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All I know is, I've met and went to school with people from Philly, who will go on record saying Philly is one of the worst, and they moved to the Boston area, and find it quite better, in terms of city life and QoL. But that's second hand info.
But a word of advice, and you can ask the three people in my graduating class who hail from Philly, do not ever, ever say Philly is better than Boston-it's like writing a check you can't cash.
Yeah. Some Philadelphians unfortunately can be like that. There's actually an old expression that goes, "Philadelphia isn't as bad as Philadelphians say it is."
On the other hand, as someone who visits both Boston and Philadelphia on occasion, both cities have very strong and comparable urban cores. Overall, I will agree that the City of Boston city has a better QoL than the City of Philadelphia due to a greater proportion of very derelict outer neighborhoods (i.e., much of North & West Philadelphia).
However, Philadelphia is a pretty bipolar city in that the nice neighborhoods are VERY nice. Areas like Rittenhouse Square/Old City/Society Hill/Washington West are absolutely comparable to Back Bay and Beacon Hill in being among the top-notch urban neighborhoods in America. Yet the bad neighborhoods are also some of the most depressing you'll ever see. It's actually very tragic to see some areas in one of America's most storied cities fall into such disrepair, but that does not mean a high quality of urban life is unattainable in Philly.
If you ever do "really want to" visit the city, any person that has an appreciation for interesting and historic American urban spaces would not go away dissapointed.
Yea, but that doesn't necessarily mean San Francisco is the more important financial center of the two. Boston is transnational, but it's also ranked "Broad & Deep"...the way I interpret the comparison of San Francisco & Boston is that SF reaches further around the globe, while Boston provides more comprehensive services to the areas which it covers.
Notice that Tokyo is in the Transnational: Broad & Deep category with Boston. I certainly wouldn't say San Francisco is the more important financial center of those two...
EXCELLENT observation.
I didnt catch that Boston was not only Transnational but also "Broad and Deep"(almost sounds risque-LOL)...thanks.
Still, to me that means that Boston is Broad and Deep Transnationally, but not globally-which is still very impressive and good enough to score higher than SF so kudos in that respect.
But I do think that the chart does provide greater clarity to the rankings.
Even though Chicago is crowded and busy,you don't hear alot of car beeping at each other,it seems that people in Chicago have alot more respect for each other then NYers have for themselves and their city.In NY of the littlest reason they're beeping and in Chicago,yea sometimes there is alot of beeping and honking but its nowhere near the level of the rudeness of New York.That isn't a shot at New York, I just find it rude to get honked at for no reason.
You DID just base your opinion on DT DC on whether or not it has a department store downtown which is kind of weird considering that has absolutely nothing to do with how busy a downtown is.
BTW... It does. There's shopping around the Metro Center area. That's about it, but that's fine with me. Department stores aren't too popular in big cities anyway.
I wish you had seen DC when it did have big Department Stores Downtown. You would miss them too.
Kidphilly-- been to Atlanta? I was surprised myself, actually. It's quite busy -- certainly, it gets busier than Boston, but that may also be simply because it's bigger than Boston.
Atlanta is smaller than Boston except by MSA:
Atlanta Proper: 537,938
Atlanta MSA: 5,475,213
Atlanta CSA: 5,831,778
Boston Proper: 620,535
Boston MSA: 4,588,680
Boston CSA: 7,609,358
I've only been there once, and I liked it quite a bit. It definitely has a true claim to being a major and significant urban area. I did not see it as more crowded or fast paced than Boston, though.
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