Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Gotcha, that makes sense. Even so, I agree, Austin is not in a tier with some of these other cities. In my opinion, numbers shouldn’t separate a tier; level of importance should. Using the criterion I listed earlier and basing my list almost exclusively on the rankings of a consolidation of global cities list by leading minds of urbanism, I think tiers should be something like this:
Tier 1: NYC, LA, Chicago, Washington DC, San Francisco, Dallas, Boston, Houston, Philadelphia, Miami, Atlanta, and Seattle in that order.
Tier 2: Minneapolis, Phoenix, Detroit, San Diego, San Jose, Denver, Charlotte, and Baltimore, in that order.
Tier 3: St. Louis, Austin, Tampa, Portland, Pittsburgh, Orlando, Cleveland, Nashville, Indianapolis, Sacramento, Columbus, and Cincinnati, in that order.
I don't know about that specific order, but the general groupings are good.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sugar loafer
11 miami
12 philly
13 Phoenix
14 Minneapolis
15 detroit
Seattle is top 10. The only thing San Diego’s got is Shamu.
Can we please stop with the shady behavior toward Philadelphia? There have been several threads in this forum and Philadelphia is 100% in the top 10. Move on.
Your account is new, so I am giving your the benefit of the doubt this time around...
This thread is about America’s most important cities, and that criteria as established and agreed upon by some of the world’s leading authorities on urbanization, including urbanism researcher Richard Florida and urban psychologist Zubeda Mohammed, theorized that the following encompass a city’s “importance”
- wealth
- power and influence to other countries, including hosting the largest capital markets
- wealthy multinational companies
- good infrastructure
- better economy
- well-educated
- diverse populations
- powerful organizations
- good political structure that are linked to the other parts of the world
Which of those is Miami lacking enough in to not be considered one of the United States’ most important cities?
Miami is one of our most important cities, but I and several others simply think it's just barely outside of the top 10. But I don't think someone should be completely discredited because they rank it #11 and you rank it #10; that's not enough of a difference to get worked up about.
Miami is one of our most important cities, but I and several others simply think it's just barely outside of the top 10. But I don't think someone should be completely discredited because they rank it #11 and you rank it #10; that's not enough of a difference to get worked up about.
Why is anyone getting worked up? These are opinions.Thinking (or wishing it), doesn't make it so. Perspective can be a good thing, when participating in polls.....
Imho I'd give Houston the nod over Philly & Atlanta due to the energy sector. It's essentially the global HQ for it.
I would also not put Dallas or Atlanta over Miami. It's to important for international trade and is the US's focal point for everything and anything Latin/South American.
I can understand that. I have Atlanta higher because it's a de facto captial of a region and the cultural capital for AA.
I measured it as the Bay Area as a whole, which is pretty damn important. I also put Seattle higher just because it performs VERY well per-capita, whereas Philly and Atlanta get by more on raw population. I feel like Dallas and Houston are both underrated by others on here. They aren't the urban rowhouse cities everyone loves but they are huge and are economic powerhouses. (We'll see how Houston does in the next decade, though). Finally, I gave Denver a bit of extra credit for how important it is as a CSA, thanks to its geographic isolation.
It's true that Seattle has a fairly high per capita GDP, but metro Philadelphia's economy, for example, is still nearly 40% larger than metro Seattle's economy. Atlanta's is likely around 25% larger. Those are very significant differences that I think most would agree objectively outweigh a higher GDP number. At some point, size does indeed matter.
Location: Miami (prev. NY, Atlanta, SF, OC and San Diego)
7,407 posts, read 6,537,276 times
Reputation: 6671
I agree with Mutiny and am not hung up as to what number ranking Miami gets on CD--as high as 9, no lower than 12 with negligible difference in between.
I do have to question (over)use of the term "poverty" when referencing Miami, which seems to occur more often on CD than with other cities--as if income inequality, poor neighborhoods, and far worse homeless situations in these other--including some higher ranked--cities are referenced less. I also find it ironic that for a supposedly "impoverished" city, Miami at the same time typically ranks as a top 3-5 city on CD polls when it comes to most pretentious and most materialistic lists. That being said, there is no shortage of wealth in The City of Miami, County, or MSA.
CD seems to equate or overemphasize wealth of a city with median income. Median income is but only one measurement of wealth. In the case of Miami it admittedly it is less dependent upon and has a smaller F500 headquarter corporate presence than other cities; therefore it has lower average reported wages. Wage earners only gives a partial picture.
