Which metro area better deserves the title of "global city" - San Francisco or Los Angeles? (San Jose: 2009, insurance)

[AnUnidentifiedMale]

The Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC) of Loughborough University places San Francisco and Los Angeles in the same category of global cities - they call them "Beta global cities".

A global city is usually defined as one that is a significant node point in the global economic system. (Global city - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Which metro area is more of a world-class or global city and why? San Francisco or Los Angeles?

[BayAreaHillbilly]

LA is much more critical in global logistics than SF (by LA, I mean LA inclusive of Long Beach and by SF I mean SF inclusive of Oakland, Redwood City and Richmond).

[mysticaltyger]

Originally Posted by AnUnidentifiedMale

The Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC) of Loughborough University places San Francisco and Los Angeles in the same category of global cities - they call them "Beta global cities".

A global city is usually defined as one that is a significant node point in the global economic system. (Global city - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Which metro area is more of a world-class or global city and why? San Francisco or Los Angeles?

I think both are global cities, but the L.A. would be more so.

[18Montclair]

Originally Posted by AnUnidentifiedMale

The Globalization and World Cities Study Group and Network (GaWC) of Loughborough University places San Francisco and Los Angeles in the same category of global cities - they call them "Beta global cities".

This ranking specifically defines 'global connectivity' by how many office locations the cities have of certain banks, insurance, accounting, law and insurance firms.

Its a travesty that this misquoted ranking gets away with being viewed as an authority of what it means to be a "Global City".

Its a joke-and not a very funny one, to place Auckland NZ and Lisbon Portugal above LA and SF. That's ridiculous.

On the other hand, the ONE TIME( In 2004) Loughborough U ranked cities based on how well rounded they are as major contributors to the world economically, politically and culturally, LA and SF both did remarkably well.

THE WORLD'S MOST WELL ROUNDED CITIES by GaWC released in 2004

Five levels of global city are identified. First, and clearly above all others, there are London and New York. All previous research has highlighted the dominance of these two cities in the world city hierarchy (Taylor 2004a) and they emerge here as the most important 'all-round' global contributors. They are followed by three cities that make smaller all-round contribution and with particular cultural strengths: Los Angeles, Paris and San Francisco. Finally, among 'all-rounders' there are seven incipient world cities identified in Table 11. In the second category of global niche cities, the three leading Pacific Asian cities are critical economic nodes in the world city network and there are also three critical nodes that are non-economic: Brussels, Geneva and Washington, DC. Thus a total of 18 cities are deemed to be global, actual or incipient.

The remaining world cities encompass articulator and niche cities. The former are focussed upon subnets and there are 13 distributed between the three non-economic spheres. Classic examples are Vienna at the centre of a UN agency subnet and Nairobi at the centre of a NGO subnet. There are 21niche world cities identified of which seven have important concentrations of economic activities and 14 concentrations of non-economic activities. Frankfurt is typical of the first group with its concentration of banks while Manila is typical of the second group with its concentration of NGOs.

These two sets of cities represent the upper echelons of the hierarchical tendencies in world city networks. To reiterate a point made in the introduction, they do not encompass all globalization processes, all cities

GLOBAL as so involved, but they are the key locales that network formation agents are using in their everyday activities that are creating world city networks. CITIES

Well rounded global
Very large contribution: London and New York Smaller contribution and with cultural bias: Los Angeles, Paris and San Francisco

ii Incipient global cities: Amsterdam, Boston, Chicago, Madrid, Milan, Moscow, Toronto

Global niche cities - specialised global contributions

i Economic: Hong Kong, Singapore, and Tokyo

ii Political and social: Brussels, Geneva, and Washington

WORLD CITIES

Subnet articulator cities

i Cultural: Berlin, Copenhagen, Melbourne, Munich, Oslo, Rome, Stockholm Political: Bangkok, Beijing, Vienna

ii Social: Manila, Nairobi, Ottawa

Worldwide leading cities

i Primarily economic global contributions: Frankfurt, Miami, Munich, Osaka, Singapore, Sydney, Zurich

ii Primarily non-economic global contributions: Abidjan, Addis Ababa, Atlanta, Basle, Barcelona, Cairo, Denver, Harare, Lyon, Manila, Mexico City, Mumbai, New Delhi, Shanghai

GaWC Research Bulletin 146

In other words, both rank in the World's Top 5. For one US State to accomplish that is amazing.

[18Montclair]

And so I would say they are both are incredibly global.

[Winston Smith]

Both. But if I had to pick one over the other, I'd say L.A. It's three times the size of San Francisco. The Port of L.A.-Long Beach handles more goods than the entire eastern seaboard combined. Says something right there.

