CityBracket: Lessons and Carols

So now that I've written up 15 CityBracket 2025 matchups, what have I learned? What can I (or, if I'm feeling bold, we) take away from this process and from thinking about these cities in this way?

I've organized these around the theme of "Lessons and Carols," ala a Christmas Eve service: one lesson paired with something lighter--in this case, a photo I didn't get to use to illustrate something in the series. And as is traditional at least at my wife's church, we'll be doing 7 of them.

Lesson 1: Consider Scope

Let's start with a lesson about how I did CityBracket itself. While I am glad to have chosen cities that I had such a close personal connection to (not to mention many photos of!), and it was helpful for me to think through the various places I've been and lived, that still produced some major issues with the bracket itself. Limiting to US cities might have been a good start, given that the two pairings of non-US cities produced the two finalists. Or, alternatively, expanding to have more international cities (Montreal, Paris, Amsterdam, to name three that I have particular thoughts about) might have helped with the scope of the bracket, and the sense that some of the matchups were a bit unfair to those involved.

Related to that: to me, the biggest "what ifs" of this bracket are the two losing international cities, both of which went out in round 1 and both of which gave their eventual finalist national brethren a relatively close contest. Where would Oxford have ended up if it had started in a group with Louisville or Milwaukee, rather than wiping out against big brother London? After all, it got as many points against London as Vancouver did in the final, and outdid both Baltimore and Boston. Likewise, how far could Toronto have gone against most American competition, instead of Vancouver in round 1? The groupings make sense to me, based on my personal experiences of the cities, but they did produce some quick exits for some major contenders. Maybe seeding would have helped?

Carol 1:

There really wasn't any reason to provide this picture of street art in Croydon, but I really like it, and it speaks to an element of Lesson 2, as well.

Lesson 2: Culture Matters

This is a lesson I'm deriving largely from Reece Martin's excellent Next Metro blog: urbanism goes beyond transit. While I continue to believe (given my experiences, especially here in the Quad Cities) that transit is the pumping lifeblood of cities, it's undeniable that it's not the only thing that contributes to urban feel and urbanist living--and this bracket was likely over-reliant on it. The "amenities" category ended up stretching too far, to include cultural and other quality of life elements, which weren't my original intention but were so important they ended up taking over anyway. A future version of this contest should include more explicit emphasis on those non-transit (and non-housing) elements of urbanism.

Carol 2:

There wasn't really an opportunity to consider the physical design of transit vehicles, so this accordion fold in the articulated buses in Seattle didn't come to play--hence Lesson 3

Lesson 3: Transit Isn't Just About Schedules

Obviously a key element of urban transit is where it goes, how it gets there, and how frequently. But you can't actually evaluate the entirety of a public transit system, much less a city's urbanism, on schedules, or on where and by what mode its transit moves people. Details of the transit beyond that can matter too: like whether the buses, trams, trains, etc. are kept up, or adequate to the services they run. Does your light metro go in a tunnel? Or do you run a particularly unique or meaningfully iconic service? Or, as above, are the articulated trolleybuses a familiar and beloved part of the transit network? These matter to how we understand city transit and city urban design.

Relatedly, I may have emphasized rail over bus too heavily in this bracket. Now, I am actually a believer in bus-based systems; Seattle when I was living there didn't have Link, so all the commutes I describe in my own experience were via bus, and a solid bus system (with good scheduling and routes) can do pretty much everything a city needs. But that may not have fully come through in my analysis here. Some of that is because my practical experience suggests that buses don't actually provide an equal level of service even if they could in theory -- but not all of it, and I could do better.

Carol 3:

One of my favorite places in Seattle to walk by (on the recreational path from which I took this photo) and therefore a good reminder for Lesson 4.

Lesson 4: I Love These Cities

Yes, even the ones that didn't do well. One of the biggest benefits for me (and I hope for you) of this series was the chance to tap into that love and see the best that each city had to offer in terms of urbanism, even if (like say Louisville or Rochester) it wasn't ever going to go far in the competition. The frame was helpful for me in terms of thinking through the good parts of each city--an important exercise for anyone living in a city that isn't magically going to become London overnight.

