Which city is most dominant in its region: Chicago (Midwest), Atlanta (Southeast), or Boston (New England)? (raise, live)

[MidwesternMan015]

Boston because its really the only big city in New England

[citylover94]

Originally Posted by DynamoLA

This comparison is kind of silly IMO. "New England" (as defined here at least) is a much smaller region (both geographically and population-wise) than the "Midwest" or "Southeast". So, of course Boston dominates New England more than the others, like how Denver "dominates" Colorado or Minneapolis "dominates" Minnesota.

I'm not sure if that means anything though.

Heck, instead of Boston, maybe Denver dominating the Rocky Mountain states would have been a better comparison.

New England is recognized by the United States Census Bureau as being the states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachussets, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. It is a legitamite region and has a suprisingly large population and don't ever tell a New Englander that New England includes NY, NJ, PA, etc. It does not and never will.

[goofy328]

Atlanta. Without question. It is as though the South does not even exist, to the rest of the country, outside of Atlanta. Charlotte has more people, but a smaller metro area and less of an influence, but I would put it second, though a distant second. But to be totally honest, that is more of a function of the South not caring about it, as much, and being content with where they're at, rather than where mainstream America wants it to be. So the real question, is where most of us see the dominance, not where people who live there see the dominance.

Chicago is only important in Illinois, if that. Sure, Chicago has the most people in the Midwest, but its influence isn't even felt in Michigan and Ohio culturally or economically. Every state in the Midwest is its own entity, in that respect. No one really cares what goes on in the other states. Things might be a bit different where the OP is from, but it isn't a question worth asking. I'm from Ohio, and trust me, we never considered Chicago, in any respect, other than as a tourist, just because its there, and for what it is. People give Chicago entirely too much credit on C-D, it isn't any more interesting than any other mid-sized, to large, city in the Midwest. It is just a much larger version of what is already going on in those cities.

Boston, technically, is on the same level, in New England, as Atlanta is in the Southeast, but I think there is a naive assumption that New England does not exist outside of Boston, and I think New England may be more like the Midwest, and the Northeast, than people are willing to admit. People in Philadelphia think about New York on the C-D forums, but in real life, probably not much. Even New Jersey has its own identity outside of New York, though no one outside of New Jersey wants to admit it.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by goofy328

Chicago is only important in Illinois, if that. Sure, Chicago has the most people in the Midwest, but its influence isn't even felt in Michigan and Ohio culturally or economically. Every state in the Midwest is its own entity, in that respect.

You can't be serious. You'd quite literally have to be living under a ****ing rock to honestly believe this.

1) The CBOE, or Chicago Board Options Exchange, is the largest options exchange in the entire country.
Chicago Board Options Exchange - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

2) Let's look at companies headquartered in Chicago or in the suburbs

Every single one of the following is a fortune 500 company. These are headquarters:
* Boeing (Chicago)
* United Continental Airlines (Chicago)
* RR Donnelley (Chicago)
* Exelon (Chicago)
* TDS (Chicago)
* AON (US HQ in Chicago)
* Sara Lee (Chicago and Downers Grove)
* Motorola (Schaumburg)
* Motorola Mobility (Libertyville but soon to be Chicago - bought recently by Google and moving)
* McDonald's (Oak Brook)
* Baxter International (Deerfield)
* Walgreens (Deerfield)
* Kraft Foods (Northfield)
* Allstate Insurance (Northfield)
* Abbott Labs (North Chicago)
* Sears (Hoffman Estates)
* Discover Financial (Riverwoods)
* CDW (Vernon Hills)
* OfficeMax (Naperville)
* WW Grainger (Lake Forest)
* Dover Corporation (Downers Grove)
* Illinois Tool Works (Glenview)
* Navistar (Lisle)
* Tenneco (Lake Forest)
* Anixter (Glenview)
* Ingredion (Westchester)
* CF Industries (Deerfield)
* United Stationers (Deerfield)