[18Montclair]

Originally Posted by Winston Smith

Both. But if I had to pick one over the other, I'd say L.A. It's three times the size of San Francisco. The Port of L.A.-Long Beach handles more goods than the entire eastern seaboard combined. Says something right there.

One might rebutt that by saying that Bay Area companies have a much larger global presence than LA Area companies.

The Bay Area is home to 11(2nd only to NY) of the world's 100 most valuable corporate brands. LA is home to only 1.
Interbrand | Best Global Brands List | 2009

[kettlepot]

I think the points about the flaws of the GaWC methodology are well taken. Focusing on branch offices totally ignores cultural, and educational factors, and downplays political ones.

To the point of the OPs question and the poll, I have to give the nod to LA. Not only is it bigger, demographically, economically, and in trade volumes, it is also culturally more important with the impact of the entertainment industry on both the US and the world. The latter is something that the GaWC system completely ignores.

The Bay Area is stronger on the educational front with Stanford and UC Berkeley, versus UCLA, USC, UCI, and UCR, but that alone isn't enough to turn the table on these other factors.

[sonarrat]

San Francisco, but only if you fold the Silicon Valley (which is about 50 miles away) in with it.

[18Montclair]

Originally Posted by kettlepot

I think the points about the flaws of the GaWC methodology are well taken. Focusing on branch offices totally ignores cultural, and educational factors, and downplays political ones.

Its irritating that their London-centric ranking gets to parade itself as the authority on ranking World Cities.

To the point of the OPs question and the poll, I have to give the nod to LA. Not only is it bigger, demographically, economically, and in trade volumes, it is also culturally more important with the impact of the entertainment industry on both the US and the world. The latter is something that the GaWC system completely ignores.

Actually as far as trade volumes, when weighing products that are actually made there, LA and The Bay Area are about tied at approx. $50 Billion a piece worth of annual exports. Shipping Volume is pretty irrelevent to a region's gross product.

Economically, LA has a bigger economy, but it is way below the Bay Area as far as corporate revenue.

The Bay Area is 2nd to only to New York as far as the total revenue of its F500 companies.

Total Revenue of Fortune 500 Companies by Combined Statistical Area, 2009
SF Bay Area $878.9 Billion
Dallas-Ft Worth $808.4 Billion
Houston $645.2 Billion
Chicago $521.8 Billion
Detroit $489.4 Billion
Minneapolis-St Paul $401.6 Billion
Boston $295.2 Billion
Los Angeles $270.0 Billion
Atlanta $266.2 Billion
Washingon-Baltimore $253.1 Billion

Also,
despite having 11 Million more people, being more than twice the size of the Bay Area, the LA Economy is not more than twice the size of its northern counterpart.
2. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Riverside, CA CSA $866.095 Billion
5. San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, CA CSA $508.418 Billion

The Bay Area is stronger on the educational front with Stanford and UC Berkeley, versus UCLA, USC, UCI, and UCR, but that alone isn't enough to turn the table on these other factors.

And because of the Bay Area's intellectual community, we have companies such as Intel, HP, Apple and so on. Corporate Entities that are famous the world over.

The intellectual community in The Bay Area has also given the region darn near ownership of the internet.
20 Most Visited Websites in the World/ HQ
1 Yahoo/ Bay Area
2 Google/ Bay Area
3 YouTube/ Bay Area
4 Windows Live/ Seattle
5 Facebook/ Bay Area
6 MSN/ Seattle
7 Myspace/ Los Angeles
8 Wikipedia/ Bay Area
9 Blogger/ Bay Area
10 Yahoo(Japanese)/ Bay Area
11 Baidu/ Beijing
12 Google(Indian)/ Bay Area
13 Google(German)/ Bay Area
14 Rapidshare/ Cham, Switzerland
15 QQ/ Shenzhen, China
16 MSN/ Seattle
17 Hi5/ Bay Area
18 Sina/ Shanghai
19 Google(French)/ Bay Area
20 EBay/ Bay Area

http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_500

20 Most Visited Websites in the US/ HQ
1 Google/ Bay Area
2 Yahoo/ Bay Area
3 Myspace/ Los Angeles
4 YouTube/ Bay Area
5 Facebook/ Bay Area
6 Windows Live/ Seattle
7 MSN/ Seattle
8 EBay/ Bay Area
9 Wikipedia/ Bay Area
10 AOL/ DC
11 Craigslist/ Bay Area
12 Blogger/ Bay Area
13 Amazon/ Seattle
14 Go/ Los Angeles
15 CNN/ Atlanta
16 ESPN/ Bristol, CT
17 Photobucket/ Bay Area
18 Flickr/ Bay Area
19 Microsoft/ Seattle
20 Comcast/ Philadelphia

http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_sit...ntry&lang=none