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Really? Is there one single architectural structure that a normal person can see in Tokyo and name it? How about Hong Kong? Sao Paulo? Buenos Aires? Madrid? Berlin? Montreal? Mumbai? Zurich? Barcelona? Beijing?
I would be willing to bet that 90%< of average educated people wouldn't be able to name monuments from these cities.
I'm not sure what "average educated people" can identify, but off the top of my head I can picture immediately:
Berlin: Brandenburg Gate
Madrid: Plaza Mayor
Barcelona: Sagrada Família
Beijing: Tiananmen Square/Forbidden City
Tokyo: Tokyo Tower or Imperial Palace
As far as Hong Kong, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, or Montreal—these cities have pretty recognizable skylines and settings. The image of Avenida 9 de Julio and the obelisk in Buenos Aires pretty much defines that city.
Zurich? Sorry, can't think of anyone for that one...But although I don't agree that a city has to have a well-known landmark to be considered world-class, I'd say that most world-class cities will have a visual image that would be familiar to most people with some level of geographic knowledge.
And for Boston--don't people picture the Old State House or Faneuil Hall backed by skyscrapers? I mean I kind of knew what downtown Boston looked like years before I actually visited it.
Really? Is there one single architectural structure that a normal person can see in Tokyo and name it? How about Hong Kong? Sao Paulo? Buenos Aires? Madrid? Berlin? Montreal? Mumbai? Zurich? Barcelona? Beijing?
I would be willing to bet that 90%< of average educated people wouldn't be able to name monuments from these cities.
I'd be willing to bet outside of Statue of Liberty and maybe Washington Monument most American's couldn't name a single building in any city in the country.
I'm not sure what "average educated people" can identify, but off the top of my head I can picture immediately:
Berlin: Brandenburg Gate
Madrid: Plaza Mayor
Barcelona: Sagrada Família
Beijing: Tiananmen Square/Forbidden City
Tokyo: Tokyo Tower or Imperial Palace
As far as Hong Kong, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, or Montreal—these cities have pretty recognizable skylines and settings. The image of Avenida 9 de Julio and the obelisk in Buenos Aires pretty much defines that city.
Zurich? Sorry, can't think of anyone for that one...But although I don't agree that a city has to have a well-known landmark to be considered world-class, I'd say that most world-class cities will have a visual image that would be familiar to most people with some level of geographic knowledge.
And for Boston--don't people picture the Old State House or Faneuil Hall backed by skyscrapers? I mean I kind of knew what downtown Boston looked like years before I actually visited it.
Nice list! But it's hard to get a telling answer from a website composed of people who love cities.
Tienanmen Square is quite famous, but to be honest I had no idea it was in Beijing haha. I don't think many people would be able to pick Sao Paulo out of a lineup (I think a lot of people would think it was a Chinese city if they say an aerial) and if you put Hong Kong and Shanghai next to one another, I think most people would have a hard time cho osing which is which. Buenos Aires has amazing architecture, but are people really going to be able to look at a picture and identify it? Very doubtful.
Of course there are cities which have recognizable monuments...but that doesn't always go hand-in-hand with world class. As someone mentioned earlier, the St. Louis Arch and Disney Castle are both extremely recognizable...but would you consider St. Louis or Orlando to be world class cities?
Quote:
Originally Posted by EndersDrift
I'd be willing to bet outside of Statue of Liberty and maybe Washington Monument most American's couldn't name a single building in any city in the country.
I think you could add the Empire State Building and White House to that list, but other than that I agree for the most part in terms of buildings...(GG Bridge and Hollywood Sign aren't buildings but are certainly recognizable).
Cosmopolitan - you have to be part of the world, and the whole world has to be there. You don't have to look for it, or be reminded of it - it is part of the air you breathe when you are there. If a city has to remind you that it's world class (a very vague and nebulous term that is meaningless, because it has a different meaning to everyone), then it isn't.
Can you rival Tokyo, London, NYC, Hong Kong, Paris, and can you do it without breaking a sweat? Again, if you have to say Hey I'm world class! I have skyscrapers! Look at my freeways - they're huge! They're big! We had the World's Fair! Look at my freeways! you are not world class - you're Mayberry on roids. In 99.9 out of 100 cases, skyscrapers and freeways are a dime a dozen. Everyone has em. And really - Paris? Not many freeways. They could care less. They're Paris. Paris is beyond freeways. Freeways are low-class when you get into that league.
I have an ex who is a native of Bangalore, India, and moved to the US - grad school - after stints working in Hong Kong and London. After that, several very large US cities came off as rather quaint and sleepy in comparison, which is not to say that Dallas or Atlanta (the two specific examples cited that I can remember) don't have a lot going on - they have A LOT going on. They are light years from London or Hong Kong however.
