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Does Denver count as a northern city? I thought that was the most overrated place I have ever been to. Seriously don't know what the hype for that city is all about other than if you want to smoke marijuana.
How do you even confuse Denver for somewhere in the North?
Most overrated city would be Boston. Archaic drinking laws (no happy hour, no drinking games, can't drink with an out of state license unless you're 25) which means the nightlife really lacks IMO. That's very disappointing. It kind of has an elitist, fratboy/preppy vibe from all the colleges and institutions. Fairweather sports fans (Bruins and Celtics), the food is good but not great. It shouldn't cost as much as it does. Very clean but almost too clean. It lacks a funky and edgy kind of vibe that I enjoy like in Brooklyn or Philadelphia. Boston is more like the UES. Its nightlife is like the opposite of a place like Chicago. Chicago is a blast.
Maybe its because I don't work in biotech or finance or care much about baseball?
I will say its got the best hospitals, universities and the Red Sox have a great following win or lose.
Since when can't you drink in Boston without a MA license unless you're 25? That's the case at the TD Garden (and I think at the Xfinity Center- I had trouble with my Maine ID about 5 or 6 years ago), but I don't know of a single bar that doesn't accept out of state IDs. There would be hundreds of thousands of undergrad, grad students and young professionals if that was the case. I'm 29 now, but I had a Maine ID until I was 25. I went everywhere in Boston with that thing. Never had a problem.
I guess a way to answer which city is most underrated is to look at which city people are going to least. I personally don't give much of a care for the domestic tourism numbers, almost always widely inflated, with vague and odd criteria (like counting people that are just passing through).
I prefer looking at the international tourism numbers. Its really simple, if people have heard of a place and its interesting, they'll go to it. If its a major convention city, they'll go to it. If it has lots of foreigners, they'll go to it to visit family. If it has a relevant economy, people will go to it to conduct business and work. All of these things should add up to a neat total, as in total visitors, and it should easily document how much a city registers on the public conscience in the massively populated world outside of America. There are now 7.2 Billon people in the world, including 6.9 Billion that don't live in the United States, so if we use the global markets to tell us which city people go to and don't go to, we get an idea of how underrepresented a big city is or how represented it is via tourism.
International Tourists (non-United States/Canada/Mexico), 2014:'
01. New York: 9.741 million
02. Miami + Fort Lauderdale: 5.645 million
03. Los Angeles + Anaheim: 4.991 million
04. Orlando: 4.130 million
05. San Francisco: 3.132 million
06. Las Vegas: 2.994 million
07. Honolulu: 2.478 million
08. Washington, D.C.: 1.927 million
09. Boston: 1.411 million 10. Chicago: 1.308 million
11. San Diego: 1.033 million
12. Houston: 860,000
13. Atlanta: 723,000
14. Flagstaff-Sedona-Grand Canyon: 620,000 15. Philadelphia: 620,000
16. Seattle: 585,000
17. Tampa Bay Area: 551,000
18. Dallas: 413,000
19. San Jose: 413,000
20. New Orleans: 344,000
Okay, so looking at all "Northern" metropolitan areas above 3 million people, the most underrated/under-the-radar (literally) place (for how much they have to offer) would seem to be Minneapolis/Saint Paul and Detroit. Each of them are among the 20 largest metropolitan areas in the United States, Detroit 12th and Minneapolis/Saint Paul 15th, respectively. However when accounted for international tourism, they are not in the country's top 20, which make them an automatic candidate among the major cities given all they have to offer. After that is Philadelphia, which actually saw an 8% decline in its tourism numbers from the year prior (tied for the largest year-to-year decline among the cities), the Philadelphia area is presently the 8th largest metropolis in the United States, has much to offer but as its airport will indicate, it is not much of a foreign destination at all. After that is obviously Chicago, the 3rd largest population center in the United States and 4th largest in all of North America. Given its 10 million people and broad depth in the corporate world, legal world, medical world, logistics world, its culinary scene, its performing arts facilities and programs, its cultural institutions, its schools at every level, its suburbs, and architecture it is both a bargain real-estate value and very much under the radar for overseas tourists. Chicago, despite being the 3rd largest city, does not come close to carrying its weight in tourism, where it finishes 10th with San Diego (at 11th) inching closer to surpassing it soon enough and displacing it from the top 10 altogether. For a major American city, from what I have noticed out here, it gets little exposure the world on over outside of North America. Making it a good candidate for most under-the-radar city.
