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I don't really think Tech people have prestige in the way more traditional careers (doctor, lawyer) or glamorous fields (advertising, pr). I think a lot of people look at them like they are nerds. Not saying its right, but outside of entrepreneurs in tech, I don't think its looked at as prestigious.
OP's original post: "Which city has more prestige, presence, desirability & respect?"
According to the last couple pages of posts, LA is the most prestigious because: "U.S. pop culture/entertainment industry absolutely dominates the world and much of that industry is based in LA. LA essentially exports its primary industry to the entire planet."
I am sorry but that just doesn't automatically equal prestige in my mind. We will have to agree to disagree.
Like I said, the reality star references here are just lazy justifications for their opinions. It makes no sense.
If you see the making of films or shows on DVD features, you really get a grasp how technical and difficult it is to create scenes. It's really astounding how some of those movies/shows are put together. They're also under intense pressure from the execs and expectations from the media/and fans.
I don't think the general public looks at special effects in blockbusters and thinks "that must've been easy to do".
But some people on this forum somehow think Hollywood means reality stars and people who make cat videos.
^Entertainers don't hold a feather to engineers, scientists, researches, analysts, etc.. The professions that dominate SF help the world and are much more prestigious. The Bay area is a top life science city, a top finance center, and the top tech area. Overall more prestigious schools and a higher COL.
Copyright laws that were lobbied for heavily by the entertainment industry has produced revenues and profits never imaginable. It has artificially inflated the value of entertainers to near god like portions. It is wrong that people look up to these people. Like their opinions should hold more weight and they are people we look up too... There is a lot more to LA than just the entertainment industry, but trying to say that that is the reason why LA is the second most prestigious place in America is wrong in my opinion.
^Entertainers don't hold a feather to engineers, scientists, researches, analysts, etc.. The professions that dominate SF help the world and are much more prestigious. The Bay area is a top life science city, a top finance center, and the top tech area. Overall more prestigious schools and a higher COL.
Copyright laws that were lobbied for heavily by the entertainment industry has produced revenues and profits never imaginable. It has artificially inflated the value of entertainers to near god like portions. It is wrong that people look up to these people. Like their opinions should hold more weight and they are people we look up too... There is a lot more to LA than just the entertainment industry, but trying to say that that is the reason why LA is the second most prestigious place in America is wrong in my opinion.
right... Well you and that website based in London are the only ones who think Cal Tech is the best University in the world. In the United States, the US News and World Report is basically the definitive ranking. Stanford accepts only 5.5% of applicants. Cal Tech? 8.8%. There are a handful of other schools in the US that are more rounded and more prestigious schools. Cal Tech's claim to fame is 33 Nobel Prize winners. So what? Those 33 people outweigh thousands upon thousands of other world class researchers? I think not.
But back to the issue of suburbs, it's amazing how the different paths these 2 metro regions is on is manifest in the income disparity in their most affluent suburbs.
$250,000+ in Red
Average Family Income, $150,000+, 2013
Bay Area CSA: 58 cities Diablo, CA $621,035
Atherton, CA $453,565
Portola Valley, CA $442,087
Hillsborough, CA $387,313
Woodside, CA $361,867
Los Altos Hills, CA $337,254
Belvedere, CA $324,380