Then we have:
* Hyatt Hotels (Chicago)
* Tribune Company (Chicago) - owners of the LA Times, Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun, Orlando Sentinal, South Florida Sun Sentinel, WGN, etc
* MillerCoors (Chicago)
* Tropicana (Chicago)
* Blue Cross Blue Shield (Chicago)
* Leo Burnett Worldwide (Chicago) - Has done the marketing for basically every major company who has a tv/print prescence
* Accenture (Chicago)
* Groupon (Chicago)
* CheapTickets (Chicago)
* 37Signals (Chicago) - Ruby on Rails, the backbone to many websites now, was invented here
* Midway Video Games (Chicago) - creators of Mortal Kombat, NBA Jam, NFL Blitz, etc
* McGladrey (Chicago)
* Chicago Stock Exchange (Chicago) - largest stock market outside of NYC
* General Growth Properties (Chicago)
* Northern Trust (Chicago)
* Jones Lang LaSalle (Chicago)
* Morningstar (Chicago)
* Nuveen Investments (Chicago)
* Johnson Products (Chicago)
* Encyclopedia Brittanica (Chicago)
* World Book Encyclopedia (Chicago)
* ULTRA Diamonds (Chicago)
* Blockshopper (Chicago)
* Bally Total Fitness (Chicago)
* Orbitz (Chicago)
* CareerBuilder (Chicago)
* Radio Flyer (Chicago)
* Wilson Sporting Goods (Chicago)
* BMO Harris Bank (Chicago)
* TransUnion (Chicago)
* Guaranteed Rate (Chicago)
* Tootsie Roll (Chicago)
* Morton Salt (Chicago)
* Potbelly Sandwiches (Chicago)
* Allscripts (Chicago)
* Smurfit-Stone Container (Chicago)
* Metromix (Chicago)
* Pitchfork Media (Chicago)
* Big Ten Network (Chicago)
* Oprah Winfrey Network (Chicago)
* Baker & McKenzie Law (Chicago) - largest law firm in the US
* Mayer Brown Law (Chicago) - 12th largest law firm in the world
* US Cellular (Chicago)
* GATX (Chicago)

* Siemens Healthcase (Deerfield ) - US HQ
* Komatsu (Rolling Meadows) - US HQ
* Big Ten Conference (Park Ridge)
* Oscar Mayer (Northfield)
* HSBC Finance (under HSBC bank) - Mettawa
* Ace Hardware (Oak Brook)
* Crate and Barrel (Northbrook)
* SuperValu (Franklin Park)
* Rand McNally (Skokie)
* First Alert (Aurora)
* Cosi (Deerfield)
* Serta (Hoffman Estates)
* Solo Cup (Lake Forest)
* Turtle Wax (Willowbrook)
* Fellows (Itasca)
* Jewel (Itasca)
* Peapod (Skokie)
* Blick Art Materials (Highland Park)
* Brunswick Corporation (Lake Forest)
* Family Video (Glenview)
* NiSource (Merrillville)
* Culligan (Rosemont)
* Pabst Brewing (Woodbridge)
* Shure (Niles)
* Zenith Electronics (Lincolnshire)


If that's not enough, here's companies with a large presence in the area but not headquartered in Chicago:
* General Electric
* AT&T
* IBM
* Microsoft
* Canon
* NEC
* Mitsubushi Electric
* SAP
* Ford Motors
* BMW
* Toyota
* Bank of America
* Capital One
* JP Morgan Chase
* Butterball
* Cargill
* ConAgra
* Nissan
* Hyundai
* Subaru
* Bridgestone
* Valspar
* BP
* Citgo
* Caterpillar
* McGraw Hill
* Southwest Airlines


and many, many, many other companies. I can't believe anybody would think that Chicago only matters economically in the immediate area. Unreal. Based on what you said, I really don't expect you to know what even half of these companies actually are.

The amount of ignorance on this board sometimes never fails to amaze me.

[nei]

Chicago is the largest and most influential city of the three, but it's harder for Chicago to dominate the entire Midwest as its so big. While the Midwest has a number of midsized metros, New England is really only Boston; much of the population is clustered within 50-60 miles of Boston. New York City overshadows Boston to a certain extent, but Boston is large enough and distinctive enough on its own to function as the center for the region.

[Maintainschaos]

Originally Posted by goofy328

Chicago is only important in Illinois, if that. Sure, Chicago has the most people in the Midwest, but its influence isn't even felt in Michigan and Ohio culturally or economically.

Quoted for the exact opposite of truth.

But I think the winner here is Boston.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by nei

Chicago is the largest and most influential city of the three, but it's harder for Chicago to dominate the entire Midwest as its so big. While the Midwest has a number of midsized metros, New England is really only Boston; much of the population is clustered within 50-60 miles of Boston. New York City overshadows Boston to a certain extent, but Boston is large enough and distinctive enough on its own to function as the center for the region.

