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Not to say SF is certainly #1, but just want to point out that:
1) Yes Port of LB/LA is largest in NA and likely to stay that way, but Port of Oakland is also one of the largest ports in America, plus there is Port of Richmond that handles oil imports/exports (there are 5 big refineries there...as there are also big refineries down in LA)
So yes, LA is #1 there in America and certainly CA, but it's not like it's alone in the state - the Bay Area is still one of the most important (probably top 5 or 6) in the country
2) Energy - LA controls nothing in NorCal. The state's largest energy provider is PG&E, which is based in SF (remember that movie Erin Brockovich about a SoCal girl on a mission? That was PG&E). The Bay Area is also arguably the seat of greentech/cleantech jobs in this country. And speaking of manufacturing, Tesla's plant/HQ is also in the Bay Area, as are a whole host of other battery manufacturers and Solar companies.
Also keep in mind on the fossil fuel front, both cities have that going on. The Getty's called both cities home (and still do...I believe most of the Getty's are in Pacific Heights now) and ran Occidental out of LA. Meanwhile, Chevron is based in the Bay Area.
3) Entertainment - obviously LA is to entertainment as the Bay Area is to tech. But just as LA has a lot going on in tech, the Bay Area has a lot going on in entertainment. Outside of the classical kind (I think if you want ballet/opera that kind of thing, SF is definitely more of a scene), the Bay Area is home to large entertainment names, like George Lucas/Lucasfilm/LucasArts, Pixar, Dreamworks Animation, etc etc. SF itself has one of the largest theater districts in the country, easily top 4 behind NYC, LA, and Chicago. Lots of "people of the arts" north of LA, too.
4) Cultural importation - I'm pretty sure LA is not a clear #1 in the country there, at least depending on how you look at it. Whole movements have come out of SF, which has also shaped the world with its free spirit and politics. LA just happens to produce movies that depict things going on elsewhere...so what?
5) Creativity - to me the tech industry is quite creative. I never really considered LA to be all that "creative". Boston and SF, yes. I guess we just have different definitions.
There are very few things that LA completely and totally owns in CA - the Bay Area is always doing its part to keep up. Simultaneously, there are very few things that the Bay Area totally owns as LA does its part to keep up.
So you're in agreement with the rest of us that LA is #1 in the state and that SF is a top 5 city? The rest was unnecessary, look at the thread topic, there are many other states that can be argued about 1 or 2, CA isnt one of them, lets drop the CA subject altogether and move on to other states.
Lol I know what you're getting at, I think 18Montclair dug himself in a hole and is just going down with the ship, I admire him for never backing down, but I think this conversation has reached a point of entertainment and nothing else. There are states where there's no clear cut #1 city, California isn't one of them, this thread should be reverted back to those states.
or you could put me in my place once and for all by replying to this:
The Bay Area is clearly the leader in California when
it comes to dominance in finance and .
technology-the two most important
economic sectors at this time. LA should be
number 1 in both by virtue of it's size, but
it's NOT-and that's pretty massive.
The Bay Area employs TWICE as many
Californians from outside it's borders than
Los Angeles.
That's^ how MSAs are created by the way.
So let's see. The Bay Area controls finance,
tech, jobs and also the dialogue in the state
capital.
What exactly does LA control by contrast
that directly affects the lives of Californians
outside of it's CSA borders?
Texas is interesting because there isn't really consensus on what their alpha city is. Dallas is the larger Metro. Houston has a bigger city population and larger GDP. Which city is the most important in that state?
Yes...Savannah is very well known outside of GA and definitely GA's second city.
For NC it's a tough call...Charlotte and Raleigh are pretty much neck in neck for NC's first city, so I'm calling a tie. The Triad would be second.
Creativity - to me the tech industry is quite creative. I never really
considered LA to be all that "creative". Boston and SF, yes. I guess
we just have different definitions.
First let me say sorry for continuing this SF vs LA thing. Next let me say that the following is not a claim that SF is #1 in CA (for whatever the parameters of this thread are).
