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All of you guys saying that Denver is *by far* more influential than any other city on the list, can you please be specific? Once again, it could be the East Coaster in me, but Pittsburgh seems the most influential with Denver, Baltimore, Cleveland, and St. Louis if it were on the list trailing it.
determining a list of "most influential" cities is entirely subjective, but as a native philadelphian i fail to see how pittsburgh is anymore influential than the cities you mention. i believe they are all more or less in the same category. if i had to choose i'd say st. louis and baltimore lead the pack. pittsburgh has the smallest city and metro population out of all of them, so i'm not exactly sure why that would be the 'most influential' in anyone's opinion, but oh well.
i agree with you that denver is not anymore influential than the others in any way, and in many ways it trails due to its relatively young age. the other cities have a much more established and urbane culture than denver.
determining a list of "most influential" cities is entirely subjective, but as a native philadelphian i fail to see how pittsburgh is anymore influential than the cities you mention. i believe they are all more or less in the same category. if i had to choose i'd say st. louis and baltimore lead the pack. pittsburgh has the smallest city and metro population out of all of them, so i'm not exactly sure why that would be the 'most influential' in anyone's opinion, but oh well.
i agree with you that denver is not anymore influential than the others in any way, and in many ways it trails due to its relatively young age. the other cities have a much more established and urbane culture than denver.
Urbane? Maybe SF and NYC, but how is "Broncomania" any different from the Steeler worship that goes on in Pittsburgh? (For example)
katiana, what i meant is that denver doesn't have nearly the history of places like baltimore, saint louis or pittsburgh. it's a much, much younger city. there is a sense of place in the older cities that is simply not present in denver. denver has never been a top 10 city; baltimore, st. louis, pittsburgh and cleveland not only were top 10 cities, but most of them were top 10 cities for most of their history.
baltimore: was one of the 10 largest us cities for 190 years
st. louis: was one of the 10 largest us cities for 120 years
cleveland: was one of the 10 largest us cities for 90 years
pittsburgh: was one of the 10 largest us cities for 40 years
if you think there isn't a certain level of distinction that comes with that status, you're kidding yourself. moreover, these cities grew to prominence during an age when cities were cities.
denver has never been and likely will never be a top 10 city. cities are just built differently today, and the current boomtowns are getting more and more indistinguishable from each other. local character is diluted and urban culture is assimilating with suburban culture. the old cities, while less important than they once were, still have a sense of place that will take generations upon generations to erode.
Well! I guess you told me! What a bunch of BS! These cities living in the past are sad. Pittsburgh has continually lost population metro-wide since 1972, except for 3 years in the early 90s. We shall see what the 2010 census says.
"Local character is diluted", eh? How many other cities do you know of that herd cattle through downtown for a stock show. You can go to the Denver forum to see a picture if you're interested.
"Urban culture assimilating with suburban culture"? Care to explain what that means? BTW, the urban to suburban resident ratio in Pittsburgh is ~ 1:7; in Denver it's about 1:5. Hence, Pittsburgh is more suburbanized.
"Sense of place"? I'll agree Pittsburgh has it; so does every other city I"ve lived in. Are you familiar with the term "Mile High City"? Ranks up there with "Land of Lincoln", "Fruit and Nut Land" and the like.
It's a little arrogant to suggest that b/c Denver's history of Euorpean settlement is shorter than some other places', that it has 'less history'.
I would say Stanford and Cal-Berkeley are more in burbs of San Francisco than San Jose.
Berkeley is a suburb of Oakland.
Stanford is in Palo Alto, in the SAME COUNTY as San Jose. It's clearly more tied to San Jose/Silicon Valley than it is to San Francisco proper. Many would say that the Silicon Valley only exists because of Stanford.
To think otherwise would be to think beyond business. Unless you work in IT, San Jose/Silicon Valley is not really on most people's radar beyond Apple Computers. I could think of a visual image in my minds eye with any one of these cities, yet can't really picture San Jose in my mind.
I go with Denver has it is the major hub city for the entire mountain time zone, a huge sports town, and it's has a lot of history starting as a mining capital. Denver has one of the country's major hub airports, and could even rival Portland on environmental infuence. Oh yeah and it has some great breweries, big beer town. In terms of big league cities, Denver defines that more than any others on the list.
As mentioned before though ask anyone overseas, like it or not Las Vegas will likely come to mind first.
The Poll asked which city is more influential. Regardless of whether it's known or not or if it can be pictured in ones mind, San Jose is globally influential. Beyond Apple... Cisco, Google, HP, Intel, eBay, NetApp and others are headquartered in San Jose/Santa Clara County. It's the epicenter of American venture capitalism. It's an enormous center of creativity and a behomoth economic engine for the country.
For me, this is not an image or popularity contest. I am answering the poll as specifically asked. I dare say that none of the cities on this list can actually touch its level of influence.
Berkeley is a suburb of Oakland.
Stanford is in Palo Alto, in the SAME COUNTY as San Jose. It's clearly more tied to San Jose/Silicon Valley than it is to San Francisco proper. Many would say that the Silicon Valley only exists because of Stanford.
Perhaps, but the reverse is not true, e.g. that Stanford only exists because of Silicon Valley, which somewhat negates San Jose's claim. I tend to think of that whole area as one big glob.
Perhaps, but the reverse is not true, e.g. that Stanford only exists because of Silicon Valley, which somewhat negates San Jose's claim. I tend to think of that whole area as one big glob.
How does it negate San Jose's "claim"? Using that logic, Boston wouldn't have a "claim" to either MIT or Harvard: neither of which are in Boston proper.
This feels like grabbing at straws.
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