"More than 82,000 small businesses employ 53.3 percent of Miami-Dade County’s workforce, according to a new study commissioned by the Florida SBDC at FIU. This stands in sharp contrast to the rest of the U.S., where large companies employ the majority of workers"
Small business, including LLCs and LPs, is more important here, as stated above, with plenty of people filing Schedule C, D and E tax returns rather than W-2 (i.e. wage/income slaves). One could argue Miami median income is grossly understated based on that. One prior poster stated earlier on in this thread that it is often hard to quantify Miami economic data--this would seem to support that. I am also not trying to downplay the fact that Miami has a noticeable dependence upon tourism and service industry jobs which, again, often pay less. (Money laundering is another topic for another day).
I think Miami also fares worse than other higher ranked cities because of higher education (lack of an abundance of research universities, let alone top tier) and STEM outside of the medical field--which it does have a solid presence in, more so a lack of IT and biotech). This effects Miami's reputation with some (STEM only represents 6% of all US jobs) younger and recent college grads in the early, wealth building stages of their career; Miami does have opportunities in other traditional fields such as law and business (especially import/export, international banking along with more Northeast hedge funds relocating here from the Northeast for tax purposes). Miami is probably better suited for those already established in their careers--whether home grown or relocating from elsewhere in the US or abroad and/or retirees who bring their wealth earned elsewhere with them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shakeesha
I don't think it is that Miami lacks the criteria you mentioned, but rather that other cities have more important multinational companies within even smaller metro areas. Miami does not perform as well in critical areas due to poverty, low wage jobs, and lack of STEM grads to support modern industries.
11 miami
12 philly
13 Phoenix
14 Minneapolis
15 detroit
Seattle is top 10. The only thing San Diego’s got is Shamu.
It's hard to take this seriously when:
- Philly is 100% top 10; no way it's below Seattle and Miami
- Seattle is 100% not top 10
- San Diego is a global hub for telecommunications, biotech/life sciences, trade, and defense. Also, as far as Shamu is concerned, it's also the birthplace of modern oceanography and a top tourist destination
- Phoenix has no place being above Detroit or anywhere near Philly. Completely laughable. What exactly does Phoenix have that is important?
I think Miami also fares worse than other higher ranked cities because of higher education (lack of an abundance of research universities, let alone top tier) and STEM outside of the medical field--which it does have a solid presence in, more so a lack of IT and biotech). This effects Miami's reputation with younger and recent college grads in the early, wealth building stages of their career; Miami does have opportunities in other fields such as law and business (especially import/export, international banking along with more Northeast hedge funds relocating here from the Northeast for tax purposes). Miami is probably better suited for those already established in their careers--whether home grown or relocating from elsewhere in the US or abroad and/or retirees who bring their wealth earned elsewhere with them.
I agree but for all of the b#$%ing, moaning, and complaining it generated, I do think that Miami landing on Amazon's pared-down list for HQ2 raised its STEM and corporate profile a bit. I will admit that I wasn't expecting to see it make the list, especially in the absence of other cities that seemed to be a better fit for HQ2, but it just goes to show the appeal of Miami's unique strengths as a major metropolitan area in the U.S. As I stated before, that makes it somewhat hard to rank on a list like this; as the "capital of Latin America," it could be argued that cities like Mexico City, Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Lima, etc. are just as much peer cities or even more comparable peer cities than other U.S. cities. Highly arguable I know, but not totally unreasonable.
Location: Miami (prev. NY, Atlanta, SF, OC and San Diego)
7,407 posts, read 6,537,276 times
Reputation: 6671
Bezos did attend high school in Miami (Palmetto HS). Perhaps the potential threat of a hurricane reduced Miami’s chances. Spirit Airlines recently announced plans to move some of its operations from SoFla to Nashville to minimize such possible disruptions.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mutiny77
I agree but for all of the b#$%ing, moaning, and complaining it generated, I do think that Miami landing on Amazon's pared-down list for HQ2 raised its STEM and corporate profile a bit. I will admit that I wasn't expecting to see it make the list, especially in the absence of other cities that seemed to be a better fit for HQ2, but it just goes to show the appeal of Miami's unique strengths as a major metropolitan area in the U.S. As I stated before, that makes it somewhat hard to rank on a list like this; as the "capital of Latin America," it could be argued that cities like Mexico City, Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Lima, etc. are just as much peer cities or even more comparable peer cities than other U.S. cities. Highly arguable I know, but not totally unreasonable.
why do you have Denver in your top 15, but not Phoenix? We have over twice metro Denver's population!
Population does not equate to importance. Frankly, neither Denver or Phoenix belong in the top 15.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
