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.
I'm surprised anyone would put DC in the same tier as NYC, and to not put LA and Chicago above DC? Please.file:///C:/Users/hros/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image001.gif (broken link)
Whacked.
Just to clarify, I wasn't arguing that DC was more of a city than LA or Chicago. Of course not, they blow it away in size, amenities, fame, etc.
In that department DC is 3rd tier at best.
I was basing the list on the ability to shape the course of world events.
In that one area, I think DC is arguably ahead of them.
I understand this is a minority view, but I don't think it can be dismissed out of hard.
1) Int. news source (BBC, Al Jazzera, Economist, Der Spiegel, etc) are more likely to cover decisions made in DC, than LA/Chi.
2) US global popularity is closely tied to the US foreign policy. (i.e. the decline under Bush vs. modest revival under Obama)
3) At world forums virtually every issue has a gov't angle (Climate Change, Global Economy, Energy, Terrorism, International Development, Family Planning, Aids, etc).
4) DC’s influence centers on boring, esoteric topics like macroprudential risk regulation and harmonized tariff agreements, while LA’s is very obvious and based on mass appeal.
LA has influence through media. It's more pervasive and obvious than DC's, but IMO it has less substantive influence over people's day-to-day lives.
All that being said, it isn't DC itself that has power, it is the federal gov't. DC just happens to be the place where govt leaders make decisions.
But, the argument holds for any city. NYC/Chi don't control their financial markets and LA's media are owned by shareholders all over the world and what they produce is based on what audiences will pay for.
My personal opinion....culturally, socially, economically, and in terms of global prestige and influence....New York, Los Angeles and Chicago are America's elite cities. I would also probably include Washington DC in that category as the nations capital and center of government, though in terms of culture, etc. I would say it has more in common with what I would call second tier elite cities like Boston or San Francisco or Atlanta....excellent cities but without quite the heft of heavyweights like the Big Three. I would also include my hometown in that second tier, with the caveat that I think we rank a little higher than we're generally given credit for. Philly isn't New York or Chicago, but it isn't just a nice downtown surrounded by ghettoes that it's portayed as sometimes, or a place to sleep between trips to NYC or DC. But that's a whole different discussion. Forgive me for a little civic boosterism
My list then, would go thusly:
New York
Los Angeles
Chicago
Washington DC
*****************************
San Francisco
Philly/Boston
Atlanta
Seattle
Houston
My two cents.
This is my first post, so forgive me if I trod over ground covered earlier.No disrespect towards anyones city I may have overlooked. No insult intended, just my opinion.
This is my first post, so forgive me if I trod over ground covered earlier.No disrespect towards anyones city I may have overlooked. No insult intended, just my opinion.
Later.
And it was a good first post. Well thought-out, no flaming / respectful to other posters. Props.
As far as significant worldwide influence, The Bay Area is now probably somewhere between 1st and 3rd depending on LA and DC. I didnt realize it(well actually I had an idea) until I read this:
Quote:
50 Things That Changed Our Lives In The '00s - Entertainment News Story - WESH Orlando (http://www.wesh.com/entertainment/22030182/detail.html - broken link)
AIRPORTS: Remember when you didn't have to take your shoes off before getting on a plane? Remember when you could bring a bottled drink on board? Terrorism changed all that.
ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE: From acupuncture to herbal supplements to alternative ways of treating cancer, alternative medicine became more mainstream than ever.
APPS: There's an app for that! The phrase comes from Apple iPhone advertising, but could apply to the entire decade's gadget explosion, from laptops to GPS systems (want your car to give you directions to Mom's house in Chinese, or by a Frenchwoman named Virginie? There was an app for that.)
AARP cards ... for boomers! Some prominent Americans turned 50 this decade: Madonna. Prince. Ellen DeGeneres. The Smurfs. Michael Jackson -- who also died at 50. And some prominent "early boomers" turned 60: Bruce Springsteen and Meryl Streep, for example.
AGING: Nobody seemed to look their age anymore: Clothes for 50-year-old women started looking more like clothes for 18-year-olds, tweens looked more like teens, long hair was popular for all ages, and in many ways women's fashion seemed to morph into one single age group.
BLOG: I blog, you blog, he blogs ... How did we spend our time before blogging? There are more than 100 million of these Web logs out there in cyberspace.
