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^^ This is a pretty accurate list, but I would put Washington DC ahead of New York.
New York is home to some of the most intellectual people and industries in the country/world, but the overall general population in DC seems to be more intellectual than New York. At least that has been my experience since I've lived in both cities.
I have to disagree. New York is more of a trendsetter than DC. Also, as you noted, it has a higher concentration of intellectuals. A small college town would have a higher percentage of intellectuals than a big city, but the big city is in the end, the more influential.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bu2
None of the above.
........But you couldn't list 4 cities that are more divergent from the rest of America than Boston, New York, San Francisco and DC. The latter two are viewed as totally out of touch with the rest of America.
Columbus Ohio is often used for testing products because it is so typical of America. America doesn't take its cue from Columbus, but it sure doesn't from Boston, NY, SF and DC.
Quote:
Originally Posted by missRoxyhart
It's a fallacy to say those cities are so divergent from the rest of America. If you take those four cities' CSAs you have 44 million people. That's 14% of America, 1 out every 7 Americans. With a population share that big they can't be that out of touch from the "rest" because they already make up a large part of it if you understand what I'm saying. And America absolutely takes cues from those cities in terms of so many things.
......
These are fine observations for some other thread, but have nothing to do with this one. A highly intellectual area is almost necessarily "divergent" from other cities, since only a very small percentage of the general population are intellectuals.
There was a book published in the early 1970s called the American Intellectual Elite by Charles Kadushin. According to Kadushin, about half of the country's leading intellectuals lived in and around New York. The other concentrations were the Boston-Cambridge area (14%) and the Washington DC area (11%).
I don't think the ranking would have changed much. New York is home to most of the major journals etc. So I would have to go for New York.
However, Boston seems more defined by "intellectualism" than is New York.
Depends on what you mean by "intellectual." The Bay Area is filled with tech geeks. DC has a lot of policy wonks. Boston's intellectual elite consists more of doctors and academics. New York has a mix of the above, plus highly educated bankers and lawyers as well as artists and writers.
These are generalizations of course, but they seem to basically describe the intellectual climate of these places
In Europe, the population that had completed university was collectively called the "intelligentsia" in the past. But now degrees are much too common for all people with degrees to all be labelled "intellectuals."
The late sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset defined intellectuals as "all those who create, distribute and apply culture, that is, the symbolic world of man, including art, science and religion. Within this group there are two main levels: the hard core or creators of culture - scholars, artists, philosophers, authors, some editors and some journalists; and the distributors - performers in the various arts, most teachers, most reporters. A peripheral group is composed of those who apply culture as part of their jobs - professionals like physicians and lawyers. Lipset included the first two categories in his definition.
Depends on what you mean by "intellectual." The Bay Area is filled with tech geeks. DC has a lot of policy wonks. Boston's intellectual elite consists more of doctors and academics. New York has a mix of the above, plus highly educated bankers and lawyers as well as artists and writers.
These are generalizations of course, but they seem to basically describe the intellectual climate of these places
I wonder which metro has the highest percentage of Ph.D.'s.
This is not even true. And even if it were, those aren't qualities that define intellectualism.
Literature, philosophy, politics, theology, poetry, law, high art and high culture are associated with intellectualism. Where these things are most dominant overall is the intellectual capital. The poll result gets it right.
I agree with this for the most part barring the "high" distinctions and I would add counter-culturalism in there. Simply having a lot of degrees concentrated in one area doesn't make an area "intellectual", it just means an area has a high educational attainment. Paris for example, during the 19th century, used to be breeding ground for a ton of activity since people would gather in salons all day and discuss and develop ideas for enjoyment. NYC and San Francisco used to be like that during the early and middle 20th century.
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