Is the SF Bay Area #2 or #3 in the United States? (highest, safe)

[lmkcin]

I'm not even sure it's fourth or fifth in the nation.

[DANNYY]

Originally Posted by lmkcin

I'm not even sure it's fourth or fifth in the nation.

- New York
- Los Angeles
- Chicago
- Washington DC
- Bay Area

I'm guessing you're considering a tie possibly with Boston? Or Boston possibly a hair ahead of San Francisco? That argument can be made for Boston at 5th too. The follow ups for 7th are Houston & Philadelphia, so that leaves San Francisco & Boston (I'm assuming from you're interpretation) for 5th & 6th?

For the record on this thread, I think of it as Top 5, a toss up with Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington DC, & Bay Area for the # 2-# 5 spots, in my honest opinion.

[lmkcin]

Originally Posted by DANNYY

- New York
- Los Angeles
- Chicago
- Washington DC
- Bay Area

I'm guessing you're considering a tie possibly with Boston? Or Boston possibly a hair ahead of San Francisco? That argument can be made for Boston at 5th too. The follow ups for 7th are Houston & Philadelphia, so that leaves San Francisco & Boston (I'm assuming from you're interpretation) for 5th & 6th?

For the record on this thread, I think of it as Top 5, a toss up with Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington DC, & Bay Area for the # 2-# 5 spots, in my honest opinion.

I would agree with you. Boston and San Fran are arguably identical, I've saif this many times in the past.

I think I was just being a little sarcastic in my initial post.

[grapico]

Originally Posted by kidphilly

yeah over what 100+ miles; come on, with that distance I can add the NYC income to Philly; they are far closer than the expanse you add as are DC and Baltimore, like 30 miles (DC and Chicago are way more centric which also factors)

Hell I dont need NYC to beat that number by adding Allentown/Beth/Reading/Vineland/AC etc with Philly in less space than all you add. The Bay is impressive but to equal these numbers you are stretching the bounds a bit here - CSA is a little unruly really, especially areas that are two hours apart

why not throw in Sacramento while you are at it

Well...that wouldn't be such a bad idea to include a nodal regional importance...

You could have NorCal/SoCal/New England/NY Philly Region/ DC Baltimore Region. Mid Atlantic...for instance, then guage them by importance.
I definitely think you are right though that the numbers are NOT an apples to apples, at some point you need to choose your frame work to do a fair comparison.

[grapico]

Originally Posted by Rhymes with Best Coast

Not knocking your list, but I don't see how the likes of Chicago and Washington DC gets #2 and #3 so easily. Whereas SF Bay posters get attacked and called delusional for defending it up there when in fact the #s alone say we're there. Just sayin', why the double standard?

Clearly based on blind output #s the SF Bay is in conversation.

3. Washington-Baltimore-Northern Virginia, DC-MD-VA-WV CSA $550.549 Billion
4. San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, CA CSA $535.327 Billion
5. Chicago-Naperville-Michigan City, IL-IN-WI CSA $515.119 Billion

*A $20 Billion edge on Chicagoland is pretty damn significant IMO.

You introduce beauty, recognizability, quality of living, modern day relevance, etc. You still have the SF Bay in the game. So I call for peace and the insults should stop.

Preface for this post, and this is not towards you, just using a couple of things for quotes.

Numerically you are there (for a moment), but why would you base it on just that? What happens if oil prices go up even higher, is Houston then going to be more important than SF? I do not think you would like it too much, nor would I think Houston somehow "jumped" the Bay in importance over night b/c they had a handful of companies post record profits. Those rankings are THE most volatile of any of the objective categories you can base this on. Esp when talking about a high tech economy (Several noteable busts) in SF which sent ripples through the stock market, and DC open for severe changes in economy based on who is in power. Your "20 billion" edge on Chicagoland for a moment in time statement tells me your grasp on economics is limited, or it was just simple negligence, as this is not much of a merit category.

Beauty, recognizeablity and modern day relevance are open to opinion too much to be worthy. So is "diversity" which I hold little weight upon, those are all preference categories, and sometimes borderline racist, or at least viewing one cultural norm better than the other. I do think the weather out there for instance is awesome, but not everybody thinks that way, and I think you should consider that when giving *any* credibility to such potentially bias measures. *Introducing* those measures, would not help the Bay Area whatsoever! Why do you think it does? If that is the case, Honolulu and Key West need to be in this conversation.

Things that are more relevant are history (including historical track record) infrastructure, political, economic and educational institutions, which the Bay Area certainly has plenty to rest upon. These are some of the only things that can be objectively measured. More so, these are measures that can be viewed over time, not a snapshot open to volatility such as pure GDP/YYYY.

Additionally, somebodies opinion on them liking Chicago winter or liking to eat fresh seafood in SF holds absolutely NO weight to me whatsoever, and I would love to persaude other members why such opinion matters should hold no weight to them either when trying to put metro areas into comparison. It would actually prompt me to call into question everything they were saying, and meticulously go over it.

[DANNYY]

2008 saw the peak for transportation, finance, banking, & exchanges. All of these industries saw decade lows in 2009, and all of which have recovered in 2010 and are rapidly doing even better (so far) in 2011. You can go to the bureau of transportation statistics homepage and look up the information there, every city peaked in 2008 and fell in 2009 to then once again either surpass their peak or come close to surpassing it in 2010, meaning we're onwards into the right direction economically as a country.

