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You forget to mention GDP, transportation, architecture, location, scenery, weather, and food
GDP
San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, CA CSA $569.5B
San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA MSA $335.3B
San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA MSA $182.8B
Santa Rosa-Petaluma, CA MSA $20.3B
Vallejo-Fairfield, CA MSA $14.1B
Santa Cruz-Watsonville, CA MSA $9.9B
Napa, CA MSA $7.1B
Chicago-Naperville-Michigan City, IL-IN-WI CSA $553.6B
Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, IL-IN-WI MSA $546.8B
Kankakee-Bradley, IL MSA $3.2B
Michigan City-La Porte, IN MSA $3.6B
Really, this is just comical that someone in Philly even wants to argue weather..... come on bruh!
LOL DISAGREE
Food
When Michelin, AAA, and wine country open a brochure for Philly then we will talk. You are not in our league for food. PERIOD. I could post the AAA or Michelin but that would embarrass Philly completely because neither of them feature Philly or give it low ratings. So I will reference another nationally acclaimed assessment. Best Restaurant Cities - The Best Restaurant Cities in America 2010 - Esquire
DISAGREE
Scenery
WTF, your mom ought to ground you for life and throw away the key boy. Listen to me closely son, YOU WILL NEVER EVER COMPETE WITH SAN FRANCISCO FOR SCENERY. Don't even dream about it!
DISAGREE
Location
Philly wins.
AGREE
Architecture
Don't make me put my white gloves on, you wish your city could compete with the Portrait Ladies, Golden Gate Bridge, Bay Bridge, TransAmerica, Alcataz (architecture of prison), etc.
DISAGREE
Transportation
Our roads aren't as bad as yours and our transit has more riders. We have Caltrain, MUNI, BART, VTA. PT in the bay is not the best in the US but we can hold our own to Philly.
DISAGREE
You city does not compete with the SF Bay Area, please stop pretending it does and to the folks that don't live in either, stop giving these Philly folks false hope!
Location: The western periphery of Terra Australis
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Philly and Barcelona are two of my favourite cities. Philly NEEDS boosting, the place needs work but recognition would help again re-gaining a place in the top 5 or at least top 7 or so.
I've lived in London and NYC and now live in Philly. I love it! Barcelona is beautiful and has much to see and do, but Philly is definitely a world class city too, albeit one that is often overshadowed by NYC and D.C.
San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, CA CSA $569.5B
San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA MSA $335.3B
San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA MSA $182.8B
Santa Rosa-Petaluma, CA MSA $20.3B
Vallejo-Fairfield, CA MSA $14.1B
Santa Cruz-Watsonville, CA MSA $9.9B
Napa, CA MSA $7.1B
Chicago-Naperville-Michigan City, IL-IN-WI CSA $553.6B
Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, IL-IN-WI MSA $546.8B
Kankakee-Bradley, IL MSA $3.2B
Michigan City-La Porte, IN MSA $3.6B
We've been through this already we all know Philly lost several counties in its CSA, so that makes the region look smaller than it actually is when it comes to population. It's misleading and downright embarrassing imo, but lets not get to deep in that topic as that is a thread in itself.
Unlike San Francisco, cities like Philly and Barcelona have 4 distinct seasons. You may like having year round mild weather but I personally prefer thechanging of the seasons, especially summer to fall. There is simply no comparison in that department. [/quote]
Quote:
Food
When Michelin, AAA, and wine country open a brochure for Philly then we will talk. You are not in our league for food. PERIOD. I could post the AAA or Michelin but that would embarrass Philly completely because neither of them feature Philly or give it low ratings. So I will reference another nationally acclaimed assessment. Best Restaurant Cities - The Best Restaurant Cities in America 2010 - Esquire
DISAGREE
Don't make me put my white gloves on, you wish your city could compete with the Portrait Ladies, Golden Gate Bridge, Bay Bridge, TransAmerica, Alcataz (architecture of prison), etc.
DISAGREE
I would rather take the Ben Franklin Bridge, anything in old city, Masonic Temple, and One Liberty Place for starters.
Quote:
Transportation
Our roads aren't as bad as yours and our transit has more riders. We have Caltrain, MUNI, BART, VTA. PT in the bay is not the best in the US but we can hold our own to Philly.
DISAGREE
Our transit system is more extensive and we also have more transit options and that's not even factoring NJT or DART which serve the suburbs as well. Plus Philly has much better intercity rail service aka the "Northeast Corridor Line". San Francisco transit is good but the gap is not as close as you think it is.
Quote:
Your city does not compete with the SF Bay Area, please stop pretending it does and to the folks that don't live in either, stop giving these Philly folks false hope!
Wasn't your city greatly influenced from cities like Philadelphia. They don't call San Francisco "The East Coast city of the West" for nothing.
Philly may not be the most polished or internationally known city in the country but it has all the amenities any city in the US can offer. I could care less rather you would want to live their or not because that's not the point. The point is that there is a lot of unrelentless Philly bashing on here and quite frankly I'm just a little tired of it.
Last edited by gwillyfromphilly; 01-26-2013 at 09:34 PM..
