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Location: Austin, TX/Chicago, IL/Houston, TX/Washington, DC
10,138 posts, read 16,035,535 times
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I love Los Angeles but no. It is not the most important city (or metro) west of the Mississippi.
As someone already said, "SF". Yes San Francisco and the entire Bay Area are (in my opinion) already more important than Los Angeles. Yeah Los Angeles is the capital of the entertainment, but its changing. San Francisco is the center to revolutionary technological media changes. Bay Area has its hands on everything and prides itself with a creative class and innovative workforce. Los Angeles has a larger GDP but it has a massive population so it makes sense, Bay Area has one of the highest per capita incomes in the country, where GDP is factored accordingly with population of metro. No they will never surpass Los Angeles in population but their economy is stronger. Their GDP growth rate is faster. And their socially the most progressive place west of the Mississippi.
And heres another thought, the Bay Area is ONLY 1/5th of California's population, but did you know it handles 1/3rd of the states taxes?
Give credit where its due, I love Los Angeles, but the Bay Area is a very competitive metro. Its economy is better structured, its got some of the most important and richest people who brought innovation to us, and structurally it has more landmark revolutionary companies for any sector you can think of.
Bay Area FOR THE WIN! Does anyone from the Bay Area feel what I'm saying?!
I love Los Angeles but no. It is not the most important city (or metro) west of the Mississippi.
As someone already said, "SF". Yes San Francisco and the entire Bay Area are (in my opinion) already more important than Los Angeles. Yeah Los Angeles is the capital of the entertainment, but its changing. San Francisco is the center to revolutionary technological media changes. Bay Area has its hands on everything and prides itself with a creative class and innovative workforce. Los Angeles has a larger GDP but it has a massive population so it makes sense, Bay Area has one of the highest per capita incomes in the country, where GDP is factored accordingly with population of metro. No they will never surpass Los Angeles in population but their economy is stronger. Their GDP growth rate is faster. And their socially the most progressive place west of the Mississippi.
And heres another thought, the Bay Area is ONLY 1/5th of California's population, but did you know it handles 1/3rd of the states taxes?
Give credit where its due, I love Los Angeles, but the Bay Area is a very competitive metro. Its economy is better structured, its got some of the most important and richest people who brought innovation to us, and structurally it has more landmark revolutionary companies for any sector you can think of.
Bay Area FOR THE WIN! Does anyone from the Bay Area feel what I'm saying?!
I agree fully, any hope that Seattle could creep in on to the list?
Location: Austin, TX/Chicago, IL/Houston, TX/Washington, DC
10,138 posts, read 16,035,535 times
Reputation: 4047
Quote:
Originally Posted by CA Scholar
I agree fully, any hope that Seattle could creep in on to the list?
No. Seattle is too small right now, and likely it reminds me of a smaller version of the Bay Area. San Francisco-Seattle, Tacoma-Oakland, Bellavue-San Jose, and then the rest of the smaller cities in the metro.
Seattle is getting stronger but it has a long way to go before getting anywhere close.
San Francisco was the first major city in the West Coast. San Francisco was considered the terminus point for Manifest Destiny, where America would go from the Atlantic to the Pacific. San Francisco became the Western point of entry for immigrants like Ellis Island was for New York City.
The Gold Rush, the Pioneers, the Trails to the West. The money from the gold. Historically apart of the Bear Flag Republic, the Bay Area has one of California's former capitals (San Jose).
One of the worlds largest Energy companies are headquartered there, Chevron.
The most innovative place on the planet, brought us Google, Yahoo!, YouTube (modern media), Adobe, Apple, etc.
Two of the top schools in the country, Stanford & Berkeley. Along with some of the best art institutions, and music institutions in the country.
Museums, art galleries, art in general, music styles all of which San Francisco and Bay Area excelled at.
You don't have to be the largest by population or GDP to be the most important. But Bay Area literally has its hands on everything, tourism, banking, finance, education, energy, medical research, media, etc.
Bay Area has the 2nd largest number of Billionaires, the 2nd largest number of Fortune 500 companies, the highest per capita income of any major metro, a faster growing GDP than Los Angeles & Chicago. The Bay Area is 1/5th of California's total population but it covers 1/3rd of the total taxes in California. I know I said that before in the last post, but I feel like Bay Area gets the nod for this, as much as I do like Los Angeles more it shouldn't be the option, and neither should Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, & Seattle.
No. Seattle is too small right now, and likely it reminds me of a smaller version of the Bay Area. San Francisco-Seattle, Tacoma-Oakland, Bellavue-San Jose, and then the rest of the smaller cities in the metro.
Seattle is getting stronger but it has a long way to go before getting anywhere close.
San Francisco was the first major city in the West Coast. San Francisco was considered the terminus point for Manifest Destiny, where America would go from the Atlantic to the Pacific. San Francisco became the Western point of entry for immigrants like Ellis Island was for New York City.
The Gold Rush, the Pioneers, the Trails to the West. The money from the gold. Historically apart of the Bear Flag Republic, the Bay Area has one of California's former capitals (San Jose).
One of the worlds largest Energy companies are headquartered there, Chevron.