Every city has its areas or its elements that are attractive for urbanist living, and while the giant sprawling metropolis of London may have won, that doesn't mean you have to be London to do things right. I enjoy visiting and revisiting all of these cities, and I had a good time living in each of them. The Pokemon Go summer found me in Rochester; it may not have great transit or walkability, but it still had enough to make that summer special.

Carol 4:

I really wish I could have fully explained why I love the Seattle Public Library main branch so much, but there wasn't time or space, which leads us to Lesson 5.

Lesson 5: It's Hard to Explain the Mundane

One thing I struggled with in writing up these descriptions was the extent to which my love for these cities comes through things that may seem ordinary or mundane, or at least not particularly exciting. The above Seattle landmark is a good example--the libraries in almost all the cities are places I love visiting, but they don't necessarily differentiate each city from the other, and when they do it's not always easy to explain how or why. The Dewey Decimal Spiral at the Seattle Public Library is amazing, but even pictures or videos don't do it justice. 

Even in the cities I tourist in, I do so by wandering about on transit. That can make it hard to explain why a city captivates me, or why it feels urbanist, especially if I didn't happen to take a picture of a particular experience. It's not easy to talk through the ordinary miracles of cities, rather than things like the British Museum or Stanley Park.

Carol 5:

There's just something about these tall towers next to an empty park in Toronto that speaks to me--and to Lesson 6.

Lesson 6: Some Terms Are Hard To Define

I am not saying I think I necessarily did a bad job defining the questions, but there are two sets of comparative questions I struggled with at times: the questions about whether you "can" live your life or get to work without a car, and the ones about how people react to density and to not having a car. The reason for this is that while I think these are actually the fundamental questions of a certain kind of urban living--if the answers are "no" or "negatively," you don't have access to a certain way of life that I value--they are also extremely context dependent. The above picture can help visualize why: these towers are super dense and you could totally live there without a car (there's a transit line underneath). But also they stand out from the surrounding area fairly extremely, which implies that a mile away from this spot the apparent answer to the same questions might be no.

This is where maybe another approach might help: thinking more about what the affordances of the city are (there's some $1000 vocab for you--I mean what it is that the city facilitates and what it makes more difficult) and about the cost of the ideal lifestyle there, rather than a binary yes/no. But of course, a bracket lends itself to yeses and nos, so that may be a structural issue there as well.

Carol 6:

This Pride light-up from Toronto's Village (whose branding is visible in the photo too) was meaningful to me when I saw it, and speaks to Lesson 7 as well.

Lesson 7: Wider Culture Matters Too

Again, this edged its way into some categories by sheer force, but I didn't include anything in the comparison about the larger cultural edifices into which these cities are embedded: the states, the countries, the Western civilization. Can you live life there as a trans person? As a gay person? As a Jew? As an atheist? And so on. And would you want to, or would it corrode you to do it?

These are key questions, and this bracket didn't acknowledge them. London is the home of the new Online Safety Act; does that affect urbanist living there? It must, but how?

Finally, I'll leave you with Carol 7, which is just a picture I really like that encapsulates a certain kind of urbanist living to me, and that I really like.

Carol 7:

The shops are open late at night, and you can walk there from the train station. 

Lessons and Carols usually end with Silent Night, and I guess for me, that is the equivalent.

CityBracket 2025: FINAL! London vs. Vancouver

Welcome to the final matchup in this summer's CityBracket 2025: the showdown between two international cities I love to visit, would totally love to live in, and no one can actually afford: London and Vancouver! 

Before we begin, let's remember how these cities got here. Vancouver faced down arguably the single hardest path to the final, certainly harder than London's, taking out its fellow Canadian city, Toronto, the American giant New York, and then the US capital itself, Washington DC in a series of close matchups. London, on the other hand, faced its toughest matchup (yet?) in the first round, where feisty Oxford struggled to a 4-8 loss--after which London wiped the floor with both Baltimore and even the mighty Boston (which had itself ousted Seattle and Chicago, both serious contenders in their own right). Who will win? Which city will get the completely unrecognized honor of being our CityBracket 2025 champion? Let's find out!

Category 1: Visiting Without A Car

a) How can you get to the city? 