BLACKBERRIES: Considered essential by corporate CEOs and moms planning playdates. Introduced in 2002, the smartphone version is now used by more than 28 million people, according to its maker, Research In Motion Ltd.
BOOK CLUBS: Thanks in part to Oprah Winfrey, the decade saw not only a profusion in book discussion clubs but a growing reliance on them by publishers.
CABLE: Cable 24-hour news made the evening network news seem quaint, cable dramas reaped Emmys ... and at decade's end, even Oprah was making the move to cable.
CAMERAS: Remember those trips to get film developed? Nope? Even your grandmother has a digital camera, and she's probably e-mailing you photos right now or uploading them to a photo-sharing site.
CELEBRITY CULTURE: Celebrity magazines fed a growing obsession with celebrities and the everyday minutiae of their lives. By decade's end, we were still obsessed, though Britney Spears and Angelina Jolie had ceded many covers to reality stars like Jon and Kate Gosselin. Celebrity Web sites like TMZ took hold mid-decade.
CELL PHONES: Cell phones are now used by more than 85 percent of the U.S. population and for some have replaced land lines entirely. On the downside, they've made cheating on a spouse more difficult -- just ask Tiger Woods.
CHEFS: Chefs are hot! The Food Network, whose viewership tripled this decade, reeled in viewers with high-voltage personalities like Rachael Ray and Bobby Flay, Emeril Lagasse and Giada De Laurentis. Meryl Streep starred in a cinematic pean to the late Julia Child.
CONNECTIVITY: As in, we're all expected to be connected, wirelessly, all the time. Boss e-mails you on a Sunday? Better answer, unless you're off in Antarctica -- you have no excuse.
COUGARS: A new TV series called "Cougar Town" focuses on a phenomenon that gained its name this decade: women dating younger men.
CROCS: Those ubiquitous plastic clogs debuted in 2002 and became the shoes you loved to hate. Kids love 'em, but there are Web groups dedicated to their destruction. Not to be deterred: First lady Michelle Obama, who wore them on vacation in 2009.
DANCING: Dancing never went out of style, but this decade saw the huge popularity of dancing contests like "So You Think You Can Dance" and "Dancing With the Stars."
DATING: Dating was transformed like everything else by Internet sites, rendering other ways of meeting people obsolete. And it wasn't just the territory of the relatively young: Seniors found love online, too.
DVRs: Suddenly, DVR-ing is a verb, and what it means is this: There's no reason to know anymore what channel your program is on, and what time.
EMBARRASSMENT ENTERTAINMENT: Embarrassment has always been part of comedy -- you need only think of Don Rickles -- but this is the decade of cringe-worthy Larry David in "Curb Your Enthusiasm," Ricky Gervais, and of course Sacha Baron Cohen, who as Borat and Bruno shamed perhaps the entire country.
FACEBOOK: Can you believe this social networking site was once limited only to Harvard students? Now it's a time-sucking obsession for more than 300 million users globally and a whole new form of social etiquette: Who to friend on Facebook?
FAT: This was the decade that fat became the enemy of the state. New York City banned trans fats, and Alabama -- second in national obesity rankings -- introduced a tax on overweight state workers.
FOODIE: It's not just that guy in the White House who liked arugula -- this was the decade of the foodie, when we all developed gourmet palates. Even a burger became a gourmet item -- as in Daniel Bouloud's truffle burger, stuffed with foie gras and short ribs.
GOING GREEN: From the kind of light bulbs we use to the kind of shopping bags we carry to the cars we drive, "going green" took hold this decade. Now, it's not strange to hear a schoolkid tell a parent to use a cloth grocery bag.
GOOGLE: This was the decade that Google became a part of our brain function. You know that guy who was in that movie -- when was it? Just Google it.
GPS: We can't get lost anymore -- or at least it's pretty hard, with the ubiquitous GPS systems. But you'd better type in your location carefully: One couple made a 400-mile mistake this year by typing "Carpi" rather than "Capri."
HELICOPTER PARENTING: Translation: helicopters hover, and so do many parents. After years of obsessive attention to safety and achievement of the youngest children, some said a backlash was under way.
INFORMATION OVERLOAD: An explosion in Internet use led to an overload of information about practically everything. It's at our fingertips, but is it accurate? Some call it part of a larger phenomenon, namely ...
INSTANT GRATIFICATION: Otherwise known as being able to get anything you want within an instant. Often referred to as a theme of the decade.
