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Location: That star on your map in the middle of the East Coast, DMV
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Washington DC is not a 2nd tier city to anyone, Ok New York is "New York" no one can deny it's tier, but after that you would have to place DC on that top tier along with probably Chicago, LA. DC has world class universities, 3 major airports, the largest museum complex in the world, the center of the federal government, 5 major sports teams, 7 if you include Baltimore, 2nd busiest subway system after NY, and still has the 2nd worst traffic after LA (which still makes no sense to me) and too much more to name for it to be considered underneath any other cities in this country.
Washington DC is not a 2nd tier city to anyone, Ok New York is "New York" no one can deny it's tier, but after that you would have to place DC on that top tier along with probably Chicago, LA. DC has world class universities, 3 major airports, the largest museum complex in the world, the center of the federal government, 5 major sports teams, 7 if you include Baltimore, 2nd busiest subway system after NY, and still has the 2nd worst traffic after LA (which still makes no sense to me) and too much more to name for it to be considered underneath any other cities in this country.
Washington DC is not a 2nd tier city to anyone, Ok New York is "New York" no one can deny it's tier, but after that you would have to place DC on that top tier along with probably Chicago, LA.
I can't get passed the analogy between Washington and Sacramento.
Yes Sacramento is the seat of government, but does thaet make it more important than SF? Absolutely NOT.
Same goes for Austin and Dallas or Houston, same goes for Tallahassee and Tampa, same goes for Harrisburg and Pittsburgh, same goes for Jefferson City and Kansas City or St Louis.
Heck, look at Ottawa and Canberra. They are arguably the most important cities in their respective nations, but most would sorely disagree with such a statement.
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DC has world class universities
You aint the only one.
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3 major airports
LA has 5 commercial airports, SF has 3.
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the largest museum complex in the world
Yes. I love it.
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the center of the federal government
Yes. But is that enough to make it 2nd overall??? I don't know.
This is not really relevant to the discussion. I mean, LA has more cars and its freeways move more people on a daily basis than DCs subways could ever hope. One could argue that LAs freeway system is more important and vital to the nation than DCs subway system is.
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and too much more to name for it to be considered underneath any other cities in this country.
Well, it benefits greatly from being the seat of government. I'll leave it at that.
It's always just a smattering of my city is better than yours/we have a rivalry so I'm going to talk down city X, etc.
Let's make this simple. There are four tier 1 cities that no one on these boards can disagree with:
Washington D.C., New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles
They are the de facto cultural, economic, political and regional powers in the United States.
Then there are the tier 2 cities which come right behind these three, and any of them will one day be a tier one city:
Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Philadelphia, Miami, San Francisco
All six are economic and cultural juggernauts, with some being greater than others in their respective areas, but not enough to be on tier 1 level yet. How they are placed is rather irrelevant in most discussions and is up to a matter of opinion which out paces the other...thus is why I listed them alphabetically.
After those cities, it really doesn't matter. None are as important today as they were previously (Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh) or not important enough yet (Charlotte, Phoenix, Seattle, Denver).
Here's mine:
1-Major Powers/Most important to US/World
NYC, LA, Chicago, Washington, Philadelphia, possibly Houston
2-Very Large/powerful but not top
Phoenix, Atlanta, Jacksonville, Dallas, San Fransisco, Boston, possibly Denver (due to central location + major airport)
3-Moderate power/importance
San Diego, Miami, Minneapolis, Baltimore, Detroit, Austin, Las Vegas, Seattle, Oklahoma City, Indianapolis
4-Little/ no power/importance
Tampa, Richmond, Kansas City, Omaha, Raleigh, Milwaukee, El Paso, Annapolis, Colorado Springs
This is probably one of the poorer lists I've seen on City-Data. How on Earth can you have Jacksonville, FL listed in tier 2? Is this your hometown?
Phoenix and Denver also have no business being there but I'd put them in tier 3. Also, how do you figure Philly is a tier higher than San Francisco, Dallas, or Atlanta?
Colorado Springs should be down in tier 8 or 9 somewhere!
Your opinion is as valid as anyone's but many of us would like to hear your rationale.
P.S. lol @ Wpmeads for agreeing with this list for only one reason!
Location: That star on your map in the middle of the East Coast, DMV
8,027 posts, read 7,421,798 times
Reputation: 5700
Quote:
Originally Posted by 18Montclair
I can't get passed the analogy between Washington and Sacramento.
Yes Sacramento is the seat of government, but does thaet make it more important than SF? Absolutely NOT.
Same goes for Austin and Dallas or Houston, same goes for Tallahassee and Tampa, same goes for Harrisburg and Pittsburgh, same goes for Jefferson City and Kansas City or St Louis.
Heck, look at Ottawa and Canberra. They are arguably the most important cities in their respective nations, but most would sorely disagree with such a statement.
You aint the only one.
LA has 5 commercial airports, SF has 3.
Yes. I love it.
Yes. But is that enough to make it 2nd overall??? I don't know.
This is not really relevant to the discussion. I mean, LA has more cars and its freeways move more people on a daily basis than DCs subways could ever hope. One could argue that LAs freeway system is more important and vital to the nation than DCs subway system is.
Well, it benefits greatly from being the seat of government. I'll leave it at that.
Do you realize you just compared Sacramento, to the capital of the United States of America? State Capitals have no comparison to the capital of a nation, the most powerful nation in the world that is. When Jay Leno opens his show every night in LA whats the first place he starts making jokes about the Capital- DC. What happens in Washington on a daily basis in terms of law and government, is more important that almost all the news of all the state capitals combined.
DC has more monuments than any city in the country, as i listed the largest museum in the world, the Pentagon (although across the river) is the largest and most important office building in the world.
LA's version of "Metro" is not comparable to the real Metro in Washington which serves more passengers than any other system except NY. LA's MSA or CSA which ever you want to discuss is 2 or 3 times bigger so it would have more people on the roads you would expect. Unfortunately DC's traffic is still 2nd to it in the nation.
Those 5 commercial airports in LA don't all carry the bulk of the passenger traffic. LAX is the primary airport for SoCal and carries 28 million passengers per year probably 85%-90% of LA's air traffic. If you combine passenger totals from BWI (10.2 mil), Dulles (11.3 mil), and Reagan National (8.7 mil) in Washington it would be 30 million passenger flights into the DC metro area per year. Orange County airport carries about 4.4 mil so even if you add that into SoCal, it would be 32 million thats only 2 million more than a Metro area less than half the size of it.
No matter how you slice it, I am not taking anything away from LA being a 1st tier city. It's the capital of the West, and with DC being located 3 1/2 hours south of NYC many of you all may think that it's less important cause it's smaller, but trust me no one in Washington looks up to NYC as if its this dominate city that many people outside of the East Coast see it as.
Last edited by the resident09; 11-21-2009 at 03:36 PM..
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