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Rainrock, once again, you're photos of San Jose are outdated. You can zoom on Dt. San Jose on Google Earth which is more recent and cool. You can do the same for Philly, too. You just don't get it! Dt. San Jose is nicer than Philly's. There's no stadium or arena Dt Philly. It's in South Philly. In San Jose, it's in downtown.
The main universities are in W. Philly's University district while San Jose State is in heart of downtown. I've been to both downtowns, and I mentioned it in my previous posts. There are more crappy areas in Dt Philly, forinstance, the Galleria and the convention areas. I can go on about more seedy areas in Center City, but I'm not. There's no crappy area in Downtown San Jose. It's much more classy.
The whole point is that Philly is no way compared to New York! Are you kidding. If it is, then it's very puny compared to New York. It's not an interesting city. Sorry. Like I said before, I was there in the last year. I know alot of hardcore Phillys, and they all agree with me that it's alot like an older, east coast version of San Jose, not New York at all. Are you for real? Chicago is a world class city with pop of 2.8 million and with some of one of the world's tallest towers. Chicago is way, way better and more cosmopolitan than Philly. Let's get real, please. It's like comparing apple and oranges. If it makes you happy, Philly is more like Oakland since they're both industrail wasteland with mediocre center cities.
Mass23, Philadelphia and San Jose are identical in many ways. I've been to both recently. I've had discussions with many of my friends and colleagues from San Jose and Philly, and they concur. I will lay it out.
The pop: Philly is 1.4 million; San Jose is 1,001,9441.
Overshadowing cities: New York-Philly; San Francisco-San Jose
Downtowns: both are relatively slower paced and medium sized downtowns.
Old and New: Philly-old; San Jose-new
Signature Corporation: Philly-Comcast; San Jose-Cisco
People: both are fiesty and tough
The cleanliness: Phill-ugliest and dirtiest; San Jose-second cleanest city, according to
Reader's Digest
Clean and Smokestack industry: San Jose-clean tech; Philly-smokestack and old factories
You can see the parallels. They're so similar and alike, although there's some opposite things like type of industries and the cleanliness of the cities. If you look at various aeriel pictures above, you'll see the convention centers with highrises surrounding them. You can look at Google Earth. Believe you, me, I know what I'm talking about. Let's be realistic and face the fact that Philly is no way like New York and Chicago. No way, no how!
Location: Austin, TX/Chicago, IL/Houston, TX/Washington, DC
10,138 posts, read 15,928,719 times
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Between San Jose & Philadelphia I would take San Jose because I want to be near family there if I had to pick between the two as the main reason.
And in my opinion San Jose is a very underrated city that doesn't get anywhere near as much recognition is deserves. Especially when people call the Capital of Silicon Valley a suburb of San Francisco. No. The city developed a different way than San Francisco and in my opinion is cleaner (and safer also less pretentious- In my opinion) than San Francisco too which is very filthy and dirty city. It even looks that way on street level.
There is much to love about San Francisco over San Jose but cleanliness is not one. San Jose has better schools, a great standard of life, all the amenities easily accessible for a big city, and a lot of options in housing, dining, activities.
San Jose is also the future of California (In my opinion) for being the most innovative place in the country (Silicon Valley/San Jose MSA). San Jose will undoubtedly become more dense and develop more, it has the brightest future in California (in my opinion) and is the center of the entire states technological advancements and educational research.
I really miss my family there quite a good bit around this time of the year, but the place has way more appeal than many on this board can ever even hope to understand.
I have always liked the hiking options and scenery (although not the best) in San Jose quite a good bit. Its easily my favorite city in California now by far and away, before it was San Diego but San Jose is just more of my type of place. Modest, humble, hard working, diverse, educated, open minded, tech savvy, and capitalistic minded people. I like that.
Mass23, Philadelphia and San Jose are identical in many ways. I've been to both recently. I've had discussions with many of my friends and colleagues from San Jose and Philly, and they concur. I will lay it out.
The pop: Philly is 1.4 million; San Jose is 1,001,9441.
Overshadowing cities: New York-Philly; San Francisco-San Jose
Downtowns: both are relatively slower paced and medium sized downtowns.
Old and New: Philly-old; San Jose-new
Signature Corporation: Philly-Comcast; San Jose-Cisco
People: both are fiesty and tough
The cleanliness: Phill-ugliest and dirtiest; San Jose-second cleanest city, according to
Reader's Digest
Clean and Smokestack industry: San Jose-clean tech; Philly-smokestack and old factories
You can see the parallels. They're so similar and alike, although there's some opposite things like type of industries and the cleanliness of the cities. If you look at various aeriel pictures above, you'll see the convention centers with highrises surrounding them. You can look at Google Earth. Believe you, me, I know what I'm talking about. Let's be realistic and face the fact that Philly is no way like New York and Chicago. No way, no how!
Summary of this post:
"They're so alike that I'll make my case by enumerating some very vague similarities and a whole lot of ways in which they're polar opposites!"
So assuming SJ is the best comparator (hmm?) wouldn't SJ draw it's similarities from Philly and not vice-versa?
On topic there probably isn't a true answer, there are cities that are similar or have aspects similar (most notably Baltimore/NYC/Boston) but Philly is as old or older than all of them so in that context the real question may be which cities draw similarities from Philly. On Chicago there are loose aspects that are similar but Chicago is really a much different city than any east coast sity, mostly related to time of it's development
Philadelphia is Northeastern all the way. Its most similar to New York City in vibrance and attitude. Chicago is midwestern and is more closely aligned to places like St. Louis and Detroit then anything in the Northeast.
Lots of similarities between these cities. 2 of the better downtowns in the usa.Both former manufacturing giants. Both cities have post industrial issues, high crime,poverty,decay.
Chicago is also twice the size of Philadelphia and a major global city. Chicago is also much more diverse and a much more active city. So, there are some major differences as well.
To be honest, I'm a little put off by some of the folks from Philly on this forum. I has no idea that the place could produce so many arrogant homers.
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