CityBracket 2025, Round 2, Matchup 4: Baltimore vs London

The last matchup in round 2 is a matchup between a city and the city it was settled from (among others): Baltimore, Maryland and London, UK. We've had a couple close matchups this round and one runaway: let's see where this one ends up.

Category 1: Visiting Without A Car

a) How can you get to the city? 

Baltimore is on the Acela corridor, and connected to Washington DC (also still in this bracket) via the MARC train which also connects its international airport to the city by rail (as does the light rail). I've visited Baltimore coming in both car-free and car-light, and both are easy to do.

That said, let's not pretend that Eurostar, six airports all on train lines, and being the hub of a national intercity coach network doesn't pull London ahead here. 

You can even get to *squints* Welwyn Garden City.

VERDICT: Baltimore 0, London 1

b) How do you get around?

The light rail, single-line subway, and bus service in Baltimore do make it easy to get around. The various tourist destinations are mostly easy to walk to, either from transit or just around downtown. 

My friend the light rail!

London's iconic red buses, world-renowned Tube, and massively interconnected National Rail services could all disappear, though, and I would suggest the Overground, trams, Elizabeth Line, ferries, and even the silly Air Line would still get you around better than anything in Baltimore.

My better friend, the tram!

VERDICT: Baltimore 0, London 2

c) What are the limits on a visitor without a car?

Baltimore has one little section of hipster shops and cafés that everyone recommends--Hamden--and it's actually quite difficult to get to by transit or walking from the rest of the city, hidden up on a hill behind the Johns Hopkins University campus.

The greatest limitation on a tourist in London is finding the time to go everywhere.

Or the crowds.

VERDICT: Baltimore 0, London 3

Category 2: Living Without A Car

a) Can you expect to get to work?

Baltimore's transit system is definitely made up to promote commuters, including commuters to DC and from the Lutherville/Timonium suburbs. 

However, there are definitely places that are hard or impossible to commute to/from without a car. 

London seems to have a somewhat different approach: while of course people do commute by car, between the congestion charge and the sheer cost of living, it's definitely set up to not need a car.

That said, I'm not really counting these motorbikes (but it was nice that there was a motorbike stand!)

VERDICT: Baltimore 0, London 4

b) Can you live the rest of your life?

Here's where cost of living starts to matter, and London is certainly more expensive than Baltimore.

How much? That matters, a lot, because if you can afford it, London has a lot better integration of groceries, hospitals, shopping, etc into the urban fabric, and it's easier to live those parts of your life without a car there.

Some have London only 20ish% more expensive; others more like 40% or even 70%. That's a meaningful difference. It's the difference between which would win this category, in fact.

What all those analyses agree on is that London is cheaper to eat in (groceries for sure, eating out possibly). That surprised me given the overall difference they all agree on. The higher estimates correspond to: the higher cost of transportation. The 70% comes because a car is so expensive. Yes, the monthly transit ticket is also more expensive, but in one place the transit ticket allows you not to own the car--in the other, it's an add-on, effectively.

That means, without a car, London does much better. Well, still worse financially, but good enough that the advantage in city organization shines through.

Sometimes dinner is right next to the station...

VERDICT: Baltimore 0, London 5

c) How are the basic amenities?

I love the Walters Museum, the waterfront by the Inner Harbor, and Fort McHenry.

I'm also aware that even the most xenophobic American inspired by the battle at the latter in the War of 1812 would have to admit that London has the better city amenities including the spoils of empire all around, for free admission.

Some of the spoils are clearer about the colonial context that spawned them than others.

VERDICT: Baltimore 0, London 6

Category 3: Miscellaneous

a) Are there people on the street?

Baltimore has done a much improved job of this over the years I've visited. It's a city where I do see people walking and sitting on their stoops. 

London is one of the few cities I've had actual trouble walking in because of the number of people on the street.

This isn't "difficulty walking" territory, but it is pretty normal levels of people on the street.

VERDICT: Baltimore 0, London 7

b) Where is the city's urbanism going?

Baltimore is finally getting off the ground. That means reviving the Red Line project, and trying to complete more of the urban infrastructure for density and transport.