Piedmont, CA $322,407
Kentfield, CA $316,825
Ladera, CA $304,186
Loyola, CA $303,988
Monte Sereno, CA $297,083
Tiburon, CA $290,932
West Menlo Park, CA $281,676
Ross, CA $272,454
Sleepy Hollow, CA $261,665
Norris Canyon, CA $261,219
Los Altos, CA $255,507
Orinda, CA $248,318
Stanford, CA $247,100
Blackhawk, CA $238,081
Saratoga, CA $235,274
Kenwood, CA $231,721
Emerald Lake Hills, CA $224,966
Alamo, CA $223,998
Palo Alto, CA $219,748
Mill Valley, CA $219,049
Menlo Park, CA $218,146
Black Point-Green Point, CA $216,072
Shell Ridge, CA $212,746
Acalanes Ridge, CA $210,717
Camino Tassajara, CA $209,853
Lafayette, CA $208,309
Sausalito, CA $207,945
Los Gatos, CA $205,123
Pasatiempo, CA $201,121
Castle Hill, CA $200,649
Silverado Resort, CA $198,996
Danville, CA $192,642
Moraga, CA $191,612
Corte Madera, CA $191,476
El Granada, CA $188,213
Strawberry, CA $188,050
Larkspur, CA $185,714
San Carlos, CA $182,827
Green Valley, CA $182,611
Lexington Hills, CA $182,519
Tamalpais-Homestead Valley, CA $182,016
Burlingame, CA $181,044
Highlands-Baywood Park, CA $176,703
Kensington, CA $176,461
Temelec, CA $175,533
Cupertino, CA $173,593
Lucas Valley-Marinwood, CA $170,322
Muir Beach, CA $169,464
San Miguel, CA $166,685
Sunol, CA $165,587
San Ramon, CA $164,036
Clayton, CA $161,571
Deer Park, CA $160,797
Pleasanton, CA $160,352
Moss Beach, CA $158,014
Lompico, CA $155,178
Montara, CA $152,319
Foster City, CA $150,857
Alto, CA $150,567
North Gate, CA $150,137
San Anselmo, CA $150,080
Average Family Income, $150,000+, 2013 Los Angeles CSA: 37 cities Hidden Hills, CA $386,488
Rolling Hills, CA $325,482
Lake Sherwood, CA $321,193
Malibu, CA $281,825
Palos Verdes Estates, CA $272,871
Manhattan Beach, CA $253,037
San Marino, CA $252,904
La Canada-Flintridge, CA $252,416
Bell Canyon, CA $235,598
Beverly Hills, CA $233,202
Newport Beach, CA $226,329
Coto de Caza, CA $218,329
Villa Park, CA $213,249
Laguna Beach, CA $204,247
Santa Rosa Valley, CA $202,698
Hermosa Beach, CA $201,720
Bradbury, CA $200,949
Indian Wells, CA $198,296
Calabasas, CA $197,161
Rolling Hills Estates, CA $192,899
San Antonio Heights, CA $178,310
North Tustin, CA $177,633
Oak Park, CA $177,311
Westlake Village, CA $175,356
Topanga, CA $173,818
Rancho Palos Verdes, CA $171,541
Las Flores, CA $169,142
Stevenson Ranch, CA $162,684
La Habra Heights, CA $162,047
Santa Monica, CA $161,097
Channel Islands Beach, CA $158,754
Yorba Linda, CA $155,404
Rancho Mirage, CA $153,978
Rose Hills, CA $153,350
Rossmoor, CA $153,258
Agoura Hills, CA $151,401
Laguna Niguel, CA $150,236
Also,
It is extremely bizarre as well that the premier megalopolis of the West Coast does NOT have the best prep schools either:
Bay Area Prep Schools in the Top 25: 7
3 The College Prepatory School, Oakland
5 Castilleja School, Palo Alto
8 San Francisco University High School, San Francisco
16 The Harker School, San Jose
19 Lick-Wilmerding High School, San Francisco
23 Menlo School, Atherton
25 Head-Royce School, Oakland
Los Angeles Area Prep Schools in the Top 25: 5
17 Harvard-Westlake School, Studio City
18 Southwestern Academy, San Marino
21 Flintridge Prepatory School, La Canada Flintridge
22 Polytechnic School, Pasadena
24 Chadwick School, Palos Verdes Peninsula, CA
Notice how 3 of the Top 10 in the nation are in the Bay Area, whilst LA doesnt appear till 17th?
The public schools ranked by API test scores also shows the Bay Area is also home to the majority of 900+ scoring schools.
This is really all about the priorities folks.
Prestige as far as a place is concerned revolves around quality and desirability, which is dependent on the sort of people who live there and what their priorities are.
Plain and simple.
As a business center, the Bay Area just annhilates Los Angeles as far as prestige.
As a place to live and quality of life, the Bay Area again just romps our larger southern neighbor.
I'm still waiting for an explanation justifying even saying that LA is more prestigious that is based in more than vapid, shallow and trite absurdities.
