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Agreed. A large percentage of travelers' main interest is seeing things they already know about. They will wander around town and see additional things, but it's often en route from one famous or semi-famous thing to another.
I went to Minneapolis and Pittsburgh once as a tourist just to see them. It was a good move, and I like both. But it was amusing to some friends. It's not common to fly 2,000 miles to see a city that's not either beach/gambling/theme park related or in the top seven or eight from the pure city perspective.
For me personally, trying to imagine places of this size in America without an actual functionally sound downtown core is unfathomable, they're not even remotely close to Sunbelt-standards on downtowns. This is why I don't view Southwest Florida or any of its major component cities of Cape Coral, Fort Myers, or Naples to be a "normal" place that is "in line with the rest of America and/or containing features in line with the mainstream of America." Downtown San Jose or Downtown Phoenix, which likely take the brunt of the beating on this forum with regards to downtowns, are practically Lower Manhattan compared to these "downtowns" in Southwest Florida or the Rio Grande Valley.
For the record, I'm not mocking these places, having been to both before I know they have their plus points and good qualities for sure (and I'm positive they are decent to good places to live too for the average person) but how can you not have a functional downtown? How can you be that populous and not have a downtown at all? Even when accounting for how much a laggard America is in most things urban, this is still baffling to say the least.
Fort Myers actually does have a Downtown, and it's quite nice. It's tiny though considering the size of the Metro.
I stand a bit corrected. They do have downtowns, just could use more work uplifting them to match the population/size of each of their respective metropolitan areas. I guess what I am saying is that both of those regions could benefit from a bigger and more cohesive downtown. They could also stand to benefit from far more office space but that's something that will come in time and with growing size, I'm sure.
The commercial corridors (or "drag" if you will) in both regions from both of your links are pretty decent looking. I don't know why I missed these on Google Maps, then again, I didn't look hard enough as I just typed "Downtown (enter city here)" and let the system drop my pin for me.
Agreed. A large percentage of travelers' main interest is seeing things they already know about. They will wander around town and see additional things, but it's often en route from one famous or semi-famous thing to another.
I went to Minneapolis and Pittsburgh once as a tourist just to see them. It was a good move, and I like both. But it was amusing to some friends. It's not common to fly 2,000 miles to see a city that's not either beach/gambling/theme park related or in the top seven or eight from the pure city perspective.
I like Minneapolis a lot, but if you’re coming from another country does it have enough to interest tourists? More than others?
I’m sure that Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, etc are nice urban cities but who would go there ahead of London unless maybe you have a competing reason?
Not really, unless you're very curious about cities. Nice place, doing a lot of things well, but not terribly distinctive. Let's see. Theater is big but NY gets all the fame for that, and being an esteemed second-tier city for any trait doesn't translate to many people knowing about it. Skyways probably have a net deadening effect, and common enough that no reputation comes with them. Bike friendliness and a big in-town university are cool but not unusual. Lots of cities have rivers. The winter thing is both scary to many and more connected to Scandinavia. It's also far enough that most people would fly there. On the plus side the Superbowl gave it a little boost in name recognition. None of that translates to being very well known overseas.
For that you need to be in a slew of movies, shows, books, magazines, etc. You need to be emblematic of something, whether it's a business sector, gambling, an entertainment genre, or a unique culture. You need visual references, like towers or topography that people will instantly connect to your city. Being a nice place doesn't get you there.
Most cities of MSP's size don't have those characteristics. Even larger cities don't...Toronto is fantastic but not terribly iconic from a US perspective, though its leadership of a country that embraces international ties gives it high visitor counts. Philly is fantastic but gets less than its due. And so on.
Not having a functional downtown anywhere in the whole of Southwest Florida is why I consider it an oddball and why I can't consider that area normal or in-line with the mainstream features of America as a whole. Outside of America and a select few other countries, no one talks of a "downtown" because the heart of the city is called other things in other countries like "the core," "the city," "the center of the city," "the center," and the like. However, in America, even in stereotypical Sunbelt America, all major metropolitan areas (and the grand majority of the minor ones) all still have a functional downtown. The below two places seemingly don't though.
Here's a broad illustration of my point. I typed in "Downtown (Enter city name here)" on Google Streetview. Even though Google Maps is telling me that these streetviews are right in the heart of each of these cities' downtowns, these are no downtowns. Not even by Sunbelt standards are these actual downtowns. I'll start with Southwest Florida first then I'll do the Rio Grande Valley.