This was posted a couple years ago from someone not from SF or CA in one of those threads asking if the Bay Area is a top 5 area, I don't think the forum account exists any longer but I found it requoted by someone else. Also the original cited links are missing, and the Bay Area is being used, so not sure if legal for this thread:
Quote:
- Finance? Bay Area is a Top 5. (New York, Chicago, Boston, & Washington DC are the other 4)
- Energy? Bay Area is a Top 3. (Houston & Dallas/Fort Worth being the other two)
- Tech? Bay Area is # 1.
- Banking? Bay Area is a Top 3 (New York & Chicago are the other two)
- Automobile? Bay Area is # 2 behind Detroit - prime concept variation, Tesla headquartered in Bay Area.
- Medical Services? Bay Area is # 2, right behind Boston.
- Educational Facilities? Bay Area is # 2, right behind Boston.
- Retail? Bay Area is # 3 (Behind Minneapolis & New York)
- *Politics? Bay Area is the leading place for the liberal concept and movements, putting it in the Top 3 with Washington DC & New York.
- Film Production? Bay Area is # 3 (Right behind Los Angeles & New York & right ahead of Miami & Chicago)
- Corporate Base? Bay Area is # 2 (Right behind New York & right ahead of Chicago)
- Port activity? Bay Area is a Top 5 seaport in tonnage.
- Aviation? Bay Area is again Top 5 in international commerce.
- Manufacturing? This is the one category where it slips off Top 5 level and goes into Top 7.
- Federal Reserve Action? Top of charts in this aspect with New York, Washington DC & Chicago being there too.
* The "Politics" category is largely subjective. Interchangeable with Chicago / Boston.
And finally, SF also has this to hang its hat on for better or worse :
EDIT: A number of these categories may have changed (or may have been somewhat wrong to begin with, depending on the site / data used and how old some of the numbers are) but at least it paints a general picture. All I'm saying is a case can be made (when using criteria of this nature).
Last edited by RadicalAtheist; 04-24-2015 at 04:53 PM..
So you're in agreement with the rest of us that LA is #1 in the state and that SF is a top 5 city? The rest was unnecessary, look at the thread topic, there are many other states that can be argued about 1 or 2, CA isnt one of them, lets drop the CA subject altogether and move on to other states.
Yea, by default of its size and prominence, LA is #1. But a gap in population size that large would make the line much more clear cut for most cities. SF punches so far above its weight that I still don't think it's painfully easy to say LA is definitely #1 and there is no argument. I would *never* call LA CA's "second city" at this point (even though for a while in the "age of cities" pre-war it was), but I have a hard time calling SF a true "second city" as it really plays its own fiddle.
It's like Hong Kong versus Shanghai. Which one is more important? Shanghai has far more people, and is super globally important. But Hong Kong is a smaller, more boutique version that has everything Shangai has in a smaller package, and some might say is more important, still.
New York vs London. More gray lines. New York is bigger than London, by a substantial amount. I'd say New York is more important, but the debate on that would never end.
Quotes like below warrant defense because they are misleading or wrong:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Red John
Los Angeles controls trade, manufacturing, energy (for CA), commerce, and entertainment (thus creating an image for itself and California at-large; cultural importation and exportation, if you will).
Creativity. Los Angeles controls creativity and lets see what we've gained as a human population out of it;
Need more?
Neither city absolutely controls anything. By its sheer size, LA has a decent financial sector, for instance. And LA has a large tech sector. And the Bay Area is not small at all with 8 million people, but it's an 8 million that punches so far above its weight class that it plays a very important role in just about anything LA "leads" in.
If LA/LB were the only port in the state, then that'd be one thing. Unfortunately for this argument that LA controls trade, the Bay Area also has one of the largest ports in the country and the Pacific Maritime Association which runs all W Coast ports is based in SF (hence why the port strike negotiations/White House meetings were held in SF/DC, not LA/DC).
You're flat our wrong on manufacturing and energy. "Commerce" is an ambiguous term, but SF being the financial center of the entire western US has been seen as a city of "commerce" since 1850, whereas LA has never been seen in that light.
Entertainment - again just like LA has a tech sector, the Bay Area has an entertainment sector. And LA's tech sector is not small, and neither is the Bay Area's entertainment sector.