But proud as I might be of them for that, here's something London has done that Baltimore doesn't even look to do:

Lower speed limits in Islington -- a decade ago -- are about the same as speed limits in side alleys alone in Baltimore.

And then when you consider the larger plan for the future is also more comprehensive, this has to go to London. 

VERDICT: Baltimore 0, London 8

c) Is it functionally diverse?

Baltimore has a legacy of segregation and it has had consequences to the present day. It's a majority Black city, but the metro is not, which might be an indication of the problem. It's a pretty racially segregated metro area, though not necessarily that high by US standards.

That said, the US is generally more segregated than the UK (except with regard to Asian groups, which is an interesting finding). And London in particular is a very diverse city. Even though it wasn't when I was born.

VERDICT: Baltimore 0, London 9

d) How do people there react to knowing you're not using a car?

I've gotten odd looks in Baltimore County about not using a car; in the city, less so but still a certain amount of expectation around car ownership arose.

The topic literally never came up in London, and I think people would have been surprised if I'd mentioned driving--though that might be because I'm noticeably American. Still, none of my UK relatives ever drove into the city to see me either; they took transit, and I took transit out to them as well.

People do own cars in London, but it's very normal not to.

Even if sometimes the bus stops have trouble connecting to their Internet for arrival times.

VERDICT: Baltimore 0, London 10

e) How do people react to people living close together?

Baltimore is famous for the row house. Sorry for the bad picture, but the point is that people are close together.

But again, that isn't the same as London's denser density.

This is a relatively non-dense part of inner London, and yet look at that relative height.

And this is a bit more:

FINAL VERDICT: Baltimore 0, London 11

I'm sorry to Baltimore, which would probably have won some potential second round matchups, but was completely overmatched here. A pair of wipeouts to match our pair of close results in Round 2. We'll move on to round 3 next, aka the semifinals, with London moving on to face Boston, aka the American Revolution v.2

CityBracket 2025, Round 2, Matchup 3: Lincoln vs Washington, DC

The first two matchups in round 2 have been real nailbiters, where as I was going through them I wasn't entirely sure where it would end up going.

I'm not sure that's going to be true today. With all due respect to Lincoln, Nebraska, a city I deeply enjoy visiting and, to quote Shakespeare, would willingly waste my time in, I think there's a clear favorite here. 

But maybe some would have said that about New York last time, so let's get to it! This is Lincoln vs Washington, DC.

Category 1: Visiting Without A Car

a) How can you get to the city? 

Lincoln has daily train service, a cute little airport with some bus service, intercity bus (coach) service, and even a shuttle to the Omaha airport as well.

DC has Acela, the highest capacity and highest speed rail line in the US, even more intercity bus service, a regional train to Baltimore, and three international airports all connected to it by rail, including two on the metro.

Or: I have visited Lincoln without a car once. I have driven into DC once.

The train drops you off right downtown, too.

VERDICT: Lincoln 0, DC 1

b) How do you get around?

Lincoln has a small but relatively robust bus network, a growing and frankly impressive for the Midwest bike network, and a very walkable downtown next to the university.

DC has one of the best subways in the USA, which visits pretty much all of the major sites in the city, the National Mall to walk along, and a more robust bus network than Lincoln.

VERDICT: Lincoln 0, DC 2

c) What are the limits on a visitor without a car?

Honestly, in Lincoln there's not a lot you can't get to without a car that's of visitor interest, although the UNL's Memorial Stadium is definitely set up for car parking first and foremost.

The best rail service in Lincoln: at the Zoo. I'm afraid it doesn't quite compare...

DC? There can be some long walks from place to place, but again, very little in terms of restrictions.

VEDICT: Lincoln 0, DC 3

Category 2: Living Without A Car

a) Can you expect to get to work?

In Lincoln this is primarily true if you live downtown. It's definitely dominated by single-car driving.

In DC, you should totally expect to be able to work without a car, unless you work at one of the federal offices out in suburban Virginia or Maryland -- though in that case you probably won't live in DC proper anyway. There are definitely large numbers of car commuters, but they aren't nearly as dominant, especially inside the city.

VERDICT: Lincoln 0, DC 4

b) Can you live the rest of your life?

Again, I respect the grind of those who live in Lincoln car-free. The bike network and walkable downtown really do make it possible.

