, generic post-war suburban blob like San Jose and much of the rest of the Bay Area is because it grew to become a fairly dense, transit- and pedestrian-oriented city before cars became the primary mode of transportation. And the reason it grew large-ish before the primacy of cars is because it was directly across the bay from a city that was devastated by the 1906 earthquake and fire. Tens of thousands of San Franciscans moved immediately to Oakland, "enlarging the city's population, increasing its housing stock, and improving its infrastructure," as per Wikipedia.

Thus, Oakland's residential neighborhoods were built around the area's extensive streetcar system, the Key System, which converged on downtown Oakland and, by the late 1930s, also ran directly from Oakland's neighborhoods into downtown San Francisco via the Bay Bridge, the precursor to today's trans-bay BART system.

Proximity to San Francisco is also responsible for modern-day Oakland's healthy economy. As San Francisco businesses and residents spill across the bay looking for more affordable space and a little extra room, Oakland became an urban center in its own right. And regionally, demand for office and residential space in inner city Oakland is supercharged, relative to the urban cores of similarly sized California municipalities like Fresno, Sacramento and Long Beach, because it offers what those others do not--a 20 minute train ride to San Francisco's CBD and cultural, retail, hospitality, and entertainment amenities.

Right, this is different from the other cities because Oakland is literally on the other side of a bridge from Downtown San Francisco, so obviously Oakland's fortunes and future were/are tied to SF-absolutely.

But people need to remember that San Jose, more specifically, Silicon Valley, owes it's existence to the foresight of San Franciscans, first being Leland Stanford, then the SF bankers and financiers who bankrolled start ups to begin with.

The Bay Area is a single place, even though cities within the Bay Area have very strong identities on their own.

[memester]

Originally Posted by mhays

There are two discussions here. To acknowledge the obvious:

One is big core cities that are their own areas but are impacted by proximity to others -- Milwaukee, San Diego, Philadelphia. If their bigger neighbors weren't there, I suspect they'd be much larger to serve some of the roles those cities now serve.

Another is smaller cities in others' constallations, which are really secondary cores and often bedrooms for their whole CSAs. Tacoma, Fort Worth, Oakland, San Jose, Newark, etc. Or frankly any swath of suburbia like the Inland Empire even if it doesn't really have much of a center.

And some are in the middle, like Providence.

The life of a secondary/peripheral core or swath is difficult. The big city takes a lot of their cool stuff. On the other hand, they also ride the big city's coat tails, with access to stuff they wouldn't have -- whether it's just that they're close to the big city or that otherwise-unattainable stuff locates in the secondary area (San Francisco 49ers being basically in San Jose for example).

For the record. San Jose is larger than SF. SF is just more 'glamorous'

[JManc]

Galveston. Between the 1900 hurricane and Houston 50 miles further inland, it never stood a chance of flourishing. It withered on the vine and Houston became the monster. Had there been no Houston, Galveston would have no choice but to rebuild and grow from there.

[mhays]

Originally Posted by memester

For the record. San Jose is larger than SF. SF is just more 'glamorous'

This has been covered ad nauseum for those who've been around a while...annexing a massive amount of suburbia doesn't make SF "big" except in an administrative sense. San Francisco is the urban core, and the region's main identity.

[eschaton]

IMHO cities are almost always helped by proximity to a larger U.S. city, rather than hurt.

I mean, I'm thinking back to my youth growing up in the NYC metro area. There is no doubt that the smaller cities in the region - places like Bridgeport, White Plains, Newark, etc. - are grossly overshadowed by New York City. At the same time though, if you plopped these cities down in a random spot in the Midwest they could easily have been another Youngstown. Simply being in a high-cost metro with access to plentiful jobs meant the level of decline/abandonment generally could only go so far, and there would always be people willing to live in the cities. That counts for a lot.

[SIGSEGV]

Another class of places that's helped by being close to big cities is local resort towns. Places like Lake Geneva, Montauk, P-Town and Carmel-by-the-Sea.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by mhays

This has been covered ad nauseum for those who've been around a while...annexing a massive amount of suburbia doesn't make SF "big" except in an administrative sense. San Francisco is the urban core, and the region's main identity.

