Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
My personal feeling is that Chicago (apart from transportation) has much more in common with Houston than New York and LA. There are very specific reasons for this.
Houston like Chicago is very much a business city, with many immigrants, as well as young professionals that are drawn more from college towns, small cities form that region of the US. (Chicago from the Great Lakes, Houston form the Gulf Coast/Texas).
Both are enormous, with BIG things. Lots of museums, and funky, artsy neighborhoods. But Chicago and Houston do not have the entertainment/media/celebrity component of New York or LA.
Chicago and Houston are not cities of dreamers and transients, so therefore allthough there are a lot of salt-of-the-earth immigrants that add to those cities diversity, they do not have the type of lifestyle, career-goal diversity like New York, LA, SF, or D.C.
lol, not gonna comment specifically. I will get hanged. Just gonna let you say it.
I bet you that 90 percent of the people who would tar and feather me for saying such a thing knows very little about either city
My personal feeling is that Chicago (apart from transportation) has much more in common with Houston than New York and LA. There are very specific reasons for this.
Houston like Chicago is very much a business city, with many immigrants, as well as young professionals that are drawn more from college towns, small cities form that region of the US. (Chicago from the Great Lakes, Houston form the Gulf Coast/Texas).
Both are enormous, with BIG things. Lots of museums, and funky, artsy neighborhoods. But Chicago and Houston do not have the entertainment/media/celebrity component of New York or LA.
Chicago and Houston are not cities of dreamers and transients, so therefore allthough there are a lot of salt-of-the-earth immigrants that add to those cities diversity, they do not have the type of lifestyle, career-goal diversity like New York, LA, SF, or D.C.
So outside of the media/entertainment activity what again do NYC or LA not have in what described?
Immigrants?
Business Cities? (esp NYC, I mean really is there a bigger business city in the US, answer is NO)
Draw of young professionals?
Lots of Museums?
Funky?
Artsy neighborhoods?
Also Houston is large not enormous - NYC is enormous; would not even call Chicago enormous in this sense
Again Chicago, LA, and NYC are by far the biggest cities in their region. Houston is smaller than the city in the comparison (DFW or at least on metro) Edit - realized this was a different and HTown qouted some of my comments from the other thread though ppoints still hold sans somparison thread related
Houston and DFW both have some similarities to Chicago; maybe even moreso DFW especially on the logistics component but they also have far more differences
Last edited by kidphilly; 05-16-2011 at 11:41 AM..
So outside of the media/entertainment activity what again do NYC or LA not have in what described?
Immigrants?
Business Cities? (esp NYC, I mean really is there a bigger business city in the US, answer is NO)
Draw of young professionals?
Lots of Museums?
Funky?
Artsy neighborhoods?
Also Houston is large not enormous - NYC is enormous; would not even call Chicago enormous in this sense
Again Chicago, LA, and NYC are by far the biggest cities in their region. Houston is smaller than the city in the comparison (DFW or at least on metro) Edit - realized this was a different and HTown qouted some of my comments from the other thread though ppoints still hold sans somparison thread related
Houston and DFW both have some similarities to Chicago; maybe even moreso DFW especially on the logistics component but they also have far more differences
I think you misunderstood what I was saying, or I did not communicate properly!
Obviously New York and LA have lots and lots of those things mentioned!!
Obviously. The point I was making is that New York and LA are unique in that they have ALL that and much more (than Chicago)
A. Greater metropolitan population
B. The unique presence of entertainment/media presence (something that Chicago has very little of.
The two things make New York and LA in a class my itself, that at least in my opinion, Chicago is not part of.
New York CSA is about 21 million
LA CSA is about 17 million
Chicago CSA is about 9.7 million
Houston CSA is about 5.5 million
5.5 is closer to 9.7, than 9.7 is closer to 17 or 21 million.
Bottom line is, if you put Chicago in the same class of city as New York, and LA, then you have to consider about a half dozen others. Based on metro population and unique career/economic niche.
I think you misunderstood what I was saying, or I did not communicate properly!
Obviously New York and LA have lots and lots of those things mentioned!!