You can bike to UNL!

That said, the sheer comparison of lived experience shows how many more people in DC make this work, and I cannot stress how much easier it is to do there.

VERDICT: Lincoln 0, DC 5 

c) How are the basic amenities?

I'm sorry for Lincoln here: I like its parks and museums, the sidewalks are empty (see below) but ample, and I think it has everything you need for a city.

Nice park. Too bad there was no one on this path...

Unfortunately, DC overflows. It hath abundance. It does and overdoes. The national investment in DC's amenities is impressive, and deserves recognition.

VERDICT: Lincoln 0, DC 6 

Category 3: Miscellaneous

a) Are there people on the street?

See above. I have seen more than one person on the streets in Lincoln, and the downtown Haymarket can get pretty packed.

And then there's the rest of the city, where I think my in-laws were about to commit me to a mental institution the first time I walked to the Runza (Nebraska fast food chain) from their house.

DC is a different city: it buzzes throughout, and the desire to walk to your junk food fix is hardly unusual.

VERDICT: Lincoln 0, DC 7

b) Where is the city's urbanism going?

Here, as with NYC, we have to consider the reality of what the US government is doing: whatever we think of DC, we have to admit that Donald Trump has explicitly declared a desire to micromanage the government of DC, which can derail any ongoing projects. 

Lincoln is building out bike lanes and densifying downtown. 

DC has just extended the Metro (into a new county in the outskirts of the metro area even) and has started discussing plans to continue to intensify the transit options in the city. 

Against another opponent the threat of US government intervention might tip things, but DC's developments are just too strong here.

VERDICT: Lincoln 0, DC 8

c) Is it functionally diverse?

For Nebraska, Lincoln is quite diverse. The options in terms of food and groceries, education and community, are diverse among African, Asian, and Hispanic cultures, to name just three broad groups.

DC is a majority-minority city embedded in a larger metro area that is also more diverse than Lincoln. The city has its troubles with historical segregation and discrimination, as all large US cities do, but it's still a more diverse city than Lincoln.

VERDICT: Lincoln 0, DC 9

d) How do people there react to knowing you're not using a car?

In Lincoln they'll probably assume you're a poor student.

In DC, 👍 is probably about the amount of reaction you'll get.

VERDICT: Lincoln 0, DC 10

e) How do people react to people living close together?

Again, DC is much more used to this; in Lincoln it's basically restricted to college kids, and that's not always viewed positively.

FINAL VERDICT: Lincoln 0, DC 11

Sorry Lincoln; I love visiting you and would gladly live there, but it's not DC. This is our first clean sweep (although there were some narrow "ties" in earlier rounds that here in round 2 would probably have fallen one way or the other and caused sweeps as well).

CityBracket 2025, Round 2, Matchup 2: Vancouver vs. New York

This matchup is a big one for North America: the Canadian champion (since Toronto already lost to it) and a major US contender in New York. Let's get to the competition!

Category 1: Visiting Without A Car

a) How can you get to the city? 

New York is the heart of the US East Coast network, in the middle of the Acela corridor and with connections west as well. It also has a strong commuter network, if you're visiting from closer in. It has multiple airports in the region, all of which can connect to the larger transit network with varying degrees of ease. 

Vancouver is on the north end of the Amtrak Cascades, has a major ferry network if you're coming from coastal BC, and has one international airport directly on the SkyTrain. 

Acela is a strong contender here, but the sheer inconvenience of getting to NYC without a car from the airports (which remain, in the US, the dominant mode of intercity non-automotive travel) tips this to Vancouver for me--especially as Acela only covers a limited range of cities from which one could visit NYC.

VERDICT: Vancouver 1, NYC 0

b) How do you get around?

The MTA is a great resource for visitors to NYC: it covers a huge amount of the city, and has stops directly adjacent to, or often underneath, major destinations. 

And of course you can walk a lot of it as well, as these people are doing.

Vancouver is no slouch here: SkyTrain is great, and the bus service is better in Vancouver (NYC has a huge problem with slowdowns). 

With that said, I don't think I can quite give this to Vancouver, much as I love traveling there on foot and transit. NYC just has too much of a system.

VERDICT: Vancouver 1, NYC 1

c) What are the limits on a visitor without a car?

