CityBracket 2025, Round 1, Matchup 7: Louisville vs Lincoln

Welcome to our penultimate matchup of round 1, Louisville, Kentucky vs Lincoln, Nebraska! My experience of both of these can be blamed on (or traced to, depending on your perspective) my partner, who spent three years while we were dating living in one and hails from the other. As such, I've spent quite a bit of time in both these places, but in idiosyncratic parts of them; I'll admit up front that will probably color my analysis, but I'll try not to make it just about those parts of the cities.

Category 1: Visiting Without A Car

a) How can you get to the city? 

Now, neither of these cities is going to compare to most of the cities I've considered in this bracket: no train lines to airports, no super-frequent bus lines (though both cities do have bus service to the airport). 

Both cities have Amtrak service, but Lincoln has an actual train.

Not just a mural either, though the train comes late enough that the station is staffed only from about 11:30pm to 7:30am. 

Back when I was visiting, Louisville had Megabus service to Chicago, Indianapolis, Nashville, and Cincinnati, and the tourism website thinks it still does, but Megabus doesn't. Lincoln still has service, though, primarily to Omaha.

VERDICT: Louisville 0, Lincoln 1.

b) How do you get around?

Well, without a car you're either walking or you're taking a public bus in both cities.

Lincoln's bus system (StarTran) probably does a better job covering the whole metro area. Most of those buses are infrequent, though, and Louisville metro is enough bigger that TARC still has superior service, especially downtown.

VERDICT: Louisville 1, Lincoln 1

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

Both cities ramp up their transit options if you're going to the biggest events: Churchill Downs (home of the Kentucky Derby) has regular transit service that gets increased for the Derby/Oaks weekend, and StarTran operates special additional buses for Husker gamedays (at an increased fee). 

I will say, however, based on personal experience, that while both cities are walkable downtown, the fact that the University of Nebraska dominates Lincoln's downtown makes it a more walkable tourist destination: it's basically all for college students. Louisville's isn't bad, but it's just that little bit more limited.

VERDICT: Louisville 1, Lincoln 2

Category 2: Living Without A Car

a) Can you expect to get to work?

Well, it depends where you work, doesn't it? Both of these cities are very car-centric: one study shows them with both over 90% of households having a car, and basically if you don't live downtown that makes sense. 

This is Louisville, and if it weren't for the trees it could be Lincoln too. 

Because Lincoln has such a focus of its employment at UNL, though, it is much more likely that if you work in Lincoln you can not have a car (since the bus service and the walkability are both focused on that area).

VERDICT: Louisville 1, Lincoln 3 

b) Can you live the rest of your life?

Again, very few people do. Lincoln scores higher than Louisville on both WalkScore and BikeScore, partly because of the bike lanes it has built: Louisville has potential for these but hasn't implemented them well. Lincoln's are better and across more of the city. 

VERDICT: Louisville 1, Lincoln 4

c) How are the basic amenities?

This is the classic example where I'm going to once again declare a tie (don't worry, the stakes and standards for this will go up in later rounds). Both of these cities have places with bad sidewalk infrastructure:

And both of them also have places with absolutely lovely parks:

Those examples are only a few blocks away from each other, but what can you do.

Neither of these cities is a Washington DC for either, but both are doing OK.

VERDICT: Louisville 2, Lincoln 5

Category 3: Miscellaneous

a) Are there people on the street?

Here it really depends on where you are on the street. Louisville has parks with great gathering spaces:

And it has some areas where people do walk from business to business (though note the cars all around too):

Lincoln has a lot more walking downtown, but honestly it's pretty rare in my experience to see anyone on the street outside of the Haymarket.

VERDICT: Louisville 3, Lincoln 5

b) Where is the city's urbanism going?

Conveniently, both TARC and StarTran make their analyses of their city's current transportation infrastructure public, albeit with differing levels of being up to date. Louisville has focused on getting frequent transit service (hence the better frequency of their service!) while Lincoln has focused more on multimodal solutions (like the biking infrastructure). Overall, however, I have to give this to Lincoln, because they're looking beyond just transit in a more effective way (and losing Megabus certainly didn't help people visit Louisville without a car!).

VERDICT: Louisville 3, Lincoln 6

c) Is it functionally diverse?

Now here we have a showdown of greater segregation (Louisville, with a long history still relevant today) vs lesser overall diversity (Lincoln, which is over 3/4 white). Louisville certainly has problems here, including a long history of judicially mandated busing of school-children to desegregate schools. 

You're still much more likely to see a diverse group of people walking down a street in downtown Louisville, though, even if the city is still suffering the effects of segregation.

VERDICT: Louisville 4, Lincoln 6

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

This is an easy one; Louisville the only place I've ever been met with actual gasps that I didn't use a car to get around.

