Contemporary critical reception to the book was mostly positive and enthusiastic, and generally regarded Ferriss' ideas for the future city as credible and even practical.

Similarly, more recent reviewers have concentrated on "An Imaginary Metropolis", which they generally view as a fantasy which has had a strong influence on later architects and urban planners, and has also been influential to the appearance of futuristic cities in comic books and films.

[1] "Cities of Today" is mostly devoted to a brief building-by-building analysis of what Ferriss viewed as "some of the outstanding buildings of the country", which he considered especially influential and illustrative of future trends.

[21] The second section, "Projected Trends", begins with a brief vignette about the "lure of the city" to young people and prominently discusses practical concerns related to population density and traffic congestion.

[24] He also voices his objection to densely crowding numerous skyscrapers in close proximity to each other, as well as his opposition to building roads and bridges for automobiles above street level in city centers, both of which were somewhat popular ideas among futurists at the time.

[25] According to Willis, these drawings depicting densely packed skyscrapers and elevated automobile traffic have ironically "often been misread as endorsements, whereas Ferriss conceived them as admonitions.

[56] Contemporary reception to The Metropolis of Tomorrow was mostly positive and enthusiastic, and generally regarded Ferriss' ideas for the future city as credible and even practical.

[58] Joseph G. Niehardt of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch went as far as to declare that he had "yet to see a book in which the depth of genuine poetic feeling, philosophic grasp and scientific practicality were mysteriously merged.

[61] In this vein, Geddes Smith wrote that the book "is certainly beautiful and is probably vicious ... because to glorify the American skyscraper is to confirm the thoughtlessness in a perilous fallacy.

"[63] Mumford further objected to skyscrapers as "pyramids of ground rents",[64] and warned of the seductive nature of Ferriss' vision to professional urban planners as well as the general public, arguing that "this vulgar dream" was so powerful that "even the decent and otherwise enlightened technicians of the New York Committee on the Regional Plan have fallen under it.

"[65] Writing in 1986, Carol Willis notes that Ferriss' "future city seems decidedly a fantasy, exaggerated in its scale and hierarchical order, and certainly impracticable.

"[57] She further writes that with the benefit of "today's historical distance, the impressive scale and harmonious ensembles of Ferriss' colossal towers and the formal hierarchy of his ideal city seem obviously impracticable and politically naive".

[54] Furthermore, she observes that Ferriss' "ideal metropolis radically contradicts most current opinion on the best qualities of a liveable city", most notably "an emphasis on pedestrian scale, public spaces, historic preservation and a heterogeneous urban fabric".

[57] In 2016, while writing for CityLab, Carl Abbott described the "unrestrained imagination" of Ferriss that "created a city of the future in which step-pyramid towers rise from vaguely glimpsed streets".

[69] He further observed that Ferriss' drawings went beyond simple architectural renderings, as "his dramatic sense of light and shadow depict cities strangely devoid of people, or solo figures dwarfed by their majestic surroundings.