Here's where the MTA system, to me, becomes a bit of a hindrance. It's complex (especially when there's construction, but even without it the express trains can be confusing for a visitor) and as I mentioned above, if you end up on a bus instead of a train it's often very slow. This produces a limit on the practical use of the system that I don't think is present in Vancouver.

VERDICT: Vancouver 2, NYC 1

Category 2: Living Without A Car

a) Can you expect to get to work?

The answer in both cities is certainly yes. NYC is a clear winner here: only 30% of people drive to work, compared to something more like 40% in Vancouver. Both cities have multiple job centers and multiple routes to get to them, a strong culture of non-car commuting, and effective transit options. But NYC does better here in practice.

VERDICT: Vancouver 2, NYC 2

b) Can you live the rest of your life?

NYC has a strong bodega culture, which certainly helps with living the rest of your life beyond work. But to live in the parts of the city that have that culture most strongly, you have to pay out the nose. Vancouver famously has a massive cost of living crisis. New York is somehow approximately 70% more expensive than Vancouver, and that's across the whole city, not the most urbanist parts. 

These aren't cheap to live in, but they aren't NYC prices.

VERDICT: Vancouver 3, NYC 2

c) How are the basic amenities?

Both cities have areas (*cough* Staten Island *cough*) without sidewalks and other pedestrian amenities.

Both also have amazing parks and museums.

Stanley Park

Central Park

NYC has the lead on museums due to MOMA and the Met, although I will say that the American Museum of Natural History falls behind the UBC Museum of Anthropology.

(The pic is actually from Stanley Park, because I didn't take pictures of totem poles in the museum, but the point stands).

Ultimately, I'm going to go with the immense natural beauty of Vancouver here:

NYC doesn't have any amenities like this available a transit ride away, even if I do love the islands in the harbor.

VERDICT: Vancouver 4, NYC 2

Category 3: Miscellaneous

a) Are there people on the street?

Vancouver has a lot of people on the street, especially downtown:

NYC, however, is the locus classicus of this kind of thing.

VERDICT: Vancouver 4, NYC 3

b) Where is the city's urbanism going?

Here's an interesting question. NYC just got congestion pricing and it's massively effective--but the federal government has it in for the program. Vancouver is doing major expansions to SkyTrain, while NYC is finally starting to actually work on that Second Ave Subway at massively inflated cost.

Another key to me here is that Vancouver (and BC more generally) has massively liberalized rules on constructing transit-oriented development. This isn't congestion pricing, but it is a major step forward in urbanist housing, which seems vital given the well-documented issues in housing costs in both regions.

I may regret this if congestion pricing sticks, but the active opposition from the Trump administration to continuing that project makes me tip this ever so slightly to Vancouver.

VERDICT: Vancouver 5, NYC 3

c) Is it functionally diverse?

Both of these cities prize their diversity and multiculturalism. Demographically, NYC has a much higher Black and Hispanic population, while Vancouver has a much higher proportion of Asian ethnic groups: neither city has a single majority ethnic group. Both cities have a history of segregation (as noted last round), but Vancouver is, according to most metrics, much less segregated than US cities in general and NYC in particular. 

In other words, both cities are pretty diverse, but in Vancouver there is less functional division between where different ethnic groups are settled.

VERDICT: Vancouver 6, NYC 3

d) How do people there react to knowing you're not using a car?

This is the reverse of the above: both cities do well but I tend towards NYC. Vancouver does very well on metrics of car ownership, with less than a vehicle per person average in most of the metro area, but NYC does even better. Neither city is one in which anyone will be surprised you don't have a car, but there are places in NYC people would be more likely to be surprised you do, especially given the cost of living noted above.

VERDICT: Vancouver 6, NYC 4

e) How do people react to people living close together?

Again, both of these cities are notably dense, and people are very used to encountering people who live close together. But to my shock, Vancouverism appears to have produced similar density to NYC's intense density in the urban core. The NYC metro as a whole is denser, but the urban density is actually higher in Vancouver. 

Vancouver's design tends towards these spiky little islands of height. 

NYC's is more uniform across the streetscape.

Ultimately, I think that NYC is more used to living cheek by jowl, even if the densities are similar (after all, remember that things used to be denser and less safe).  

