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If you stopped being such an arrogant prick about how great Bostonians are, we might actually have a debate. I will point out though that I wasn't talking about a "real-world" destruction of Boston with dead babies lying in the streets or whatever. It was an economic comparison which you chose to take personally.
Wha? I'm not on Boston's side and have no affiliation with the city.
Your example was to wipe Boston off the map (your own words to your own example) and you said you'd mostly lose data. I simply don't think that's true--it's more the human resources and skills that would be loss if Boston were to be wiped off the map along with a bunch of historical stuff and whatever.
Then you brought in Katrina and I said that if Boston were hit with the same storm, it might work out markedly different for various reasons.
Nowhere do I say that Bostonians are better people somehow or that they're somehow great--only that by a lot of measurements Boston is more important in the "wipe off the map" game. These are your words and your examples, but then you're getting vexed for some reason.
Wha? I'm not on Boston's side and have no affiliation with the city.
Your example was to wipe Boston off the map (your own words to your own example) and you said you'd mostly lose data. I simply don't think that's true--it's more the human resources and skills that would be loss if Boston were to be wiped off the map along with a bunch of historical stuff and whatever.
Then you brought in Katrina and I said that if Boston were hit with the same storm, it might work out markedly different for various reasons.
Nowhere do I say that Bostonians are better people somehow or that they're somehow great--only that by a lot of measurements Boston is more important in the "wipe off the map" game. These are your words and your examples, but then you're getting vexed for some reason.
My point was that none of those things are particularly unique to Boston, and that if Fleet bank's databases were attacked they could easily just rely on backup databases. Same goes for the people, they could just as easily move to Mile Marker 38, Kansas and do the same work. And Harvard and MIT, while great universities, are by no means peerless or even -gasp- irreplaceable.
I'm not here to defend the governmental response to Katrina. It was a complete and utter failure on the municipal, state, and federal levels. If it worked out better for Boston it would be largely because Katrina was such an embarassment to the previous administration. Bush's approval rating hit its nadir at that point and never recovered. But I still think it's disinegenuous to claim that Boston has this exalted place in the American imagination to the point that a disaster occurring there would be so much more of a national spectacle than what happened here.
I really think you're being a little disingenuous to be so dismissive of jazz. It is basically at the root of all forms of American music.
In what way am I being dismissive of Jazz? It's a great form of music. How else am I supposed to react?
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And again, if Boston were wiped off the map tomorrow, the biggest casualty would most likely be some disruption in the financial markets, but as I'm sure you could point out yourself, all that data is replicated in data storage units across the world.
Erm...that makes no sense. Like whatsoever. The basic notion of "data can be transferred" makes sense...but you're totally ignoring how it was created. Boston does so well in terms of innovation because of the collection of people, not data. I guess that's your problem in this argument. You don't seem to understand the concept of how things are created in this world.
* Also, here's a funny note about your point on data storage...Boston's EMC Corp and Akamai Technologies are two of the largest cloud computing in the world, with EMC doing huge things in data storage...so Boston companies are already responsible for their own data and the data of thousands of other companies and governments throughout the world *
By your same reason of thought there is nowhere that can't be replaced. Jazz is just music, after all. Its songs are just notes, and they can be seen by anyone in the world at this point. In fact, there's no continuous re-creation of jazz by New Orleans, so how would that even affect things?
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What, in your list, is unique to Boston, and not just the result of Boston being a large city? The things you list are a lot like saying that New York is a great town for restaurants, and then enumerating the tons of food that were eaten within city limits.
You said in another post that if the stuff in Boston was destroyed, they could move to Kansas and do the same thing...well then why don't they? Boston is an extremely expensive city. It would save a lot of money to not be there...but people stay and at this time Boston (especially Cambridge) is booming. Why? Because of the collection of skilled workers, young educated minds, venture capital resources, powerful institutions, and an overall environment conducive to helping ideas flourish.
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New Orleans, because of its location on the Mississippi and proximity to oil reserves, plays a vital part in the day-to-day functioning of the US economy. That much is fact. I've yet to hear a solid argument for why what Boston produces is irreplaceable, or would even take more than the transfer of some data or research findings to another party to keep the ball rolling.
The Mississippi River is important, but not nearly as important as it used to be. Regardless, using your train of thought, New Orleans being wiped off the map would do nothing. After all, losing New Orleans doesn't mean we'd lose the Mississippi River. The Port of New Orleans would be replaced by a different port, in another city. After all, it's just a bunch of metal, right?
The proximity of NO to oil reserves wouldn't mean much since Houston is also very close, and is much, much more important than New Orleans when it comes to oil. I'm not saying that stuff is necessarily true, but this is how you have been explaining away the powerful, unique characteristics of Boston.
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Originally Posted by Neworleansisprettygood
If you stopped being such an arrogant prick about how great Bostonians are, we might actually have a debate.
Uh, really man? If anything it's been the people from New Orleans who haven't been able to have a conversation. I just posted a list showing that Boston scientists/doctors are now making facial transplants, are progressing on technology which will allow us to grow organs organically, are on the verge of making the common cold (and possibly all viral infections) a thing of the past, created a vaccine for HIV and may have found a cure for the Ebola Virus.