VERDICT: Louisville 4, Lincoln 7

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

Here again the centrality of the university pulls for Lincoln. The University of Louisville just isn't as much of a central driver of the city's identity, and thus the density needed for university housing just isn't as significant to the city. That doesn't mean that there isn't density in Louisville, but it does mean that people are less weird about it in Lincoln. 

FINAL VERDICT: Louisville 4, Lincoln 8

CityBracket 2025 Round 1, Matchup 6: Milwaukee vs New York

This matchup features my daughter's favorite city against what Hamilton calls the greatest city in the world: Milwaukee vs New York. I was a late visitor to Milwaukee, and it was the last city added to this bracket; I've visited New York from multiple other cities for many reasons. Let's see how things shake out (we probably know how this will shake out)!

 Category 1: Visiting Without A Car

a) How can you get to the city? 

Milwaukee has increasingly frequent train service to Chicago in one direction and Minneapolis/St. Paul and points west in the other. It also does have an airport, but hardly ideal transit service from the airport (though some of those same trains do serve it).

New York has Acela, which in the US at least is a gamechanger, and high frequency bus service from the Port Authority. It also has two major airports in town (JFK and La Guardia) and one close by (Newark) all of which are accessible by transit, though famously not easily or smoothly integrated into the city's transit network.

VERDICT: Milwaukee 0, New York 1

b) How do you get around?

Downtown Milwaukee is quite walkable in the times when temperatures and weather allow it to be (to be fair to the city, I visit a lot in deep winter) and features a skyway of interconnections that allow travelers to roam major parts of downtown with minimal time outside. There is also a burgeoning streetcar network, the Hop, which is free to ride, and a BRT system, Connect, with level boarding and off-bus payment, and integration into a larger bus system with a digital fare card. If it works right. 

New York has probably the best subway in the US if not North America, a much more extensive bus network, a railway to Long Island, and that's not even touching the New Jersey transit in the greater metro region. There can be quibbles with its transit, but that isn't something Milwaukee is prepared to take advantage of.

VERDICT: Milwaukee 0, New York 2

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

Well, in Milwaukee your access without a car is limited to basically downtown. In New York there are places it is hard to get to, but nowhere it's really impossible. 

Even, sometimes, by boat.

VERDICT: Milwaukee 0, New York 3

Category 2: Living Without A Car

a) Can you expect to get to work?

For Milwaukee this will
depend heavily on where you live and work, but the answer is probably no, especially not year-round.

In New York the answer is yes.

VERDICT: Milwaukee 0, New York 4

b) Can you live the rest of your life?

Again, Milwaukee certainly has neighborhoods and places you can do this. New York just has a lot more of them, and they are distributed throughout the metro area. Jersey City and Hoboken, just across the river, might be the easiest places to do this in the US.

VERDICT: Milwaukee 0, New York 5

c) How are the basic amenities?

Here I'm going to speak on behalf of Milwaukee as I did for the Quad Cities in the Seattle matchup: it really does have the basics here, with good libraries and parks, and both the art museum and children's museum (easily accessed by transit) are excellent. New York is amazing, but until we raise the standards in round 2, we'll call this a push.

VERDICT: Milwaukee 1, New York 6

Category 3: Miscellaneous

a) Are there people on the street?

Milwaukee doesn't, not to the same extent as New York at least. Maybe it's climate, maybe it's culture, maybe it's city design, but for all Jane Jacobs may have thought the old eyes on the street design was going away in New York, it's still pretty darn good at it.

VERDICT: Milwaukee 1, New York 7

b) Where is the city's urbanism going?

Milwaukee is really improving. It has built the tram and BRT, the trains are running more often to Chicago, and they plan to keep it up.

New York just implemented congestion pricing and is finally starting construction on the Second Avenue Subway after years and years and years.

Until the government retracts congestion pricing, or rather until a court permits them to do so, it's going to have to be New York.

VERDICT: Milwaukee 1, New York 8

c) Is it functionally diverse?

I mean, as always, there are lots of bad things to note here. Milwaukee has been called the most segregated city in America in my lifetime. NYC has major issues with school segregation, still. Milwaukee is actually plurality Black, but that's just the city limits, and it has a reputation as an awful place for African-Americans to live. NYC has its own significant issues, particularly with the aforementioned schools and policing, but not to that extent.

VERDICT: Milwaukee 1, New York 9

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

This is as simple as some of the living without a car ones: NYC has less than 2/3 of a car per household; Milwaukee is pretty average in the US for car ownership in larger communities. While I visit Milwaukee and leave my car, that's only because of my very specific touristy attitude (and a hotel connected to a food hall). No one at all would be confused by someone without a car in NYC, whereas it would definitely be worth comment in Milwaukee.