Vancouver does well in terms of connecting its main airport to the main metro line, and having a fairly close to downtown terminus for its primary intercity rail, Amtrak Cascades. It also has an active ferry system to the rest of the most heavily populated parts of British Columbia.

London has Eurostar and major intercity services to all of the UK, along with multiple airports all connected by rail, and especially the new Elizabeth Line to Heathrow.

VERDICT: London 1, Vancouver 0

b) How do you get around?

Vancouver's main tourist areas are heavily concentrated downtown, or close to it, and the main downtown area is both compact and walkable. 

Stanley Park is a delight, and incredibly easy to get to.

London has a much wider area to cover for tourists, but a more comprehensive transit system for it as well. 

It's hard to avoid the tourist areas sometimes on a London bus.

VERDICT: London 2, Vancouver 0

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

In Vancouver, it's only whether you can get to UBC and its museums via bus--can you navigate the system to do that?

In London, it's similarly about navigating the system: the whole network is impressive, but also neither the easiest nor the cheapest to find your way around in. And the area to cover (because of how much London has to offer) is much larger.

VERDICT: London 2, Vancouver 1

Category 2: Living Without A Car

a) Can you expect to get to work?

We've run these numbers before: London runs at about a quarter car commuters, while Vancouver is about half. That is reflected in the nature of the transit and active mobility systems: Vancouver's is strong for a fairly simple system, but London's complexity (see above) lends itself to a much easier time getting wherever you work from wherever you live.

Especially if you're willing to take the bus.

VERDICT: London 3, Vancouver 1

b) Can you live the rest of your life?

Here is where we pour one out for how ridiculously expensive the US as a whole is, since two straight US cities have failed to take this from insanely expensive London.

Vancouver is also insanely expensive, famously so. And yet...

The cost of living difference here is, on balance, in favor of Vancouver.

Yes, despite all that: living in London is somehow on average more expensive than living in Vancouver by enough that all the calculators that were showing it close to US cities show it worse than Vancouver. 

Cost of living isn't everything, of course (this is why Baltimore still lost this to London). But Vancouver does have the other things you'll need (groceries, schools, hospitals) accessible without a car--so this goes with the cost.

VERDICT: London 3, Vancouver 2

c) How are the basic amenities?

New Yorkers may want to look away, because although I gave Vancouver the victory here over NYC, I find London more in line with Washington for this: the city just has too many museums, parks, and other amenities (and good enough sidewalks and other basics) for Vancouver to make it up.

Vancouver is great to cycle in, especially along the seawall. It has great views and nature.

Even the built up parts look good to me, as a Pacific Northwestern by birth.

But, well...

London isn't ugly either, and that's without talking about the free museums.

Greece may want the Elgin Marbles back, but until they are repatriated, they are still visible in London

VERDICT: London 4, Vancouver 2

Category 3: Miscellaneous

a) Are there people on the street?

As always, the answer here is yes, but we're going to have to make some tight distinctions.

It's probably not fair to use Chinese New Year as a barometer.

Vancouver is built to put people on the street level:

London is just old, and so people are still there:

Given that one of these is downtown and one is 11 miles out of downtown in Croydon, I'm going to give this to London though.

VERDICT: London 5, Vancouver 2

b) Where is the city's urbanism going?

I am very impressed with both of these cities' trajectories for urbanism. London has completed the Elizabeth Line, modernized cyclepaths, and expanded the emissions zone for cars. I keep reemphasizing the BC upzone for Vancouver, because it is indeed a big deal, and the cycling and other urban infrastructure there also keeps improving.

For me, it comes down to this, which may be a bit simplistic but there you go: the cancellation of HS2--I'm sorry, "rescoping" to remove the point of it--and the current lack of plans to actually get it to Euston station make me doubt the political will in the UK to really make another major step for London's transport. Is it already better than Vancouver's? Yes. But trajectory-wise, this goes to Vancouver.

VERDICT: London 5, Vancouver 3

c) Is it functionally diverse?

I think this one is predictable from last round's results: if London is somewhat more segregated than the UK national average, with a white majority, whereas Vancouver doesn't have a single majority ethnic group, with lower segregation than similar cities, Vancouver tips this category. We do have the confounding variable that most studies of both these cities compare them to the US, not to each other--but I do think that Vancouver pulls slightly ahead in this category.