Your response? "You're being too dismissive of Jazz music".
Interestingly, the only two economic factors people can come up with for NO is the Mississippi River and oil. Does New Orleans create anything economically, or it is purely resource-reliant? I'm not meaning this as a slight...I'm genuinely interested.
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Originally Posted by annie_himself
If there was good food and no bitter cold Boston would be great.
There's plenty of awesome food in Boston. Both homegrown regionally (New England clam bake), and ethnic cuisines (Italian, Portuguese, etc)
And Quincy Marked is not the oldest Market in Boston that would Be Faneuil Hall, which is 24 years younger than the City of New Orleans and Compared to 1813 for French Market In New Orleans
Faneuil Hall was used for other functions other than a city market place. It wasn't until 1825 Boston had built the first "all" city market building known today as Quincy Market. The French Market was only a "city market" not used for other purposes.
French Market on the right
Last edited by urbanologist; 01-01-2012 at 08:33 AM..
In what way am I being dismissive of Jazz? It's a great form of music. How else am I supposed to react?
Erm...that makes no sense. Like whatsoever. The basic notion of "data can be transferred" makes sense...but you're totally ignoring how it was created. Boston does so well in terms of innovation because of the collection of people, not data. I guess that's your problem in this argument. You don't seem to understand the concept of how things are created in this world.
By your same reason of thought there is nowhere that can't be replaced. Jazz is just music, after all. Its songs are just notes, and they can be seen by anyone in the world at this point. In fact, there's no continuous re-creation of jazz by New Orleans, so how would that even affect things?
You said in another post that if the stuff in Boston was destroyed, they could move to Kansas and do the same thing...well then why don't they? Boston is an extremely expensive city. It would save a lot of money to not be there...but people stay and at this time Boston (especially Cambridge) is booming. Why? Because of the collection of skilled workers, young educated minds, venture capital resources, powerful institutions, and an overall environment conducive to helping ideas flourish.
The Mississippi River is important, but not nearly as important as it used to be. Regardless, using your train of thought, New Orleans being wiped off the map would do nothing. After all, losing New Orleans doesn't mean we'd lose the Mississippi River. The Port of New Orleans would be replaced by a different port, in another city. After all, it's just a bunch of metal, right?
The proximity of NO to oil reserves wouldn't mean much since Houston is also very close, and is much, much more important than New Orleans when it comes to oil. I'm not saying that stuff is necessarily true, but this is how you would explain it away.
Uh, really man? If anything it's been the people from New Orleans who haven't been able to have a conversation. I just posted a list showing that Boston scientists/doctors are now making facial transplants, are progressing on technology which will allow us to grow organs organically, are on the verge of making the common cold (and possibly all viral infections) a thing of the past, created a vaccine for HIV and may have found a cure for the Ebola Virus.
Your response? "You're being too dismissive of Jazz music".
Interestingly, the only two economic factors people can come up with for NO is the Mississippi River and oil. Does New Orleans create anything economically, or it is purely resource-reliant? I'm not meaning this as a slight...I'm genuinely interested.
Medical discoveries have been made in many places around the world Boston wasn't the first but Jazz started in one place and all that followed were sub genre version of that style of music. If it hadn't been for Jazz Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York" song wouldn't be possible. From Chicago to Manhattan to London Jazz played but it was New Orleans first.
Medical discoveries have been made in many places around the world Boston wasn't the first but Jazz started in one place and all that followed were sub genre version of that style of music. If it hadn't been for Jazz Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York" song wouldn't be possible. From Chicago to Manhattan to London Jazz played but it was New Orleans first.
Cool...so you guys have been milking jazz for a long time now, and still won't give any credit where it's due. Medical discoveries may have been made in many places in the world, but Boston is the life sciences hub of the world. You guys realize that for something to be important, it doesn't have to be totally unique to your city, right? Under this same reasoning, New York City loses any credibility because there are banks outside New York...and Silicon Valley doesn't really matter because there are other tech companies in the world. Even under your reasoning, creating jazz doesn't count for New Orleans because you didn't create music.
I've been trying to have a debate with you guys, but if I mention some life-saving medical procedure, the only thing NOers can say is "well you didn't invent jazzzzzzz!!!!!!!"
Here's something else Boston invented: the mutual fund. It may not be hip and funky and strung out on heroin, but if you or anyone you know has a job with a 401(k) or Roth IRA, you can bet that money is in some form of mutual fund.
Medical discoveries have been made in many places around the world Boston wasn't the first but Jazz started in one place and all that followed were sub genre version of that style of music. If it hadn't been for Jazz Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York" song wouldn't be possible. From Chicago to Manhattan to London Jazz played but it was New Orleans first.
You do realize Jazz was based off other forms of music and could very well have been created somewhere else but it wasn't and that's what matters.
And on the Katrina argument Boston would not get as bad as New Orleans because normally it has less murders and the cities twice as big.
You do realize Jazz was based off other forms of music and could very well have been created somewhere else but it wasn't and that's what matters.
Sure all genres of music came from somewhere like classical or blues but Jazz started first in New Orleans.
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