Well, we can look at it like this...distances

Boston to DC - ~450 miles
Boston to Baltimore - ~400 miles
Boston to Philadelphia - ~300 miles
Boston to NYC - ~215 miles
Boston to Providence - ~50 miles


Chicago to Kansas City - ~525 miles
Chicago to Minneapolis - ~410 miles
Chicago to Cleveland - ~350 miles
Chicago to Columbus - ~350 miles
Chicago to Des Moines - ~330 miles
Chicago to Detroit - ~300 miles
Chicago to St. Louis - ~300 miles
Chicago to Louisville - ~300 miles
Chicago to Cincinnati - ~300 miles
Chicago to Indianapolis - ~190 miles
Chicago to Madison, WI - ~150 miles
Chicago to Milwaukee - ~100 miles

Atlanta to New Orleans - ~475 miles
Atlanta to Orlando - ~450 miles
Atlanta to Raleigh/Durham - ~410 miles
Atlanta to Jacksonville - ~350 miles
Atlanta to Charlotte - ~250 miles
Atlanta to Nashville - ~250 miles
Atlanta to Birmingham - ~150 miles

[marothisu]

My vote goes for Chicago, then Atlanta, then Boston. As much as Boston does matter, it is too close to NYC which is the #1 economic center of the US by quite a bit. I think people are forgetting just how much goes down in Chicago, and Atlanta for that matter too. Boston has a greater influence on education though in the entire area IMO.

IMO the only location near Chicago that is even CLOSE to it is Minneapolis in this regard and even though it's a long, long ways off. For Atlanta, it's Charlotte and the amount Atlanta is by Charlotte is less than Chicago versus Minneapolis. Boston is behind NYC in the region even though Boston on its own is a powerhouse.

[Boston Shudra]

Originally Posted by marothisu

My vote goes for Chicago, then Atlanta, then Boston. As much as Boston does matter, it is too close to NYC which is the #1 economic center of the US by quite a bit. I think people are forgetting just how much goes down in Chicago, and Atlanta for that matter too. Boston has a greater influence on education though in the entire area IMO.

IMO the only location near Chicago that is even CLOSE to it is Minneapolis in this regard and even though it's a long, long ways off. For Atlanta, it's Charlotte and the amount Atlanta is by Charlotte is less than Chicago versus Minneapolis. Boston is behind NYC in the region even though Boston on its own is a powerhouse.

I disagree with this bolded part to a certain extent.

While it's true that NYC is the most powerful city in the upper right hand corner of the country, I think people don't realize just how disconnected Boston is from the supposed "BOS-WASH corrider".

The distance between DC and NYC is about 230 mi. In this space there's New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and DC.

The distance between NYC and Boston is about 215 miles. In this space there's Hartford.

In fact, Boston's closer to Montreal than to Baltimore and DC, and about as far from Montreal as from Philadelphia.

So, though NYC does have some sway in the area, Boston definitely has its own little sphere of influence, moreso (I think) than any other city in the Northeast outside of NYC.

.........

To the actual thread, however, I agree with the people who have been saying that Boston's influence in New England is different than Chicago's in the midwest and Atlanta's in the south. Personally, I think that "New England" culturally feels more like a state than a region. I mean, it isn't much larger or smaller than Texas, New York, Pennsylvania, etc. There are other small regions like the Chesapeake and the Carolinas, but I think New England is more culturally, pysically, and historically tied together than any other small region in the US. Therefore I think of it more as a state-that-never-was, than a region like "the south" or "the midwest". A state with 6 times as much representation in the senate, but a state none-the-less.

Between Atlanta in the south and Chicago in the midwest, I'd have to go with Chicago. I just get the feeling that Atlanta is too small to dominate the south in the way that Chicago dominates the midwest.

Another questionable side to this argument is the idea of the "midwest". The "south", as I think of it, is the states that formed the confederacy during the civil war.

On the other hand, does "midwest" mean the old northwest (Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, and that area), the mid mid west (Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Oklahoma), or the North midwest (Minnesota, Wisconsin, the Dakota's), or what? I think Chicago probably dominates the few states around it, but as you move farther away to, let's say, Kansas City, I don't think the influence would be as strong...

[Sunking278]

I'm sure this has been said somewhere in these posts, but New England is really dominated by two cities: Boston and New York. More so Boston, of course, but much of Connecticut is more culturally linked to NYC than Boston. Even in the Berkshires of Western Mass. there is a considerable NYC influence, as it is prime vacation spot for the New York elite (and not so much for the Boston elite, for whatever reason.) On the other side of the token, I would argue there's at least something of a Boston influence in the eastern-most parts of Upstate New York. For instance, this map showing the boundaries between Yankees and Red Sox fans (baseball is religion in the Northeast, not unimportant) shows the Plattsburgh region prefers the Red Sox, while much of Connecticut, good chunks of Vermont, and even a few select Western Mass. communities prefer the Yankees. Of course, even here in the immediate Boston area, we do have Yankee fans, and NYC has its Red Sox fans as well.