I have to say that I feel bad for New Yorkers. I live in the middle of the country, but I work for a company on the lower east-side. I’m often in Manhattan, so I think I have a feel for what it’s like there and there is such a poverty of what a global city could be there. I’ve seen quite a bit of the world and dense Spanish urban centers are much better than Manhattan. Barcelona has created super blocks, which are th…
Brooklynite here, but I've lived all over the country. We don't need your pity. There might be better examples of what an urban center could be, and some aspects of NYC are definitely a shitshow. But in my not-so-humble opinion -- nowhere else in the states comes close.
SF comes close.
After moving to SF from [small city/town] Europe a few years ago I spent a long time thinking about what it is that draws me to SF and why the only other city in USA that I'd even consider is NYC.
The answer I came up with was population density combined with population size. You want a big dense population. That creates the economies of scale that make a city feel like a city.
For example I've got 2 corner stores, 3 bars, and 2 restaurants on the same block as my apartment building. That just wouldn't make sense if there wasn't enough people around here to support those businesses.
If you look at US cities by population density on Wikipedia you'll notice the only places with more than 100,000 people and a density above 10,000 per square mile are San Francisco and New York with some surrounding cities in the greater megalopolis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...
Next on the list is Boston. Then Chicago, Philadelphia, and Miami. But those have densities in the low 1X,000/mi^2 whereas SF is at 17,000/mi^2 and NYC a whopping 27,000/mi^2.
Without density a city feels like a sprawling suburb.