As an outsider who's only been to SF, the Bay Area seems to have evolved into a more multifaceted identity. Silicon Valley developing its own identity. Kind of like DFW; Dallas is the more prominent of the two but Fort Worth has a strong identity and orbit of its own.

[mhays]

Yes people know several subsets of the area...Silicon Valley, Oakland, Berkeley, etc.

It's kind of like Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Jersey having their own identities. All still part of the whole however.

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by JManc

As an outsider who's only been to SF, the Bay Area seems to have evolved into a more multifaceted identity. Silicon Valley developing its own identity. Kind of like DFW; Dallas is the more prominent of the two but Fort Worth has a strong identity and orbit of its own.

San Jose is the smallest city of its size in the country. At least in my now-somewhat-stale experience, you never go out to San Jose in the Bay area. Maybe you use the airport. I probably hit up Berkeley more often than San Jose in undergrad, even though San Jose was much closer. Maybe things have changed, but San Jose basically had not much more to offer than Mountain View...

[dave8721]

There is also relatively similar sized cities that are close to each other: Orlando and Tampa/St.Pete. They are so close that only 1 gets a sports team for each sport. 1 NBA team (Orlando), 1 NFL Team (Tampa), 1 baseball (Tampa), 1 hockey (Tampa). Orlando could have easily been the one to support the teams but Tampa was large first and Orlando was too close to be its own true independent sports market and get its own teams.

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by dave8721

There is also relatively similar sized cities that are close to each other: Orlando and Tampa/St.Pete. They are so close that only 1 gets a sports team for each sport. 1 NBA team (Orlando), 1 NFL Team (Tampa), 1 baseball (Tampa), 1 hockey (Tampa). Orlando could have easily been the one to support the teams but Tampa was large first and Orlando was too close to be its own true independent sports market and get its own teams.

Tampa and Orlando are about the same distance apart as Chicago and Milwaukee or NYC and Philly, but I guess they must have developed in an era where that wasn't as far...

[hughfb3]

Originally Posted by memester

For the record. San Jose is larger than SF. SF is just more 'glamorous'

To continue that thought, San Jose is the Largest City by 200,000 people in the entire San Francisco Bay Area and all of Northern California. It is also the 3rd largest city in California and the largest city north of Los Angeles.

So the real question in the Bay Area is... Is San Francisco benefiting or being hurt by its proximity to San Jose

[dimondpark]

Originally Posted by hughfb3

To continue that thought, San Jose is the Largest City by 200,000 people in the entire San Francisco Bay Area and all of Northern California. It is also the 3rd largest city in California and the largest city north of Los Angeles.

So the real question in the Bay Area is... Is San Francisco benefiting or being hurt by its proximity to San Jose

San Jose is larger but San Francisco is more prominent.

This is the text from a I thread I created in CD a few years ago:

Originally Posted by 18Montclair@city-data

I got tired after Vegas.

The census bureau provided this formula for determining daytime population:

Total resident population + Total workers working in area - Total workers living in area.

City Daytime Population, 2017:
9,357,951 New York, NY
4,169,529 Los Angeles, CA
3,018,200 Houston, TX
2,920,652 Chicago, IL
1,748,650 Phoenix, AZ
1,690,048 Philadelphia, PA
1,634,176 San Antonio, TX
1,612,856 San Diego, CA
1,568,654 Dallas, TX
1,162,937 Washington, DC
1,152,296 Austin, TX
1,125,330 San Francisco, CA
1,025,253 Charlotte, NC
1,000,876 Indianapolis, IN
985,692 Boston, MA
974,659Jacksonville, FL
955,106 Columbus, OH
932,078 Ft Worth, TX
925,272 San Jose, CA
914,920 Seattle, WA
866,071 Denver, CO
786,218 Nashville, TN
783,699 Portland, OR
779,661 Atlanta, GA
773,051 Oklahoma City
771,580 Memphis, TN
740,398 Miami, FL
718,597 Baltimore, MD
712,345 Las Vegas, NV

Here are the numbers for these cities:

Total workers in city/city/total employed residents in city
4,808,014 New York, NY 4,072,761
+735,263(number of workers who commute into city limits)