Southwest Florida (population 1.15 million people) has 3 major cities; Cape Coral, Naples, and Fort Myers:
For me personally, trying to imagine places of this size in America without an actual functionally sound downtown core is unfathomable, they're not even remotely close to Sunbelt-standards on downtowns. This is why I don't view Southwest Florida or any of its major component cities of Cape Coral, Fort Myers, or Naples to be a "normal" place that is "in line with the rest of America and/or containing features in line with the mainstream of America." Downtown San Jose or Downtown Phoenix, which likely take the brunt of the beating on this forum with regards to downtowns, are practically Lower Manhattan compared to these "downtowns" in Southwest Florida or the Rio Grande Valley.
For the record, I'm not mocking these places, having been to both before I know they have their plus points and good qualities for sure (and I'm positive they are decent to good places to live too for the average person) but how can you not have a functional downtown? How can you be that populous and not have a downtown at all? Even when accounting for how much a laggard America is in most things urban, this is still baffling to say the least.
I get your larger point here, for if these metros have 1m+ populations, they should have a city of about 100,000 or so inhabitants at their core. St. Joseph, Mo., 50 miles NW of my hometown (pop. ~80,000), and Topeka, Kan., the state capital of Kansas 50 miles west of it (pop. ~160,000), had more substantial-looking downtowns when I was young and still do today. Shoot, Massachusetts Street in Lawrence, Kan. (pop. ~80,000), the university town about midway between Kansas City and Topeka, looks busier and more substantial than any of these, and it too looks more Main Street-y than downtown-y.
That Chase Bank tower on the fringe of downtown McAllen looks like an alien civilization erected a plinth there.
I will, however, give Brownsville and Harlingen credit for having pedestrian-scaled Main Streets at least. (I see Harlingen's was all decked out for Christmas when the Google cars drove through.) Bellevue, WA, has one of those too, but it then went and developed an actual downtown immediately to its north. The civic leadership in one of these cities might want to take a trip up to the Pacific Northwest to ask the folks in Bellevue how they did it.
On the flip side, if you’re coming from Paris, London, Japan, Spain, Italy, etc there may not be anything particularly urban or interesting about Chicago.
I disagree. While Chicago won't captivate the interest NYC will, it's still a city with a lot of skyscrapers and fairly clean and walkable. Outside NYC, it's America's second urban city. Most visitors I have known that went to Chicago were fairly impressed - even if they came from Europe or Asia.
LA seems to be the city that polarizes most tourists. Some hate it, some love it. It just seems to boil down to how well they navigate LA's car centric lifestyle. Also, how interested they were in the beach. Most people simply don't realize that the beaches in LA are freezing and nothing too special.
I disagree. While Chicago won't captivate the interest NYC will, it's still a city with a lot of skyscrapers and fairly clean and walkable. Outside NYC, it's America's second urban city. Most visitors I have known that went to Chicago were fairly impressed - even if they came from Europe or Asia.
LA seems to be the city that polarizes most tourists. Some hate it, some love it. It just seems to boil down to how well they navigate LA's car centric lifestyle. Also, how interested they were in the beach. Most people simply don't realize that the beaches in LA are freezing and nothing too special.
California's beaches seem to get a better rep than eastern beaches. They are great for surfing, there is less sharks, and they are more scenic overall with cliffs, rocks etc.
People on city data over estimate how important "urban life" is to tourists. Chicago just doesn't have the pull that LA does overseas.
California's beaches seem to get a better rep than eastern beaches. They are great for surfing, there is less sharks, and they are more scenic overall with cliffs, rocks etc.
People on city data over estimate how important "urban life" is to tourists. Chicago just doesn't have the pull that LA does overseas.
I've known a lot of tourists come to SoCal and I honestly don't remember anyone of them sing the praises of the beaches there. Speaking for LA specifically, most of the beaches there aren't particularly scenic (unless you're in Malibu) but irregardless the water is freezing and dirty/not clear.
What do you mean by EC beaches? Most tourists to NYC don't even partake in the beaches there since NYC is not known for them. Florida is known for beaches, and they're a lot nicer than the ones in California. Not as rocky or 'scenic' but the water is a lot nicer and they're actually usable.
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