The US News college rankings emphasize subjective reputation, student retention, selectivity, graduation rate, faculty and financial resources and alumni giving. Recently, other rankings have proliferated, including some based on objective long-term metrics such as individual earning potential. Yet, we know of no evaluations of colleges based on lasting contributions to society. Of course, such contributions are difficult to judge. In the analysis below, we focus primarily on STEM (science, technology, engineering and medicine/mathematics) contributions, which are arguably the least subjective to evaluate, and increasingly more valued in today’s workforce.
We examined six groups of exceptional achievers divided into two tiers, looking only at winners who attended college in the US. Our goal is to create a ranking among US colleges, but of course one could broaden the analysis if desired. The first level included all winners of the Nobel Prize (physics, chemistry, medicine, economics, literature, and peace), Fields Medal (mathematics) and the Turing Award (computer science). The second level included individuals elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), National Academy of Engineering (NAE) or Institute of Medicine (IOM). The National Academies are representative of the top few thousand individuals in all of STEM.
We then traced each of these individuals back to their undergraduate days, creating two lists to examine whether the same or different schools rose to the top. We wanted to compare results across these two lists to see if findings in the first tier of achievement replicated in the second tier of achievement and to increase sample size to avoid the problem of statistical flukes.
Simply counting up the number of awards likely favors larger schools and alumni populations. We corrected for this by computing a per capita rate of production, dividing the number of winners from a given university by an estimate of the relative size of the alumni population. Specifically, we used the total number of graduates over the period 1966-2013 (an alternative method of estimating base population over 100 to 150 years led to very similar lists). This allowed us to objectively compare newer and smaller schools with older and larger schools.
In order to reduce statistical noise, we eliminated schools with only one or two winners of the Nobel, Fields or Turing prize. This resulted in only 25 schools remaining, which are shown below:
Rank Nobel, Fields or Turing prize Frequency Per capita ratio below top school
1 California Institute of Technology 11 1
2 Harvard University 34 2.82
3 University of Chicago 15 2.92
4 Swarthmore College 5 3.72
5 Columbia University 20 4.06
6 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 14 4.45
National Academy of Science, Engineering or Medicine membership.
Rank NAS, NAE, or IOM membership Frequency Per capita ratio below top school
1 California Institute of Technology 78 1
2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 255 1.73
Smarts Rank School Average SAT
1 California Institute of Technology 1545
2 University of Chicago 1515
3 Princeton University 1505
3 Harvard University 1505
3 Yale University 1505
6 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1500 Smartest Colleges In America - Business Insider
^Entertainers don't hold a feather to engineers, scientists, researches, analysts, etc.. The professions that dominate SF help the world and are much more prestigious. The Bay area is a top life science city, a top finance center, and the top tech area. Overall more prestigious schools and a higher COL.
Spot on.
Not only a higher COL but also a higher QOL too.
Los Angeles is totally excluded from the most prestigious restaurant rating guide in the world, Michelin.
NY, SF and Chicago are the 3 US editions and they award 3, 2 and 1 Stars as well as Bib Gourmand awards to great restaurants that dont quite make it to a star.
Michelin Stars 2016
Chicago 3 Stars: 2 Restaurants
Alinea
Grace
New York Three Stars: 6 Restaurants
Chef's Table at Brooklyn Fare
Eleven Madison Park
Jean-Georges
Le Bernardin
Masa
Per Se
San Francisco Three Stars: 5 Restaurants
Benu
The French Laundry
Manresa
The Restaurant at Meadowood
Saison
Chicago Two Stars: 3 Restaurants
Acadia, 42 Grams, Sixteen
New York Two Stars: 9 Restaurants
Aquavit
Atera
Blanca
Daniel
Ichimura
Jungsik
Marea
The Modern
Momofuku Ko
Soto
San Francisco Two Stars: 6 Restaurants
Acquarello
Atelier Crenn
Baumé
Campton Place
Coi
Commis
Quince
Los Angeles SHOULD be included in this, since it's the 2nd largest megalopolis in the county, but it's last guide had ZERO three star restaurants which is baffling for such a massive urban area.
But this is just yet another example of San Francisco being more prestigious than Los Angeles. When it comes to fine dining, SF is a world famous culinary city while LA doesnt have that level of prestige, at all.
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