So by that definition, I would say NYC, Chicago and San Francisco (and Toronto and Mexico City in our neighboring countries) definitely. Los Angeles and Washington: probably. Miami, Honolulu, New Orleans and Boston (alongside Vancouver and Montreal in Canada): far less likely, though you could make a half-decent case for them. No one else is in the running. The Statue of Liberty, The Empire State Building, The Golden Gate Bridge, The Washington Monument, Broadway's theatre district: globally iconic - shameless self-promotion would simply be a waste of time, given their stature. The Smithsonian Institute, the Transamerica tower, the Sears tower: likely as well. If a city's claim to world class stature is based on having a batch of oil companies, banks, hip hop stars, an unusual concentration of football (American, which nobody anywhere else in the world remotely cares about) aficionados, slot machines-n-hookers, or a large series of amusement parks carved out of an ex-swamp: that's not exactly Broadway or Shinjuku or The Champs Elysees. It should also be noted (if it is insisted that single industry corporate starpower does at least fit with one definition, like banking or oil), that - by that definition, Menlo Park (given Silicon Valley's 60-year tradition of sucking the intellect out of just about every known corner of the planet, and a one-time home to none other than Albert Einstein) might be light-years ahead of - say - San Antonio, Charlotte or Denver. As important as corporate and financial and political oomph are, cultural depth and breadth, and intellectual depth and breadth are at least equally important, and in the long run they might be MORE important: Paris is a major political, corporate and financial center, but when you think of Paris: romantic architecture, the Seine, the Left Bank, the Eiffel Tower, plus France's very formidable cinematic and literary traditions, which were traditions defined not by how much they mimicked whatever someone else was doing, but by the memorable flair with which they set themselves apart.
So size and even money ain't everything. Geneva, which has a population of something like 200,000 is a global city. Phoenix, which is 5 times larger, in a metro 10 or 15 times larger, is not. By the above standards, there either are, or could soon be, at least 1 or 2 small US cities that might be just as well-qualified as any number of far bigger, but rather nondescript, metro areas in the US. I mean if having the Olympics is a qualifier, then not only L.A., SLC and Atlanta, but also Lake Placid NY (population of a few thousand) might as well be one.
This is not a bad thing, or a judgement. Global cities got to where they are by being what they are, very very well, and broadening from there: being open. If your only ideas are ideas you've swiped from somewhere else, you'll be just another backwater, and having a population of 10 million won't change the fact that you're still a backwater.
Cosmopolitan - you have to be part of the world, and the whole world has to be there. You don't have to look for it, or be reminded of it - it is part of the air you breathe when you are there. If a city has to remind you that it's world class (a very vague and nebulous term that is meaningless, because it has a different meaning to everyone), then it isn't.
Can you rival Tokyo, London, NYC, Hong Kong, Paris, and can you do it without breaking a sweat? Again, if you have to say Hey I'm world class! I have skyscrapers! Look at my freeways - they're huge! They're big! We had the World's Fair! Look at my freeways! you are not world class - you're Mayberry on roids. In 99.9 out of 100 cases, skyscrapers and freeways are a dime a dozen. Everyone has em. And really - Paris? Not many freeways. They could care less. They're Paris. Paris is beyond freeways. Freeways are low-class when you get into that league.
I have an ex who is a native of Bangalore, India, and moved to the US - grad school - after stints working in Hong Kong and London. After that, several very large US cities came off as rather quaint and sleepy in comparison, which is not to say that Dallas or Atlanta (the two specific examples cited that I can remember) don't have a lot going on - they have A LOT going on. They are light years from London or Hong Kong however.
So by that definition, I would say NYC, Chicago and San Francisco (and Toronto and Mexico City in our neighboring countries) definitely. Los Angeles and Washington: probably. Miami, Honolulu, New Orleans and Boston (alongside Vancouver and Montreal in Canada): far less likely, though you could make a half-decent case for them. No one else is in the running. The Statue of Liberty, The Empire State Building, The Golden Gate Bridge, The Washington Monument, Broadway's theatre district: globally iconic - shameless self-promotion would simply be a waste of time, given their stature. The Smithsonian Institute, the Transamerica tower, the Sears tower: likely as well. If a city's claim to world class stature is based on having a batch of oil companies, banks, hip hop stars, an unusual concentration of football (American, which nobody anywhere else in the world remotely cares about) aficionados, slot machines-n-hookers, or a large series of amusement parks carved out of an ex-swamp: that's not exactly Broadway or Shinjuku or The Champs Elysees. It should also be noted (if it is insisted that single industry corporate starpower does at least fit with one definition, like banking or oil), that - by that definition, Menlo Park (given Silicon Valley's 60-year tradition of sucking the intellect out of just about every known corner of the planet, and a one-time home to none other than Albert Einstein) might be light-years ahead of - say - San Antonio, Charlotte or Denver. As important as corporate and financial and political oomph are, cultural depth and breadth, and intellectual depth and breadth are at least equally important, and in the long run they might be MORE important: Paris is a major political, corporate and financial center, but when you think of Paris: romantic architecture, the Seine, the Left Bank, the Eiffel Tower, plus France's very formidable cinematic and literary traditions, which were traditions defined not by how much they mimicked whatever someone else was doing, but by the memorable flair with which they set themselves apart.