Albeit the thing with Chicago is that what does it really offer that New York doesn't? What would cause someone to go to it over New York, which has just about every single thing Chicago has, in more quantity and in higher quality, in my personal opinion. This makes Chicago a very underrated city, overall.
So I would say, Detroit 1, Minneapolis/Saint Paul 2, Philadelphia 3, and Chicago 4th.
I guess a way to answer which city is most underrated is to look at which city people are going to least. I personally don't give much of a care for the domestic tourism numbers, almost always widely inflated, with vague and odd criteria (like counting people that are just passing through).
I prefer looking at the international tourism numbers. Its really simple, if people have heard of a place and its interesting, they'll go to it. If its a major convention city, they'll go to it. If it has lots of foreigners, they'll go to it to visit family. If it has a relevant economy, people will go to it to conduct business and work. All of these things should add up to a neat total, as in total visitors, and it should easily document how much a city registers on the public conscience in the massively populated world outside of America. There are now 7.2 Billon people in the world, including 6.9 Billion that don't live in the United States, so if we use the global markets to tell us which city people go to and don't go to, we get an idea of how underrepresented a big city is or how represented it is via tourism.
International Tourists (non-United States/Canada/Mexico), 2014:'
01. New York: 9.741 million
02. Miami + Fort Lauderdale: 5.645 million
03. Los Angeles + Anaheim: 4.991 million
04. Orlando: 4.130 million
05. San Francisco: 3.132 million
06. Las Vegas: 2.994 million
07. Honolulu: 2.478 million
08. Washington, D.C.: 1.927 million
09. Boston: 1.411 million 10. Chicago: 1.308 million
11. San Diego: 1.033 million
12. Houston: 860,000
13. Atlanta: 723,000
14. Flagstaff-Sedona-Grand Canyon: 620,000 15. Philadelphia: 620,000
16. Seattle: 585,000
17. Tampa Bay Area: 551,000
18. Dallas: 413,000
19. San Jose: 413,000
20. New Orleans: 344,000
Okay, so looking at all "Northern" metropolitan areas above 3 million people, the most underrated/under-the-radar (literally) place (for how much they have to offer) would seem to be Minneapolis/Saint Paul and Detroit. Each of them are among the 20 largest metropolitan areas in the United States, Detroit 12th and Minneapolis/Saint Paul 15th, respectively. However when accounted for international tourism, they are not in the country's top 20, which make them an automatic candidate among the major cities given all they have to offer. After that is Philadelphia, which actually saw an 8% decline in its tourism numbers from the year prior (tied for the largest year-to-year decline among the cities), the Philadelphia area is presently the 8th largest metropolis in the United States, has much to offer but as its airport will indicate, it is not much of a foreign destination at all. After that is obviously Chicago, the 3rd largest population center in the United States and 4th largest in all of North America. Given its 10 million people and broad depth in the corporate world, legal world, medical world, logistics world, its culinary scene, its performing arts facilities and programs, its cultural institutions, its schools at every level, its suburbs, and architecture it is both a bargain real-estate value and very much under the radar for overseas tourists. Chicago, despite being the 3rd largest city, does not come close to carrying its weight in tourism, where it finishes 10th with San Diego (at 11th) inching closer to surpassing it soon enough and displacing it from the top 10 altogether. For a major American city, from what I have noticed out here, it gets little exposure the world on over outside of North America. Making it a good candidate for most under-the-radar city.
Albeit the thing with Chicago is that what does it really offer that New York doesn't? What would cause someone to go to it over New York, which has just about every single thing Chicago has, in more quantity and in higher quality, in my personal opinion. This makes Chicago a very underrated city, overall.