VERDICT: Milwaukee 1, New York 10

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

Again, the densities involved make it simple. NYC and its environs are basically the densest part of America. Milwaukee is a bit more than 20% as dense, which is high for the US but not comparable. NYC is very, very used to living close to others, and Milwaukee isn't bad at it but not on the same level.

FINAL VERDICT: Milwaukee 1, New York 11

CityBracket 2025 Round 1, Matchup 5: Chicago vs Boston

Today's matchup is the showdown of the places I lived for five years each while going to school: Chicago vs Boston! Two metro areas I have a lot of love for, both of which I lived in and have repeatedly visited without a car (and a few times with one). It's a shame we can only have one winner, but at least the victor will have vanquished a worthy foe.

Category 1: Visiting Without A Car

a) How can you get to the city? 

Boston technically has airport public transit, though the janky Blue line bus-to-train connection is one of my least favorite versions of this (and the Silver Line can't decide how RT its BRT wants to actually be). 

Chicago has its own Blue Line to O'Hare, though O'Hare is also very far out, and the Orange Line to Midway. Both of these are cities you can easily fly into and not need a car to do stuff.

Both also have good-for-the-US train service, with the Acela corridor ending in Boston (as well as other services) and Chicago serving as the Midwest hub for basically all Amtrak routes. 

That said, Acela beats the pants off of the Chicago services for actually visiting the city, and Logan is nice and close to the city center.

VERDICT: Chicago 0, Boston 1

b) How do you get around?

The MBTA has reasonably good service around the Greater Boston Area, between buses and trains, and the downtown core of Boston is highly walkable.

The CTA and Metra also do a good job of covering Chicago from a visitor's perspective, though the Museum Campuses can be a bit of a slog from the nearest transit stops.

The biggest issue for both cities is that almost all transfers are done through downtown, even when an orbital line would go through very dense areas with tourist attractions.

Boston is just a bit more walkable between its major sites than Chicago, though, and a more compact area for visitors overall.

VERDICT: Chicago 0, Boston 2

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

Well, in Chicago the biggest issue is ticket interchangeability: the Metra and CTA don't recognize each other.

In Boston, it's the sights that aren't on the MBTA at all: places like Lexington and Concord that are often lumped in with Boston area attractions but actually aren't very accessible.

Oh, and if you want to see the NFL team, good luck with that from Boston. Foxboro is a pain in the butt to get to, even with dedicated gameday service. 

Frankly both cities are pretty darn unlimited as far as visiting goes, but I'd give a small nod to Chicago here: there's never been a place I couldn't get to as a visitor without a car.

VERDICT: Chicago 1, Boston 2

Category 2: Living Without A Car

a) Can you expect to get to work?

Both of these cities have good commuter networks as long as you live outside the city center and work in it. Both struggle when you have to counter commute (commuting Boston to Newton for several months was rough). 

Both cities also have high commuter/non-car mode shares. Both are awful places to drive to work, but allow you to avoid it--one of my friends commutes down the Lakeshore path in Chicago, for instance. 

I really think this comes down to exactly where you choose or can afford to live and where you work.

VERDICT: Chicago 2, Boston 3

b) Can you live the rest of your life?

Yes, certainly! However, Boston to me has the edge on transit-accessible things beyond your work: I agree with this analysis that Boston might just be the best city in the US for that (though of course our competition goes beyond the US). The reason for this is that I tend to see, in my experience at least, more grocery stores, department stores, and other non-food amenities around T stops and major bus lines than the same in Chicago. 

VERDICT: Chicago 2, Boston 4

c) How are the basic amenities?

This is another of those places where I'm going to call a tie: Chicago and Boston both have some issues with aging infrastructure and missing sidewalks, but they both have world-class museums and parks, fine access to public bathrooms, trash cans, etc...I never though to complain about these in either city.

VERDICT: Chicago 3, Boston 5

Category 3: Miscellaneous

a) Are there people on the street?

Yes, emphatically, in both cases, but here I think the multinodal character of Boston makes a difference: Chicago has more areas that are like the stereotypical American blocks of endless residential that tends minimize people's visibility on the street, while Boston is an agglomeration of smaller cities that tends to produce odd streetscapes that produce opportunities for street interaction.

VERDICT: Chicago 3, Boston 6

b) Where is the city's urbanism going?

Well, neither city is in good shape here: Chicago may be going over a transit fiscal cliff, and the MBTA isn't in great shape either. The T has a bad history as well. Both systems expanded to underserved communities in the last couple decades. But Chicago did it more recently, and the potential for Illinois to support real regional rail in the larger state, connecting to Chicago of course, tilts the balance for me. 

VERDICT: Chicago 4, Boston 6

c) Is it functionally diverse?