Obviously. The point I was making is that New York and LA are unique in that they have ALL that and much more (than Chicago)
A. Greater metropolitan population
B. The unique presence of entertainment/media presence (something that Chicago has very little of.
The two things make New York and LA in a class my itself, that at least in my opinion, Chicago is not part of.
New York CSA is about 21 million
LA CSA is about 17 million
Chicago CSA is about 9.7 million
Houston CSA is about 5.5 million
5.5 is closer to 9.7, than 9.7 is closer to 17 or 21 million.
Bottom line is, if you put Chicago in the same class of city as New York, and LA, then you have to consider about a half dozen others. Based on metro population and unique career/economic niche.
Fair point -
NYC is tough to compare to any city including LA and agree that Chicago is not in the same discussion esp on metro and i have also argued that as a city and metro Chicago and Philly are much closer than the often described NYC/Chicago comparison and to that point in some aspects Houston is roughtly the same size metro as philly though to me the difference in this is that Chicago and Philly are far closer in the urban form of the core, but that may be splitting hairs... so do understand the premis but still disagree as I would also say Chicago best Philly on a similar comparison as the Houston one.
I would likely put Chicago as the CSA with the DMV and Bay area. At the city level there is no comparison between Chicago and Houston. Chicago is 2-3-4 times the "city" and I am not talking about the stupid population that someone will post in the in the 580 sq mile area Houston technically covers. I mean the actual city. Even at the metro/csa Chicago is 50% larger; considerable.
Houston belongs in the discussion with areas like Atlanta, Boston, DFW, and Philly
The other KEY difference between Chicago and Houston (or Philly for that matter as I have also made some comparisons and this is where both fall apart to me) is that Chicago, like NYC and LA ARE the dominant city of the region. Houston is NOT and many will argue that at least one potentially two others could be the dominant city of the region in which it resides. So size coupled with this make for a poor comparison IMHO.
Texas has 1 and 1A (take your pick on DFW or Houston) it can be argued either way and neither distinguishes itself currently as the true dominant city of the area and likely wont for a while though I do believe that houston has continued bright future and surely a continued growing economic engine.
I think you misunderstood what I was saying, or I did not communicate properly!
Obviously New York and LA have lots and lots of those things mentioned!!
Obviously. The point I was making is that New York and LA are unique in that they have ALL that and much more (than Chicago)
A. Greater metropolitan population
B. The unique presence of entertainment/media presence (something that Chicago has very little of.
The two things make New York and LA in a class my itself, that at least in my opinion, Chicago is not part of.
New York CSA is about 21 million
LA CSA is about 17 million
Chicago CSA is about 9.7 million
Houston CSA is about 5.5 million
5.5 is closer to 9.7, than 9.7 is closer to 17 or 21 million.
Bottom line is, if you put Chicago in the same class of city as New York, and LA, then you have to consider about a half dozen others. Based on metro population and unique career/economic niche.
I actually agreed with part of what you said in your original post, mainly about some of the similarities of Chicago and Houston (which I admit, I had never thought of before) but I think you're misunderstanding what KidPhilly was saying...my interpretation was in this particular comparison, KidPhilly doesn't believe Chicago deserves to be in the same class as NYC/LA in due to its raw size, but in relation to its regional dominance.
In the West, despite the fact that San Francisco is an extremely important city and is the financial/tech capital of the West, Los Angeles (CSA: 17,877,000) is the largest, most prominent city of the region...though in my opinion out of the NYC,LA,Chi group I feel SF is the closest to its regional "top dog" and is why I said LA would benefit most from the disappearance of SF.
New York City (22,085,650) is easily the dominant city of the country, so there's no surprise it's the dominant city of the region. No further explanation necessary.
Chicago (9,686,000), though considerably smaller than Los Angeles and New York City, in unquestionably the dominant city of that region. Despite the fact that its GDP is not nearly as large as LA's (and at this point, CSA GDP is lower than Washington DC), it doesn't take into account such things as impact in the financial services sector and transportation. When you think of a Midwestern city, you think of Chicago, no question about it.