So I would say, Detroit 1, Minneapolis/Saint Paul 2, Philadelphia 3, and Chicago 4th.
I use the word metropolis interchangeably with PCSAs, which are CSAs for places that have them or MSAs for the places that don't have CSAs.
01. New York-Newark, NY-NJ-CT-PA Combined Statistical Area: 23,632,722
02. Los Angeles-Long Beach, CA Combined Statistical Area: 18,550,288
03. Chicago-Naperville, IL-IN-WI Combined Statistical Area: 9,928,312
04. Washington-Baltimore-Arlington, DC-MD-VA-WV-PA Combined Statistical Area: 9,546,579
05. San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, CA Combined Statistical Area: 8,607,423
06. Boston-Worcester-Providence, MA-RI-NH-CT Combined Statistical Area: 8,099,575
07. Dallas-Fort Worth, TX-OK Combined Statistical Area: 7,352,613
08. Philadelphia-Reading-Camden, PA-NJ-DE-MD Combined Statistical Area: 7,164,790
09. Houston-The Woodlands, TX Combined Statistical Area: 6,686,318
10. Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Port St. Lucie, FL Combined Statistical Area: 6,558,143
11. Atlanta–Athens-Clarke County–Sandy Springs, GA Combined Statistical Area: 6,258,875
12. Detroit-Warren-Ann Arbor, MI Combined Statistical Area: 5,315,251
13. Seattle-Tacoma, WA Combined Statistical Area: 4,526,991
14. Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, AZ Metropolitan Statistical Area: 4,489,109
15. Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN-WI Combined Statistical Area: 3,835,050
16. Cleveland-Akron-Canton, OH Combined Statistical Area: 3,497,851
17. Denver-Aurora, CO Combined Statistical Area: 3,345,261
18. San Diego-Carlsbad, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area: 3,263,431
19. Portland-Vancouver-Salem, OR-WA Combined Statistical Area: 3,060,078
20. Orlando-Deltona-Daytona Beach, FL Combined Statistical Area: 3,045,707
Anyhow, I still fully keep the same view I had in my last post. Given how large they are, how much they have to offer, how diverse the lifestyle and amenities can be the most underrated/under-the-radar cities in the "North" is a 4-horse race between Detroit, Minneapolis/Saint Paul, Chicago, and Philadelphia.
Chicago, the 3rd largest city by every measure there is (City, MSA, CSA, United States UA, United Nations UA, DMA) is only the 10th most visited city by foreigner tourists, a full 7 spots down from where the 3rd largest city should be hitting. That's underrated, given how its overlooked by 9 other cities in the country and how it probably has more to offer than all of those 9 except for 2 (New York and Los Angeles).
Philadelphia, the 8th largest city as a PCSA (5th by City, 6th by MSA, 8th by CSA, 5th by United States UA, 8th by United Nations UA, and 4th by DMA) isn't even in the top 10 for foreign tourists. Its behind the Grand Canyon (which I saw this past winter and it gets a surreal amount of tourism) for 15th in America overall. That's pretty underrated, given how much the place has to offer, specifically historical sites.
Detroit and the Twin Cities, these places are 12th and 15th respectively as PCSAs. They're perennial top 15 American cities and both areas have enough things to do and see, but they cant carry their weight in international tourism and don't even crack the country's top 20. That's pretty underrated.
Location: Appalachian New York, Formerly Louisiana
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In my opinion?
Over-rated: NYC. I just... never enjoyed my time there. It was impressive to look at and the number of restaurants and such is great but the majority of the people are terrible. Just terrible. They ruin everything that could be fun about NYC. There's no earthly excuse to be THAT rude.
Plus they ruin the reputation of the rest of NY state, which I find personally offensive.
Under-rated: Pittsburgh/Wheeling. The only real complaint I have are the drivers here; other than that these cities and the surrounding areas are great. people are nice, the engineering is astounding, it's visually appealing and frankly I have yet to dislike my visits to and through both cities. Could really improve on the traffic courtesy though; y'all are making Baton Rouge look safe. ;P
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