FINAL VERDICT: Vancouver 6, NYC 5

It's a close one, and honestly could have gone either way (I imagine a fan of NYC's museums and parks would like a word about that amenities ranking). Both of these cities are amazing for urbanism, but only Vancouver is going on to the next round!

CityBracket 2025 Round 2, Matchup 1: Seattle vs Boston

Welcome to Round 2! Now we've cleared out a lot of our weaker competition (and some very strong competition; sorry Chicago, Toronto, and Oxford!), and it's time to get real--in a sense these are actual finals, between the top two cities in each category, even though it's only round 2. And that means I'm going to be pickier, and finickier, and generally more demanding of these cities: fewer ties, and higher standards. 

We're starting again with the category of cities I've lived in for an extended period, which means it's time for Seattle, city of my birth, and Boston, the metro area I moved to right after that. Let's get to the competition, shall we?

 Category 1: Visiting Without A Car

a) How can you get to the city? 

Both of these cities are served by a major Amtrak route and have train service to the airport. If this were round 1, that might be enough. But let's consider this a little further. On the Boston side, the Blue line is not my favorite service because I tend to be trying to get to the Red line, which doesn't have a direct connection to the Blue. But it does go downtown:

And of course the Silver line exists as well, as do bus services to the airport. Boston also has both Acela and service to the north and west, and a strong commuter system if you're visiting from not-quite-as-far-away.

Seattle has Amtrak Cascades, which is a lovely line that I adore, the 1 Line to the airport, and the Sounder if you're coming from Tacoma or Everett. But it's just not quite as robust a system as Boston's.

VERDICT: Seattle 0, Boston 1

b) How do you get around?

If you go to Boston, you might walk the Freedom Trail which is, you know, pretty walkable. And you might visit the famous universities, which are all on the T. And you might go to the Aquarium, which is even on that same line from the airport.

And then there's Fenway Park, and the Garden, and all of it's basically on the T (see below).

If you go to Seattle, you might take the ferries, which are transit themselves and give a great view of downtown. Or of course the University of Washington, which has its own stops on the Link and is a massive bus hub as well. And the stadiums are right next to each other downtown, right on Link too. And heck, if they ever get a basketball team back, Seattle Center is a major hub, and even has a monorail...

The difficulty is that all those things I described in Boston are actually directly on their stops. The things in Seattle are mostly a couple blocks away. It's almost as if trying to shoehorn everything into one line is limiting...

VERDICT: Seattle 0, Boston 2

c) What are the limits on a visitor without a car?

Look, Foxboro Stadium is a blight upon Boston's sports scene for its inaccessibility, and Seattle doesn't stand for that nonsense.

VERDICT: Seattle 1, Boston 2

Category 2: Living Without A Car

a) Can you expect to get to work?

On the one hand, anecdotally, my family never commuted by car in Seattle, and never commuted by car in Boston, and so it's a wash. It's more impressive that my parents never commuted by car in Seattle over four decades, versus a more limited time in Boston, but it's still pretty close.

Collectively, both cities crush national commute averages, with only about 40% of workers commuting by car alone.

Boston wins in terms of people actually out there commuting to work, but Seattle is a capitol of work from home. Given that working from home is inherently easier to get to work for than even using transit, I'm going to tip it to Seattle here.

VERDICT: Seattle 2, Boston 2

b) Can you live the rest of your life?

Here's where I'd flip that knife's edge back the other way: Seattle has more food deserts than Boston, and I will maintain anecdotally that while the home I grew up in was very close to a grocery store, there's a reason my parents had two cars even though they didn't commute to work by car. Seattle's a fine place to live without a car--many of my friends do--but Boston is a bit better.

VERDICT: Seattle 2, Boston 3

c) How are the basic amenities?

Seattle has a problem with sidewalks: there aren't enough of them. Boston does not have this problem. When you consider that both cities have world-class museums, parks (both even designed by Olmsteds, father and sons), and other civic amenities, this makes a big difference.

Love the view, but it was not easy to walk here.

VERDICT: Seattle 2, Boston 4

Category 3: Miscellaneous

a) Are there people on the street?