So size and even money ain't everything. Geneva, which has a population of something like 200,000 is a global city. Phoenix, which is 5 times larger, in a metro 10 or 15 times larger, is not. By the above standards, there either are, or could soon be, at least 1 or 2 small US cities that might be just as well-qualified as any number of far bigger, but rather nondescript, metro areas in the US. I mean if having the Olympics is a qualifier, then not only L.A., SLC and Atlanta, but also Lake Placid NY (population of a few thousand) might as well be one.
This is not a bad thing, or a judgement. Global cities got to where they are by being what they are, very very well, and broadening from there: being open. If your only ideas are ideas you've swiped from somewhere else, you'll be just another backwater, and having a population of 10 million won't change the fact that you're still a backwater.
I pretty much agree with everything you said. I just can't figure out why L.A isn't in your "definitely" category. It's one of the few one-name-tells-all cities in the world. Along with Paris, New York, London, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Rome, and maybe Shanghai, its a true brand-name city. A hell of a lot of people (at least as diverse as SF and Chicago) and a lot going on culturally and economically, plus landmarks - does a lot for a city.
Cosmopolitan - you have to be part of the world, and the whole world has to be there. You don't have to look for it, or be reminded of it - it is part of the air you breathe when you are there. If a city has to remind you that it's world class (a very vague and nebulous term that is meaningless, because it has a different meaning to everyone), then it isn't.
Can you rival Tokyo, London, NYC, Hong Kong, Paris, and can you do it without breaking a sweat? Again, if you have to say Hey I'm world class! I have skyscrapers! Look at my freeways - they're huge! They're big! We had the World's Fair! Look at my freeways! you are not world class - you're Mayberry on roids. In 99.9 out of 100 cases, skyscrapers and freeways are a dime a dozen. Everyone has em. And really - Paris? Not many freeways. They could care less. They're Paris. Paris is beyond freeways. Freeways are low-class when you get into that league.
I have an ex who is a native of Bangalore, India, and moved to the US - grad school - after stints working in Hong Kong and London. After that, several very large US cities came off as rather quaint and sleepy in comparison, which is not to say that Dallas or Atlanta (the two specific examples cited that I can remember) don't have a lot going on - they have A LOT going on. They are light years from London or Hong Kong however.
So by that definition, I would say NYC, Chicago and San Francisco (and Toronto and Mexico City in our neighboring countries) definitely. Los Angeles and Washington: probably. Miami, Honolulu, New Orleans and Boston (alongside Vancouver and Montreal in Canada): far less likely, though you could make a half-decent case for them. No one else is in the running. The Statue of Liberty, The Empire State Building, The Golden Gate Bridge, The Washington Monument, Broadway's theatre district: globally iconic - shameless self-promotion would simply be a waste of time, given their stature. The Smithsonian Institute, the Transamerica tower, the Sears tower: likely as well. If a city's claim to world class stature is based on having a batch of oil companies, banks, hip hop stars, an unusual concentration of football (American, which nobody anywhere else in the world remotely cares about) aficionados, slot machines-n-hookers, or a large series of amusement parks carved out of an ex-swamp: that's not exactly Broadway or Shinjuku or The Champs Elysees. It should also be noted (if it is insisted that single industry corporate starpower does at least fit with one definition, like banking or oil), that - by that definition, Menlo Park (given Silicon Valley's 60-year tradition of sucking the intellect out of just about every known corner of the planet, and a one-time home to none other than Albert Einstein) might be light-years ahead of - say - San Antonio, Charlotte or Denver. As important as corporate and financial and political oomph are, cultural depth and breadth, and intellectual depth and breadth are at least equally important, and in the long run they might be MORE important: Paris is a major political, corporate and financial center, but when you think of Paris: romantic architecture, the Seine, the Left Bank, the Eiffel Tower, plus France's very formidable cinematic and literary traditions, which were traditions defined not by how much they mimicked whatever someone else was doing, but by the memorable flair with which they set themselves apart.
So size and even money ain't everything. Geneva, which has a population of something like 200,000 is a global city. Phoenix, which is 5 times larger, in a metro 10 or 15 times larger, is not. By the above standards, there either are, or could soon be, at least 1 or 2 small US cities that might be just as well-qualified as any number of far bigger, but rather nondescript, metro areas in the US. I mean if having the Olympics is a qualifier, then not only L.A., SLC and Atlanta, but also Lake Placid NY (population of a few thousand) might as well be one.
