Yeah, LA is a classic example of the "American" city. Meaning a big urban sprawl that's generally less than 150-200 years old. Because land was cheap, they built out rather than up. In the Northeast US, the bigger cities are old enough (~300-400 years) that they ran out of room to expand and starting growing up instead.
European cities tend to be a lot more compact just because they're so old that the "footprint" of the city is long established, and it was a footprint based on pedestrian and horse traffic.
Asian cities tend to be even more tightly compacted, but still can have a very large footprint just because of the sheer population (~23 million in Shanghai proper, 39-41 million in the Tokyo-Yokohama megapol, 28 million in the greater Jakarta metro).
I grew up in what had been rural dairy farming land, but was steadily annexed and swallowed up by the "city" of High Point, which now has a population of 104,000+. Back then, it was around 63,000. Not much of a town, to be honest. We did everything in its larger neighbor city, Greensboro (current pop. 273,000, back then about 150,000). Even though they're just a few miles apart, there used to be a distinct seperation between the two. If you took the main road between them, you were on a two-lane road with barely any streetlights, through dense forest with a few scattered houses, all with acres and acres of land, private ponds, etc. There was a very tangible line between "city" and "countryside". Now, if you miss the tiny green sign telling you where the city limits are, you wouldn't even know it was two seperate cities.
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Topic: Citys (Read 5707 times)