Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2016 September 23

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September 23

New York and World's Largest City

Is New York the world's largest city?

Innkin (talk) 00:15, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

See "World's largest cities". —Wavelength (talk) 00:17, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

According to that article, the city with the largest population in the city proper is Shanghai, whereas Tokyo is the city with the largest population in the urban area, and also the one with the largest population in the metro area. New York is 25th in terms of population of the city proper, seventh in terms of population of the urban area, and 15th in terms of population of the metro area. However, according to list of largest cities by area, which seems to be somewhat in dispute, it has the second-largest urban area, after London. --Trovatore (talk) 00:28, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

That latter list has a good deal of weakness, omitting many large-by-area cities; the city of Yakutat in southcentral Alaska has an area of 24,509 km2, much bigger than the first entry on the list, while the city of Honolulu in Hawaii (being coterminus with Honolulu County) has an area of 5,510 km2, which is between the fifth and sixth current entries on the list. And that totally ignores cities in the People's Republic of China; Hulunbuir, for example, is a prefecture-level city with an area of 263,953 km2 — almost thirty times the area of London, the largest place on this list. Nyttend (talk) 00:52, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Honolulu and Yakutat may be examples where the "urban area" is actually smaller than the city proper. I used to think you should track everything by the city proper, because it seemed to be more exactly defined. And it is more exactly defined, but also more arbitrarily; it's basically only by fiat that the whole island of Oʻahu is part of Honolulu. --Trovatore (talk) 20:19, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

It all depends on what you mean by a city. DuncanHill (talk) 00:57, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

This claims yes by urban square miles. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 01:32, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

I remember seeing in the 1960s a list of the world's largest metropolitan ares where New York was shown as the largest at about 15 million people. If this was correct then (and it might depend on who was defining the metropolitan area), obviously other metropolitan areas have grown much faster since. I can't think of a way to search online for lists of the world's largest matropolitan areas in past decades, though. Perhaps someone else can. --69.159.61.230 (talk) 05:52, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

See List of largest cities throughout history. Some of the largest cities from history are still major metropolises (Istanbul, Beijing, London, Baghdad), while others have totally vanished (Merv, Ctesiphon, Chang'an). Smurrayinchester 00:28, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Why is Chicago's skyline so tall?

They have half the metro population of New York and a third the city population but have been neck and neck with New York since about 1990 (for now) (1990 2001 (pre-9/11) 2014)

Sure Chicago invented the skyscraper but they fell behind HARD: (1899 1913 1933 1968). New York's 1913 top 3 could kick Chicago's 1968 top 3's ass. But 6 years later Chicago had the tallest building on Earth and three New York-scale buildings which were like 2-3 times the height of anything Chicago had 6 years before: ([1]). They basically went from having a 1913 New York-grade skyline to a 1990 New York-grade skyline in 22 years. Why'd they do that when they weren't a peer for like 80 years? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 01:13, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Chicago's skyline is tall because the people who commissioned, designed and built buildings chose to make them that tall. You may also want to read Chicago school (architecture) for more information. But there is no great law of physics nor holy commandment as to why it is so. It was the decisions of people that made it so. --Jayron32 01:43, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

My apologies to StuRat first, and to others who had to read this second. My behavior in this closed section is unacceptable. It does not help the reader, and really serves no purpose. Again, apologies. Carry on. --Jayron32 14:37, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
You're just guessing that there isn't an underlying reason. There are many possibilities, such as competition between two or more groups, government subsidies, lax building codes that make construction cheaper, etc. I don't know if any of these is the case, but I won't state that there is no underlying reason without proof. StuRat (talk) 02:26, 23 September 2016 (UTC) See null hypothesis. Come back if any words in that article don't make sense to you. --Jayron32 02:51, 23 September 2016 (UTC) If you are stating that there is no reason, that's not supported by any evidence you provided. If you are stating that there MIGHT not be a reason, that isn't very useful. Is your link supposed to show there's no reason or that there is a reason ? Commit to something, then support it. StuRat (talk) 13:10, 23 September 2016 (UTC) Stu, you dig yourself a bigger hole with every response you make. Either you're not intelligent enough to realize the difference between refusing to assert that anything can be known (known as holding the null hypothesis) and making unverifiable claims (which is what you do every day) or you're deliberately twisting words in a desperate and hopeless attempt to justify your own ineptitude here. I never said I could prove there is no reason. I said one must not accept any reason for which there is no proof. Those are completely different concepts. I don't expect you to understand any of this, as your history here shows you utterly incapable of doing so. I merely wish to flag, for other readers, that your own responses here are completely unreliable (being unreferenced) and thus, not worth considering. Any day now, you could change that forever by simply changing your behavior so you provided useful reading material for our question askers. But you'll never do that, will you, because that would be too much like right. You're just content to continue to invent your own answers and then attack people who actually provide links to useful articles. It's never going to stop, is it? You're never actually going to become a better person are you? Are you entirely incapable of growth and improvement, or are you deliberately refusing to improve? Which is it? --Jayron32 14:15, 23 September 2016 (UTC) (I'm sick of refuting your baseless accusation, so I will just repeat myself from your last rep.) For half-remembered bullshit answers, we only need to look at your current false info you provided on the US Electoral College here: [2]. I can provide many more such BS answers, from you, if one is not enough. As for my referenced answers, here's one: [3], and I can provide many more. And you are never going to stop accusing others of the exact behavior you engage in, are you ? StuRat (talk) 14:21, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Okay, let's sharpen the question. Is there an underlying reason favoring the development of particularly tall buildings in Chicago? --69.159.61.230 (talk) 05:54, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

