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The 1880s also saw Chicago's population grow by 118% and New York's by 23%. Compare that to today, when we treat urban population booms of 5% a decade as 'brea

The 1880s also saw Chicago's population grow by 118% and New York's by 23%. Compare that to today, when we treat urban population booms of 5% a decade as 'breakneck growth' (e.g. San Francisco, from 777k to 815k from 2000 to 2011).

AnimalMuppet 11y ago
Chicago in 1880 was starting with a pretty small base, though...
- mlinksva 11y ago
  1880: 503,185 1890: 1,099,850
  - AnimalMuppet 11y ago
    OK, bigger than I thought. Big enough that the comparison to SF is not totally invalid... Except that SF has the problem that almost nobody can afford to live there, so everybody commutes. So how big is the SF metro area? 7,000,000 in 2000 - though that includes San Jose and Oakland. Those are places that send commuters to SF, true, but a bunch of them don't go there too, and so it's getting really hard trying to figure out how to come up with validly comparable numbers...
    - akgerber 11y ago
      Why does SF have that problem? To a significant degree, because more people can live in buildings like this: http://cache-graphicslib.viator.com/graphicslib/media/c8/very-busy-paris-streets-photo_1489864-770tall.jpg http://cache-graphicslib.viator.com/graphicslib/media/c8/ver... than buildings like this: http://c718756.r56.cf2.rackcdn.com/26000/93334/2010-08-25/35b9b123d2a5a4838c5cab39f69780ce.jpg http://c718756.r56.cf2.rackcdn.com/26000/93334/2010-08-25/35... yet it's illegal to replace the latter with the former in SF. Unlike, say, Chicago in the 1880s.
      - dredmorbius 11y ago
        The bulk of Chicago isn't highly multistory buildings, and most of the early skyscrapers were office towers, not residential. What Chicago has that San Francisco hasn't is land. The city sprawled both north and south along Lake Michigan, and westward. San Francisco has less space in the city proper, yes, but it also wasn't filled out fully until the 1950s. Now, of course, it is fully built up, and the only way to add more people is to grow up rather than out. Chicago, though, also has highly developed suburbs, which were principally served until the 1960s by commuter rail, radiating out in all directions. Contrast with SF which had only one line south (CalTrain) through what remains a comparatively sparsely developed area (the Peninsula), and limited East Bay service (though the Key System did exist until the 1950s). It's simply easier to build out more metropolitan infrastructure in the midwest. Chicago is also within reasonable rail distance of much of the East Coast. By the late 1850s, it was less than two day's travel from New York, and well under one by the 1930s (about the same, by rail, as now). http://railroads.unl.edu/documents/view_document.php?id=rail.str.0241 http://railroads.unl.edu/documents/view_document.php?id=rail... San Francisco was four weeks' travel in the 1850s, and still 3-4 days by the 1930s. Today, California is increasingly practically limited by water access.
    - mlinksva 11y ago
      In any case if we're comparing the 1880s to some recent decade using city growth, why is SF relevant? Plenty of cities have recently had or are having growth like Chicago and NYC of 100+ years ago. They're in Asia and Africa.

AnimalMuppet 11y ago

Chicago in 1880 was starting with a pretty small base, though...

mlinksva 11y ago
1880: 503,185 1890: 1,099,850
- AnimalMuppet 11y ago
  OK, bigger than I thought. Big enough that the comparison to SF is not totally invalid... Except that SF has the problem that almost nobody can afford to live there, so everybody commutes. So how big is the SF metro area? 7,000,000 in 2000 - though that includes San Jose and Oakland. Those are places that send commuters to SF, true, but a bunch of them don't go there too, and so it's getting really hard trying to figure out how to come up with validly comparable numbers...
  - akgerber 11y ago
    Why does SF have that problem? To a significant degree, because more people can live in buildings like this: http://cache-graphicslib.viator.com/graphicslib/media/c8/very-busy-paris-streets-photo_1489864-770tall.jpg http://cache-graphicslib.viator.com/graphicslib/media/c8/ver... than buildings like this: http://c718756.r56.cf2.rackcdn.com/26000/93334/2010-08-25/35b9b123d2a5a4838c5cab39f69780ce.jpg http://c718756.r56.cf2.rackcdn.com/26000/93334/2010-08-25/35... yet it's illegal to replace the latter with the former in SF. Unlike, say, Chicago in the 1880s.
    - dredmorbius 11y ago
      The bulk of Chicago isn't highly multistory buildings, and most of the early skyscrapers were office towers, not residential. What Chicago has that San Francisco hasn't is land. The city sprawled both north and south along Lake Michigan, and westward. San Francisco has less space in the city proper, yes, but it also wasn't filled out fully until the 1950s. Now, of course, it is fully built up, and the only way to add more people is to grow up rather than out. Chicago, though, also has highly developed suburbs, which were principally served until the 1960s by commuter rail, radiating out in all directions. Contrast with SF which had only one line south (CalTrain) through what remains a comparatively sparsely developed area (the Peninsula), and limited East Bay service (though the Key System did exist until the 1950s). It's simply easier to build out more metropolitan infrastructure in the midwest. Chicago is also within reasonable rail distance of much of the East Coast. By the late 1850s, it was less than two day's travel from New York, and well under one by the 1930s (about the same, by rail, as now). http://railroads.unl.edu/documents/view_document.php?id=rail.str.0241 http://railroads.unl.edu/documents/view_document.php?id=rail... San Francisco was four weeks' travel in the 1850s, and still 3-4 days by the 1930s. Today, California is increasingly practically limited by water access.
  - mlinksva 11y ago
    In any case if we're comparing the 1880s to some recent decade using city growth, why is SF relevant? Plenty of cities have recently had or are having growth like Chicago and NYC of 100+ years ago. They're in Asia and Africa.