There certainly can be in both cities! I am a big fan of the tiny streets in downtown Boston for this:

To be fair, that's a line outside of Pizzeria Regina, but the North Side has a lot of people on the street in general. 

Seattle may not have the small-scale winding streets of downtown Boston, but it's no slouch here either:

Gotta love Pike Place Market! 

Overall, I've walked back streets and main streets all over both cities, and in my experience the quiet residential parts of Boston have less street activity than similar streets in Seattle, especially when you consider the relative size of the hills.

Good urban design, oddly few people out sometimes.

VERDICT: Seattle 3, Boston 4

b) Where is the city's urbanism going?

Boston has done, in my opinion, a really good job expanding its bike network. Of course, it's getting predictable pushback, but look at this:

And this:

I'm a fan.

Seattle has had delays on the 2-Line of Link light rail and issues with the West Seattle line, but they're ahead of schedule on the Federal Way extension of the 1-Line. 

That said, the whole existence of these numbered lines feels designed to remind me that Seattle still only has one line (and a stub of a 2nd line, which doesn't connect). It's good that they're expanding, but it's not like the T has stopped considering expansion (even if it's just the Silver Line buses).

And the Green Line extension is just about as nice (in my opinion) as anything on the 1-Line.

Of course, Seattle is also improving bike lanes...

This is very close; I think I'm going to tip it to Seattle because while both cities are electing new mayors, none of Seattle's candidates seem to favor rolling back urbanism. They just disagree on how much to advance it. I think Boston may well re-elect Wu, but the existence of those anti-bike-lane candidates is more concerning in a close race.

VERDICT: Seattle 4, Boston 4

c) Is it functionally diverse?

Hoo boy. As with all our US cities (and really most global cities) there's of course a legacy of segregation here. On the one hand, I remain frustrated that Seattle's parents were the ones who sued over affirmative action in schools (don't get me started on that, please). On the other hand, Seattle is less segregated than Boston in terms of black and Asian populations segregating from whites, and has a larger Hispanic community as well. 

Both cities are cities where you can expect to see someone who doesn't look like you, no matter your race or ethnicity, and to encounter people of different experiences and backgrounds, including religion, sexual identity, and a lot of other axes of human experience. However, in Seattle you are less likely to have to go to a particular area to find them.

VERDICT: Seattle 5, Boston 4

d) How do people there react to knowing you're not using a car?

Look, Seattle is doing its best here. But even that very article tooting Seattle's horn about car-free households shows Boston ahead of it. Boston and its metro are places where it can be very normal not to own a car, especially for the US. Seattleites aren't totally weird about not owning a car, but Boston is going to win here. 

VERDICT: Seattle 5, Boston 5

e) How do people react to people living close together?

Well, I did not expect this to come down to literally the last question, I'll admit, even though I thought it might be close. And I promise I didn't rig it so it would; this was my genuine assessment along the way. So let's think about density for a minute. Both cities are massively underhoused, so people living cheek by jowl is pretty normal. But Boston--and not just Boston proper, but the metro area--is just denser than Seattle. The densest incorporated part of the Seattle metro is, unsurprisingly, Seattle itself, at 7k people per square mile. Suffolk County as a whole is denser than that, by a large margin, and parts of the Boston metro are over twice as dense.

It's transit-oriented development, to be fair, but look at the height out here in Cambridge-Somerville.

Downtown Seattle will not look at you strangely for living near other people, but so much of the zoning is single-family, non-dense housing that there are parts of the city that do seem to actively resist it; Boston has NIMBYs of course, but not from the same basis in density.

FINAL VERDICT: Seattle 5, Boston 6

CityBracket 2025, Round 1, Matchup 8: London vs Oxford

Our final matchup of the first round is a local battle: our two English cities going head to head. I lived in both of these for study abroad: Oxford as a student, London as an instructor. That means in both cases I lived there for about 3-4 months, though I've also visited both multiple times since then--and never with a car. 

Speaking of which...

Category 1: Visiting Without A Car

a) How can you get to the city? 

Well, London of course has more dedicated airports--one typically flies to London to get to Oxford from out of the country. In both cases, it's extremely easy to get to these cities without a car: train and bus (in the UK, "coach" is the term for intercity buses but the US would call them buses) service reach both. 

