When we look at skyline pics of any city we adjust our perception of the size of the City by assuming scale compared to a familiar landmark. Yet it is really amazing how if you could superimpose one city on another how far out we really are...Example....In Skylines there are some fantastic pics of all our cities, all great, all beautiful but on a purely size and form comparison it's interesting to think how some buildings would look transfered to another city. In the Gold Coast pic, Q1 looks so awesome, which it is, yet if you concider the roof behind the fins is around the same height as Melbournes Rialto the rest of the skyline is fairly low.....slimmer residential towers look taller than Office buildings in our typical CBDs. Another comparison I thought about was Melbourne City from CUB site to Malthouse Theatre and Victoria Harbour to St. Patricks Cathedral fits in New York City between The Empire State Building and Housten St. and the width of Manhattan Is. in that area...none of this is about which is best ..just about comparing physical size.

I think that Central Park alone is 2.5x the Hoddle Grid's area. Amazing!

Yep. The Hoddle Grid covers about 320 acres and Central Park is about 840 acres.

Also, the Hoddle Grid is .5 mi x 1 mi; Central Park is .5 mi x 2.5 mi :)

Yeah, my size comparison included north and south of the Hoddle grid and east west into the Docklands and across to MCG...but I see what you mean about Central park..I walked alot of that park and from many parts you wouldn't believe you were in the centre of such a huge city. You know how there is a low rise mainly residential area south of the Empire State building including Chelsea and Greenwich Village..this is the area I imagined the total area of Melbourne ..would be fantasic with computer possibilities to superimpose Melbourne or Sydney etc in this area of Manhattan..Many of our buildings would hold their own..meaning until the new WTC is completed many of Australias major skyscrapers are equal in height or taller than lower Manhattan.EG....The Chase Manhattan Bank is the same height as the Rialto.

Okay, I have tried to use Google Earth to compare city sizes. The elevation is slighty different for all as Google Earth doesn't permit exact elevations to be entered.

The cities are:
MELBOURNE Australia, viewed at 6.3 kilometres
(Hoddle Grid in red)
NEW YORK United States, viewed at 6.2 kilometres
(Central Park shown)
MANILA The Philippines, viewed at 6.3 kilometres
(The only world city I've visited outside Oz - makes Melb CBD feel like a village. Makati CBD area in red.)
CANBERRA Australia, viewed at 6.3 kilometres
(The National Capital)

MELBOURNE
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v626/adonline/GoogleEarth-Melbourne.jpg

NEW YORK
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v626/adonline/GoogleEarth-NewYork.jpg

MANILA
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v626/adonline/GoogleEarth-Manila-1.jpg

CANBERRA
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v626/adonline/GoogleEarth-Canberra.jpg

Canberra, gigantasuburbaboringsaurus.

Manilla looks interesting though.

I think I would start to include Docklands in that pic by now.

Righto, here are the major capital cities of Australia. All from approx. 5km elevation. I actually have pondered this question myself before and in a long moment of boredom actually saved these images... never thought of sharing them. Anywho, guess which city is which :)

http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h21/Red_Nut_photos/SydCBD.jpg
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h21/Red_Nut_photos/MelbCBD.jpg
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h21/Red_Nut_photos/BrisCBD.jpg
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h21/Red_Nut_photos/PerCBD.jpg
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h21/Red_Nut_photos/AdelCBD.jpg

3 largest CBDs:

1. Sydney
2. Melbourne
3. North Sydney

Might want to redo Melbourne and Sydney, Red Nut

I wouldn't have thought Adelaides DBD was twice as big as Melbournes??? Would be good to see acurate from exactly the same altitude shots.... and Colour comparisons look washed out in some? Melbournes not that grey!!! Thanks for the pics though.....

I wouldn't have thought Adelaides DBD was twice as big as Melbournes??? Would be good to see acurate from exactly the same altitude shots.... and Colour comparisons look washed out in some? Melbournes not that grey!!! Thanks for the pics though.....

Im pretty sure in area it is bigger than Melbourne....but 3/4 of Adelaide CBD is lowrise.

Adelaide's so lucky to have it's CBD surrounded by park. Imagine what it's look like if it was all high rise. Mmmmmm.

