Flashiest US cities? (place, America, life, people)
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My guess here would be LA, Miami, and Atlanta. NYC is luxurious, but not the flashiest. Cities like NYC, SF, and Chicago seem to have more sophisticated people with money rather than flashy, although they do have their fair share of flashiness and the other cities have their fair share of sophistication.
For the amount of wealth in the area, the Bay Area as a whole and San Francisco in particular are about the least flashy metros/cities in the country. Not sure where you come up with this notion, but it sounds like a daily perpetuated soundbite about the region (yes, new wealth is coming in, but no, the "poor" immigrant communities aren't really going anywhere...and to be frank, sometimes it's these immigrant communities that are flashiest - look at South FL!, or even the Persian and Indian communities of the Bay Area like Fremont!). Even a wealthy suburb like Atherton is far less flashy than its counterparts in SoCal or the South. The whole area, even new money parts, have a sort of "old money" vibe when it comes to flaunting wealth or designing your home (a "mansion" in wealthy suburbs such as that are about half the size or less as areas with even less money in other parts of the US...basically anything > 3-4,000 sf in the Bay Area is a full on mansion and nobody wants publicity about where/what they buy, and hardly anyone drives a very fancy car...a Tesla is about as fancy as it gets, and it's green, which is more important to uber wealthy Bay Area residents than having a 6 car garage filled with 'Raris). Also, it's a waterfront city, but no yachts, even though there are more people in the area that could afford one than just about anywhere else. Just go to the Rosewood SandHill on a Thursday night for the biggest "scene" in NorCal. If you are used to scenes in SoCal or South FL or Atlanta, you'd die. NorCal is richer than god, but doesn't know how to exude "I'm rich" at all, nor do I think the vibe/mentality promotes that. Brains go much further up north than looks or popularity.
Anyway, just to dispel this notion, for better or worse.
Otherwise I fully agree with you: new money sunbelt cities are often the flashiest - Miami, Atlanta, Dallas, and SoCal.
Oh don't get me wrong, SF is WAY behind LA, Miami, Atlanta, and Dallas in flashiness. But generally on this thread, metros are taken into consideration also. In SF, the trust fund babies in the Marina and some of the newer tech bros can be flashy. Again, not to a Beverly Hills level. But it does exist. However, the areas around Los Gatos, Saratoga, Campbell, and spreading into a few nearby areas can be just like Beverly Hills. The East Bay areas of Pleasanton to Walnut Creek can be very similar. Because it's impossible to talk about LA being flashy when not including places like Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, San Marino, Palos Verdes, Calabasas, etc. which aren't actually part of LA. Same with Miami Beach to Miami.
Parts of Marin County definitely are loaded as well, but they keep it somewhat classier with their money. They might have a sailboat, but nothing OVERLY flashy.
Again, SF is far behind. Just wanted to mention it can be found since SF is so low on the polls (for good reason) and a lot of people that haven't lived in the Bay Area don't know much outside the city limits and possibly Oakland.
How so? Couldn't the same be said of L.A.and Miami? How is the 2nd richest metro on Earth, which is chock full of billionaires, millionaires and models dying to be seen, not in the running for flashiest? I personally voted Miami due to the Latino/beach/pastel vanity vibe prevalent down there, but NYC is pretty flashy too. From gaudy skyscrapers and apartments to rims in the hood to Yeezys on the subway, New Yorkers love to flaunt wealth.
No it's definitely more ubiquitous in LA and Miami. It's hard to explain, but the vibe of "flashy" doesn't really exist much outside Manhattan. While walking through Manhattan, only a few neighborhoods are the level of huge parts of LA and Miami. I'm talking women walking around with bags with labels all over them, flashy earrings, perfectly new shoes, expensive car. Yeah they have expensive real estate. But I think the NYC vibe keeps the flashiness down. In LA, your shoes don't get ruined as quickly as NYC because you don't walk everywhere. You don't have to worry about pickpockets on a subway. Someone isn't going to reach into your Lambo or Rari and take your gold plated iPad, expensive leather wallet, and your wife's expensive earrings. So in that sense, I think the street life, urbanity, and human contact of NYC plays a part in it. The uber rich in NYC have the same things. But for just regular wealthy or even the keeping up with the Jones' of the middle class, LA and Miami are much flashier overall.
^^^fair point, but it's not like it's LA/Miami/Atlanta and then SF and then everybody else. SF and really the whole Bay Area are still in whatever pack of cities/places is literally least flashy in this country. And that even includes some of the SV communities.
Also keep in mind there are few places if any on this earth with the kind of sheer wealth that whole parts of the Bay Area have, so one would think that of all places the Bay Area would be super flashy, but it's not.
You see *a lot* of Teslas driving around. ~$100K car. Ok, so clearly you're wealthy. But you could probably afford a 5% ownership stake in Ferrari the company and all you have is a Tesla. This is a different case than Tesla being in the same class of Ferrari in other, less wealthy cities where if you drive one you're in the same league of people who drive a Ferrari around, and maybe you're stretching to be able to afford one, and now you're the "cool" person on the block who has one. So perspective is warranted.
Also, Marina Bros wear nice watches. They all grew up with a silver spoon and went to Princeton. But they still live in an un-air-conditioned crap/cramped apartment somewhere in SF and may or may not even have a car and take a bus in to work. The same crowd in Atlanta all own expensive *flashy* floor to ceiling glass condos, drive new BMWs, and wear the same watches, but they went to UGA.
Atlanta and Dallas definitely have a flash with no cash vibe to them. Atlanta has a lot of jealousy mixed in as well.
Memphis has the poor mans flash with no cash vibe too. Just look at all the luxury cars and talk the drivers and you'll discover they are barely working part time. When I visited a mall outside of Nashville in the Brentwood area, I got snobbed quite a few times but I didn't see it consistent throughout the area but noticed quite a few luxury cars throughout the city.
New York, Boston and San Francisco are more sophisticated than flashy.
Chicago isn't flashy but a few areas have attitude. I had friends who where millionaires and I didn't know it until after a few years of knowing them. That seems to be a common trait in that city.
Miami Beach and Vegas but its mostly the mindset of rich international and domestic billionaires and millionaires so use those cities as their personal playground. LA is flashy only on the West Side and because of the Hollywood mindset, the rest of LA is working class.
Really? Outside of Los Angeles, the West Coast doesn't really have a flashy mindset at all. And hello, Miami, the obvious winner of this thread, is on the East Coast. To say nothing of Black Atlanta or NYC. And Vegas is flashy, but not sure it's residential flashy or just corporate flashy...
I don't think you are correct. Having grown up in Scottsdale and living in LA and Scottsdale most of my life I was surrounded by flashiness that you would not believe(way more than anything I experienced in North VA/DC. Outside of LA it is still really flashy out here. Orange County, Las Vegas, Scottsdale for the PHX area, and the north suburbs of San Diego all are pretty flashy in my opinion. I don't think of the east coast as really flashy. In terms of flashiness though I think it goes-
Miami
Las Vegas
LA
Atlanta
Dallas
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