VERDICT: London 5, Vancouver 4

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

It's appropriate that this is the category where London wins, because its congestion zone--and the fact that it reduces car use and car ownership so low, alongside options like public transit--is really a crowning jewel of its urbanism. Vancouverites would, based on averages, expect about a car per person or a car per two people; car ownership in London is maybe half of that.

Of course there are cars--people just don't expect you to actually own one.

VERDICT: London 6, Vancouver 4

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

Well, Metro Vancouver has its iconic towers, and that has led to high density--for Canada.

There's no denying that a lot of people can live in towers like that.

London is just denser though: denser in the core, and denser overall. 

It has towers too.

And walkable, street-level density as well.

I love Vancouver, and I think it's utterly appropriate that it came closest of all these cities to knocking off London. But this category and the overall matchup have to go to London: the winner of CityBracket 2025!

VERDICT: London 7, Vancouver 4

CityBracket 2025, Round 3, Matchup 2 (Semifinal 2): Vancouver, BC vs. Washington, DC

On this side of the bracket, two of my favorite cities to visit have emerged victorious: Vancouver surprisingly besting both Toronto and New York on the bracket of pure tourism and Washington, DC coming out much less surprisingly from what may have been the easiest bracket, given my family's tendency to live in less urbanist cities.

Let's see who gets to go up against the European giant in the final! Will it be a battle of national capitals, or will the US be excluded entirely?

Category 1: Visiting Without A Car

a) How can you get to the city? 

Both cities sit at the end of an Amtrak corridor that is the primary train option, have fairly robust intercity bus/coach service, and connected their airports to their subway lines.

Unfortunately for Vancouver, DC has two airports, both on the Metro, and the Acela corridor is a stronger rail link than Amtrak Cascades or anything VIA Rail currently offers.

The SeaBus is a personal favorite (and I love that building), and BC Ferries is nice, but they can't tip the scales against that.

VERDICT: Vancouver 0, DC 1

b) How do you get around?

The Washington Metro is a nice system, and DC is a very walkable area in general. Tourists have no problem getting around the city.

SkyTrain is also pretty straightforward, and Vancouver downtown is just as walkable. 

Ultimately, I think the visitor-oriented parts of Vancouver are more compact, and SkyTrain is a simpler system to navigate.

Price is also a concern--except the costs of their transit systems to ride are pretty much parallel. But note that Vancouver works on a zone system, while DC is distance-based--this means that again, it's just easier to get around on the TransLink system.

VERDICT: Vancouver 1, DC 1

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

On the one hand, it's pretty easy to get everywhere a tourist might be interested in in both cities.

Everyone's Chinatown is easy to get to.

But overall, here I think DC really shines: UBC is on a good bus line and going to be on SkyTrain, but pretty much everything in DC that a tourist needs is right there on Metro.

This meerkat, however, might disagree, since he's kinda stuck in the zoo.

VERDICT: Vancouver 1, DC 2 (unless you're a meerkat)

Category 2: Living Without A Car

a) Can you expect to get to work?

In DC, about 2/3 of commuters use non-auto modes for their commute, compared to a bit over half in Vancouver.  That's not quite as true for the overall metro area, though, which flips the percentage around in DC, and by a little bit it's even worse in Vancouver.

Basically, the answer is yes, but you'll want to live in the main city--and there, DC wins.

VERDICT: Vancouver 1, DC 3

b) Can you live the rest of your life?

Overall, about half of metro Vancouver trips are by transit or active modes. That is not the case in DC; commutes are heavily out of the car, but that does not appear to translate to the rest of life (at least, not in the wider metro area; DC residents may be another matter).

This is reflected in car ownership. Metro DC is at 1.67 cars per capita, and no single part of the Vancouver metro, let alone the overall, is that high.

VERDICT: Vancouver 2, DC 3

c) How are the basic amenities?

I love Vancouver's amenities (witness how I gave it this category last time against NYC). But DC has it all: the Smithsonian (even if they cave to presidential pressure), walkable streets, gorgeous architecture.