Eesh. Like so many cities, this is a battle of the bad in terms of historical and ongoing segregation (with the admitted point that this means there is diversity in the community). Chicago has a long history here interrelated with the history of the Great Migration; Boston has a serious reputation for racism and the aftereffects of redlining. And lest we think these are in the past, both cities have school segregation issues in the present day. At the same time, both cities have racial diversity, even if that comes with the legacy of segregation; Chicago, however, is substantially less white than Boston. Since Boston hasn't done a significantly better job of integrating that non-white population, that tips the matter.

VERDICT: Chicago 5, Boston 6

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

Both of these are cities where, in my experience, people tend to have no notable confusion or disdain for the lack of a car. However, Boston is much more likely to expect you not to have a car, whereas in Chicago it's much less of a surprise. Boston and Cambridge are 5-6 on this list of least-car-owning cities, and while Chicago is 15, which is still impressive, that's the tipping point between averaging over and under 1 car per household.

VERDICT: Chicago 5, Boston 7

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

Again, it's a bit unfair for Chicago to be up against Boston here, because while Chicago and some of its suburbs are notably dense, and Chicagoans tend to be absolutely fine with density, Boston just outperforms it by a smidge. Glancing at the list of densest US cities confirms this: Chicago loves density, and Boston loves it just a bit more. 

To be clear: no one* here is complaining that density is somehow inhumane or un-American.

*"no one" promise implies only a general sense of acceptance, not the actual absence of any cranks

But one of the cities is just a little more urban than the other.

FINAL VERDICT: Chicago 5, Boston 8

It feels appropriate the final score is the same here as in the Toronto-Vancouver matchup, as I feel very similarly about the dynamics of these city matchups: both are powerhouses unlucky to face the other in the first round, and yet in both pairs there is one city that is just a bit more in line with these criteria than the other.

CityBracket 2025 Round 1, Matchup 4: Detroit vs Washington, DC

This matchup features a city that built cars, which just might end up influencing some of these scores. The other city was built to a plan before the car was invented; perhaps that may matter too. Here's Detroit (where my grandparents lived for most of their lives) vs DC (a metro with multiple relatives and the best man at my wedding). 

Category 1: Visiting Without A Car

a) How can you get to the city? 

The train and bus to Detroit from, say, Chicago, are not bad at all! There is even cross-border bus service to Windsor, ON, though it's stopping on September 1. You can get a bus from the airport to the city also.

Washington, DC is the bottom of the Acela corridor on Amtrak, has multiple other train destinations and robust intercity bus service, a regional rail link to Baltimore, and three airports all accessible via rail (2 on the subway, BWI-Thurgood Marshall via regional rail).

Detroit is served by multiple very fast interstates, but that's kind of the opposite of the point here.

VERDICT: Detroit 0, DC 1

b) How do you get around?

The Detroit People Mover is notoriously pointless. There is a newish electric tram along Woodward Avenue, and it's doing pretty well. Continued attempts to get real mass transit for the region have not yet come to fruition. In the meantime, you're gonna be using a car to get around most of Detroit, especially the metro area.

WMATA has flaws, as all US transit systems do, but is largely considered one of the biggest successes in the post-war metro building boom in the US. And to add to that, most of downtown DC is eminently walkable: the National Mall famously so.

Also pretty bikeable, come to that.

VERDICT: Detroit 0, DC 2

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

In Detroit, it's the giant caverns torn through the metro area by the interstates, and also the lingering effect of urban blight/renewal cycles that means places you might want to go aren't necessarily close by each other.

In DC, it's that the public transit might be slow, or you might want to go to one of the regional Smithsonian locations that are out in Virginia away from transit.

And the Metro goes pretty far out (this is Greenbelt, way out in the Maryland suburbs).

VERDICT: Detroit 0, DC 3

Category 2: Living Without A Car

a) Can you expect to get to work?

Detroit built its commuting culture and thus infrastructure around the car, because Detroit is a center of automotive industry, or at least was. About 6% of Detroiters use transit to get to work, according to the census.

DC has one of the largest commuter shares by transit in the country, about six times larger than Detroit's.

VERDICT: Detroit 0, DC 4

b) Can you live the rest of your life?

Detroit and DC have opposite issues here: DC is expensive, Detroit lacks accessible basics like grocery stores you don't have to drive to. These are both big challenges, but since the question is largely focused on whether you can do things without a car (which reduces costs) DC becomes the winner here--just by less than some of these categories.

VERDICT: Detroit 0, DC 5

c) How are the basic amenities?

Detroit gets a bad rap for this sometimes. There are lovely parks, and the art museum is world class. But DC's parks and museums are literally second to none in the US, and frankly I've walked too many places with bad or missing sidewalks and crossings in the Detroit metro area to give this the tie.

Sorry, Detroit! You aren't bad at this, but DC is excellent.

VERDICT: Detroit 0, DC 6

Category 3: Miscellaneous

a) Are there people on the street?