The most innovative place on the planet, brought us Google, Yahoo!, YouTube (modern media), Adobe, Apple, etc.
Two of the top schools in the country, Stanford & Berkeley. Along with some of the best art institutions, and music institutions in the country.
Museums, art galleries, art in general, music styles all of which San Francisco and Bay Area excelled at.
You don't have to be the largest by population or GDP to be the most important. But Bay Area literally has its hands on everything, tourism, banking, finance, education, energy, medical research, media, etc.
Bay Area has the 2nd largest number of Billionaires, the 2nd largest number of Fortune 500 companies, the highest per capita income of any major metro, a faster growing GDP than Los Angeles & Chicago. The Bay Area is 1/5th of California's total population but it covers 1/3rd of the total taxes in California. I know I said that before in the last post, but I feel like Bay Area gets the nod for this, as much as I do like Los Angeles more it shouldn't be the option, and neither should Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, & Seattle.
This kind of analysis always descends to popular ideas about Los Angeles, and what's considered high culture versus those images. So let me just offer an argument in favor of L.A. in terms of the culture, moving forward. IOW, let's take Heidi Montag and Lindsay Lohan off the table for a moment.
In terms of classical and the avant garde, Stravinsky and Schoenberg were ex-pat residents who had a tremendous effect on music locally, among a salon-ful of other ex-pats from all the arts. Stravinsky did do work with the studios too, so Hollywood was a factor. Bear in mind the film industry's influence on attracting world class talent over the decades. After all, do you imagine film scores are recorded by high school bands? Schoenberg taught at UCLA and among his students was John Cage, one of the most influential avant garde figures of the 20th century. Of course, the LA Phil is well recognized now. In other music genres, jazz has a strong history and a sound. Yes, there are familiar band names but also Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart. And I can put the breadth and depth of the local punk and post-punk movement of the '70s and '80s against any other city's.
L.A. has produced great literature. I can name several authors associated with Los Angeles off the top of my head. Ray Bradbury, James Cain, James Ellroy, TC Boyle, Michael Cunningham, Chuck Bukowski, Wanda Coleman, Raymond Chandler, Brett Easton Ellis, John Fante. There are others like Joan Didion and Nathaniel West who wrote L.A. but were destined to leave it. Attend the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, the largest in the country, to hear lots of local and national writers speak, and meet local readers too.
Many writers are in the noir genre, culturally very L.A., and that brings me of course to film. The future will change it, but this is the defining 20th century art form and will continue to be an influence. No one can deny Los Angeles its place here.
Los Angeles has been most present in contemporary art. In the '60s it was one of the centers for Pop Art. In fact, Andy Warhol's first show was in L.A. I can pop off several names again. Ed Ruscha, David Hockney, Billy Al Bengston, Judy Chicago, Robert Williams. Movements have started here, like Light and Space and the "Lowbrow Art".
Architecture is well represented by Thom Mayne and Frank Gehry. Include Neutra, Schindler and Lautner. I could go on.
This is a long post but what I'm saying is Los Angeles is not a cultural phantom. It has a deep legacy in the arts that competes with any city, certainly against the traditionally better regarded San Francisco (if the arts were about competition, that is). It's a legacy that's of national cultural importance and won't disappear just because most people don't know about it. It is a cultural capital and will remain a cultural capital, whatever in the future becomes of population or the technology age.
No. Seattle is too small right now, and likely it reminds me of a smaller version of the Bay Area. San Francisco-Seattle, Tacoma-Oakland, Bellavue-San Jose, and then the rest of the smaller cities in the metro.
Seattle is getting stronger but it has a long way to go before getting anywhere close.
San Francisco was the first major city in the West Coast. San Francisco was considered the terminus point for Manifest Destiny, where America would go from the Atlantic to the Pacific. San Francisco became the Western point of entry for immigrants like Ellis Island was for New York City.
The Gold Rush, the Pioneers, the Trails to the West. The money from the gold. Historically apart of the Bear Flag Republic, the Bay Area has one of California's former capitals (San Jose).
One of the worlds largest Energy companies are headquartered there, Chevron.
The most innovative place on the planet, brought us Google, Yahoo!, YouTube (modern media), Adobe, Apple, etc.
Two of the top schools in the country, Stanford & Berkeley. Along with some of the best art institutions, and music institutions in the country.
Museums, art galleries, art in general, music styles all of which San Francisco and Bay Area excelled at.
You don't have to be the largest by population or GDP to be the most important. But Bay Area literally has its hands on everything, tourism, banking, finance, education, energy, medical research, media, etc.
Bay Area has the 2nd largest number of Billionaires, the 2nd largest number of Fortune 500 companies, the highest per capita income of any major metro, a faster growing GDP than Los Angeles & Chicago. The Bay Area is 1/5th of California's total population but it covers 1/3rd of the total taxes in California. I know I said that before in the last post, but I feel like Bay Area gets the nod for this, as much as I do like Los Angeles more it shouldn't be the option, and neither should Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, & Seattle.
Maybe in the future Seattle will pass SF, but as of right now, I don't think that Seattle will pass SF.
I agree, Seattle is very viable but maybe half the size/import of either SF or LA at this point and that may be generous
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