This is not a bad thing, or a judgement. Global cities got to where they are by being what they are, very very well, and broadening from there: being open. If your only ideas are ideas you've swiped from somewhere else, you'll be just another backwater, and having a population of 10 million won't change the fact that you're still a backwater.
see this is exactly what I was saying earlier in the thread. people make their criteria based on "how best I can eliminate US cities."
some have gone the highway route, other's have gone on the memorable buildings route, you chose "keeping up with NY, Tokyo, London and Paris without breaking a sweat.
Ok that should do it for US cities, they have been thoroughly stamped out based on that definition, right? but then you back tracked and added SF, DC, Honolulu, NOLA and a host of other cities keep up with NY, Tokyo, etc etc without breaking a sweat???
see a definition with the sole intent on eliminating some cities will never do because it will inevitably disqualify cities that you do consider world class.
A definition should be based on qualities that a city possess, not qualities that a city doesn't have.
Example if you want to list transportation, the standard could be listed as
-Has efficient transportation
Cosmopolitan - you have to be part of the world, and the whole world has to be there. You don't have to look for it, or be reminded of it - it is part of the air you breathe when you are there. If a city has to remind you that it's world class (a very vague and nebulous term that is meaningless, because it has a different meaning to everyone), then it isn't.
Can you rival Tokyo, London, NYC, Hong Kong, Paris, and can you do it without breaking a sweat? Again, if you have to say Hey I'm world class! I have skyscrapers! Look at my freeways - they're huge! They're big! We had the World's Fair! Look at my freeways! you are not world class - you're Mayberry on roids. In 99.9 out of 100 cases, skyscrapers and freeways are a dime a dozen. Everyone has em. And really - Paris? Not many freeways. They could care less. They're Paris. Paris is beyond freeways. Freeways are low-class when you get into that league.
I have an ex who is a native of Bangalore, India, and moved to the US - grad school - after stints working in Hong Kong and London. After that, several very large US cities came off as rather quaint and sleepy in comparison, which is not to say that Dallas or Atlanta (the two specific examples cited that I can remember) don't have a lot going on - they have A LOT going on. They are light years from London or Hong Kong however.
So by that definition, I would say NYC, Chicago and San Francisco (and Toronto and Mexico City in our neighboring countries) definitely. Los Angeles and Washington: probably. Miami, Honolulu, New Orleans and Boston (alongside Vancouver and Montreal in Canada): far less likely, though you could make a half-decent case for them. No one else is in the running. The Statue of Liberty, The Empire State Building, The Golden Gate Bridge, The Washington Monument, Broadway's theatre district: globally iconic - shameless self-promotion would simply be a waste of time, given their stature. The Smithsonian Institute, the Transamerica tower, the Sears tower: likely as well. If a city's claim to world class stature is based on having a batch of oil companies, banks, hip hop stars, an unusual concentration of football (American, which nobody anywhere else in the world remotely cares about) aficionados, slot machines-n-hookers, or a large series of amusement parks carved out of an ex-swamp: that's not exactly Broadway or Shinjuku or The Champs Elysees. It should also be noted (if it is insisted that single industry corporate starpower does at least fit with one definition, like banking or oil), that - by that definition, Menlo Park (given Silicon Valley's 60-year tradition of sucking the intellect out of just about every known corner of the planet, and a one-time home to none other than Albert Einstein) might be light-years ahead of - say - San Antonio, Charlotte or Denver. As important as corporate and financial and political oomph are, cultural depth and breadth, and intellectual depth and breadth are at least equally important, and in the long run they might be MORE important: Paris is a major political, corporate and financial center, but when you think of Paris: romantic architecture, the Seine, the Left Bank, the Eiffel Tower, plus France's very formidable cinematic and literary traditions, which were traditions defined not by how much they mimicked whatever someone else was doing, but by the memorable flair with which they set themselves apart.
So size and even money ain't everything. Geneva, which has a population of something like 200,000 is a global city. Phoenix, which is 5 times larger, in a metro 10 or 15 times larger, is not. By the above standards, there either are, or could soon be, at least 1 or 2 small US cities that might be just as well-qualified as any number of far bigger, but rather nondescript, metro areas in the US. I mean if having the Olympics is a qualifier, then not only L.A., SLC and Atlanta, but also Lake Placid NY (population of a few thousand) might as well be one.
This is not a bad thing, or a judgement. Global cities got to where they are by being what they are, very very well, and broadening from there: being open. If your only ideas are ideas you've swiped from somewhere else, you'll be just another backwater, and having a population of 10 million won't change the fact that you're still a backwater.
+1. Very nicely said.
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