2,162,404 Los Angeles, CA 1,992,316
+169,778

1,851,938 Houston, TX 1,083,455
+768,483

1,533,399 Chicago, IL 1,329,197
+204,202

935,759 San Diego, CA 740,422
+193,337

902,901 Phoenix, AZ 780,329
+122,572

897,287 Dallas, TX 669,708
+227,579

844,345 Washington, DC 375,380
+468,965

826,350 San Antonio, TX 704,120
+122,230

765,060 Philadelphia, PA 655,875
+109,185

764,331 San Francisco, CA 523,364
+240,967

741,685 Austin, TX 540,104
+201,581

671,818 Boston, MA 371,220
+300,598

621,037 Charlotte, NC 454,819
+166,218

616,952 Seattle, WA 426,777
+190,175

556,785 Denver, CO 395,335
+161,450

547,845 Indianapolis, IN 409,971
+137,874

543,664 Atlanta, GA 250,293
+293,371

529,865 Columbus, OH 453,929
+75,936

515,878 Jacksonville, FL 433,281
+82,597

498,298 Miami, FL 221,237
+277,061

493,152 Portland, OR 357,258
+135,894

481,725 Nashville, TN 363,069
+118,656

481,025 Ft Worth, TX 423,115
+57,910

418,978 San Jose, CA 529,023
−110,045

414,512 Oklahoma City, OK 306,596
+129,403

404,453 Memphis, TN 285,109
+119,344

384,529 Baltimore, MD 277,580
+106,949

371,989 Las Vegas, NV 301,320
+70,669

So San Francisco is larger than San Jose during the work week and San Jose is the only major city in this list to actually shrink during the work day as more people commute out than in.

But another huge revelation: HOUSTON has the largest number of inbound workers in the country(at least in 2017), actually more than New York, which is something I never would of thought possible-so that's very interesting.

[Shawn]

An American city which has unquestionably benefited from being close to a larger city:

Providence

Given the general and perpetual dysfunction that is the Rhode Island state government, Providence's inclusion in Massachusetts' regional Boston initiatives is a massive boon. Providence (and northeastern Rhode Island in general) gets access to arguably the best commuter rail system in the country outside of the Tri State. Providence employers have access to all of Southeastern Massachusetts' highly educated workforce. Plenty of Boston's Eds, Meds, and FinTech economy has spilled across state lines in search of cheaper costs.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by DCReid

Of all the cities hurt by proximity to NYC, probably the most hurt would be Newark, NJ. If it was split off as a metro area, the metro would be about 2.2 million, according to Wiki. It sort of can't get much of the break, as the spillover of businesses and development from NYC seems to have mostly benefitted Jersey City. Newark seems to have been left in the dust by a revitalized Jersey City.

I agree. Actually, I don't think any of NYC's satellite cities are in great shape. Newark is the largest satellite, and also happens to be in the worst shape of them all.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by dimondpark

San Jose is larger but San Francisco is more prominent.

This is the text from a I thread I created in CD a few years ago:



So San Francisco is larger than San Jose during the work week and San Jose is the only major city in this list to actually shrink during the work day as more people commute out than in.

Around the 2010 census Detroit had a smaller daytime population than resident population.

[chris08876]

Jersey City is greatly helped by NYC. Tons of folks looking for cheaper housing and river views go to Jersey City. With easy transit options, its a good solution, likewise with the NJ Gold Coast. It's still pricy but one could get a size 14 Jordan's shoebox of a unit with views and somewhat affordable versus a kids Sketchers size 2 shoebox across the river for 3 grand a month.

Plus, NJ and the Gold Coast offer superior views.

Places like Easton PA are greatly helped by NJ folks migrating there. The locals aren't, as taxes will go up once the NJ folks come but it is contributing to the growth and economy.

[mhays]

Originally Posted by hughfb3

To continue that thought, San Jose is the Largest City by 200,000 people in the entire San Francisco Bay Area and all of Northern California. It is also the 3rd largest city in California and the largest city north of Los Angeles.

So the real question in the Bay Area is... Is San Francisco benefiting or being hurt by its proximity to San Jose

I assume this is a joke!

But yes, central cities do benefit from their suburbs in some ways...San Jose plays a big "bedroom" role for starters, as diamondpark shows.