Quote Originally Posted by Detroitnerd View Post
Getting back to the point, though, you'll notice that the only thing that stops the inexorable process of homebuilders overbuilding and sapping energy from the core is geography.

Manhattan is an island blessed with heavy bedrock for building up.

San Francisco is hemmed in by bay and mountains.

Pittsburgh has rugged terrain that limits developers' ability to build broad-brush environments on the outskirts.
San Francisco is one continuous sprawl all the way down to San Jose and back around to Oakland. The SF area has a population over 7 million while Detroit is about the same size as SF and has a metro population of 4.5 million. New York sprawls all the way out on Long Island and into Connecticut and New Jersey. New York is 8 million and the metro area is 19 million. That's twice the amount of people than the entire state of Michigan.