OMG Sydney looks MASSIVE in that Earth pic you posted!!! I thought it was Shanghai until i noticed the waverton. hehe. Adelaide should have built its city in front or behind the park not on the side.

Adelaide is totally surrounded by parklands .. as a resident I personally think way too many parklands .. some of them very dull, boring and in our recent climate, pretty arid (although we have had a bucket load of rain last week) .. you should see the council (and old biddies) uproar at any sign of building over even 1% of them .. so instead we have such things as our major sports ground 10 kms out of the city ... I love Melbourne's design (very similar to Adelaide in its grid like roads) whereby MCG, Telstra close to city and people can flock to city after major events .. people here go straight home from AAMI stadium as would take 2 hours to walk to CBD .. also we have some severe height restrictions on buildings in CBD .. all credit to Melb

Melbourne is zoomed much further out than Sydney - though Sydney did look alot larger in that image. I've always thought that Melbourne's CBD covered an area twice that of Sydney's. Surely NOrth Sydney is not the third largest CBD in Australia??? Maybe if you include Milsons Point and St Leonards along the Pacific Highway Corridor than it might claim that mantle but otherwise it seems a little farfetched. I'll post some of my images later - I did the same thing as Red Nut and i think i got them all the same size - with some very meticulous and deft manouvrements of my mouse!

I think a distinction needs to be drawn on the CBD and the Hoddle Grid for Melbourne. They are no longer one and the same...

Here's two google earth images taken from a height of exactly 5 kilometres which compare the sizes of Sydney's and Melbourne's CBD's. I've included in Melbourne the Docklands (which has some very empty parts), Southbank and the cultural district with the Victorian Art Gallery. In Sydney I've included the Rocks (it has some offices - esp Walsh Bay but it is quite like a Swanston Street district) and I've also included DH (Southbankish and tourist culturalish but very much part of CBD) and Barangaroo because that is going to be developed very soon much like large swathes of Melbourne's Docklands.

The red line obviously defines how I've classified the two CBD's:

http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/4907/sydneycbd5defined050507xw4.jpg
http://img245.imageshack.us/img245/2568/melbournecbd5defined050jv0.jpg

Sydney's CBD is much more linear and feels much smaller than Melbourne's because of it's generally confusing layout and much hillier topography. I think Melbourne is probably twice the size of Sydney.

MORE PICS COMPARING ALOT MORE CBD'S IN AUSTRALIA AND A FEW MAJOR CITIES IN THE WORLD ARE COMING SOON - I'M NOT JUST COMPARING SYDNEY AND MELBOURNE - THOUGH THIS POST IS...:ohno:

What I was really meaning when I started all this was a fantasy to see Melbourne or another city sitting slap bang in the middle of Manhattan....between Middle and Lower Manhattan...using the Empire State as northern boundary and Housten St. as southern....to same scale I sketched this diagram from around Queen Victoria Market in north to The Arts Centre at Southbank....now what I'd love to see is a 3D image with buildings sticking up in the air !!!! ??? http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/1504/melbourneovermanhattanllw2.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

It's interesting to note that a thread about CBD size is found in a Melbourne related thread:lol: ...

Anyway, here is google earth images of the sizes of CBD's in Australia and I've also thrown in some large cities from around the world. The images are all taken from an altitude of exactly 5 kilometres - feel free to copy an image and define the boundaries of the CBD (office core, downtown, whatever). The cities in Oz are listed in order of metropolitan population order. The other cities from around the world are in no particular order. I haven't included the sizeable central area of GC because it is basically not commercial and is only residential with some hotels - not a proper CBD because there is no business! Included are North Sydney and Parramatta in Sydney and St Kilda Road in Melbourne.

http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/8162/sydneycbd5050507bw3.jpg
http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/2447/melbournecbd5050507yz1.jpg
http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/4281/brisbanecbd5050507cs2.jpg
http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/1839/perthcbd5050507uf9.jpg
http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/4663/adelaidecbd5050507gh1.jpg
North Sydney
http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/1033/sydneynorthsydney505050uw1.jpg
Parramatta
http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/4200/sydneyparramattacbd5050gp6.jpg
St Kilda Road
http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/6448/melbournestkildaroadcbdhq7.jpg
Chicago
http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/80/chicagocbd5050507mk6.jpg
MORE TO COME LATER!!!!!

