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It's interesting to note that around 2/3 of Australia's population is contained in its largest 6 cities.  The US, in comparison has less than 20% of its population in it's 6 largest metro areas, which I thought was a better comparison than our cities and greatly inflated the US number.  Still, is much, much a smaller percentage than in Australia.

 

I never would have guessed that the Washington D.C. area was that high on the list!

 

C

 

Rank

Metropolitan Statistical Area

2015 Estimate

2010 Census

Change

Encompassing Combined Statistical Area

1

New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA Metropolitan Statistical Area

20,182,305

19,567,410

+3.14%

New York-Newark, NY-NJ-CT-PA Combined Statistical Area

2

Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area

13,340,068

12,828,837

+3.99%

Los Angeles-Long Beach, CA Combined Statistical Area

3

Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN-WI Metropolitan Statistical Area

9,551,031

9,461,105

+0.95%

Chicago-Naperville, IL-IN-WI Combined Statistical Area

4

Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX Metropolitan Statistical Area

7,102,796

6,426,214

+10.53%

Dallas-Fort Worth, TX-OK Combined Statistical Area

5

Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land, TX Metropolitan Statistical Area

6,656,947

5,920,416

+12.44%

Houston-The Woodlands, TX Combined Statistical Area

6

Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV Metropolitan Statistical Area

6,097,684

5,636,232

+8.19%

Washington-Baltimore-Arlington, DC-MD-VA-WV-PA Combined Statistical Area

7

Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD Metropolitan Statistical Area

6,069,875

5,965,343

+1.75%

Philadelphia-Reading-Camden, PA-NJ-DE-MD Combined Statistical Area

8

Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area

6,012,331

5,564,635

+8.05%

Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Port St. Lucie, FL Combined Statistical Area

9

Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA Metropolitan Statistical Area

5,710,795

5,286,728

+8.02%

Atlanta-Sandy Springs, GA Combined Statistical Area

10

Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH Metropolitan Statistical Area

4,774,321

4,552,402

+4.87%

Boston-Worcester-Providence, MA-RI-NH-CT Combined Statistical Area

 

 

 

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The population distribution difference is one of the reasons why Australian culture is so different to the USA's. With the vast majority of the population being urban, rural drivers (such as the use of guns for pest control) are a lot weaker here. It's also why our college culture is different. With the major universities located where the populations are found, most students live at home, not in dorms or other student-based accommodation. This means that things like fraternities and sororities don't really exist, because there's less pressure for students to band together. That's just two of the differences in culture that result from our different population distributions.

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That's  vastly interesting information, Graeme, and helps this reader sort out some of his lingering confusion over Aussie culture.  However, I thought gun ownership would appeal those concerned with control of your spider population...

I do wonder if the fraternity/sorority movement is localized to the U.S.A. or if it has parallels elsewhere?  I'm also struck by your observation that most university students continue to live at home.  When then do your youth experience push-back and breakaway from their parents?  I seems to be a big milestone here within our north american cultures and forms the basis for many story lines in the general literature.

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95% of freshmen at the University of California at Berkeley live in the dorms, including me, Chris, Doug, and Steve. We lived easy commute distance (by BART) but felt that living on campus was better because we had easy access to the libraries and labs, getting together with our study groups, meeting and hanging with friends, and being away from home. We lived in the dorms during our sophomore year as well, then we moved into a house in Berkeley because it was less expensive than our dorms and meal plans, and was close to campus. I think that living on campus for our first two years was a significant benefit for us.Our majors were intensive; I was a computer science major; Doug was a chemistry major; Chris was a Media Studies major; Steve was a Bioengineering major. We weren't party animals; we spent most of our time studying. With those majors we had to!

Colin :icon_geek:

 

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On 1/7/2017 at 2:19 AM, Merkin said:

 When then do your youth experience push-back and breakaway from their parents?  I seems to be a big milestone here within our north american cultures and forms the basis for many story lines in the general literature.

Well, firstly most secondary school graduates don't go to university. They get jobs instead, and that allows them an income to allow them to move out of home.

Before that, the main breakaway is another cultural difference from the USA, and that's out of school activities. In Australia, most schools educate (or try to) and that's it. Other activities are not tied to the schools, but are run independently. The major one is sporting activities. While the schools certainly have sports and there are interschool sporting events, the vast majority of sporting focus is in external sporting organisations. Football (AFL, Rugby, Soccer), Netball, Basketball, Athletics, to name just a few, have organised junior and adult competitions that are not related to the schools in any way. An up-and-coming sportsperson will be much more interested in their external competitions than anything to do with their schools. Indeed, some may not play for their school because of the risk of injury that would stop them from playing in what they see as their 'main' competitive organisation.

Because of this, and because these external organisations generally span ages from very young, through to young adults and even old age (and no, I'm not defining that term), these external organisations provide the environment for youth to expand away from their parents. For example, I played competitive basketball from the age of 8 through to my early 30s , and I only stopped then because I was going to the UK for a year for work. Another example is my eldest boy is a member of a dirtbike club that goes riding once a month. The members again range from the very young (eg. five-year-olds) through to people in their 40s and 50s. He only rides for fun, but a lot of members are also members of motocross clubs that compete. I take my son each month, but once there he's on his own. I usually sit back and relax and let him do whatever he wants with the friends he makes there. That's true of a most of the parents who go (though rather than relax, a good number of them are off riding on their own bikes).

In short, most Australians wait until they have a job before they leave home. Before that happens, they usually establish their independence through clubs and groups that they grew up with.

