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Comment by fintler | Hacker News Reader

> San Francisco is the largist metropolitan area with the most wilderness/open space around it in the world.

It's high on the list, but it's not the one with the most:

  Vienna 51% 
  Singapore 47% 
  Sydney 46% 
  Hong Kong 40% 70% is the total green space 40% is protected
  Rio De Janeiro 40%
  London 38.40% Almost 40%!
  Stockholm 30%
  Johannesburg-Gauteng 24%
  New York City 19.7 % or 14% Park Score/World Culture Report
  San Francisco 17.9%

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=1660203

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Where on earth did they get Singapore's 47% from? Here's a land-use map: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-C3jx_8qnyo0/UQvXDH4ksdI/AAAAAAAABL...

The light green bits are barely a quarter, and a good chunk of that is agricultural (mostly greenhouses), not "wilderness/open space".

Believable (17.9%) if you are measuring only within the S.F. city limits. San Mateo and Marin counties and the East Bay have huge tracts of open space for metropolitan areas.

That is the unspoken thing, the "third rail" of SF Bay area housing is the fact we have a huge Green Belt surrounding the bay.

Yes, we pride ourselves on our parks and reserves and natural beauty. But meanwhile Marin County's population hasn't really changed in 30 years, while commuters from Stockton have grown three or four orders of magnitude. There's a real bay incumbent insiders versus valley outsiders thing going on.

Same can be said for the surrounding areas of some of the other cities on the list.

Not Singapore or Hong Kong of course, but those are special cases.

I'm always amazed at how much open, undeveloped space one can see looking eastish when up in Tilden Park out here in the East Bay. It's fantastic.

I'm surprised Seattle doesn't make the list. Maybe thats based on parkland within the city. To the east you have immense tracks of wilderness in the cascade mountains and to the west the olympic peninsula.

>What is Considered Green Space?

>City proper is used as metropolitan boundaries are harder to determine. Will make a note if the data is for metropolitan area. Green spaces that are planned are used in the statistics. S For the most part the higher percentage of green space the most accessible to more people, however Hong Kong green spaces are usually not with many being in hills. Tree lined streets don't count as green spaces. Instead open green areas park, gardens, and squares? I'm not sure if squares are counted? Tree lined streets percent of tree canopy is not counted. This data is for open spaces."

This ranking only counts San Francisco city/county. I think the OP was referring to the San Francisco Bay Area [1]. It is comprised of nine Bay Area counties and has quite a bit of open space, as well as federal, state, county, and city parks.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Bay_Area

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