This may be a stupid question, but how'd you get the altitude exactly 5km for each pic?

Lots of tiny meticulous movements with my mouse using the zoom slider which appears next to the compass. There's no special secret I don't think.

All these posts relate to size by area which is interesting...including the diagram I made overlaying part of Melbourne on Manhattan, but what I'd like to see is an oblique or 3 dimensional representaion of what my diagram shows...how tall and density comparisons...I choose New York as the basis as it has size, density and varied height buildings.....all well known so eg. buildings like Eureka, Rialto, Bourke Place, 120 and 101 Collins would still be large buildings even in New York...I just want to see them all standing at scale between lower and Midtown thats all....I know some computer software can do amazing things so thought someone out there could use my sketch or similar as a starting point...My interest is melbourne but any city overlaid the same way would be interesting....like how would the Sydney Harbour Bridge look if it crossed the East River where the Brooklyn Bridge was or if the Opera house sat in Battery point...all fantasy but just a whim of mine....I don't take drugs.

That's asking a bit much don't you think?

Hold the right mouse button and move the mouse up or down to adjust the eye altitude - it is much easier and more precise, and makes navigating Google Earth so much easier.

Here is a map showing the area that is considered "CBD" by the City of Melbourne planning scheme:

http://www.dse.vic.gov.au/planningschemes/melbourne/maps/melbourneindexinset.jpg

This area will be extended into Docklands when the responsibility for Docklands is transferred from Vicurban to the City of Melbourne next year.

What about google maps? That only allows discrete zoom levels.

Here is a map showing the area that is considered "CBD" by the City of Melbourne planning scheme:

http://www.dse.vic.gov.au/planningschemes/melbourne/maps/melbourneindexinset.jpg

This area will be extended into Docklands when the responsibility for Docklands is transferred from Vicurban to the City of Melbourne next year.

I thought it was July of this year?

sydneyaholic, the redline you have sown is old LEP.
that dont exist anymore. the new City of Sydney boundaries include pyrmont/glebe/redfern/ botany/dhurst etc.
Sydneys council juristdiction is massive now.thats wht should be shown as this will be the CBD of the future.


http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/4907/sydneycbd5defined050507xw4.jpg

yeah but the CBD doesnt necessarily mean that you count the whole council area, just the CBD. Perths CBD is pretty small (as it doesnt take into account west perth, east perth, northbridge etc)

looks like the CUB development wont be in the city???? By the way...looks like I can't get through to anyone that the reason I stared this thread was to try and see what a city...( Melbourne ) would look like planted on a city like New York......NY has many more buildings and is a much bigger city but quite a few of our buildings are as high as theirs...at the moment only the Empire State Building is higher than Eureka and Rialto would be a dominant building in Lower Manhattan today...give or take a few meters.

[QUOTE=CULWULLA;13020019]sydneyaholic, the redline you have sown is old LEP.
that dont exist anymore. the new City of Sydney boundaries include pyrmont/glebe/redfern/ botany/dhurst etc.
Sydneys council juristdiction is massive now.thats wht should be shown as this will be the CBD of the future. [QUOTE]

I was defining the boundaries of the CBD. I know perfectly well that the LEP's of Sydney City and South Sydney City were merged into one much larger LEP. I didn't include Pyrmont-Ultimo in the CBD because with a working population of approximately 20 000ish it is far too small.

The whole City of Sydney LEP will never ever become entirely the CBD because the whole CBD is surrounded by water, parks and historic terraced inner city suburbs. The CBD is hemmed in basically unless it frogjumps over Redfern and surrounds to the industrial area's north of the airport. This is of course happening but so far, arguably, the results have been nothing very CBDish and the apartment complexes have mostly been horrible so far and nothing anyone in their right mind would want to claim as part of the Sydney CBD...more Pyrmont-Ultimo but far far uglier with no harbour waterline and pretty walks.

I'll post my superimposed image of Melbourne's CBD over Midtown Manhattan much later today...

