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Prestige is probably:
LA
Chicago
Washington, DC
San Francisco.
Prestige doesn't make a city great or impressive though, because I would venture to say that chicago, DC, and SF are all more impressive than LA if you look at the city as a whole in terms of culture, architecture, and city development.
Los Angeles more prestigious than San Francisco? That's almost impossible to prove with facts, because it's not true.
San Francisco has the most prestigious downtown and is the most venerable business address on the West Coast. By Far.
In California, to conduct business from San Francisco's Financial District means you are taken more seriously as a company. It's because of SF's prestige that it is a way more expensive place to rent/ lease office space than anywhere in SoCal.
San Francisco has the most prestigious and highly regarded suburbs( more BY FAR), the most prestigious urban neighborhoods( does LA even have any prestigious urban neighborhoods? Certainly not near downtown)
San Francisco has the most prestigious academic institutions( and that applies to public/ private K-12 as well)
Los Angeles does exceptionally well as far as cultural institutions usually associated with "prestige", but then so does San Francisco. I actually would say that the combined Ballet+Opera+Symphony trio in SF tops LA but I still like the collection of LAs museums more than SF, but SFs museums have undergone and are undergoing much more dramatic and highly publicized expansions at the moment so I'll reserve judgement on museums.
We really could go on and on but its clear that some of you are confusing celebrity/ fame as prestige. That's laughable.
Within California, only people in places like Victorville or Bakersfield would ever say LA is more prestigious than SF.
Dont get me wrong, within CA, SF is blasted as a bossy, tempermental, liberal, hippie, socialist haven. But it's still considered more prestigious than LA. Actually by a very wide margin.
This is yet another way that SF beats LA in a category that LA should win.
This is yet another way that SF beats LA in a category that LA should win.
I have been in London for a few weeks now and will be here for the next two years. I have zero, I mean absolutely zero dog in this fight but I routinely see more interest in San Francisco than any other city in America other than New York out here. At least where I go to school (London School of Economics), there is far far far more interest in San Francisco than anywhere else in America (again, probably excepting New York).
San Francisco also has a clean and credible reputation out here, I never hear bad things about it the few times I've talked to people living in my hallway about America and/or my college professors. Honestly, I cant say the same for the other cities on the poll, I've definitely heard some crazily stupid things about Los Angeles since being here, one guy that lives next door told me last week that he doesn't think Los Angeles is a cultured city and that it doesn't remind him of a real city. He says it has "things going for it" but that "its a city without culture." I told him that its probably the second most cultural city in America, to which he thought I was lying and/or making things up, I told him it was the most dense metropolis in all of America, again, he thought I was making things up and/or lying. I told him to Google "Demographia's Urban Areas" to see for himself, he shrugged the suggestion off, thought I was making things up by using an cruddy source.
Chicago isn't talked about here. Some of the people I've talked to since moving here that have asked about where I've lived, I told them Chicago (among other cities that I have lived in), no one even bothered to ask a question about it or make a comment about it. Which is understandable, I'm not in America anymore, and people out here have very divergent interests than Americans.
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