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Strong, diverse economy based around mining, government, tech & scammy MLMs (yes, seriously), major public transportation system, huge culture and arts scene, world class university, major airport hub, hosted the Olympics, and has an established major professional sports team.
It behaves, influences, and competes with cities like Albuquerque, Fresno, and Oklahoma City with 30-40% of the population.
Pittsburgh and Nashville both are amazing cities for their size that have a lot to do and good career employment. Miami area is a metro that punches way way below it's weight it is kinda sad.
Atlanta: Population less than a half million (more likely even under 450,000) Lots of corporate headquarters, fantastic skyline marching up Peachtree from Downtown, to Midtown, to Uptown/ Buckhead, incredible shopping district uptown in northern (Lenox Square/ Phipps Plaza) and central Buckhead (Shops of Buckhead), vast cultural amenities: plays, shows, museums, concerts, universities. Way above its weight even before you add three million plus in the Metro.
Atlanta has an enormous suburban metro, there is something like 5-6M people in the ATL metropolitan area. So to use the 450,000 figure isn't accurate. The city supports a top 10 metro population.
Pittsburgh and Nashville both are amazing cities for their size that have a lot to do and good career employment. Miami area is a metro that punches way way below it's weight it is kinda sad.
True. I find Miami to be quite dull overall. Very overrated city at large outside of like 2 square miles anyone has been to.
Hartford has old bones. In 1950 it had 177,397 people. Today it has 124,006 people (and declining). Hartford feels bigger and more influential because it used to be bigger and more influential.
It's also in the CSA immediately immediately east of the largest and most influential CSA in the US: NYC.
Strong, diverse economy based around mining, government, tech & scammy MLMs (yes, seriously), major public transportation system, huge culture and arts scene, world class university, major airport hub, hosted the Olympics, and has an established major professional sports team.
It behaves, influences, and competes with cities like Albuquerque, Fresno, and Oklahoma City with 30-40% of the population.
SLC seats a metro area larger than all of those cities, and a CSA of over 2million. By city pop alone it looks amazing but the further you scan out the more size appropriate it feels.
Pittsburgh spent the better part of the 20th century trailing only New York and Chicago in some key wealth indicators, so I'm going with Pittsburgh. Legitimate big city amenities without hyping themselves as a big city that surpass those of the places that are hyping themselves (Columbus, Houston, Phoenix, etc).
Pittsburgh has pretty much defined "punching above your weight" for over a century now.
So I guess it has the crime and poverty that you'd expect from a much larger city but also the extensive business community and rich history of a larger city as well.
I met some tourists from Connecticut here in Savannah a couple of weeks ago. They said the cities / urban areas of Connecticut are horrible. "If not for the suburbs of NYC, Connecticut would be one of the worst states in the country."
Atlanta: Population less than a half million (more likely even under 450,000) Lots of corporate headquarters, fantastic skyline marching up Peachtree from Downtown, to Midtown, to Uptown/ Buckhead, incredible shopping district uptown in northern (Lenox Square/ Phipps Plaza) and central Buckhead (Shops of Buckhead), vast cultural amenities: plays, shows, museums, concerts, universities. Way above its weight even before you add three million plus in the Metro.
TRUE STORY: Tonight I was at a bar on River Street in Savannah and met a couple driving through on their way to Florida. They drove through Atlanta for the first time ever and said, "We had no idea what a huge city Atlanta is!"
For having the city population it has, Atlanta easily has the 4th or 5th largest skyline in the country -- not to mention 1 million in-city commuters on an average weekday.
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