Look, there aren't always people on the street in DC:

But there are most of the time. And while Detroit also has more eyes on the street than you might imagine, it's still not close.

VERDICT: Detroit 0, DC 7

b) Where is the city's urbanism going?

Detroit's transit probably has a better chance of future funding for expansion: DC is at the mercy of the federal government and local governments that are also dependent on the fed, which is not a blueprint for success. WMATA has spent some time under threat now, in fact. 

Of course, DC will remain a denser and more interconnected area, but the trajectory is potentially one of the few advantages of Detroit.

VERDICT: Detroit 1, DC 7

c) Is it functionally diverse?

Both of these cities are fairly diverse by US standards; both of these cities have historical legacies of discriminatory zoning and housing. DC is actually majority minority; so is Detroit (78% Black!) but the metro area is not, making it by one calculation the most segregated city in the US.

VERDICT: Detroit 1, DC 8

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

This one is easy. Detroiters will boggle; DC will consider it pretty normal. 

VERDICT: Detroit 1, DC 9

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

Detroit does not have a fundamental problem with this, but DC is much denser (about twice as dense). 

To be sure, there are places that are less dense in the DC Metro, like at the end of this Metro line, but even there that's a park--there's plenty of density in the other direction.

FINAL VERDICT: Detroit 1, DC 10

CityBracket 2025 Round 1, Matchup 3: Rochester, NY vs Baltimore

This time we feature possibly the most odd first-round matchup (in terms of my experience of the places) in the entire bracket: Rochester, New York vs Baltimore (Maryland, but there's really only one famous Baltimore). On the one hand, I lived in Rochester for 4 years and in Baltimore's metro area for only 3 months; on the other, I basically never visited Rochester outside of living there, whereas I visited Baltimore to see family for most of my life. So I know both cities pretty well, but in an odd mismash of ways; let's see how it plays out.

Category 1: Visiting Without A Car

a) How can you get to the city? 

I have taken many train trips from Rochester to Chicago, and I think one to New York; the city lies on the route between the two (or Boston, since the train splits around Albany). It's actually relatively well timed for a US train, if you're not the kind of person to get woken up by a train stopping---the both directions of the Chicago-Rochester train are overnight and you arrive at a pretty decent time. A pleasant experience if you managed not to wake up at the Indiana/Ohio stops.

Don't fly into Rochester and expect to get anywhere easily though; the bus does go to the airport but we aren't talking a useful or productive link.

Baltimore has the easy upper hand: sitting on Amtrak's Acela line, the closest thing the US has to a high speed line, with a direct train link (both light and heavy rail) from the airport to the city, and frequent bus service to other Mid-Atlantic destinations as well. Easy in, easy out, actual choice of times and destinations.

VERDICT: Rochester 0, Baltimore 1

b) How do you get around?

Rochester has a high density of destinations in downtown, so you can probably get around pretty well as a tourist. The Erie Canal links city and town centers in the metro area on a walkable, bikeable path, and is scenic itself. There is a bus system, though I'm not going to advertise the RTS to tourists.

Baltimore has major flaws in its transit system: the inherent racism of not interconnecting the somewhat-suburban (white) light rail and fully urban (black) subway is a lingering issue. There is a card you can use on both, so at least there are steps in the right direction. There's also issues of interconnectivity with the regional MARC train as well...but ultimately for this matchup there's no contest. As a tourist, you could pick one of those 3 and it would get you everywhere you need to go, plus access DC (another whole city in this bracket) if you use MARC. 

Light rail will get you places. Not all the places (see below) but some.

VERDICT: Rochester 0, Baltimore 2

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

I think here we're more even, mostly because Rochester is more concentrated in terms of where tourists might want to go. I don't think there are really any visitor-heavy spots that are difficult to get to.

Sometimes they're even pedestrian friendly events, like this foodtruck rodeo.

By contrast, Baltimore has more to see, but it makes it harder to do without a car by navigating from spot to spot by different methods. For example, the one tiny hipster neighborhood in Baltimore (Hamden) is actually hard to get to from much of the city by public transit.

VERDICT: Rochester 1, Baltimore 2

Category 2: Living Without A Car

a) Can you expect to get to work?

I bought my first car in Rochester because the answer was no.

Also sometimes even that got covered with ice, as in this close-in illustration that was very pretty but annoying to drive with.

Admittedly, I worked at a university well outside the city center. But Rochester does not have commuter-oriented transit in a meaningful sense, and Baltimore does. Unless you live walking distance from work, Rochester requires a car to work, and Baltimore will give you a lot more options, even including distant suburbs on the various forms of rail if you work downtown.

VERDICT: Rochester 1, Baltimore 3

b) Can you live the rest of your life?