...looks like I can't get through to anyone that the reason I stared this thread was to try and see what a city...( Melbourne ) would look like planted on a city like New York......
Because what you are asking us to do is too much. To actually super-impose two 3D city images as you suggest would be very complicated. At the minimum, you need to be patient. Personally, I cannot do it. I am guessing that even if someone could do it for you, it would take some time to create.

That said, the ensuing conversation has been really interesting with diagrams and discussions about the size and definition of the CBD in our cities.

this LGA will eventually be the cBD next century.lol
http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/Development/documents/LocalActionPlans/LAPsZones.pdf
SHB-Botany rd=7.7km length
Wentworth park-centenial park-5.5km width

Olderfleet....yes all these posts are interesting and as for the 3D buildings of cities superimposed is complicated but I have seen it before...here is an example of buildings from different cities but all together in a cityscape...but random...thought the same thing could be done with cityscapes?????and our buildings as comparison?......I can't do it either....I will be patient, maybe someone knows how it works....just a idea? http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/9316/houstonmediumdg3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

I could do it but finding all the appropriate photos at similar angles is tough and searching for them can be time consuming. I'm also curious as to what it would achieve.

I know this couldn't work...could it?? but if an exact distance and elevation point in each city so when you went to that point and took a pic and compared it to a pic of any other city they could be compared with a degree of equality....Maybe in street directories we could work out this point?For example....2km from central point of each city......In reality natural and man made obstacles may make it hard to find a common location that would give good perspective? this may not make sense. Another way of looking at it is if a 60 story building is in a pic you fit it in..but if the building was 20 stories you would still make it fill the picture as ypu did with the 60 story one but when you compare pics you can't compare sizes but if there was a heap of sky above the 20 story building because it scaled to match ??? I'm crazy ..!!!!

I suppose something like this could be a start...I know it's not buildings...but oh well:) ...

This is Melbourne with the extended Hoddle Grid, most of Southbank and the Docklands defined by a red outline overlayed very unclearly over Midtown Manhattan.

http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/6782/melbournenycoverlay6370pi3.jpg

Hope this helps a little.

Also, does anyone know how to remove an overlayed image off Google Earth? I'm kinda stuck with Midtown Manhattan and Melbourne's CBD meshed together in some cyber love affair!:nuts:

Sydneyaholic, thanks for that, on my pc..very hard to see Melbournes detail but I think I have created a monster here so thanks for trying !!! My printer ink has just dried up but I found a few pics I was going to copy then cut out and stick on the old fashioned way...all a bit of fun.

Tried to fiddle with the image but the only thing I could change was the transparency. That was about as good as I could get it.

Does someone know how to get a superimposed image off Google Earth?

Brisbanes CBD looks very built up compared to sydney and melbourne. Very little parklands

On 'best skylines'..I think, Cul mentioned comparison of the distance between 2 Sydney Buildings and said it was like the same distance between Collins Place and Docklands...if we measured the distance between say The Opera House to Central Station..good skyline profile..and Melbourne, St. Patricks Spire to Docklands...but made sure the distance was the same it would be a good way to compare real size, density and height of the skylines..same goes for any other city...Brisbane would be from ??? the Bend in the River at the bottom of the CBD where the freeway crosses and back, well a fair way to equal the same distance as Sydney or Melbournes pics.....Perth...same distance again profile length of the city??? may have to be out on the Swan river to get same proportion??? Adelaide could do the same......and out of curiosity....anyone out in central Australia could take a profile pic at the same distance of Ayers Rock....taller than Eureka and Q1.....and length ????

It's easier to look at a map if you want accurate scales.

yes Tyson, agree for size but where I like to compare is size of cities visually....most skyline pics frame skyline so it's hard to compare a city with 20 story buildings against cities with 100 story buildings...Don't worry I've got it all in my head..it should just stay there maybe????

How many buildings are above 40 stories in Sydney’s CBD? I lived in Sydney for 6 years and now Melbourne for 4 years. I am certain the CBD precinct in Melbourne is larger than that of Sydney.:)

I think you're forgetting that not all of Manhattan is high-rise. If you look at the financial district at one end, it's not that big. OK, it's big, but it's a disproportionate comparison to put an Australian city's CBD next to all of Manhattan!

Blabbyboy thats why I said place any city between lower and midtown for comparison..as there are fewer highrise there.