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Your entitled to your own opinion, and I think it's agreed that CA and many places on the West Coast have the greater degree of immaculate natural attractions. However, going by the OP, there are some regions that come close, and still offer very much a plethora of natural resources within 3 hours radius. Maybe not meeting CA's level, but enough to come close.
The big NE cities might win this based on cities and towns they can visit. But while I haven't been to most of those smaller place, I'm guessing it's reaching.
From Seattle I could probably count Port Townsend, Bainbridge Island, Snoqualmie Falls, and Leavenworth, but naaah. Nice little places but world class destinations?
Weekend and day trips usually aren't to "world class destinations" - they're to interesting places close to the city one lives in that may not be worldwide or nationwide draws but draw significant interest from people living in the general region or visiting a city near the attraction.
Two of the places I added to manitopiaaa's list, Valley Forge and Washington Crossing, are sites of national significance given their role in the American Revolution. Ringing Rocks State Park in Bucks County, OTOH, is an attraction largely visited by those living within a two- to four-hour drive of Greater Philadelphia - but noteworthy because of the natural feature that gives the park its name, which would make it a side trip for someone coming to Philly because of Independence Hall and the Historic Square Mile.
Similarly, Philadelphia's Reading Terminal Market has peers on the West Coast, only one of which - Seattle's famed Pike Place Market - I would consider a beyond-regional tourist draw in itself. But people visiting LA for other reasons usually include a stop at that city's well-known Farmers Market as part of the trip, and the Reading Terminal Market is the second-biggest visitor destination in Philadelphia because it's a mere six-block walk from the biggest one, and visitors get hungry. Nobody but foodies comes here because of the RTM, but once they're here, they all head there. That's about as good an example of the difference as I can think of.
counting NIH funding, AMount of Research Labs and Employments... its Boston way ahead then SF and NYC/NJ
There are many other things to count in biotech. For starters let's assume it's human-related, vs. plant. Then you can get into stuff like production in addition to research. And lots of cross-over with pharmaceuticals, IT, performing actual treatment (particularly in trials), and other connected areas.
NIH funding is a big deal, but are your numbers segregated for what's really biotech vs. other health-related areas? Boston does huge business in health studies that aren't related to core biotech.
Weekend and day trips usually aren't to "world class destinations" - they're to interesting places close to the city one lives in that may not be worldwide or nationwide draws but draw significant interest from people living in the general region or visiting a city near the attraction.
Two of the places I added to manitopiaaa's list, Valley Forge and Washington Crossing, are sites of national significance given their role in the American Revolution. Ringing Rocks State Park in Bucks County, OTOH, is an attraction largely visited by those living within a two- to four-hour drive of Greater Philadelphia - but noteworthy because of the natural feature that gives the park its name, which would make it a side trip for someone coming to Philly because of Independence Hall and the Historic Square Mile.
Similarly, Philadelphia's Reading Terminal Market has peers on the West Coast, only one of which - Seattle's famed Pike Place Market - I would consider a beyond-regional tourist draw in itself. But people visiting LA for other reasons usually include a stop at that city's well-known Farmers Market as part of the trip, and the Reading Terminal Market is the second-biggest visitor destination in Philadelphia because it's a mere six-block walk from the biggest one, and visitors get hungry. Nobody but foodies comes here because of the RTM, but once they're here, they all head there. That's about as good an example of the difference as I can think of.
I'd guess a small percentage of visitors to LA go to its market. I don't have stats but I'd imagine most tourists haven't heard of it.
The original post talked about world-class destinations.
I'd guess a small percentage of visitors to LA go to its market. I don't have stats but I'd imagine most tourists haven't heard of it.
The original post talked about world-class destinations.
So it did.
But in that case, Washington, Philadelphia, New York and Boston would IMO all rival the Bay Area because each of the cities themselves are world-class destinations* filled with multiple attractions (including, of course, world-renowned museums in each city) - and the next closest cities to them along the Northeast Corridor (lumping Baltimore together with Washington in this case) are within four hours' travel time of each of them, thus making them day-trip destinations for one another. And while the closest city to Washington's south and the closest one to Boston's north(east) may not fall into that "world class" category, they are very much destinations worth visiting from well beyond their home regions - and within two hours' drive of each NEC city.
On my very first trip to Los Angeles, in 1966, my relatives took me to:
Again, it's like the RTM: People don't go to LA to visit it, but once they're in LA to see something else, they include it in their visit. I got the sense it was a well-known LA landmark back then, and I can't imagine it's diminished in fame or stature since 1966. Both the RTM and the LA Farmers' Market, from what I can tell, are beloved by locals, and the locals take their out-of-town guests to them for that reason. In Philly's case, the tourists not staying with locals go to our best-known farmers' market too because of its central location.
*I would assume that a UNESCO World Heritage Site would automatically qualify as a "world-class destination." New York's Statue of Liberty, Philadelphia's Independence Hall and Monticello and the University of Virginia in Charlottesville (within two hours of Washington) are all on that list. (So are the two Redwood Parks and Yosemite.)
The original post talked about world-class destinations.
Perhaps THE most bastardized and overused term on city-data, and near the top in society in general. Everyone likes to think they're "the best" at something.
There's very few places that most would truly "world class," and even then it's inherently a very subjectively-determined trait that often depends on personal taste and what our culture values at a given time.
And, frankly, if someone have to beat everyone else over the head with the "WORLD CLASS!" label, there's a good chance it isn't actually so.
Agreed! The term should mean one of the very best few at something...like the runners who make it to an Olympic final for example -- literally.
Also "world famous." People seem to think a mention in the London Evening Standard or a smattering of foreign visitors means the whole world knows about a place.
Now about LA's market...ok, locals take their visitors. But the does the average Disneyland visitor, Hollywood visitor, or conventioneer go? I doubt it.
Also "world famous." People seem to think a mention in the London Evening Standard or a smattering of foreign visitors means the whole world knows about a place.
Well, there is a barbecue joint in Kansas City that a well-known writer for a couple of national magazines, in particular the old Life and The New Yorker, once called (in all caps) "THE SINGLE BEST RESTAURANT IN THE WORLD."
Now, the guy is (I think he's still alive) (a) a humorist (b) a native Kansas Citian like me, so of course, this needs to be taken with a huge grain of salt. Besides, this same fellow, who likes to write about food a lot, also wrote once that "anyone who doesn't believe the world's best hamburger is served in their hometown is a fool" or words to that effect.
Moreover, a couple of barbecue aficionados said about this same place in a 1988 guide they wrote to barbecue in America, "What other city has a place that's been called 'the single best restaurant in the world' - and it isn't even the best in town?"
But the place does have a national reputation among barbecue buffs, burnished by the fact that at least two U.S. Presidents stopped there to eat on swings through the city (Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton; there may have been more. I'm not sure how big a barbecue fiend Harry S Truman was, but maybe even him).
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Heard theres now a lab in Fulton