Rochester suffers here from a specific memory of mine: hiking a mile plus without sidewalks in the snow to go play boardgames because the bus that was supposed to connect me did not actually come/exist after all. The service ends too early at night, the radial bus network makes it hard to make any connections that aren't to downtown alone, and sometimes it literally doesn't exist.

Baltimore doesn't have great transit connections to things like grocery stores, and that might cost it in later rounds but right now it's not close.

VERDICT: Rochester 1, Baltimore 4

c) How are the basic amenities?

Rochester actually scores well here. The parks are good and, more significantly, that Canal link means it is much more walkable than transitable, ironically. 

Baltimore is also well equipped with parks, and sidewalks (see above about the Rochester metro for that). We'll get more picky about amenities in later rounds, but here it's another tie.

VERDICT: Rochester 2, Baltimore 5

Category 3: Miscellaneous

a) Are there people on the street?

In downtown Rochester? Sure. Literally anywhere else in the metro area? No. Baltimore is not great at that either, honestly; I've spent a lot of time in both cities as the only person on the street. 

VERDICT: Rochester 3, Baltimore 6

b) Where is the city's urbanism going?

Baltimore has had some...problems getting an extension of its rail system going. That's what happens when a governor cancels your project unilaterally! But they are working on some transit-oriented developments that were (very) recently announced, because the new governor is more supportive.

Rochester has some nice ideas being studied, but nothing nearly so concrete as yet.

VERDICT: Rochester 3, Baltimore 7

c) Is it functionally diverse?

Well, no. 

We're talking some cities that have real, regrettably storied histories of segregation and racism, in living memory as well as in the deeper past. Rochester still has major issues with inequality and segregation along school district lines dividing the inner city from the suburbs. Baltimore has a massive issue with racist policing. As I've said in previous versions of this, there is no honor to be had here.

VERDICT: Rochester 3, Baltimore 7. If both get points for some things, sometimes both have to get no points too.

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

People in both places will be a bit weird about it, in my experience, but in Baltimore it's more concern that you might not afford a car, whereas in Rochester it's sheer confusion. 

People do, in fact, use the light rail, even if many of them own cars.

VERDICT: Rochester 3, Baltimore 8

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

The iconic Baltimore house is a row house. Rochester used to have those, but not nearly as much. 

In other words, Baltimore thinks it's pretty neat when people live cheek by jowl, while Rochester turned its back on that approach. Yes, Baltimore metro has a bunch of sprawl too, but so does all of America. Baltimore is still at least capable of imagining itself as close together.

FINAL VERDICT: Rochester 3, Baltimore 9

CityBracket 2025 Round 1, Matchup 2: Vancouver vs Toronto

Moving around the initial round, we're going to have a Canadian showdown today, between two of my very favorite cities in the world: Vancouver vs Toronto. I've probably visited Vancouver more than any city I've not actually lived in (probably more even than the cities my family lives in and I don't) and my wife and I honeymooned in Toronto and have kept visiting it ever since. A tough matchup, especially for round 1; let's see if it's a bit closer than our first wipeout.

Category 1: Visiting Without A Car

a) How can you get to the city? 

Both Vancouver and Toronto are places I have visited without a car, via multiple transportation modes, so I can speak from some experience here. Vancouver's SkyTrain goes to the airport; Toronto's Union Pearson Express does too, and the City airport is so close to transit that you don't even need a spur line: just walk up Bathhurst to the streetcars and buses. 

Not far by ferry either.

Both have train links as well, in Toronto's case towards Windsor/Detroit, Ottawa/Montreal/Quebec, and the Northeast US, and in Vancouver's towards Seattle/Portland. And both have intercity bus service as well, to similar destinations. The Amtrak Cascades is the nicest of these rail links, and coming into Pacific Central is a core memory for me, but Union Station in Toronto is a much more convenient place to be dropped by both train and air-train links, as the core of the transit network, plus City airport is the best. But in the end, Pearson is just so far out there (and the SkyTrain link to YVR is a bit more frequent too), so:

VERDICT: Toronto 0, Vancouver 1

Sadly neither too fast nor too frequent.

b) How do you get around?

Toronto has a thick network of streetcars, buses, and subway, and a regional GO train network that's slated to get an upgrade (though who knows how much of one) soon. It has ferries to the harbor islands as well, though no further afield (RIP Rochester Fast Ferry).

It even has some nice bike lanes.

Vancouver has SkyTrain, which is excellent, and a robust bus network including some very high frequency routes. It also has a personal favorite, the SeaBus to North Vancouver, and a very strong ferry system around False Creek and even around the nearby parts of the province thanks to BC Ferries.