It's hard to really assess the difference in scale here: most access without a car to Oxford is from or through London, whereas London is usually thought of as connected to large cities in the rest of the UK and Europe.

That said, I think for tourist visits, London is more of a magnet for "non-car" access; I could see someone renting a car to drive out to Oxford, but not London.

Trains are still a major mode for both, however.

VERDICT: London 1, Oxford 0

b) How do you get around?

Again, scale is a bit ridiculous here: London is a massive metro area, Oxford is (a bit like Lincoln last time) really closely centered (or centred) on its university. London has the iconic Tube, and indeed so many ways of getting around I wrote a whole post (and more than one) about them.

Though admittedly people do drive here. Fools.

But if you're a visitor to Oxford, you're almost certainly walking because that is how the colleges (the primary tourist attraction) are laid out. That has to be a win.

Ignore the parked cars (people everywhere do drive. Fools x2).

VERDICT: London 1, Oxford 1

c) What are the limits on a visitor without a car?

Ah, poor Oxford. While the university is the primary tourist destination, Blenheim Palace is a secondary one--and while a bus does go there, it's only the one.

London, on the other hand, seems to be in the business of generating advanced transportation options for its tourist destinations.

VERDICT: London 2, Oxford 1

Category 2: Living Without A Car

a) Can you expect to get to work?

Well, in Oxford you can if you work at the university (and many people do!). In London you pretty much just can. In fact, you probably had better if you live in the congestion zone where they'll charge you for using a car.

London is by far the least car-dependent commuting area of the UK. Oxford isn't far behind, but it is behind by about 10 percentage points.

It's easier the closer you live and work to the colleges, as above, but not everyone does. 

VERDICT: London 3, Oxford 1

b) Can you live the rest of your life?

In my experience, it's very easy to do this in both cities. I love taking a bus or a walk or a bike ride down to the store and back; both cities make this easy and even pleasurable. 

The major difference is cost of living. Globally, these are both very expensive cities. Locally, Oxford is still a third or so cheaper than London. Yes, some of that difference disappears if you live in the more walkable parts of Oxford, but not all.

VERDICT: London 3, Oxford 2

c) How are the basic amenities?

Both cities are well-equipped with parks, museums, and even more basic amenities like sidewalks and bike paths. London has absolutely world-class museums; Oxford does too, on a smaller physical footprint. Both stole a lot of those from the rest of the world, but since these are both English cities we don't need to relitigate the British empire.

The scale works in Oxford's advantage here: the per capita amenities are hard to beat.

VERDICT: London 3, Oxford 3

Category 3: Miscellaneous

a) Are there people on the street?

In both cases, very much yes. However, I've walked widely over both cities and it's yes everywhere in London; in Oxford I could actually get far enough out that the answer was finally no. 

The sidewalks also end, sometimes.

VERDICT: London 4, Oxford 3

b) Where is the city's urbanism going?

London is a hard act to follow here. The Elizabeth Line is a model for modern, up-to-date cross-city transit development. 

Love the Lizzie Line!

Oxford has had some good initiatives (though also some major resistance). But it's not getting London-level development.

VERDICT: London 5, Oxford 3

c) Is it functionally diverse?

Both cities are more diverse than the UK average, and both report a large number of internationally-born residents. In Oxford this is unsurprisingly driven by the university; in London it is a major feature of the urban fabric.

London is, indeed, more diverse than Oxford, especially outside a university setting, and this is reflected when you walk down the street.

VERDICT: London 6, Oxford 3

d) How do people there react to knowing you're not using a car?

Here again, both cities are elite: no one in either will be confused, surprised, or otherwise baffled by a car-free life.

VERDICT: London 7, Oxford 4

e) How do people react to people living close together?

Here Oxford's historical nature militates against it: too much of the city is historically protected (legally or informally) at a relatively low level of density. London has areas of lower density, of course, but it also has large areas of both high-rises and dense apartment/housing blocks.

This isn't to say Oxford doesn't have types of low-rise density the US would call dense. It's to compare the above with this:

They're just a bit different, even though both are good.

FINAL VERDICT: London 8, Oxford 4.

Next: we move on to Round 2 and the stakes (and expectations for each category) get higher.