VERDICT: Vancouver 2, DC 4

Category 3: Miscellaneous

a) Are there people on the street?

Yes, in both cases. In my experience outside the most downtowny parts of the city, though, DC has fewer eyes on the street than Vancouver. 

That's a subjective measure, of course. There's people here, even if I tend to avoid taking pictures of too many strangers:

Just like there are in this random Vancouver park:

But I can't help my subjective reading--and that is, Vancouver has this more.

VERDICT: Vancouver 3, DC 4

b) Where is the city's urbanism going?

This is a place where DC is doing well--just extended Metro, has plans for more--but Vancouver is just doing better, with the BC upzone, SkyTrain extensions, and the lack of a federal government that wants to take over the city and undo its work.

VERDICT: Vancouver 4, DC 4

c) Is it functionally diverse?

DC and Vancouver are both highly diverse cities, although DC metro is likely more segregated by race, especially given the city/suburb divide. Canada just tends towards lower segregation, even if it's still a potential issue. As is often the case with US cities, racial diversity in DC is more about a Black/White divide, where the city is plurality Black and the metro area is not, whereas there is much more Asian population in Vancouver.

Again, both highly diverse--but I think this goes to Vancouver.

VERDICT: Vancouver 5, DC 4

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

I don't think either city would treat that as odd (which is a theme this late in the bracket) but there are still noticeable differences. It really depends whether you were in the inner city, in which case I think DC is less concerned about you than Vancouver is, or in the outer suburbs, where DC residents will actually start looking at you oddly (as US people do on this topic).

But in the land of fine distinctions, I think that matters.

VERDICT: Vancouver 6, DC 4

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

DC is a dense city overall, but it has a lot more mid-level and low density, especially in the suburbs. Vancouver has its Vancouverism, pushing people close together even with a visual streetscape that's lower-density-looking. In neither city would you be thought of as odd for being in a dense area, but it's more central to Vancouver culture than DC

North Vancouver is still pretty dense. 

Of course, so is random urban DC:

But the overall population is denser in Vancouver: the metro area by about 3 times compared to the entire DC metro, while the cities themselves are closer but Vancouver is still a bit denser. 

FINAL VERDICT: Vancouver 7, DC 4

Well, this was a much closer matchup, but Vancouver has seen off the last US city in the competition. Next up: the final, a matchup of two of my absolute favorite cities (no surprise there) and the best of Canada against the best of the UK. May the best Commonwealth city win!

CityBracket 2025, Round 3, Matchup 1 (Semifinal 1): London vs. Boston

Here we are, in the final four! Boston has emerged from a hard-fought set of matchups as the best of the best from the cities I've lived in the longest, and London has fought off its own little sibling, Oxford, and then waxed Baltimore for the crown among cities I've lived in for a shorter time. Let's see who moves on to the final--and whether we see another squeaker or another wipeout.

Category 1: Visiting Without A Car

a) How can you get to the city? 

Boston has but the one airport, connected but a bit oddly to downtown. London has more airports, some with great connections but most much further from the city center.

Boston is also the northern terminus of the Acela Corridor in the US, the highest speed and most frequent rail in the country. London is the hub of all UK railroading, and also one end of Eurostar (aka HS1 in the UK), running to Paris, Brussels, and (but for a period of repairs this year) Amsterdam. 

This is an easy one for London, I'm afraid; Boston is good, but London is one of the easiest cities to get to without a car.

The trains do not actually drive over Shakespeare's face, however.

VERDICT: London 1, Boston 0

b) How do you get around?

Boston is, in my opinion, more walkable as a metro overall for tourists than London, partly because the "Boston metro" is more compact.

London's system is more comprehensive outside that urban core, but that's less crucial to a tourist perspective. Not that there aren't quite walkable areas:

Historically, very walkable. And the Millennium Bridge makes it easier.

Frankly, these are both very easy, but I'd say that (again, because of compactness) Boston tips the scales here.

VERDICT: London 1, Boston 1

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

That said, as soon as you're outside the compact core (say, for a football match--of any type) Boston loses its edge, hard. And you can't get to Foxboro (as I keep saying in this competition).

