The other thing to note is that geographic topology doesn't equate to network topology.
E.g.: my last mile broadband provider is ISP A, the content I would like to download is in ISP B. A & B are in the same city BUT don't peer well with each other; meaning a packet destined for ISP A from ISP B might go halfway around the world via multiple networks before reaching you, and hence you would be looking at an order of magnitude more in terms of latency than you would actually expect.
In such cases, it depends more on who you buy last mile bandwidth from, and what peering relationships they have in place, rather than the physical distance.
E.g.: my last mile broadband provider is ISP A, the content I would like to download is in ISP B. A & B are in the same city BUT don't peer well with each other; meaning a packet destined for ISP A from ISP B might go halfway around the world via multiple networks before reaching you, and hence you would be looking at an order of magnitude more in terms of latency than you would actually expect.
In such cases, it depends more on who you buy last mile bandwidth from, and what peering relationships they have in place, rather than the physical distance.