The article about Astoria was fascinating, but I hate it when writers make specious comparisons perhaps for “effect.” The arguments for the growth of Seattle and Portland leaving Astoria behind are interesting and valid, but his population comparisons are not: he compares the “town” of Astoria with the expansive populations of Seattle and Portland’s entire metropolitan areas. The cities themselves are on the order of 760,000 and 640,000 respectively. That does not invalidate his analysis, but it could be misleading.
Many writers conflate cities and metros. Regional analysis is valid, but so is studies of municipalities. When stats to the effect of "83% of American live in cities (or urban areas)," they are using stats for metros in a misleading way, since that includes suburban population. In other words, there is no distinction between urban and suburban.
The piece about Astoria got me thinking about cities I knew. I concluded that cities and businesses grow from a port or a portage. A place where you have to pause and decide between routes, or change from boat to carriage, or carry your stuff between two parts of a river.
A similar example in my home area was Atchison. It was going to be the gateway to the West, but KC took over quickly, perhaps because KC is a two-way decision point. Atchison was a one-way decision, from steamboat to wagon, KC needed two decisions. Get out and switch to a wagon, or switch to a different steamboat to go up the Kaw before hitting land.
"This also ties into my thing I say, that there’s no fundamental distinction between a 'town' and a 'city'; they’re the same thing, but we just give them different names at different sizes. We know this, because many of our “towns” might have been “cities” if we reran history, and vice versa."
Like you, I think or urbanism as being independent of scale. But we (and Strong Towns) are out-of-step on this matter with the consensus of urban theorists, including Chicago-school sociologists, geographers, demographers, planners, and urban historians. And Jane Jacobs insisted on Great Cities. But I also think of this like taxonomy. We can study animals, or subsets such as mammals, or their subsets, such as cats, or their subsets, such as big cats, or their subsets, such as cheetahs. Urbanism should be very broad, in my opinion, and studying cities should also be a part of that broad study. But if we only study cities, we will miss much of meaningful urban history.
The article about Astoria was fascinating, but I hate it when writers make specious comparisons perhaps for “effect.” The arguments for the growth of Seattle and Portland leaving Astoria behind are interesting and valid, but his population comparisons are not: he compares the “town” of Astoria with the expansive populations of Seattle and Portland’s entire metropolitan areas. The cities themselves are on the order of 760,000 and 640,000 respectively. That does not invalidate his analysis, but it could be misleading.
Many writers conflate cities and metros. Regional analysis is valid, but so is studies of municipalities. When stats to the effect of "83% of American live in cities (or urban areas)," they are using stats for metros in a misleading way, since that includes suburban population. In other words, there is no distinction between urban and suburban.
The piece about Astoria got me thinking about cities I knew. I concluded that cities and businesses grow from a port or a portage. A place where you have to pause and decide between routes, or change from boat to carriage, or carry your stuff between two parts of a river.
A similar example in my home area was Atchison. It was going to be the gateway to the West, but KC took over quickly, perhaps because KC is a two-way decision point. Atchison was a one-way decision, from steamboat to wagon, KC needed two decisions. Get out and switch to a wagon, or switch to a different steamboat to go up the Kaw before hitting land.
https://polistrasmill.com/2025/01/02/the-corner-store/
"This also ties into my thing I say, that there’s no fundamental distinction between a 'town' and a 'city'; they’re the same thing, but we just give them different names at different sizes. We know this, because many of our “towns” might have been “cities” if we reran history, and vice versa."
Like you, I think or urbanism as being independent of scale. But we (and Strong Towns) are out-of-step on this matter with the consensus of urban theorists, including Chicago-school sociologists, geographers, demographers, planners, and urban historians. And Jane Jacobs insisted on Great Cities. But I also think of this like taxonomy. We can study animals, or subsets such as mammals, or their subsets, such as cats, or their subsets, such as big cats, or their subsets, such as cheetahs. Urbanism should be very broad, in my opinion, and studying cities should also be a part of that broad study. But if we only study cities, we will miss much of meaningful urban history.