There are a billion different stadia in London, but they're all accessible by transit in a way Boston doesn't respect, and honestly there's nowhere you can't get with time and transit.

Say, for example, you wanted to see Chelsea.

VERDICT: London 2, Boston 1

Category 2: Living Without A Car

a) Can you expect to get to work?

Londoners benefit from that larger, more extensive network. Lewisham is much easier to access (and to get back to the City from if you work there) than Brighton in the Boston metro, even though they're roughly equivalent distances from the city center (about 6 miles). The advantage grows the further out you are, especially if you work a non-traditional schedule.

This guy is going places--with two decks of people on him.

This guy is stuck in traffic--which also happens in London, but it felt like a good metaphor.

This is reflected in London having about 10-20 percentage points fewer car commuters than Boston. The congestion charge surely affects that, but also--London can have a congestion charge because it has the systems in place to support that.

VERDICT: London 3, Boston 1

b) Can you live the rest of your life?

Yes, in both cases. Boston has amazing low car ownership for the US: over a third of households have no cars at all.

Outer London shows similar numbers. Inner London nearly doubles them. 

That's the difference between "you can live the rest of your life" and "most people do." Over half of households in inner London have no access to any car. 

That speaks to how easy it is to live life in London without a car. 

This is normally where I'd say that cost of living matters, and it certainly does. But opinions differ on which of these two cities is actually more expensive. Is it London? Is it Boston? I expect it is actually London. But the point is, it's close enough that that big advantage in the ease of a car-free lifestyle makes a big difference (Boston with a car is more expensive than London without).

VERDICT: London 4, Boston 1

c) How are the basic amenities?

Look, I took a tour of the Olmsted Parks the first week I was at college, and I love them. Likewise, the MFA and the various museums at Harvard are excellent.

I would still spend every day at the parks and museums in London over them--plus the London ones tend to be free.

The sidewalks, streetscape, and other amenities are similar. I love Boston, and it still can't beat London here.

I even like the views, let alone the collections at the British Museum

VERDICT: London 5, Boston 1

Category 3: Miscellaneous

a) Are there people on the street?

Very much yes in both cases! 

I want to give this as a tie, or to Boston, so much, because I love walking in Boston and there genuinely are people on the street there a lot. But here's the views from the places I lived around both downtowns:

Boston (Gainsborough St)

London (Farringdon)

Neither has any people, but one is dominated by cars, while the other shows you bikes. They're similar streets--if anything, the Farringdon one is more of a through-street--but you can see the difference.

Let's look at another comparison, this time of major downtown walkable areas by financial centers:

Boston by the Prudential Center

London by Canary Wharf

The former photos are old; these are recent; the overall feeling is the same. Boston has people on the street, I promise, but London has to win this.

VERDICT: London 6, Boston 1

b) Where is the city's urbanism going?

I did some diving here into the 2030 plans for each metro. And while both metros know they need to expand their transit, Boston doesn't really have strong plans for that. London does (although of course people debate if it's enough).

I would love to live in either of these going forward, but there's a clear winner in the future category too.

VERDICT: London 7, Boston 1

c) Is it functionally diverse?

Both of these cities are ethnically diverse; London just barely has a white majority, while Boston does not, though both have a white plurality. Boston is a city with some extensive metro segregation; London, for all its diversity, may be less integrated than average in Britain by some measures. 

Given that, I'm going to just tip this over to Boston here, though it's very close.

VERDICT: London 7, Boston 2

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

No one in either city will blink an eyelash. But that reaction will stretch further into the suburbs for London than it will for Boston; I got strange looks out in Newton for not having a car when I worked there.

VERDICT: London 8, Boston 2

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

Both cities are quite dense and build density downtown especially.

The river is prime real estate.

So is the financial district.

London's density extends over a broader part of the urban area, however. Metro Boston has some areas that are much less dense, even if there are definitely areas of major density as well.

Basically, as with much of this, Boston is good; London just keeps beating it at the same game.

FINAL VERDICT: London 9, Boston 2

Perhaps throwing all that tea into Boston Harbor was a waste of time, and we should have thrown dirt in there to increase the urban land downtown instead. An easy romp for London in the end into the final, where DC or Vancouver awaits.