5) Creativity - to me the tech industry is quite creative. I never really considered LA to be all that "creative". Boston and SF, yes. I guess we just have different definitions.
Unless you think the entire universe revolves Google and Instagram, there's no way San Francisco and Boston are more "creative" than Los Angeles.
Los Angeles has a clear lead in most creative industries, not just Hollywood.
Examples? Lots of ideas and concepts are rolling out of the Bay Area. I'm honestly baffled as to what "creative" things are coming out of LA, at least in more notable fashion/mass than what's coming out of any other particular city, like NYC, Boston, etc.
I think scientists working on the cure for cancer are creative people trying to think outside the box/realm of possibilities. They may find the cure in the Bay Area - it probably won't be found in LA. So while I'm not saying LA isn't creative, I'm asking what makes it particularly more creative than the Bay Area? Or Boston? Or New York? Or Seattle?
One thing SF has over LA is its compactness/density of people. yes, LA is as dense on paper. But the way the city works and functions is not dense at all. SF packs it all in. Ideas are more easily bounced around. It seems half the population is working in a startup, for them self. And they come from IA with an idea and an ambition to see it through. It's not all Apple Watch or Google Glass or IBM chips. You also have lots of eccentric people in SF. As there are in LA, too. Like very eccentric people. I don't think there are any two other cities with the concentration of truly eccentric people as in either LA or SF.
4) Cultural importation - I'm pretty sure LA is not a clear #1 in the country there, at least depending on how you look at it. Whole movements have come out of SF, which has also shaped the world with its free spirit and politics. LA just happens to produce movies that depict things going on elsewhere...so what?
You're doing that thing again where you make things up or twist it to mean more than it is (see bold statement -- yours -- versus bold statement mine):
Quote:
Originally Posted by Red John
Los Angeles controls trade, manufacturing, energy (for CA), commerce, and entertainment (thus creating an image for itself and California at-large; cultural importation and exportation, if you will).
Creativity. Los Angeles controls creativity and lets see what we've gained as a human population out of it;
The city that redesigned the concept of seaport, the film and television industries (by importing or exporting Soviet Montage, German Expressionism, Italian Neo-Realism, Spaghetti Westerns (which caught on like fire in Spain), Blockbusters, Golden Era, so on), the Internet (yeah, that thing we're using right now).
Need more?
Obviously in a state related thread my post was about Los Angeles as relative to California. If that wasn't evident enough (given the sort of thread it is) then I made it even more clear by explicitly saying California in my post.
See bold underlined (mine) versus bold underlined (yours) to see the cause and effect and disconnect.
Quote:
Originally Posted by anonelitist
Neither city absolutely controls anything. By its sheer size, LA has a decent financial sector, for instance. And LA has a large tech sector. And the Bay Area is not small at all with 8 million people, but it's an 8 million that punches so far above its weight class that it plays a very important role in just about anything LA "leads" in.
Don't hate the player for playing the game designed by the game host next time:
Quote:
Originally Posted by 18Montclair
So let's see. The Bay Area controls finance, tech, jobs and also the dialogue in the state capital.
What exactly does LA control by contrast that directly affects the lives of Californians outside of it's CSA borders?
I just took 18Montclair's use of the word "control" to mean "wins in" honestly. I've debated with 18Montclair since I joined in 2012, we disagree but more often than not understand what the other is saying. I know 18Montclair is well aware that Greater Los Angeles is a big player in technology, just as the San Francisco Bay Area is in media (specifically digital media). Our use of the word "control" is simply to say it is a category each respective city leads in.
Which brings me to the next point:
Quote:
Originally Posted by anonelitist
1) Yes Port of LB/LA is largest in NA and likely to stay that way, but Port of Oakland is also one of the largest ports in America, plus there is Port of Richmond that handles oil imports/exports (there are 5 big refineries there...as there are also big refineries down in LA)
So yes, LA is #1 there in America and certainly CA, but it's not like it's alone in the state - the Bay Area is still one of the most important (probably top 5 or 6) in the country
It doesn't matter (part underlined). Obviously the comparison is against Los Angeles and you're trying to make an argument as to why the San Francisco Bay Area should be in discussion for number one in California (or at-least why it can make an argument to hang with Los Angeles).
