Sister cities

[King of Kensington]

Not as much interested in compiling a list of actual sister cities (if I do it's a coincidence!), but what are some pairs of cities that have similar similar feel - culturally, demographically, urban form, etc.  Avoid cities right next to each other like Minneapolis and St. Paul.

I'm going to be horribly provincial and start with North American and British cities:

Burlington, Vermont and Kingston, Ontario - small lakefront cities of similar size with a university presence that have really revitalized their downtowns.

Calgary and Denver - "mile high cities" in the Rockies with somewhat similar urban forms and quite similar skylines.

Toronto and Queens, NY - OK it's a borough but it's also a county.  I never find that the Toronto/NYC comparison really works but I've been to Queens several times and it reminds me of Toronto (both inner city and "suburban" parts) in a lot of ways - somewhat similar in housing and urban form ("Archie Bunker houses" for example), really diverse where ethnic no group really dominates.

London and New York - the two "world class" cities par excellence.  Since London has 32 boroughs and NYC 5 - will have to do "pairs" of NYC communities and London boroughs at some point.

Berkeley, California and Cambridge, Massachusetts - Kinda obvious. 100,000-ish cities with world class universities right across a bridge from a major city.  

The college town thing, where they really pretty much are the town, is really pretty much an American phenomenon.  Trying to come up with a Yale/Princeton and Oxbridge thing - all leading universities a similar distance to NYC/London, but they all fall flat.  Oxford is booming and quite big, while New Haven beyond Yale is really run down, Cambridge is a lot larger than Princeton, etc.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Boston, Massachusetts and Sendai, Japan before the quake--northeastern coastal cities with similarly sized metropolitan areas, histories of comparable length with the oldest parts of the downtown areas of comparable vintage, with disproportionately high numbers of universities relative to the population and economies and cultures still to a large extent centered around their seaports. The people of both also have infamously sadomasochistic attitudes towards their baseball teams.

[King of Kensington]

Mark Twain referred to Berlin as the "Chicago of Europe" - both were the fastest growing cities in their respective continents during the 19th century.  Made sense in the 1890s.  But don't see how it holds up today, Chicago is seen as more of a "practical" city while Berlin is now known as a more cool, artsy creative place (not to mention Frankfurt is the financial capital and has the busiest airport in Germany).

http://twainquotes.com/Travel1891/April1892.html

Today Chonqing has been compared to Chicago in the 19th century - but it's hard to compare it to anything really.

[Хahar 🤔]

Minneapolis feels very much like Salt Lake City.

[King of Kensington]

There is a certain upper Midwest/Rocky Mountain west/Pacific Northwest "type" of city: Minneapolis, Denver, Seattle.  Maybe it isn't a coincidence that Minneapolis was a sort of predecessor to the Seattle music scene?

[Dr. Cynic]

I've always considered Pittsburgh's sister city to be Chicago. Culturally they are extremely similar and the ethnic demographics even break down the same way.

[King of Kensington]

Niagara Falls, Ontario and Atlantic City, NJ

Pittsburgh and Sheffield

[traininthedistance]

As I mentioned back when I visited SF, San Francisco and DC have way more similarities than either of them would really care to admit.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

As I mentioned back when I visited SF, San Francisco and DC have way more similarities than either of them would really care to admit.

I feel like SF would have more in common with either Boston or Seattle than DC.

[King of Kensington]

Not really "cities" but...Oberlin and Yellow Springs, Ohio (abolitionist centers with very liberal liberal arts colleges).

[King of Kensington]

Marseille and Turin.

[Gass3268]

Niagara Falls, Ontario and Atlantic City, NJ

Pittsburgh and Sheffield

I've always considered Pittsburgh and Birmingham, UK.

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

Not sure who would compare to Charleston. I guess Savannah, but I've never been there.

[King of Kensington]

Charleston/Savannah seems like a pretty apt comparison, but yeah, I haven't been to either.

I picked Sheffield as a steel center of similar size to Pittsburgh as well as home to a leading university.  I suppose Hamilton, Ontario, could be a mini-Pittsburgh/Sheffield (steel center + McMaster University), but then it's less than 50 miles from Toronto and has a relationship to Toronto that's kind of like Baltimore's to Washington DC.

[Hash]

Marseille and Turin.

How so? I don't know much about Turin, but from what I know it's certainly nothing like Marseille.

[traininthedistance]

As I mentioned back when I visited SF, San Francisco and DC have way more similarities than either of them would really care to admit.

I feel like SF would have more in common with either Boston or Seattle than DC.

Just for starters.  You've also got all the other ways in which BART and Metro are exactly alike; how the city boundaries are a similar small size, in all three dimensions (yay NIMBYism); how said NIMBYism combined with one particular booming industry (tech/gov't) leads both to picturesque affluence, as well as crushing unaffordability and (in many areas) an artificial feel... etc. etc. etc.

I guess San Fran has hills and DC has swamps.  That's a minor, cosmetic difference.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

Rochester and one of the Novgorods.

[King of Kensington]

Boston / San Francisco (and Cambridge/Berkeley) seems to be the more obvious parallel, but I can see a lot of similarities between the Bay Area, DC and Boston metro areas (highly educated affluent liberal areas of pretty similar size).

[afleitch]

Glasgow and Seattle are weather twins