Chicago's economic output was cutback mainly because those industries hurt its economy more so than any other city in the country since all of them are Chicago's Top 3 leading industries. 2009 saw a global scale shrink in GDP for countries across the globe, Singapore itself fell by 3.4% and is now the fastest growing GDP in the world at a gain of 14.2% annually recorded in 2010.

To go by means of GDP when your industry is hot compared to another not being so isn't really a very objective way to view things. When the energy industry is hot, like right now where the price of oil escalates, Houston's GDP see's a massive boost, remember folks this is the same city that added $130 Billion to its GDP in just a 2 years time period. Imagine with 10 good years what it's GDP will look like? And that by no means makes any city more prominent than another.

Take for example Los Angeles, its got a larger population & GDP as compared to Paris, but no one will say Los Angeles is more important or on the same caliber as Paris?

I view American cities the same way, I've presented my case for the Bay Area already, its up to all of you to either see where I'm coming from or disagree and make your own points. But I truly believe maybe not now but in the future that the Bay Area will firmly be a Top 3 level area in the country and Chicago & Los Angeles will be 4th and 5th (interchangeable) where as Bay Area & DMV will be 2nd & 3rd.

Maybe its a stretch right now or the concept seems like a stretch, but its by no means to take away from any of the success from these places. I think in the future term and within years, we'll see the actual results for ourselves and it'll let us be the ones to analyze the performance.

[grapico]

Originally Posted by DANNYY

2008 saw the peak for transportation, finance, banking, & exchanges. All of these industries saw decade lows in 2009, and all of which have recovered in 2010 and are rapidly doing even better (so far) in 2011. You can go to the bureau of transportation statistics homepage and look up the information there, every city peaked in 2008 and fell in 2009 to then once again either surpass their peak or come close to surpassing it in 2010, meaning we're onwards into the right direction economically as a country.

Chicago's economic output was cutback mainly because those industries hurt its economy more so than any other city in the country since all of them are Chicago's Top 3 leading industries. 2009 saw a global scale shrink in GDP for countries across the globe, Singapore itself fell by 3.4% and is now the fastest growing GDP in the world at a gain of 14.2% annually recorded in 2010.

To go by means of GDP when your industry is hot compared to another not being so isn't really a very objective way to view things. When the energy industry is hot, like right now where the price of oil escalates, Houston's GDP see's a massive boost, remember folks this is the same city that added $130 Billion to its GDP in just a 2 years time period. Imagine with 10 good years what it's GDP will look like? And that by no means makes any city more prominent than another.

Take for example Los Angeles, its got a larger population & GDP as compared to Paris, but no one will say Los Angeles is more important or on the same caliber as Paris?

I view American cities the same way, I've presented my case for the Bay Area already, its up to all of you to either see where I'm coming from or disagree and make your own points. But I truly believe maybe not now but in the future that the Bay Area will firmly be a Top 3 level area in the country and Chicago & Los Angeles will be 4th and 5th (interchangeable) where as Bay Area & DMV will be 2nd & 3rd.

Maybe its a stretch right now or the concept seems like a stretch, but its by no means to take away from any of the success from these places. I think in the future term and within years, we'll see the actual results for ourselves and it'll let us be the ones to analyze the performance.

Exactly...

A better way would to be to take the median and/or mean from the last 10 years GDP from each of the cities. Not saying that is the "best" way to look at it, but it is certainly better than looking at it from a snapshot when most of the U.S. was in a recession. A better view might be a 20 year snapshot....Regardless, take 1999-2009 GDP data... Take mean/median performance. I can already hear some people crying about this, as that will make their cities look lower and for some reason take down their egos, then I can hear some people praising this, as this will make their cities higher, resulting in the same ego boost... It doesn't matter though, and I have no idea what the results are right now, nor do I plan on running the data set (I will leave that to someone else, if they want a better view of importance.)

[kidphilly]

Originally Posted by overunder12

Provide evidence that the borders of NYC and Philly are only 45 miles apart, and that more than 7.5 million people (~the Bay Area's population) live between those borders.

First Distance

Gmaps Pedometer


On People (Here are the counties that lie between the two)

Bucks County PA 621K
Camden County NJ 514K
Gloucester NJ 288K
Burlington County NJ 449K
Mercer County NJ 367K
Monmath NJ 630K
Somerset NJ 323K
Middlesex NJ 810K
Morris NJ 492K
Union NJ 537K
Essex NJ 784K
Ocean NJ 577K
Bergen NJ 905K
Hudson NJ 634K


Total = 7.9 Million and not one person counted from the 8+ million in NYC, Northern Burbs, far western burbs, CT, or Long Island for NY and not one of the city of Philly, Western Burbs, DE, MD, or Counties South of Philly in NJ

[grapico]

Originally Posted by kidphilly

First Distance

Gmaps Pedometer


On People (Here are the counties that lie between the two)

Bucks County PA 621K
Camden County NJ 514K
Gloucester NJ 288K
Burlington County NJ 449K
Mercer County NJ 367K
Monmath NJ 630K
Somerset NJ 323K
Middlesex NJ 810K
Morris NJ 492K
Union NJ 537K
Essex NJ 784K
Ocean NJ 577K
Bergen NJ 905K
Hudson NJ 634K


Total = 7.9 Million and not one person counted from the 8+ million in NYC, Northern Burbs, far western burbs, CT, or Long Island for NY and not one of the city of Philly, Western Burbs, DE, MD, or Counties South of Philly in NJ

Sounds like another one of your yankee doodle lies.

[kidphilly]

Originally Posted by grapico

Sounds like another one of your yankee doodle lies.

Well he asked and I provided the population that lives between the two cities and showed the closest borders are 45 and change miles