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Very, very different from here.  We do have Little League and Pop Warner Football, but it's a small fraction of boys in the general population who participate in these very organized groups.  Most athletic enterprises are in the schools, and most kids stop when they're done with those or don't make the cut on the various teams.

Fascinating to read about the differences.  Do you know if it works the same way in New Zealand than in Australia?  I think many of us here see New Zealand as an extension of Australia, but I know they're much different.

 

C

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Thank you for your very thoughtful answer to my question, Graeme.  Proof indeed that what we so casually assume are similar cultures because we both speak a form of English and like to drink beer are, beneath the surface, quite notably different, one from the other. 

 

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14 hours ago, Cole Parker said:

Very, very different from here.  We do have Little League and Pop Warner Football, but it's a small fraction of boys in the general population who participate in these very organized groups.  Most athletic enterprises are in the schools, and most kids stop when they're done with those or don't make the cut on the various teams.

Fascinating to read about the differences.  Do you know if it works the same way in New Zealand than in Australia?  I think many of us here see New Zealand as an extension of Australia, but I know they're much different.

 

C

Yes, it's very different :icon1: One of the consequences with the different sporting structure that I learnt about while researching my Lilydale Leopards series is that the professional teams in the USA tend to not put a lot of focus on development. They're expecting the colleges to do that development work and they want to receive someone who is already ready (or close to it). The equivalent Australian professional teams, on the other hand, have a lot of focus on development and not only do their own, but work with others to help keep a stream of promising youths coming through.

I don't know about New Zealand, but I believe it's similar. They have a smaller population base, but they also have a smaller landmass, and I believe those two factors balance out. There are a lot of sporting ties between the two nations (last year I was on a flight with an Australian teenager who was flying to New Zealand to compete in a tennis tournament), so I suspect the sporting structures are similar.

13 hours ago, Merkin said:

Thank you for your very thoughtful answer to my question, Graeme.  Proof indeed that what we so casually assume are similar cultures because we both speak a form of English and like to drink beer are, beneath the surface, quite notably different, one from the other. 

 

I found out the hard way when I went to the UK. I stopped playing basketball in Australia (naturally), but I expected to find a team to join in the UK to play with while I was there. I learnt otherwise, with no structure competitions in the area I was living in for the standard that I played. There were higher standard teams, but I knew I had no chance of joining them. That was one of only a myriad of small but important cultural differences I discovered in my year in the UK.

Speaking of beer, even that's different in the UK. The beer/ale culture in the UK is quite different to Australia, with a much broader range of what we call microbreweries, and a much more refined view on what drinking options are available. There's a beer in Australia called Victorian Bitter that was marketed in the UK as Victorian Beer because it wasn't considered to be a bitter there. Australian pubs generally don't have real ales, either. They predominantly only have what one Englishman I met called 'chemical lagers'.

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 The profusion of microbreweries in the U.K. is one of the results of the Campaign for Real Ale to ensure that traditional brewing methods were not lost and some choice remained in the market. CAMRA started in 1971 as a reaction to the big breweries trying to force sterilised artificially carbonated 'chemical beers' on the consumer. Concentration among the majors in the industry is now worse than in the 70s and is now just a few international players.............

 

No!

Naughty Pedro!

Before you get into a rant about the freezing liquids they call beer in US and Oz, that's enough!

Behave!

Go on, Get back behind the sofa!

 

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9 hours ago, Pedro said:

 The profusion of microbreweries in the U.K. is one of the results of the Campaign for Real Ale to ensure that traditional brewing methods were not lost and some choice remained in the market. CAMRA started in 1971 as a reaction to the big breweries trying to force sterilised artificially carbonated 'chemical beers' on the consumer. Concentration among the majors in the industry is now worse than in the 70s and is now just a few international players.............

 

No!

Naughty Pedro!

Before you get into a rant about the freezing liquids they call beer in US and Oz, that's enough!

Behave!

Go on, Get back behind the sofa!

The lack of "freezing liquids" in the UK may be due to a lack of hot, dry (or hot, humid) weather that most areas of the US and Oz enjoy (at least in the summer, which I've been told is a season almost totally missing in the UK).

Colin :icon_geek:

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1 hour ago, colinian said:

The lack of "freezing liquids" in the UK may be due to a lack of hot, dry (or hot, humid) weather that most areas of the US and Oz enjoy (at least in the summer, which I've been told is a season almost totally missing in the UK).

Colin :icon_geek:

Thanks to the majors there is no lack of "freezing liquids". These days even Guinness offer their product at a temperature where you expect icebergs to form. As you correctly observe, Colin, there isn't really any climate* related driver for ice cold beer. Traditional beer, as opposed to the cold stuff generically referred to as lager, should be served at between 50-54F.

'Chemical' Lager is popular for a number of reasons including a) it requires little or no skill on the part of the cellerman b) it can be made consistent around the world c) is less challenging to the palette than most  beers. Indeed one of the independent breweries (Wychwood) uses/used the catch phrase "What's the matter lager boy? Frightened you might taste something?" when advertising their beers.

*Climate? When I was in primary school my geography master, when asked which climate region Britain was in said "None, What we have is all weather and no climate." 

This topic started out talking about the comparative proportion of population living in conurbations. Thread drift - don't you just love it!

 

Alright, alright, I'll im going back behind the sofa.

 

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On 1/8/2017 at 2:20 PM, ChrisR said:

And we in America have all learned that "Foster's" is how Australians say "Beer"!

(Though in fact it sounded a lot more like "Beeyah" at the Woolloomoolloo Bar)

According to a few Aussies I met, Fosters is garbage.

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