Chicago is the largest city in Illinois and contains over 2.8 million residents, which happens to be the third highest populated city in the U.S. It is a gigantic city to behold I can tell you that having visited it personally. Its metropolitan area is like non I have ever seen before. Chicago was founded in 1833 and is near the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes. Everyone knows about the Great Chicago fire of 1871 which destroyed a third of the city including the central bussiness district. But this would not be enough to slow this juggernaut down as it would eventually build the first skyscraper in 1885. Chicago happens to dwarf many cities and happens to rank among the top ten in many important factors that determine a metropolis and elite ranked city in the entire world. It grosses huge numbers and has a huge transportation system. The city literally has something called the "Magnificent Mile" where you literally get nothing but the biggest skyscrappers you'll see in any other city in America besides New York and contains many different downtown stores to help its inhabitants. Walking through these streets I felt tiny I must say. I have been to New York and Chicago and I was shocked by both to be honest, I think New York might be bigger still but I was more impressed with Chicago's urban development and structure. Chicago like New York has its own style of Pizza, "Deep Dish" which I have tasted, fabouls I must say. Chicago is segregated slightly as with most huge cities and its North and South side mimic for sure. The North Side contains Wrigley Field with the Cubs and the South Side has U.S. Cellular Field with the White Sox...I must say that visiting both stadiums you can tell that their are some serious differences between both stadiums and their inhabitants. The city of Chicago still has rich culture and is by no means to be underestimated just because foreignors think of New York City first.
Tokyo in Japan is another metropolis but this world is literally on the oppositie side of the world. Tokyo is one of 47 prefectures of Japan. It is located on the eastern side of Honshu which is the main island in Japan. This metropolis was formed in 1943 and is a merger if smaller prefectures. Tokyo city does contain the biggest metropolitan area in all of Japan and is home to Japanese government and also the Imperial Palace. Japanese contains different focus on religion which is Shinto and Buddhism and the main two. Like Chicago this metropolitan area has wards, which contains over 8 million people with the total amount around 13 million. Tokyo does exceed Chicago in people and GDP though, and well most of the world as well for that matter. It contains the worlds most populous metropolitan area with 35 to 39 million poeple and the largest economy with 1.479 trillion in U.S. dollars. Tokyo was originally known as Edo and was changed to Tokyo in 1868. Tokyo's uprising was that of war though between Japanese samurais who fought for land, not found on better terms like Chicago. Unlike many American cities which are low-density and automobile-centric, Japans Tokyo is built with major train stations in a high-density and have their own right of way system as the main means of transportation. Besides their religion, the culture is extremely different in Japan than in America as it should be. Japans national sport is Sumo, unlike baseball and football in America. They believe in smaller things though Tokyo might be an exception to that rule. Unlike Chicago, Toky is ranked as one of the three world finance command centers along with New York City and London. Tokyo even has its own and relatively big stock exchange. Tokyo and Japan as a whole focuses on the arts, like the Noh and Kabuki theaters, The city has changed much due to disasters like the Great Kanto earthquake in 1923 and after WW2 but has recovered very nicely and has many parks and gardens.
I do think that culture has much to do with the shape of a city. I dont think that it matters much when a city was built when it comes to metropolises though because their time frames are vastly different and yet big cities all take new shapes constantly in order to keep up with other metropolitan areas in the world. Chicago and Tokyo are literally two of the biggest in the world, and for good reason.
That's an interesting argument you make, that the time of founding is irrelevant, since can always be remade. That's certainly true of NY and Chicago, and Tokyo HAD to be rebuilt because it was essentially flattened in WWII. And then there are some cities that don't seem all that interested in being remade. Take a look at Rome, for example, the "Eternal City."
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