Frankly you can get around both of these cities very well as a visitor without a car. I have never wished I had a car while visiting either. However, I have notably found myself lamenting the slow speed of Toronto transit more often than Vancouver transit, so once again:

VERDICT: Toronto 0, Vancouver 2

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

For some godforsaken reason, both these cities' zoos are pretty hard to get to by transit. Toronto wins though, because it is doable; Google would love to sell you a Lyft from a random bus stop to the Greater Vancouver Zoo, and the Zoo doesn't even have a transit suggestion on its website. The Toronto Zoo is slow to get to (I lied--that is the one place I've wished I had a car to get to) but is accessible without a car. 

Again, I honestly think this is a pretty close one, since I don't feel limited as a visitor in either, but this objective comparison of the zoos shows why I'm tipping it towards Toronto.

VERDICT: Toronto 1, Vancouver 2

Category 2: Living Without A Car

a) Can you expect to get to work?

Now obviously I have not lived in either of these, but: Vancouver metro does have a higher percentage of residents not using a car to get to work than anywhere else in Canada. More anecdotally: yes, in both cities you can expect to get to work, but Toronto's network of higher-speed and higher-frequency lines is more concentrated on the single downtown of Toronto (which is admittedly a big hub), while Vancouver's is marginally more diverse in terms of city centers that it hits. This could change a lot if that aggressive GO train expansion hits, but it hasn't yet, so:

VERDICT: Toronto 1, Vancouver 3

b) Can you live the rest of your life?

Vancouver is the least affordable place to live in Canada. Toronto is not far behind. They do have a lot of amenities close by: while neither is a fifteen-minute city, you can expect to be able to do your shopping, find a doctor (if you can find one with an opening), etc. within a reasonable radius of walking, biking, or transit. But while you can probably commute more easily (by a small margin) in Vancouver, I'd say it's marginally easier to live in Toronto.

VERDICT: Toronto 2, Vancouver 3

c) How are the basic amenities?

Again, both of these cities are equipped with sidewalks, parks, accessible bathrooms in public areas, etc. This is going to be a tie a lot (but when it's not, it matters).

A lovely little park.

VERDICT: Toronto 3, Vancouver 4

Category 3: Miscellaneous

a) Are there people on the street?

Yes, very much so, at least in the main urban areas. 

I wouldn't say either is completely crowded (I do try to avoid taking pictures of other people in public, so I don't have crowded street scene photos), but I do think in my experience Toronto has this even more consistently than Vancouver; I might be biased by when and where I've walked, but I find more people out and about in Toronto.

VERDICT: Toronto 4, Vancouver 4

b) Where is the city's urbanism going?

Both cities do seem to acknowledge the need to expand, and to include both more people and more transit/more bike lanes/more everything to support those people. But while Toronto is doing a good job expanding transit, I tend to see more acknowledgement of the value of transit-oriented development alongside transit (even bus transit!) in BC, and the Vancouver metro specifically. So while both are clearly on an upward trajectory in terms of urbanism (expensiveness aside--which is a big aside!) I have to give the edge to Metro Vancouver here.

VERDICT: Toronto 4, Vancouver 5

c) Is it functionally diverse?

Both of these cities are highly diverse; both are also significantly less segregated than comparable US cities, and while the two cities have different minority groups that are more prevalent there, it is difficult statistically to distinguish their overall diversity. Anecdotally, the main thing I notice coming to both cities is simply that they are diverse, and while there are definitely issues of racial segregation in Canada sufficient for its own Wikipedia page (both historically and today), these two major cities are not significantly distinguishable on this metric.

VERDICT: Toronto 5, Vancouver 6

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

Honestly, in both cities, I tend to get more of a confused look when I do bring a car than when I don't. 

You want to drive in this?

But Toronto is in Ontario, home of the Fords, or more generally home of a certain kind of Conservative voter that very much does want to drive in Toronto traffic and resents the idea that others don't use cars to get around. Vancouver certainly has those folks (everywhere does, as far as I can tell) but they aren't the premier.

VERDICT: Toronto 5, Vancouver 7

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

Here both of the cities shine again. Vancouverism, while criticized justifiably in some ways (particularly in terms of how urban renewal was historically handled, and the way certain historic districts reflect that) is a real commitment to density. Toronto's waterfront likewise has a profusion of tall towers that bring large numbers of people together.

And this isn't exactly treated as undesirable as a place to live: it costs a lot, as much as the market can bear and then some.

So both of these places are cities where density is valued, rather than rejected. 

But Toronto's density is more confined: there are fewer regional centers with high density, and less overall density. Again, this is another very close matchup, but I'm going Vancouver again here.

FINAL VERDICT: Toronto 5, Vancouver 8

This feels a bit unfair to Toronto, which is a perfectly lovely city that I want to visit and re-visit. But Vancouver moves on, and Toronto (and my great stash of images, alas) falls by the wayside in tight contest that broke just slightly one way too often.