I think it's simply because the States just has SO MANY big cities. Go to China and India, with their countless large cities, and you'll see the same. Not every Japanese city is as fascinating as Tokyo, either, most German cities, if they lack history, can be boring too, especially the lower-tier ones that nobody has heard of. It's a bit hard for every city in the US to be amazing and unique, remember a lot of these cities were built to be FUNCTIONAL first (although one can argue how sustainable they are). Houston was built as a functional place where people live and work, not a showpiece like Vegas. Not that most cities are built as 'showpieces', but 'functionalism' seems more the thing in the US than aesthetics.
Not sure why you are comparing the US to China and India, two countries that have been dirt poor for most of their modern existence (and in case of India, continues to be to this day). The US is the wealthiest country in the world, has proud European heritage and is the size of Germany, UK, France, Italy and Spain combined so its reasonable to hold it to a higher standard.
As for Japan, yes not every city is as fascinating as Tokyo but i bet their Fukuokas and Sapporos are a whole lot more fascinating and vibrant than our Houstons and Atlantas.
The point is I am not expecting every American city to be "unique and amazing" but it would be nice to see more of our cities possess the vitality of similar size cities in Europe and elsewhere, given our cultural heritage and wealth. Of course i am fully aware of the reasons they arent.
I know size isn't everything, but most 'world class' cities are million+. Europe has tons of GREAT cities in the 100,000 - 1 million range, but it's internationally famous cities, London, Paris, Berlin, Rome, Madrid, tend to be at least a million if not millions.
So let's look at some European countries to compare, shall we?
The UK has a mere 4 MSA's with over 1 million people: London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and Glasgow. One for every 12 million people.
France, a mere 3: Paris, Lyon and Marseille, one for every 20 million.
Spain, a mere 2: Madrid and Barcelona, one for every 20 million.
Germany has more. Italy has a few. But still less than the US.
Japan, South Africa, Australia, Canada and Japan compare rather well with the US, but they simply do not have AS MANY big cities as the States.
My point is that if you compare similar size cities in those countries to ours the comparison is not going to be flattering for the US. How many 1m+ cities there are is not the issue.
Last edited by Fitzrovian; 01-26-2013 at 11:37 PM..
I assume you wouldn't have a problem living in Barcelona right?
Wrong.
I am not comfortable living out of California but yes if you put a gun to my head and asked me to pick between these two I would go with Barcelona. Spanish culture is interesting to me, I speak fluent Espanol and out of the US my favorite cities in the world are Latin and then Shanghai and Paris.
Lived in some dramatically different cities all my life: Singapore, Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Austin, Ann Arbor, Mumbai. Would like to try Seoul, London, Melbourne, Osaka, Tokyo, Tel Aviv, New York at some point in my life (not all but as many as I can).
Philadelphia offers me absolutely nothing I want out of a city (except the walkability) and overall it's an average American city, albeit more urban than 95% of them. There are probably 87 cities in the world (21 just in the United States) that I would take over it.
I have no one there, no family, no friends, no one. So that just makes it less attractive than Los Angeles/Dallas/Houston where I have life long friends or family and a sense of familiarity with each of those cities. It's not as scenic (or safe) as Seattle/Tucson/Denver/San Diego/Austin/Portland so retirement there is out of the question. It's not a good back up for me to keep my resume held off on like Atlanta for journalism/broadcasting/media/publishing/editorials/professional writing. Nor is it one of my favorite cities like New York/Chicago/Washington/Boston/Miami/San Francisco.
I don't have anything against it but I don't have anything for it either-- definitely not enough reason for me to bash or praise it/glamorize it. For example if I wanted to live in a historic, dense, urban city in the United States-- I'd rather go with Boston as I appreciate it's storied yet modern look, polished & clean nature, safe, cosmopolitan, robust job market, and setting on the coastal New England shoreline where hills come crashing down into the ocean where historical sites stand and lighthouses can be seen marking the night (cool) sky of a New England summer on an island right near the coast and when you look back you see the charming, cultured, vertically built up city along the harbor. Boston is much more expensive, in my frank opinion-- it's so worth it. I love that city to death.
We all have different preferences I suppose you could say and mine have trimmed Philadelphia off indefinitely. So to summarize: no, I wouldn't ever freely choose to live in Philadelphia. At least not until the other 87 options in the world have been exhausted.
You have a good taste in cities but you are underrating Philly. Philly is Boston's closest sibling. They have very similar strengths, but Boston just does everything a little bit better. What's holding Philly back is crime, tremendous amount of blight and its notoriously parochial and provincial culture. But the negatives should not detract from its positives. Of which there are plenty. Its got one of the best city centers in the country filled with beautiful architecture, great neighborhoods and vibrant street life; its historical pedigree is second to none; it's got world class educational and cultural institutions; and while we've been criticizing its public transit it is still easily among the best in the country. So I strongly disagree that it's an average city. Overall I place it solidly at #7 in the US. Cities like Miami and San Diego (which I know you like) might have some attributes that are superior to Philly but for overall urban qualities and offerings Philly is on another level.
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