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I see this sentiment from time to time on this site as if its some sort of radical idea. If you're familiar with California's business history, then its fairly accepted that apart from a short time in the late 70s to early 80s, San Francisco was the defacto financial center of the West. That's not to say the Los Angeles wasn't extremely important, but SF was pound for pound always the bigger, and historically more important, economic engine. LA in that context reached its zenith at the height of the cold war, when defense spending was insane and was having a collateral impact on other industries there. See for instance: L.a. Blooms As West`s Financial Center - tribunedigital-chicagotribune
But that was short lived (end of cold war, big recession, riots and earthquake more or less took all the wind away so to speak within the next ~10 years). SF, or more specifically the south Bay, by comparison had laid such a fantastic bedrock for innovation in Silicon Valley that wave after wave of entrepreneurs have made it arguably the most successful economic success story in the world over the last dozen years (the dot-com bust seems like a blip in the mirror now). So in economic terms, including related metrics like corporate HQs etc SF has always been ahead, and mostly comfortably so.
But judging LA by economic factors alone misses the point entirely. Its influence and overall importance come from the massive cultural footprint seen around the world, which I don't think have really diminished in any way. In fact I lived there many years ago and its relevance in cultural circles seems to have increased exponentially since I left, which I didn't think was possible. In fact it seems to be recovering its mojo in ways I thought were impossible even 10 years ago (the aerospace industry, which i follow closely, seems to be getting a second lease on life with SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, Rocket Lab...). It also seems to be shooting up these GFC charts with no apparent singular financial strengths apart from the massive assets under management in mutual fund companies (no major financial markets, regulatory agencies, bank HQs, etc). Its size I think makes up for a lot since that just provides enormous deposits in general, that few other cities in the world can compete with.
Anyway all the economic factors that SF surpasses LA in I think are a phenomenal credit to the former rather than a detraction from the latter.
Well, the 80s and 90s are within my lifetime, and I'm from Los Angeles so I grew up with an almost given idea that LA was the larger, more important area. The loss of a lot of engineering jobs (aeronautics, defense, and automative) in the years after the Cold War as automotive jobs moved to the south and aeronautics/defense moved to the DC area was pretty pervasive. The financial rise of LA ebbed away relative to the Bay Area even more during that time. Even LA's massive film and television production powers lost its supermajority as a huge amount of production moved elsewhere in the 00s. LA's still doing fine, but it's disproportionately low on a lot of indices, as mentioned, given its massive size and population, while the Bay Area is disproportionately high. I think if LA were "proportionately" powerful, then there'd be no question it's ahead.
An area of economic develoment often overlooked on Cita-Data are Boston's 4 huge medical campuses. I'll focus on just one of them here;
If the Longwood Medical Campus (straddling the Fenway and Mission Hill neighborhoods) were a state, it would rank 8th in the nation in Fed.gov research funding.... And that's just 1 campus! In total sq ft, Longwood compares favorably w/ Downtown Portland, OR.....
Many Philly boosters in this forum always stating Philly is on the same level with Boston.
Sorry - not even close!
Correct. But Philly has the land, and a lot of big projects are planned. Philly is making a remarkable turnaround from where it was just a few years ago. ...By contrast, in less than 10 years, Boston will be down to just a few parcels in the West End, and air rights over i-90 good for tall skyscraper development. Construction outside of those zones will have to be limited to about 280~390'.
Still, the density planned by the Walsh Administration for the next 10 years–is remarkable, by any standard.
Last edited by odurandina; 05-30-2017 at 09:17 AM..
Well, the 80s and 90s are within my lifetime, and I'm from Los Angeles so I grew up with an almost given idea that LA was the larger, more important area. The loss of a lot of engineering jobs (aeronautics, defense, and automative) in the years after the Cold War as automotive jobs moved to the south and aeronautics/defense moved to the DC area was pretty pervasive. The financial rise of LA ebbed away relative to the Bay Area even more during that time. Even LA's massive film and television production powers lost its supermajority as a huge amount of production moved elsewhere in the 00s. LA's still doing fine, but it's disproportionately low on a lot of indices, as mentioned, given its massive size and population, while the Bay Area is disproportionately high. I think if LA were "proportionately" powerful, then there'd be no question it's ahead.
You definitely grew up when LA was cresting But its ascendancy at the time was definitely tentative, built mostly on defense spending as is widely acknowledged. That's actually where SF & LA diverged early on, where in the Bay area they realized that defense wasn't the best approach to building a solid economic base (there are several romanticized versions of the history of Silicon valley now, but one of the precipitators was an early aerospace downturn). The huge aerospace job losses in Southern California during the 90s and early 2000s (San Diego was equally affected) were definitely crushing, but in retrospect not fully unexpected.
Anyway I think the only metric where LA underperforms significantly is corporate HQ locations, but my point is that was never its strength. Even at its height in the 80s it had nowhere near the HQs that say NYC had, per capita, or even Chicago, never mind the Bay area. Some of these reasons are historic, though it appears to me that companies don't seem to lay down extremely strong roots there even if they were born there (Northrop would be a prime example where they did what they had to do and moved to the DC area when funding dried up or how all the oil companies went to Texas). Plus its signature industry (entertainment and media) doesn't really translate to HQ locations there, apart from Disney. But in general the value of HQ locations is significantly overrated. The real question to ask is if a city or metro's economy is dynamic enough to constantly produce good relevant companies that produce good jobs for the region. LA has had its ups and downs as most places do, but I think it does ok in that regard (innovation runs deep there compared to other places i've lived). It still obviously underperforms compared to the Bay area, but then most of the world does imo.
Vancouver ahead of Paris or Seoul, spare me. Even in Canada, Vancouver is not considered a financial centre. None of the top 30 largest corporations on the TSX is even headquartered in Vancouver. To even put Vancouver remotely close to Toronto or even Montreal is absurd. When it comes to finance I would say Vancouver is Mickey Mouse compared to Toronto but that would be an insult to Mickey Mouse.
Toronto is definitely up there with the big boys with a lot of head offices, banks, insurance firms, and the TSX is the 8th largest stock exchange in the world but having Vancouver on that list makes the list a farce.
Vancouver ahead of Paris or Seoul, spare me. Even in Canada, Vancouver is not considered a financial centre. None of the top 30 largest corporations on the TSX is even headquartered in Vancouver. To even put Vancouver remotely close to Toronto or even Montreal is absurd. When it comes to finance I would say Vancouver is Mickey Mouse compared to Toronto but that would be an insult to Mickey Mouse.
Toronto is definitely up there with the big boys with a lot of head offices, banks, insurance firms, and the TSX is the 8th largest stock exchange in the world but having Vancouver on that list makes the list a farce.
I'm pretty sure it says right in there that it's essentially Chinese propoghada and it's mainly based off of survey results that have a specific criteria with doing business with the Chinese.
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But its ascendancy at the time was definitely tentative, built mostly on defense spending as is widely acknowledged. That's actually where SF & LA diverged early on, where in the Bay area they realized that defense wasn't the best approach to building a solid economic base (there are several romanticized versions of the history of Silicon valley now, but one of the precipitators was an early aerospace downturn). The huge aerospace job losses in Southern California during the 90s and early 2000s (San Diego was equally affected) were definitely crushing, but in retrospect not fully unexpected. 