The article Early skyscrapers may give some insights. One (though not the only) reason for building skyscrapers is obviously to provide the maximum possible useable (and therefore rentable or sellable) space (usually office rather than residential) in the preferred location: if the amount of available land suitable for erecting such a building is limited, the building necessarily has to be narrower and to have more floors in order to provide the same total square footage.

Reasons for restrictions on the footprint size of buildings will vary depending on the particular location: they might be

• legal, such as the permitted maximum sizes of the building lots, which may be restricted by local regulations;
• historical, as earlier buildings or building lots were naturally small by modern standards, and the current owners of existing lots are unwilling to sell them (wanting instead to build their own tall buildings on them);
• geological, as very large buildings need their foundations to rest on bedrock, which may may be unfeasibly deep in places – the latter contributed to (though was not the predominent factor) the distribution of skyscrapers on Manhattan Island, for example. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.202.211.191 (talk) 08:59, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

• The article I already linked to on the Chicago school of Architecture also has some insight. Since no one took the hint the first time, let me make it more explicit. It's called the Chicago school for a reason. Read the article. Someone may learn something. --Jayron32 11:36, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

I'm sure we all did read it, Jayron, and I myself didn't attempt to address the question of aesthetic preference precisely because you had thus already done so, and begun by saying "One (though not the only) reason . . . . But aesthetics aside, people decide to do things for reasons, and where large sums of money are involved they are usually financial reasons. Yes, things are done because people decide to do them – that's logically : the Chicago school decided to develop the technology of building skyscrapers, but they must have had motivations for doing so. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.202.211.191 (talk) 06:03, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

• As for "why did Chicago fall behind and then catch up", History of Chicago has a lot of information. Skyscraper building in Chicago started in the late 19th century after Great Chicago Fire when the city was very merchantile. In the early 20th century, it became a more industrial, blue-collar city (hence a slow down in office space needed, especially with the Great Depression), and then reverted to commerce when industry left in the 1950s. The article also mentions that the city has quite swampy ground, which limits building sizes and requires the use of the steel frames and other lightweight designs. Presumably that's a factor in the rise of the Chicago schools of Architecture that Jayron32 linked. Smurrayinchester 13:27, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

This is rank speculation, but FWIW I'll note that the Chicago River wraps around three sides of Chicago's downtown area, perhaps creating a small but psychologically significant barrier, or perhaps simply escalating the property values due to the scenic aspect. If I understand it correctly, the higher the property value the taller the buildings tend to be. Wnt (talk) 17:38, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

what is the capital of northern cyprus when it is in europe

We need to get some information about this, please guide us . — Preceding unsigned comment added by SaimaBukhari (talk • contribs) 05:07, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

How often does it move in and out of Europe? And why? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 05:19, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

See Northern Cyprus - the state is officially recognized by Turkey, but not (at present) by other European nations. This, however, may change. Its capital is North Nicosia. Tevildo (talk) 07:03, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

• You might also want to see Northern Cyprus and the European Union, which I think is what you mean by "when it is in Europe". On paper, the territory of Northern Cyprus is part of the EU, and Turkish Cypriots are counted when allocating seats in the European Parliment. However, Northern Cyprus is recognized by the EU as not being under Cypriot control, and therefore exempt from EU regulations. The EU don't recognize the Northern Cypriot government, and there is currently no chance of it becoming an EU member. Instead, the plan is (or at least, was) for Northern Cyprus to reunify with the Republic of Cyprus as a federal state, of which the capital would simply be Nicosia. This is the plan supported by Turkish Cypriots, but has been blocked by Greek Cypriots (see Annan Plan for Cyprus). Smurrayinchester 07:47, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

How does the poor live in New York City?

I checked out on Google Maps in Street View one of the residential areas in Brooklyn. I read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn before, but seeing old houses helps me visualize the scene. I looked up on Google for the townhouse's price, and I was shocked. The random townhouse was worth a million dollars. Only wealthy capitalists can afford it. Where does the poor live? How many grocery stores stocked with fruits and vegetables would be nearby? Do people always take the subway or bike or walk? 64.134.39.172 (talk) 19:47, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

A million dollars? That's normal actually. Townhouses in Manhattan average $6 million (the crimey third like Harlem is part of the average) and go up to $53 million at least. 18 x 58 ft Brooklyn lawn in the ghetto: $65,000. If you're looking north of the bridge like the picture in the article then that's near or at the most hipster part of the entire city. It's so hip some can't even afford to live there anymore (that is the later stages of gentrification, which hip Manhattan neighborhoods entered earlier. Artsy people aren't all well off of course).

