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View Poll Results: Which is California's top second tier city?
Sacramento 22 25.00%
Long Beach 8 9.09%
Oakland 17 19.32%
San Jose 38 43.18%
Fresno 3 3.41%
Voters: 88. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 08-22-2011, 10:49 AM
 
Location: East Coast of the United States
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Quote:
Originally Posted by San Jose guy View Post
I'd place San Jose above San Diego and Long Beach due to high technology and more interesting places to go. The city recently completed its airport expansion, too.
I agree. Some Californians on here are not seeing the forest for the trees. (That's nothing new of course.)

From an east coast perspective, San Jose > San Diego. Why? Because San Jose is associated with Silicon Valley, Stanford University and the San Francisco Bay Area. What is San Diego associated with? Vacation and retirement. I bet if San Diego was in this poll, it would be losing to San Jose.

My rating for California cities: Los Angeles > San Francisco/San Jose > San Diego

As for Sacramento, it's about as significant as Albany, New York is to west coast people. And hardly anybody outside of California cares about Long Beach, Oakland or Fresno.
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Old 08-22-2011, 11:16 AM
 
Location: Los Altos Hills, CA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BigCityDreamer View Post
From an east coast perspective.
Well since you live in the South, offer us the Southern perspective and leave the East Coast perspective to NYers, Philadephians, Bostonians etc.
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Old 08-22-2011, 12:52 PM
 
Location: Los Angeles
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 18Montclair View Post
Im still not sold on San Diego being above Sacramento or San Jose.

Sacramento is extremely influential as the state capitol and San Jose totally blows San Diego away as far as importance in business.

But then, San Diego is still a larger MSA than either Sac or SJ and I believe San Diego also has a more distinct image than the other 2. People associate San Diego with its beautiful beaches and climate--its a far bigger tourism city than the other two.

I would probably make it a 3-way tie.
The thing that makes a city important is all the aspects it covers. San Jose ranks high when it comes to innovation. Sacramento is strictly known as the capital. Unlike the other two, San Diego is well known for its colleges, climate, port, being on the bay, history, as well as economic importance. It has one of the larger ports on the West Coast and is also the site of the west coast's navy. It's the center of biomedical research in the country. It also has a much larger skyline than the other two. In my opinion, San Diego is a lot more big city than the other two, and I feel most people would agree with me.









http://l.yimg.com/www.flickr.com/images/spaceball.gif (broken link)
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Old 08-22-2011, 12:58 PM
 
Location: The City
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Quote:
Originally Posted by S.D. Calif View Post
The thing that makes a city important is all the aspects it covers. San Jose ranks high when it comes to innovation. Sacramento is strictly known as the capital. Unlike the other two, San Diego is well known for its colleges, climate, port, being on the bay, history, as well as economic importance. It has one of the larger ports on the West Coast and is also the site of the west coast's navy. It's the center of biomedical research in the country. It also has a much larger skyline than the other two. In my opinion, San Diego is a lot more big city than the other two, and I feel most people would agree with me.









While I agree with most of your post (Esp SD as an area more significant as a city) and the SD area has a pretty large concentration of Bio research, I would not really say center. Boston/Bay/Jersey to me carry more weight in this area but SD has a large and admirable concentration
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Old 08-22-2011, 01:17 PM
 
Location: The Bay
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IMO SD is definitely the 3rd city in CA no question. After, in terms of importance I'd probably say Sacramento for its political influence followed by San Jose for its technological dominance. Being a "2nd tier city" in CA isn't exactly a stigma... CA arguably has the best line up of cities out of any state, and not just because of its size.
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Old 08-22-2011, 01:24 PM
 
Location: The City
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Originally Posted by Nineties Flava View Post
IMO SD is definitely the 3rd city in CA no question. After, in terms of importance I'd probably say Sacramento for its political influence followed by San Jose for its technological dominance. Being a "2nd tier city" in CA isn't exactly a stigma... CA arguably has the best line up of cities out of any state, and not just because of its size.

Agree on CA, no state has three cities that can match, but do disagree on the size thing. There is definately at least one other region with more great cities in smaller area. The size of CA is a huge asset. Most other states would not be large enough to include all 3 of these cities and the distance they are spread. Especially if you consider shore frontage
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Old 08-22-2011, 01:29 PM
 
Location: Los Angeles
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kidphilly View Post
While I agree with most of your post (Esp SD as an area more significant as a city) and the SD area has a pretty large concentration of Bio research, I would not really say center. Boston/Bay/Jersey to me carry more weight in this area but SD has a large and admirable concentration
Sorry, I meant to say something a long the lines of it being the largest biotech cluster in the country, though Boston was close behind. That was of course as of 2004 - Milken Institute Publications - Research Reports - America's Biotech and Life Science Clusters: San Diego's Position and Economic Contributions. No doubt rankings have changed in the last seven years.
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Old 08-22-2011, 01:30 PM
 
Location: Los Altos Hills, CA
36,660 posts, read 67,564,755 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nineties Flava View Post
IMO SD is definitely the 3rd city in CA no question. After, in terms of importance I'd probably say Sacramento for its political influence followed by San Jose for its technological dominance.
Yes, they are all very strong in different categories.


Quote:
Being a "2nd tier city" in CA isn't exactly a stigma.
Personally I think that after LA and SF, every other CA city is 2nd tier(which isnt a bad thing at all like you say) but that's neither here nor there with respect to this thread. LOL.
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Old 08-22-2011, 01:42 PM
 
Location: The Bay
6,914 posts, read 14,767,069 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kidphilly View Post
Agree on CA, no state has three cities that can match, but do disagree on the size thing. There is definately at least one other region with more great cities in smaller area. The size of CA is a huge asset. Most other states would not be large enough to include all 3 of these cities and the distance they are spread. Especially if you consider shore frontage

In some ways that's true but in other ways that's not. While the North East does have a lot of great cities in the same general area, those cities developed for entirely different reasons that had everything to do with them being in different states. The liberal bent of Pennsylvania for example wouldn't have existed if it was an extension of the New England Commonwealth. DC was created for the purpose of being an entirely separate entity from the other influential states. If all of those cities were in the same state then a number of them probably wouldn't exist due to the extreme polarization of ideas that existed in the region in the 1700's.


California has its own dichotomy (Norcal vs. Socal) but even then, for the most part California is unified by ideas. The fact that it's developed as well as it has in the last 150 years is a testament to its increased functionality as a result of Norcal and Socal coexisting.
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Old 08-22-2011, 01:43 PM
 
Location: The Bay
6,914 posts, read 14,767,069 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 18Montclair View Post
Yes, they are all very strong in different categories.



Personally I think that after LA and SF, every other CA city is 2nd tier(which isnt a bad thing at all like you say) but that's neither here nor there with respect to this thread. LOL.

I agree, SD is not on LA nor SF's level. IMO it still edges out the other California cities though.
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