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.