IPODS: An icon of the digital age, it's hard to believe this portable media player was first launched in 2001. Six years later the 100 millionth iPod was sold.
LIFE COACHES: In the aughts, there's a coach for everything! So why not life itself? Some say life coaches are merely therapists without the license or regulations.
MUSICALS: They've been around forever, but this decade musicals came back to film, starting with "Moulin Rouge" and "Chicago." But for kids, it was Disney's extremely successful "High School Musical" franchise -- three movies and counting -- that brought back the musical magic.
NETFLIX: The DVD by mail service, established in 1997, announced its two-billionth DVD delivery this year. For many, those discs on top of the TV are just one more thing to procrastinate over.
ORGANIC: Americans rushed to fill their grocery carts with organic food, making it big business -- now a $21 billion industry, up from $3.6 billion in 1997. At decade's end, Michelle Obama planted the first White House organic vegetable garden.
PREGNANCY CHIC: If you've got it, flaunt it: That was the new ethos of the pregnancy experience, with chic clothes that emphasized the bulging belly, personal pregnancy photos, and endless coverage of celebrity pregnancies.
REALITY TV: As a nation, we became addicted to reality TV, from the feuding Gosselins of "Jon & Kate Plus 8" to "American Idol" to "Project Runway." At decade's end, the Heenes of Balloon Boy fame and the Salahis of gatecrashing fame give reality TV some unwanted attention.
RECESSION CHIC: Fashion skewed to more severe styles -- and much black -- as so-called "recession chic" took hold in the latter part of the decade.
RETRO CHIC: Once you forget the smoking, the racism, the sexism and the homophobia, the early '60s depicted by the AMC series "Mad Men" sure looked good. The swinging Madison Avenue ad men make neckties cool again.
SEXTING: Combine texting with a cell phone's camera function and you get this parental nightmare. A survey from Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project found that 15 percent of teens ages 12-17 with a cell phone had received sexually suggestive images or videos.
STARBUCKS: It's a cliche that there's one on every block, but sometimes it seemed like it -- and millions now consider it normal to spend $4 or so on a coffee drink in the morning, perhaps a venti half-caf half-decaf vanilla latte with an extra shot.
TATTOOS: It started innocently enough -- maybe a butterfly on the shoulder or a tribal symbol on the bicep. A few characters from the Chinese alphabet later it seemed any hipster who really meant it had a full sleeve of tattoos. The trend extended to middle-aged moms and even tween idol Miley Cyrus.
TEXTING: R u still rding this sty? Hope u r. This is the decade we start communicating in the shorthand of text messages. Get used to it: E-mail is so '00s.
TV SCREENS: Television screens became bigger and flatter, making some ordinary living rooms and dens the equivalent of big-studio screening rooms. At the same time, though, people were watching movies and videos on the tiniest screens imaginable -- on their iPods other mobile devices.
TWEEN CULTURE: Tweens, especially girls, became an economic force to be reckoned with, buying everything from clothes to electronic devices to music to concert tickets.
TWITTER: The new social network introduced tweets, retweets, follows and trending topics -- as long as it fit in 140 characters.
UGGS: Not since the Croc (see above) has functional footwear created such a frenzy. The fur-lined snowboots were everywhere, no matter the climate. Los Angelenos insisted on wearing them with shorts. WII: In a sea of ever-more-sophisticated video games, this simple console became the decade's breakout hit by appealing to the non-gaming masses. Wiis became a center of family gaming, home fitness and even senior socializing.
WIKIPEDIA: A boon to lazy students everywhere, the open-source encyclopedia used the masses to police its entries and keep them (mostly) (sometimes) accurate. YOGA: Madonna, Gwyneth and other bendy celebrities brought the eastern practice mainstream. By the end of the decade, even Grandma could do downward-facing dogs on her Wii Fit.
YOUTUBE: Let's end this list and go kill some time by watching ... YouTube videos! The video-sharing site was born in 2005. Political candidates in 2008 even had their on YouTube channels. The most popular video yet: "Charlie Bit My Finger," in which baby Charlie bites the finger of his brother Harry.
GOT MORE? Tweet them to us at AP_Lifestyles
If this little listing is true, then 15 of the 50 biggest life altering things that occured in the 2000s were either ACTUAL BAY AREA COMPANIES, or products devised by them or cultural and social movements the region is known to be a center of.
