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I find it odd that Houston's the largest of the 4 and is still a beta class world city.
Why?
They only rate places that have the closest economic ties with London, so what would energy dominant Houston have in common with financially dominant London over more financial centers like Dallas, Boston, Atlanta, Miami, so on? Does no one read newsletters anymore? GaWC Research Bulletin 409
Aghhh, here's the quote because I know some wont even read it otherwise:
Quote:
I have personally been caught up in this process through an early research project on how London related economically with other world cities. The latter had to be identified and a ‘roster of cities' was devised by counting numbers of selected firms in a range of cities (Beaverstock et al 1999). The variation in numbers was simplified by dividing cities into strata labelled alpha, beta and gamma. This essentially petty exercise, just a first step in investigating London's external links, has had immense influence: personally it is my most cited article and, with hundreds of citations, it is the most cited article ever published in the journal Cities. I interpret this astonishing success as my ‘alpha-beta-gamma misgiving'.
Why a misgiving? This most successful paper is a very simple taxonomic exercise in which relational thinking is conspicuous by its absence. Hence we have made a major contribution to cities considered as merely separate entities to be ranked and compared. As all my subsequent writings show (deriving from Taylor 2001), such modes of thinking eliminate a crucial part of the complexity of cities and thereby misunderstand them. Hence the alpha-beta-gamma misgiving is just about as large a research embarrassment as can be imagined
I never found GaWC as credible, ever. After the GaWC publisher came clean about his intentions which were misinterpreted all over the Internet, I would love to say "I told you so" but even that doesn't cut it.
Some guy made it as his little "science fair project" and the world then believed him and then he came clean that it's not a ranking of absolutes or even credibility to most prominently displayed cities but rather cities that have the most economic connection to London. Others have noticed how Euro-Centric their list is and that's why.
I find it odd that Houston's the largest of the 4 and is still a beta class world city.
I think the issue is here is A- Houston isn't really that far behind B- Houston has a larger blue collar backbone to their economy compared to somewhat comparatively sized Dallas and Atlanta.
This puts them at a slight disadvantage in the research of globalization as you're your tracing economic activity that often crosses between financial districts that generate more white-collar work.
I think the issue is here is A- Houston isn't really that far behind B- Houston has a larger blue collar backbone to their economy compared to somewhat comparatively sized Dallas and Atlanta.
This puts them at a slight disadvantage in the research of globalization as you're your tracing economic activity that often crosses between financial districts that generate more white-collar work.
How do you explain such economies as Miami and Philadelphia being up there when they're blue collar like Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston?
As for globalization, there's only one ranking that ranks cities on that and it sure isn't GaWC. GaWC is nothing more than a ranking of which cities have the most global firms from London based there. Why do I say that? In the newsletter they told us so. Which makes arguing "Alpha world city" along with this thread totally pointless, as the "Alpha city" of the south will be the one with the absolute most firms from London based there. How else would anyone with a straight face explain the lightweights like Sydney ranking with monsters like Paris, or Dubai ranking with Tokyo? Which is arguably the only city on Earth that can compete with and perhaps surpass London or New York.
Let's be honest here. GaWC and it's boosters are people that only want to see things from that perspective because it gives their town a favorable ranking. I'd like to hear an argument why Dubai is anywhere near Tokyo in this so called "credible" bible like ranking that so many on this forum rave on about like it's the second coming of Jesus?
Last edited by Trafalgar Law; 03-16-2013 at 06:30 AM..
As for globalization, there's only one ranking that ranks cities on that and it sure isn't GaWC. GaWC is nothing more than a ranking of which cities have the most global firms from London based there. Why do I say that? In the newsletter they told us so. Which makes arguing "Alpha world city" along with this thread totally pointless, as the "Alpha city" of the south will be the one with the absolute most firms from London based there. How else would anyone with a straight face explain the lightweights like Sydney ranking with monsters like Paris, or Dubai ranking with Tokyo? Which is arguably the only city on Earth that can compete with and perhaps surpass London or New York.
The folks from San Francisco, Toronto and Washington DC would never agree with that list.
The folks from San Francisco, Toronto and Washington DC would never agree with that list.
I live in Washington DC and I view Chicago, Los Angeles, Mexico City, and New York as the higher tier. I don't know where to put Mexico City but that one is up for debate too.
I view Bay Area, Golden Horseshoe, and the DMV in the same weight class as one another which is a tier down from the big four.
Then again, I'm not technically from Washington DC.
I think Miami has the highest chance to become Alpha, followed by Houston, Then Atlanta. It's more then just large economies.
Also, a lot of your stuff is biased towards Houston. Houston again has the worst core out of all of the 4 cities so anything that pertains to core, Houston would be dead last.
Out of these 4 cities, here the order in which I would personally travel to each:
1)Miami - Miami Beach...enough said
2)Atlanta - Interesting neighborhoods, decent core with many tourists venues right in Downtown, DECENT TRANSIT THAT'S ACTUALLY HEAVY RAIL and connects to the airport.
3)Dallas - Decent core, nice shopping, somewhat interesting, neighborhoods...West village looks cool. Transit is lacking, but it still goes places.
4)Houston - Honestly, it was pretty dull when I went. Dead downtown, it's core is really small...everything is spread out...transit isn't that good. It's got good theatres and performing arts, but I'm not exactly into that sort of stuff atm...Nightlife is meh to me.
Houston is probably great to live a suburban lifestyle, but anything more then that, then yeah lol...pass.
I hate to be grammar nazi but you make mistakes over and over and over again throughout this thread with then/than.
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