Obviously for California, the Port of Long Beach is significantly larger and more important than all San Francisco Bay Area ports combined. Then you have to factor the Port of Los Angeles too, which is just the extra to top the already insurmountable peak this seaport holds. Los Angeles, first place finish in California. San Francisco Bay Area, second place finish in California.
So when I say Los Angeles "controls" the seaport situation, now you know what I mean.
Quote:
Originally Posted by anonelitist
3) Entertainment - obviously LA is to entertainment as the Bay Area is to tech. But just as LA has a lot going on in tech, the Bay Area has a lot going on in entertainment. Outside of the classical kind (I think if you want ballet/opera that kind of thing, SF is definitely more of a scene), the Bay Area is home to large entertainment names, like George Lucas/Lucasfilm/LucasArts, Pixar, Dreamworks Animation, etc etc. SF itself has one of the largest theater districts in the country, easily top 4 behind NYC, LA, and Chicago. Lots of "people of the arts" north of LA, too.
Again, completely irrelevant. San Francisco Bay Area is obviously no slouch in media but Los Angeles is dominant here. It has been the case since the New Yorkers and Chicagoans in the industry started fleeing the East for the less patent-restricted West in the late 19th and early 20th century. Los Angeles has since made itself into the world's gold standard in the industry.
Casablanca and other Golden Era films in addition to the invention of the "Star system" (Florence Lawrence was the first Hollywood "Star" in history and that was in the 1800s before the Golden Era even started) have had profound cultural impacts worldwide.
Hell, some countries all over the world have dedicated their entire industries to being a knockoff of Hollywood. Bollywood, Tollywood, Lollywood, Kollywood, Nollywood -- look them up, they're all real and exist and formatted to imitate Hollywood. Some movies are a DIRECT word per word, screen scene by screen scene replica of a Hollywood movie (Hitch-Partner as an example).
So yeah, to re-emphasize, Los Angeles is a mammoth of a cultural importer and exporter. I think in this sense, it would be top dog in this category for California.
Also Los Angeles is a larger market for everything. Jewelry, fashion wardrobes, wedding stores (and I know San Francisco is beast here but still), cars, office furniture, tea, so on. So yes, when it comes to commerce, its pretty obvious it wins. Commerce is why Los Angeles has all three national flag carriers at its airport and the San Francisco Bay Area only has one. The reason why it has two sports teams in every sports league besides the NFL and San Francisco Bay Area does not.
You can verify that, just look at its import and export exchanges and then look at total merchandise value in Billions. I'll pinpoint it later if need be.
First let me say sorry for continuing this SF vs LA thing. Next let me say that the following is not a claim that SF is #1 in CA (for whatever the parameters of this thread are).
This was posted a couple years ago from someone not from SF or CA in one of those threads asking if the Bay Area is a top 5 area, I don't think the forum account exists any longer but I found it requoted by someone else. Also the original cited links are missing, and the Bay Area is being used, so not sure if legal for this thread:
And finally, SF also has this to hang its hat on for better or worse :
EDIT: A number of these categories may have changed (or may have been somewhat wrong to begin with, depending on the site / data used and how old some of the numbers are) but at least it paints a general picture. All I'm saying is a case can be made (when using criteria of this nature).
The San Francisco Bay Area is absolutely a crucial place, for California, the United States, and world at-large. No sane person would ever deny that. I personally think it is a definite lock for top five in the United States. I personally don't think the arguments for anywhere else aside from New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington D.C., respectively, are compelling enough to knock it out of the top five. Those are the only world class cities in the United States too, no where outside of those five at this point in time, in my personal opinion.
However, as far as California goes, Los Angeles is number one. That doesn't make San Francisco Bay Area any lessor of a place, honestly, it is just that I don't think it is particularly close. Greater Los Angeles is one of the world's preeminent megacities. I would say it is no lower than a top 5-7 city in the world. That being the case, it is a lock for California's number one.
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