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I am a native to upstate NY and I voted that California is in fact far more famous. Allow me to explain.
California is known for being California. Its sweeping mountain vistas, its harsh deserts, its vast wine country, its rich ancient forests, its variety of coastline and beaches, and multiple large cities. Arguably Los Angeles and San Francisco are equally well known both at home and globally.
New York, despite having a grand variety of cultures, terrain, and things to do and see, is only known for New York City. NYC, NYC, NYC, NYC, NYC, it's all NYC.
Sure, you may hear talk about Niagara, Cornell, or the Adirondacks/Catskills now and again, but 95 percent of the time it's all about New York CITY.
Hell, most Americans don't even realize there's hundreds of miles of NY state north of the NYC/Jersey/Connecticut region.
California though? No such identity crisis.
Completely true. That's also true of Chicago; people don't think of Illinois when they hear Chicago; they just think Chicago. New York though is a weird one as the city and state are named the exact same name.
Every CA city though, whether it's SD, LA, Sacramento, SF, whatever, all easily falls under the umbrella of California or "Cali" (though there's also the distinction between SoCal and NorCal). Texas is the same way as well; people from Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Austin would all just as fast say they're from *Texas* as they would the actual city they're from. Florida is another example.
I think at the end of the day, New York state having the only *major* city being NY is why people forget about the rest of the state. Illinois is the same exact way. But the sheer size of California, Texas, and FL and the variety of large cities they have, gives the those states a better *state* identity.
Location: Miami (prev. NY, Atlanta, SF, OC and San Diego)
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True...and remember CA is 3x the size of NY state, as measured in square miles (164K to 54K)...either do a comparison of coasts, or add in MA, CT, PA, NJ (maybe down to DC) to NY for comparable geographic comparison.
Earlier NYS omission: Add in Hamptons, among other popular/famous NY state beaches (Jones Beach, Coney Island).
Quote:
Originally Posted by DaddySpice
A better poll might be which COAST is more popular:
West: San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle
East: DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, NYC, Boston
Location: Appalachian New York, Formerly Louisiana
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CCrest182
Completely true. That's also true of Chicago; people don't think of Illinois when they hear Chicago; they just think Chicago. New York though is a weird one as the city and state are named the exact same name.
Every CA city though, whether it's SD, LA, Sacramento, SF, whatever, all easily falls under the umbrella of California or "Cali" (though there's also the distinction between SoCal and NorCal). Texas is the same way as well; people from Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Austin would all just as fast say they're from *Texas* as they would the actual city they're from. Florida is another example.
I think at the end of the day, New York state having the only *major* city being NY is why people forget about the rest of the state. Illinois is the same exact way. But the sheer size of California, Texas, and FL and the variety of large cities they have, gives the those states a better *state* identity.
I'm not sure about that Florida comparison for large cities though. Florida isn't that much bigger than NY state (especially in terms of habitable area for humans), and NY definitely has a higher number of large cities.
Beyond that though, I think you're definitely onto something.
I'm not sure about that Florida comparison for large cities though. Florida isn't that much bigger than NY state (especially in terms of habitable area for humans), and NY definitely has a higher number of large cities.
Beyond that though, I think you're definitely onto something.
I tend to think of Miami, Tampa/St Pete, Orlando, Jacksonville, and then (to a lesser extent) Tallahassee as the nationally recognized cities in Florida. In New York though (from an outsider's perspective), I tend to only think about NYC (more than anything else obviously), Buffalo (though foreigners are unlikely to know what/where that is), and maybe Rochester and Syracuse, though I would only compare those last two cities to Tallahassee, not so much the other FL cities. Most of the larger places that are considered cities near NYC like Yonkers, I tend to just view those as being an extension of NYC.
Location: Appalachian New York, Formerly Louisiana
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CCrest182
I tend to think of Miami, Tampa/St Pete, Orlando, Jacksonville, and then (to a lesser extent) Tallahassee as the nationally recognized cities in Florida. In New York though (from an outsider's perspective), I tend to only think about NYC (more than anything else obviously), Buffalo (though foreigners are unlikely to know what/where that is), and maybe Rochester and Syracuse, though I would only compare those last two cities to Tallahassee, not so much the other FL cities. Most of the larger places that are considered cities near NYC like Yonkers, I tend to just view those as being an extension of NYC.
I would have to say California for two basic reasons:
1) It identity is more well rounded. Two world class cities as well as others like SD, santa Barbara, Palm Springs, beaches, mountains, Yosemite, deserts, Napa valley, pac coast highway, Big Sur, Monterey Bay, Lake Tahoe, the Redwoods, etc.
On the global level NY is basically NYC and then maybe Niagara Falls and the Hamptons. Now of course, NYS has a ton more to offer beyond those three areas . The river valleys of the Mohawk and Hudson, the mountains of the Catskills, Adirondacks, the waterfronts of the Thousands Islands, Lake Chaimplain and the Great Lakes, the hills, gorges and lakes of the Finger Lakes and WNY Chautauqua Allegany region are all spectacular. But I'm not sure how much of a global identity they have. Buffalo and Rochester aren't on par with SF or SJ.
2) California has more of a common identity: liberal, scenic, laid back, the California dream of heading west to start anew
Although obviously there are lots of regional identities:North vs South, Coast vs Inland these aren't are clearly defined as the upstate vs downstate divide. NYC arguably feels a greater cultural and geography connection to NJ, CT, Philly than Buffalo or Watertown. Similarly Buffalo probably feels closer to Cleveland. People in Roch/Buff are more likely to go to Toronto than NYC when they want the big city experience.
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