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If the question is most fascinating, I’m going with LA. The mixture of great weather, beaches, mountains, and large spread out urban cores, with a major industry like Hollywood. That makes it very unique and fascinating from a global perspective.
So Chicago is like New York when it comes to skyscrapers? Interesting.
Did you use my post to go on a tangent about Chicago's skyline?
My point was the NYC has a scale of urbanity that far exceeds that of any city in the US. Skyscrapers are only one part of that. Chicago can never win a pure urbanity matchup against NYC, and since urbanity is the real draw of both cities, Chicago will always seem underwhelming by comparison. LA, however, can offer a unique blend of nature and urbanity, which some might say is more "fascinating" than the sheer scale of NYC's urbanity alone.
I'm ready for the Chicago homers here to unleash the kraken on me. But I don't care. I'll say it anyway. I don't think Chicago belongs on a list of "global cities" with New York and Los Angeles. Miami, San Francisco, Houston, and Washington are all economically and demographically more global than Chicago. Don't confuse population size with global significance. A megalopolis full of Iowans and Wisconsinites is not a global city. It's just a really big city full of Iowans and Wisconsinites.
In any case, I answered New York because it is, after all, New York, and even though Manhattan has been turned into a kind of Disneyfied yuppieland where rich white people live in high rises and unmarried 40 year old bankers live with roommates New York is still New York, and the diversity and urban culture is unparalleled in the US and maybe anywhere.
I don't take offense to your opinion that Chicago isn't as global as SF, even Washington.... but your implication that Chicago is only full of people from Iowa and Wisconsin and is just a city in the middle of cornfields makes you lose all credibility, and proves you clearly have never been to, and/or know absolutely nothing about Chicago, and probably other areas.
Miami and arguably even DC aren't more global than Chicago.... I'd agree with SF, but Miami being a party/vacation escape for some parts of Europe and a big South American/Carribean population doesn't mean it's overall a more "global" city. Take away tourism and Miami's location with respect to SA, it would have nothing. Like, nothing at all. Except retirees from New York and Chicago.
If the question is most fascinating, I’m going with LA. The mixture of great weather, beaches, mountains, and large spread out urban cores, with a major industry like Hollywood. That makes it very unique and fascinating from a global perspective.
And that makes sense to me. That was the point of my Jordan vs. Lebron analogy.
Personally, I think NYC is the most fascinating of the 3, and that's not because I'm a homer. It's because nowhere else in America really functions like it. It's the only major city in the US where a majority of households do not own a car. 77% of households in Manhattan do not own a car. Last time I checked, I don't think I found a single Census tract in any U.S. city where 75% of households were living without access to a vehicle. There are cities with beautiful scenery (SF, LA, SD, Honolulu), cities with great skylines (Chicago, Miami, SF) and cities with great architecture. But there's only one city that can lay claim to a lifestyle that is fundamentally different from everywhere else in the country.
Point taken, this thread isn't exactly about that.
Just found myself responding to posters who dispute the claims that there is a gap of output between NYC and LA.
Lmao your East Coast bias is showing...
Stop misleading people. Not a single person in this thread has disputed that there is a gap, the dispute is the size of said gap...
All of those lists you pointed out, little of it actually matters in a tangible world, and the little weight a few talking points may hold is disproportionately over dramatized on this nerd site...
Los Angeles' cultural output on education, athletics, entertainment of all kinds, innovation, government, the arts, pop culture, fashion, culinary culture, media, politics, economy, and increasingly transportation, LA's output isn't national. Its global, and its output is the reason it is not far from New York. These are things people can actually see and touch and do in their every day life. To reduce the conversation to dick-measuring lists like Fortune 500s, percentage of high-earning families, and the like, is disingenuous...
You can have it your way though and live in your bubble. If someone were to poll Americans nationwide about a gap between NY and LA, a large plurality, if not majority, wouldn't believe there is a gap at all. I think there is one, but I think its massively overstated here; the gap that exists is a product of the age of the two cities...
Have at it though, chief!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Losfrisco
Keep in mind that Los Angeles had only begun to think about building skyscrapers at the time it passed Chicago up, and Metro was not yet built.
I'm struggling to grasp what exactly is fascinating about NYC. It's a big city that....looks like the other ones.
It's funny to watch everyone trip over each other in their haste to proclaim NYC as the biggest and greatest of anything in these threads.
Ask anyone who just moved out of NYC what they miss about it....99% of the time the only answer you get is "pizza."
Fascinating.
By the 1910's, Los Angeles had a) completed a spectacular feat of civil engineering that brought water to an area that had been passed over for settlement for hundreds of years, b) consolidated the vast majority of the global film market and b) become a mecca for religious expression and practice.
Twenty years before that it had looked like a random cow town in Montana.
But pizza and taxi cabs.
Its crazy, man. It's so out of touch with reality...
I don't take offense to your opinion that Chicago isn't as global as SF, even Washington.... but your implication that Chicago is only full of people from Iowa and Wisconsin and is just a city in the middle of cornfields makes you lose all credibility, and proves you clearly have never been to, and/or know absolutely nothing about Chicago, and probably other areas.
Miami and arguably even DC aren't more global than Chicago.... I'd agree with SF, but Miami being a party/vacation escape for some parts of Europe and a big South American/Carribean population doesn't mean it's overall a more "global" city. Take away tourism and Miami's location with respect to SA, it would have nothing. Like, nothing at all. Except retirees from New York and Chicago.
The poster is clueless. I stopped reading after he showed his clear lack of credibility!!!! Typical City Data poster out of touch with reality!!!!!
You can have it your way though and live in your bubble. If someone were to poll Americans nationwide about a gap between NY and LA, a large plurality, if not majority, wouldn't believe there is a gap at all. I think there is one, but I think its massively overstated here; the gap that exists is a product of the age of the two cities...
If asked to rank America's top cities, I think Americans would overwhelmingly rank NYC first and LA second, which indicates that there is a perceived gap between the two. The gap would be impossible to quantify, but there's no doubt people understand a gap exists.
I think the more interesting question is not whether a gap exists between NY and LA (reality and perception), but whether the gap between NY and LA is larger or smaller than the gap between LA and Chicago.
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