Brooklyn's poor generally live in apartment buildings (might be divided townhouses), government housing projects (typically post-war) or attached or barely detached houses or possibly fancier places if they've lived there for decades ("rent grandfathering"). The allowable increase barely covers inflation so you can see poor and gentrifiers renting identical value units of the same building and the apartment's magic juju can be transferred to children and grandchildren when you move out but not distanter relations like nieces. Now if you've lived there since 1 July 1971 (uncommon), make under $200K use it as your primary residence AND the building's pre-1947 (super common) then you're full blown rent controlled. In a working class area the townhouses you looked at might be divided into several apartments per floor. These apartments are about $1K per month for 1 or 2 rooms plus your own kitchen and bathroom. Public housing is 30% of income and up to several tens of floors but the ceiling's so low that I can touch the ceiling with a bent elbow and I'm shorter than average. A guy about 6'4" or 6'5" would have to duck at every door. The floors are thin. That's how you know it's public housing, you wouldn't believe how small the roof-window gap looks if you knew a story was more like 2 meters than the usual 3. They ripped up neighborhoods and replaced them with swaths of cookie cutter subsidized high-rises and actually ended up accelerating the criminalizing and impoverishing of the area that the public housing was supposed to help. The one time I visited I saw a bullet hole and that one was safer than Bklyn projects. If you want to see what poor Brooklynites neighborhoods look like see Brownsville, Crown Heights (1991 race riot), East New York, Canarsie, parts of Bed-Stuy, East Flatbush - or like Sunset Park and a few others for examples that are safe and working class. Those areas except the last one went way downhill during the 1950s to 60s or 70s. There was white flight (they weren't making new Americans anymore to replace the upwardly mobile, (Immigration Act of 1921 and '24), suburbs became popular, veterans got cheap mortgages and college, crack cocaine became epidemic...) 1993 murder rates were 1 per 120 people per decade in Brownsville for example. A few working class Irish areas of Brooklyn like the book still exist but they're diversifying, gentrifying or aging like Florida. Or they're areas of detached homes in the swampy edge of Brooklyn that are much less built-up than Williamsburg. If you just want to see the buildings a lot of the ones in the book's setting should still exist. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 20:16, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

People take the subway when they want to pay ~$2.50 one way and walk when they don't. A lot of things are usually within walking distance. Maybe the neighborhoods so bad that pregnant women got sodomized on the roof (at least in the 80s) have a problem with food scarcity but I don't know as I've never lived anywhere ghetto enough to not have a "real" supermarket within a half mile walk. I've lived in poor areas with plenty of supermarkets. Maybe food deserts are more of a problem in other cities because almost every city in the country is less dense than New York. The supermarkets get more expensive before they disappear. Because too many people shoplift I think. And they have to save some on top of that to pay the security guard. Some people bike but it's not big like the Netherlands. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 20:47, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

See gentrification. StuRat (talk) 01:08, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

[banned user comment]

What de Blasio? I don't know if this is a thing. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 00:42, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Is the term "tradesman's entrance" even used in American English? It sounds more like British. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:54, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

That sounds a century out-of-date. However, rich people are unlikely to use the same entrance as blue-collar workers because they would live in different buildings. An exception is that some building ordinances require that new developments for the rich include a few units for the poor people who were displaced. Actually having signs that say "Poor People's Entrance" would be unacceptable, but they might manage it so that the units occupied by poor people have a separate entrance, and people could only use the entrance leading to their unit. A common variation on this is where the penthouse suite is only accessible by whoever occupies it. This can be accomplished by a key used in the elevator, or a secret code entered there, or, in some cases, a separate elevator.

As for businesses, they quite often have a separate entrances for employees and customers. StuRat (talk) 01:10, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

• See Rent control in New York. --Jayron32 21:59, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Religious fundamentalism

Can Catholics be Christian fundamentalists? Or is this term reserved for a particular type of Christianity? 64.134.39.172 (talk) 20:23, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

See Christian Fundamentalism and Traditionalist Catholic. The answer is "Possibly yes, depending on how one defines 'fundamentalist'." Tevildo (talk) 20:56, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

I would argue that they were, during the Crusades and Inquisition. But to do so today would mean they would either need a fundamentalist Pope or to go against the will of the Pope, in which case they might be excommunicated. StuRat (talk) 01:05, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

This is true to some extent, but the Pope does allow some leeway - for example, the Society of Saint Pius X, which explicitly denies the validity of Vatican II, is tolerated (although its rulings are ignored, and some members were temporarily excommunicated for overstepping the boundaries). Smurrayinchester 04:44, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

• In the Catholic Church (especially France), fundamentalists are often called integrists. See The Last Temptation of Christ (film)#Attack on Saint Michel theatre, Paris for an example of integrist terrorism. Smurrayinchester 04:36, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

opus dei could be considered fundamentalists certainly. An interesting political position is ultramontanism AugusteBlanqui (talk) 20:59, 24 September 2016 (UTC)