15 out of 50? For a region that only constitute 2% of the nation's population is really astounding. But not really surprising.
That's good enough for AT LEAST 2nd PLACE overall.
As far as significant worldwide influence, The Bay Area is now probably somewhere between 1st and 3rd depending on LA and DC. I didnt realize it(well actually I had an idea) until I read this:
If this little listing is true, then 15 of the 50 biggest life altering things that occured in the 2000s were either ACTUAL BAY AREA COMPANIES, or products devised by them or cultural and social movements the region is known to be a center of.
15 out of 50? For a region that only constitute 2% of the nation's population is really astounding. But not really surprising.
That's good enough for AT LEAST 2nd PLACE overall.
LOL
There are people who will continue underrate the SF Bay Area, but then spend the majority of their lives on the computer, using products or innovations that come directly from the region. The Bay Area has basically 100% dominance in the processors that run nearly every computer in the World, Intel (both PCs and Macs) or AMD. Google (Yahoo previously) is the very first website the majority of the World sees in their daily lives. YouTube is the primary website for a vast collection of historical or recent media from around the world. Twitter and Facebook has revolutionized social networking, the entire world is connected via these two, and we can update our friends or even the World on anything going on in the World instantly. EBay revolutionized the auction industry. Apple revolutionized the music industry through their iPods and iTunes. The iphone was revolutionary, and is considered one of the inventions of the century.
The list can go on, but I'll end it there.
You are correct, the SF Bay Area most certainly ranks anywhere between 1-3 based on the criteria “significant worldwide influence.”
There are people who will continue underrate the SF Bay Area, but then spend the majority of their lives on the computer, using products or innovations that come directly from the region. The Bay Area has basically 100% dominance in the processors that run nearly every computer in the World, Intel (both PCs and Macs) or AMD. Google (Yahoo previously) is the very first website the majority of the World sees in their daily lives. YouTube is the primary website for a vast collection of historical or recent media from around the world. Twitter and Facebook has revolutionized social networking, the entire world is connected via these two, and we can update our friends or even the World on anything going on in the World instantly. EBay revolutionized the auction industry. Apple revolutionized the music industry through their iPods and iTunes. The iphone was revolutionary, and is considered one of the inventions of the century.
The list can go on, but I'll end it there.
You are correct, the SF Bay Area most certainly ranks anywhere between 1-3 based on the criteria “significant worldwide influence.”
I expect to see snide commentaries for saying so, but CLEVELAND still has a significant worldwide influence.
There are still POWERHOUSE corporations based in the city that have a significant impact across the globe ... and then there are the world renowned medical institutions of CLEVELAND CLINIC FOUNDATION and UNIVERSITY HOSPITALS / CASE, respectively. Both of these stellar hospital systems have made huge strides and major contributions in medicine and have also catered to sheiks, kings, presidents and celebrities from the world over. Cleveland is on the world stage with it's unparralled cultural venues too ... The Cleveland Orchestra, Symphony and their highly acclaimed museums, including the spectacular "Cleveland Museum Of Art". The city also boasts many firsts that are relative to many "creations" that we all use daily. The Playhouse Square theatre district attracts worldwide acclaim and has drawn visitors from all over the globe.
So, next time somebody want's to "knock" on Cleveland ... maybe they should have their facts in order first.
I say NY for a global financial power... LA for world entertainment capital...
I tend to agree with this.
Quote:
Chicago for the Midwest capital...
I think Chicago should be on this list...but not because it's the Midwest Capital. It's a very large corporate hub, and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange is important to most every major company on the planet.
Quote:
Houston for energy capital...
Houston is the energy capital of the United States...not the world. Take a look at a list of the World's largest oil companies. The United States doesn't make an appearance until #17 on that list. Countries like Russia, France, China, etc all have their own major oil companies which supply their oil. I would imagine if they don't go through their own companies, they would go through a company from Saudi Arabia, Iran, Qatar, etc. rather than an American company. I know I listed oil as a reason for Houston's international influence in my previous post...but the more I thought about it, the more I think it's probably more national power, rather than international power.
Quote:
Boston and Philly both have have influence as do most Major American cities, but thier inportance is limited because of NY...
I don't think the importance is limited due to NYC...I feel in many ways the influence of these two cities flourishes due to NYC.
Last edited by tmac9wr; 01-18-2010 at 12:49 PM..
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.
