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Yea, I guess that's a stretch. More important, probably, and with a larger GDP, but probably not larger in population.
I don't agree that Baltimore and DC are one, unified metro, so I still don't know. It's much like the Bay. These places are close in proximity and there's some overlap, but at the end of the day they're two different metro areas that just happen to be within an hour or so of one another. When they're COMBINED, maybe, but that's only when COMBINED. I know this drives some DC posters up a wall, but when you're claiming Baltimore and then saying people from Baltimore have an inferiority complex, it's difficult to argue they are one in the same.
Importance varies wildly depending on what you're talking about, but obviously being the seat of the Federal Government bumps DC up quite a bit. It'll be interesting to see how a Trump administration changes the face of DC.
We've talked a lot about GDP a lot around here. It's a valuable data point but definitely not an indicator of who's "better". Things like median income, poverty rates, housing costs, etc. tell a much more complete story than GDP or GDP per capita alone.
I think the problem here is the Chicago state of mind.
The mentality of we think we're better than L.A but we're comfortable not being better than New York.
Logically the weather in your city affects the way a person thinks and feels.
Chicago has been the 2nd city in America for decades and decades behind New York City until the rise of Los Angeles of course.
So in the 1980s,L.A surpassed Chicago for the first time in history far as population & economy.It's been that way for at least 30 plus years now so the common comparison has always been New York vs L.A.There's literally over 1000 threads comparing the two cities.Whether its sports,entertainment,food,fashion.
It always came down to the Eastcoast & Westcoast powerhouses.
Now in this 30 year time frame,Chicago never regained it's place behind New York and with that position came resentment towards Los Angeles.
In reality people in Los Angeles never viewed Chicago as a threat or a city to compare too.
Chicago posters will even bow to New York and try to team up like it's a NYC/CHI vs L.A thing.Ive seen it on here multiple times but always paid it no mind.
Don't get me wrong Chicago is a great city but i don't feels it's on that top tier level of NYC+L.A
2nd tier cities = Chicago,Philadelphia,D.C & San Fran
I think the problem here is the Chicago state of mind.
The mentality of we think we're better than L.A but we're comfortable not being better than New York.
Logically the weather in your city affects the way a person thinks and feels.
Chicago has been the 2nd city in America for decades and decades behind New York City until the rise of Los Angeles of course.
So in the 1980s,L.A surpassed Chicago for the first time in history far as population & economy.It's been that way for at least 30 plus years now so the common comparison has always been New York vs L.A.There's literally over 1000 threads comparing the two cities.Whether its sports,entertainment,food,fashion.
It always came down to the Eastcoast & Westcoast powerhouses.
Now in this 30 year time frame,Chicago never regained it's place behind New York and with that position came resentment towards Los Angeles.
In reality people in Los Angeles never viewed Chicago as a threat or a city to compare too.
Chicago posters will even bow to New York and try to team up like it's a NYC/CHI vs L.A thing.Ive seen it on here multiple times but always paid it no mind.
Don't get me wrong Chicago is a great city but i don't feels it's on that top tier level of NYC+L.A
2nd tier cities = Chicago,Philadelphia,D.C & San Fran
I think the problem here is the Chicago state of mind.
The mentality of we think we're better than L.A but we're comfortable not being better than New York.
Logically the weather in your city affects the way a person thinks and feels.
Chicago has been the 2nd city in America for decades and decades behind New York City until the rise of Los Angeles of course.
So in the 1980s,L.A surpassed Chicago for the first time in history far as population & economy.It's been that way for at least 30 plus years now so the common comparison has always been New York vs L.A.There's literally over 1000 threads comparing the two cities.Whether its sports,entertainment,food,fashion.
It always came down to the Eastcoast & Westcoast powerhouses.
Now in this 30 year time frame,Chicago never regained it's place behind New York and with that position came resentment towards Los Angeles.
In reality people in Los Angeles never viewed Chicago as a threat or a city to compare too.
Chicago posters will even bow to New York and try to team up like it's a NYC/CHI vs L.A thing.Ive seen it on here multiple times but always paid it no mind.
Don't get me wrong Chicago is a great city but i don't feels it's on that top tier level of NYC+L.A
2nd tier cities = Chicago,Philadelphia,D.C & San Fran
The OP is everything i just stated above lol
You typed an essay explaining why YOU think Chicago doesn't compare to LA, but you don't think about Chicago or view it as a peer? Right...
LOL , no. LA region has the second largest GDP in the US.
DC, Virginia, and Maryland are all places that are dependant on Federal Tax Dollars for survival.
DC is not even as important as the Bay Area, let alone LA. Maybe more important than San Diego, Sacramento, and Fresno. But that is about it.
Right, they are dependent on federal tax dollars. I don't think it's too unlikely for
- DC and Baltimore to actually start growing into each other and acting more as one region
- That greater region continuing to expand as the nation grows and the federal government grows with it
- The growth continues, as it currently does, with mostly higher-income skilled jobs
However, that's a far projection so there's a very good chance the rankings don't change. I think the developments in recent years have been really promising. That last one is important--high-paying middle class and up jobs are available in DC in droves and that accounts for its high-per-capita income even while the region's population grows at a brisk pace. LA hasn't had that in a while and that's what I think it's possible for the area to pass by LA.
As a counterpoint to that, LA's been seeing some really promising signs in the last several years, plus the Bay Area's exorbitant prices have made it so that the fairly close by LA region is now once again showing decent growth in the STEMs sector of the economy. It's too early to say how this will pan out, but it's looking pretty good.
These are especially good signs since the 90s and 00s were kind of terrible. In the 90s, the inner city was a mess, great paying defense (and aeronautics) jobs were being cut and technical jobs were leaving in droves (often to DC where defense contractors relocated to be closer to the federal government).
In the late 90s and 00s, LA's inner city was recovering especially as a lot of FDI from East Asia was coming in, but in the meantime LA again lost some corporate headquarters (there were some bad actors in other states who actively were trying to poach LA businesses, plus the most confusing move of hospitality heavyweights like Hilton moving to the DC area which I still don't understand) while the film and television industry lost a huge amount of jobs and US/NA headquarters for international companies from East Asia (most notably Japanese automobile companies) started moving further inland and out of Los Angeles.
Nowadays, most of that has stabilized or is improving, so maybe things are going to take a great upward trajectory for LA, so there's pretty good reason to be optimistic.
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