Houston (6,051,363) technically isn't the largest city of its region. That goes to Dallas (6,731,317). Houston is the #4 largest city proper in the country, behind NYC, LA, and Chicago in that order...NY, LA, & Chi are also the 3 largest CSA metro areas...Houston is ninth behind other cities like Washington DC (8,572,971), Boston (7,559,060), San Francisco (7,468,390) and Philadelphia (6,533,683). However, I don't think that matters as much as the lack of regional dominance. I actually think due to media exposure, the common population would probably think of Dallas before they thought of Houston. Obviously that doesn't necessarily translate to importance, but I think it means something.
If Houston had a similar geographic isolation to Atlanta, it would be a more apt comparison. Atlanta is relatively isolated, with several smaller cities in the greater region which provide competition.
While I do think Houston is the most important city in Texas and that region, I'm sure there are very good arguments for Dallas. I believe that is why there has been resistance to the inclusion of Houston in this thread.
I personally don't want to get caught up in the argument, but I wanted to give my viewpoint of what the argument was.
EDIT: I thought I was responding to the "Top 4 Biggest Cities, which would benefit without its major neighbor" thread...sorry about that.
There is no way that Houston is in the same league as Chicago. Not even close. Chicago is an alpha world city.
It has a world class downtown area. Houstons amenities are just newer and more spread out.
Chicago stands out among American cities, because of the view of skyline from lakefront parks. other than that, it doesn't "blow away" the next half dozen largest metro areas in the US.
If you love downtown, very urban, bubble living, never leaving, never driving then Chicago is your city. If you actually want to explore and check out areas 5 miles away from the city, Chicago doesn't offer that much in that category.
It has a world class downtown area. Houstons amenities are just newer and more spread out.
Chicago stands out among American cities, because of the view of skyline from lakefront parks. other than that, it doesn't "blow away" the next half dozen largest metro areas in the US.
If you love downtown, very urban, bubble living, never leaving, never driving then Chicago is your city. If you actually want to explore and check out areas 5 miles away from the city, Chicago doesn't offer that much in that category.
It is ok but World Class?
Dt is far from Houstons greatest asset. Seriously it is these type of comments which make it hard for me to like Houston, a place contrary to what many might think I actually do like. They are for lack of a better description, rediculous. You people are truly amazing in the level of boosterism and blinders that are used in absense of any sense of reality...
Houston is a fine place but World Class DT and Houston should not be used in the same sentence, unless of course you aspire for mediocrity...
edit - If you meant Chicago on the World Class DT then ok scratch the above, but 5 miles away in Chicago from the DT is better urban living than just about place that exisits in all of Houston and there are ton of comparable suburban living choice in both
Houston and Chicago are really not comparable on many levels. I do think the brashness is good for a growing area like Houston but temper it a bit, because y'all sound delusional at times. Houston is fine but not a panacea and not at the LEVEL of Chicago on many many levels. And NO Houston does not offer as much as a city as does Chicago and that isnt a slight to houston which does offer a lot but people get a hold of yourselves
Dt is far from Houstons greatest asset. Seriously it is these type of comments which make it hard for me to like Houston, a place contrary to what many might think I actually do like. They are for lack of a better description, rediculous. You people are truly amazing in the level of boosterism and blinders that are used in absense of any sense of reality...
Houston is a fine place but World Class DT and Houston should not be used in the same sentence, unless of course you aspire for mediocrity...
LMAO, he is not from Houston, but obviously its you so any nice comment about Houston to you is boosting?
I really think they should put a ban on that word in here. you and Northeasterners in general abuse it.
While I do think Houston is the most important city in Texas and that region, I'm sure there are very good arguments for Dallas. I believe that is why there has been resistance to the inclusion of Houston in this thread.
I personally don't want to get caught up in the argument, but I wanted to give my viewpoint of what the argument was.
EDIT: I thought I was responding to the "Top 4 Biggest Cities, which would benefit without its major neighbor" thread...sorry about that.
Confused a bit there?? Lol that is what happens when you hang around Paul too much. He would have you reinvent the world to make Cities fit his standard. but hey, you can't tell people what to like.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
