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Yes. Boston is one of America's most important cities culturally, but I'm sure Atlanta is more important economically.
Boston's economy is quite a bit larger than Atlanta's from an MSA perspective and even larger from a CSA perspective. On top of that, outside of NYC, Boston is by far the largest asset manager in the US. Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago are #3,4, and 5...and Boston almost matches all three of them combined.
And that doesn't count the economic impact of things like management consulting, medical/biotech research, etc.
Overall Boston has quite an edge on Atlanta economically.
Atlanta is a MUCH LARGER region than Boston. Boston appears much smaller with:
-a smaller urbanized (including suburban-sprawl if you even call it so) area
-a smaller skyline
It overall feels much slower-paced than Atlanta. It is definitely a tier down.
Atlanta has held an Olympic Games, is home to a large television presence, is home to the world's busiest airport, much bigger expressways, and on and on.
Bigger expressways, really?
Houston, Dallas, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Chicago all have never hosted the Olympics, do not have a large TV presence and are not home to the world's busiest airport, does that mean Atlanta is more important than them? Yes Atlanta is home to the world's busiest airport, but you have to remember that more than half the people flying through ATL are not starting or ending their trip there.
Yes Atlanta is home to the world's busiest airport, but you have to remember that more than half the people flying through ATL are not starting or ending their trip there.
And Atlanta only has one airport. Most world cities have two, three, or more.
Cities like NYC and LA have signficantly greater airport passegner and flight volume than Atlanta (and much higher proportion of destination traffic, rather than transfer traffic), yet they have many airports, instead of one.
Yeah, this list is out of wack. Cleveland should not be 1-AA, it should be lower.
And how on earth are Peoria and Wichita in the same tier as Charlotte and Austin? Lol.
i agree cincinnati should be a tier up heck it has more 500 fortune companies then most of those cities above it like Macys and Kroger and Proctor and Gamble. Also cincy is soon going to get a highly respected company from india as it choose cincinnati for its first headquarters in the united states.
Houston, Dallas, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Chicago all have never hosted the Olympics, do not have a large TV presence and are not home to the world's busiest airport, does that mean Atlanta is more important than them? Yes Atlanta is home to the world's busiest airport, but you have to remember that more than half the people flying through ATL are not starting or ending their trip there.
If you look, I placed Chicago a tier above, and the other four on the same tier as Atlanta.
And Atlanta only has one airport. Most world cities have two, three, or more.
Cities like NYC and LA have signficantly greater airport passegner and flight volume than Atlanta (and much higher proportion of destination traffic, rather than transfer traffic), yet they have many airports, instead of one.
They also have higher populations. It stands to reason that when they combine all their airports together, that is the case.
The fact remains, Hartsfield is the world's busiest airport.
I currently live in Portland, Oregon. I recently visited Phoenix for 5 days. Admittedly, I really didn't know anything about Phoenix except the weather, sprawl, and desert terrain. I was shocked at the level of urbanity, cleanliness, and logistical ease the city operates. Phoenix doesn't get the respect it deserves. Transportation. Check. Urban network. Check. Housing diversity. Check. Logistical agility. Check. I believe Phoenix is a Top 10 US city in terms of livability, culture, economy, and urbanity. I would include it amongst the 3rd tier cities if we're counting the following 10 cities in groups of 3:
* Yes, I would rank it ahead of Boston, Seattle, and Miami based on urbanity, cleanliness, and logistical ease.
I could maybe see a case for ranking the Phoenix MSA above those MSAs on urbanity, but the city?
Logistical ease, possibly, just because Phoenix is so flat and barely existed in the pre-automobile era, so its major arterial streets are on a grid. And employment is pretty decentralized which makes the traffic lower than it would be otherwise.
Cleanliness, maybe, but that seems like an odd metric for "top cities" and is pretty uncorrelated with city size or stature. Paris and Berlin are famously dirty.
I currently live in Portland, Oregon. I recently visited Phoenix for 5 days. Admittedly, I really didn't know anything about Phoenix except the weather, sprawl, and desert terrain. I was shocked at the level of urbanity, cleanliness, and logistical ease the city operates. Phoenix doesn't get the respect it deserves. Transportation. Check. Urban network. Check. Housing diversity. Check. Logistical agility. Check. I believe Phoenix is a Top 10 US city in terms of livability, culture, economy, and urbanity. I would include it amongst the 3rd tier cities if we're counting the following 10 cities in groups of 3:
* Yes, I would rank it ahead of Boston, Seattle, and Miami based on urbanity, cleanliness, and logistical ease.
For a major city, Phoenix seems to do well when it comes to livability (i.e., housing costs and availability of housing compared with median household income and job growth), but I'm not really seeing how it outranks Boston and Seattle in the other three categories or Miami in culture and urbanity.
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