CityBracket 2025 Round 1, Matchup 1: Seattle vs Quad Cities

Welcome to our first matchup in CityBracket 2025, the battle of the two cities I've lived in for the longest in my life, the Seattle vs Quad Cities matchup! I'm not sure we're going to have any major surprises today, but that's why they play the games why I do the analysis!

Category 1: Visiting Without A Car

a) How can you get to the city? 

This one is a pretty clear verdict, though as we'll see in later matchups neither of these cities is going to rock this one once the competition gets fiercer! The Quad Cities has a bus depot (technically one on either side of the river)

and you certainly can take a bus to and from the airport

Or in my case, a bus to a bus to a bus (this is the first one)

But Seattle has an actual rail link to the airport

(when it's running at least) and an actual train station as well

(Image from Wikimedia Commons, under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License)

Plus you can even bike to and from the airport (well, assuming you had a bike to leave, so maybe this isn't about "visiting") 

 VERDICT: Seattle 1, Quad Cities 0

b) How do you get around?

Well, those same options are available once you get here: the QCA has Metrolink and Citybus

And the ability to bike, but limited bike lanes

Though some of us still use them!

Seattle, by contrast, has not only Link Light Rail and Sounder Commuter Rail but a much more extensive (i.e. not only hourly) bus system:

And bikeshare and scooters, not just bikes one might own oneself:

VERDICT: Seattle 2, Quad Cities 0

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

Well, there are whole areas of the QCA that aren't on bus lines--and the same is true of Seattle (but rather less). And the downtowns is/are a bit less connected (thanks, Mississippi River)

Not that there isn't water by Seattle's downtown too.

VERDICT: Seattle 3, Quad Cities 0

Category 2: Living Without A Car

a) Can you expect to get to work?

Seattle has flaws in its system, but there's a reason it is on this list of high commuting by transit and none of the Quad Cities are. Seattle isn't some massive outlier among large US cities, but there's a major difference in commuting styles between those larger metros and ones like the QCA for a reason, and a lot of it is that, no, you can't expect to get to work without a car in the QCA.

Unless you're me.

Ah, the sweetness of living one mile from work and next to a hospital that's a comparatively major transit hub! 

And yes, there is the Tyson bus if you work at that plant, so there is some transit accessibility for some work. But not generally.

VERDICT: Seattle 4, Quad Cities 0

b) Can you live the rest of your life?

As you might guess, these closely correlate. Seattle has plenty of single family residential housing that isn't totally transit-oriented or walking-friendly:

But even this low-density area (I grew up taking the school bus across the street from that grocery) has, well, a small grocery store on the corner, and there are multiple bus lines that stop at this corner. It's much easier to move around Seattle without a car, and it's much more likely that there will be smaller-scale commercial like this dotted into your neighborhood.

VERDICT: Seattle 5, Quad Cities 0

c) How are the basic amenities?

Well, both cities mostly have sidewalks, and parks

They both have tree-lined streets and the usual American ability to use a bathroom without paying. It might be generous to the QCA here (Kimberly Road having no sidewalks still bothers me) but I'm going to call this a tie. If we had a closer matchup I might push harder, but...

VERDICT: Seattle 6, Quad Cities 1

Category 3: Miscellaneous

a) Are there people on the street?

I wrote a whole post about this in the QCA. We can talk about Seattle in a future matchup, but suffice to say, there are a lot more people on the street.

VERDICT: Seattle 7, Quad Cities 1

b) Where is the city's urbanism going?

Seattle has ST3 coming, slowly and over budget. The Quad Cities might someday get a rail link to Chicago.

VERDICT: Seattle 8, Quad Cities 1

c) Is it functionally diverse?

Seattle is quite white. The QCA is more so. My high school in Seattle literally had an article about how racially segregated it was even within its walls while I was there. The QCA has a very long history of redlining and its impacts. 

There is no glory here.

That said, Seattle is more diverse and similarly racially divided, so it squeaks this one out.

VERDICT: Seattle 9, Quad Cities 1

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

In Seattle, it depends where you are, but it's not entirely unusual not to use a car.

In the Quad Cities, I get yelled at for having my kids on my bike.

VERDICT: Seattle 10, Quad Cities 1

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

Seattle's growth plan is inadequate and being opposed by local groups in the courts. 

Davenport's master plan is not really focused on growth at all.

Seattle is already much denser, and while there are certainly large numbers of NIMBYs there, it's not a close call as to which city is more positive about density.

FINAL VERDICT: Seattle 11, Quad Cities 1

As predicted, this was not a close matchup. But the QCA is doing better than I expected on some of these categories, and maybe (though I'm not optimistic) it could go more the Iowa City direction and start putting up some impressive numbers even against a larger city someday.

Seattle had an easy time of this matchup, but they'll need to step up their game against more difficult competition, possibly as early as the next round.