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Boston is booming in MSA and CSA GDP growth, city population growth, GDP/capita, and large scale construction (office, lab, residential). Not so much on this board, but in many independent reports its growth and stature as a global city continue to rise. In many areas it already outpaces larger metros like Dallas and Houston and is well ahead of Philly. An interesting question is can Boston pass Chicago in GDP at the CSA level?
Well ahead of Philly?
If you've been following one of the threads that led to this one, you would find that Philly's metropolitan GDP is $6 billion ahead of Boston's.
Boston has the higher international profile and the larger biomedical research community as well as the stronger academic reputation, but Philly is no slouch in those last two departments either - there are almost as many college students in the Philadelphia area as in the Boston area (the difference is just under 4,000 on bases of more than 340,000 in each city), and the city is third behind Boston and New York in biomedical research funding (and ahead of Boston in gene therapy research).
The two metropolitan areas ought more properly be thought of as peers. In terms of global stature, they're not yet, but Philly's on the rise in that department too.
Amazon, Costco, Nordstrom, REI, Starbucks, Redfin, and airplane flights make up a large amount of my family's consumption, and I live in Boston.
Seattle is often brushed off by East Coasters, but it punches well above its population, and for a city on the country's frontier. It's also the last major metro area with large scale industrial manufacturing. The high percentage of college grads in Seattle (highest in the country of major cities) will insure that it continues to innovate and thrive into the next decade.
Oh and I forgot Microsoft. Just bought another Surface this year.
Out of those 4, the only one Seattle could ever come close to surpassing culturally would be Atlanta. Economically, I guess theoretically it could beat all of them, right?
Seattle transformed in the 2010s in to a more urban city. The big "challenges" going forward: 1) it's reliant on a few big tech companies. Any slowdown in tech and Amazon in particular could hit Seattle. 2) Can Seattle sustain fast rates of population growth or will it slow down as it hits a Bos/SF-type housing crunch. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...tistical_areas
Economically, Seattle punches above its weight as an auxiliary silicon valley. It could easily outrank Miami, Atl and Philly in economic importance, even if those cities may technically have higher GDPs. It's harder to say with Boston since it has a similar "advanced" economy.
Culture, is harder to rank. Seattle has more international "cache" than Atl or Philly. But, this has a much to do with the spectacular geographic setting as the city itself. The intellectual elite will also likely rank it above Atl, Philly and Miami as a place to reside/visit. Again, hard to see it overtaking Boston on this measure given the Harvard/MIT/MGH ecosystem.
Cultural influence is relative to your social orbit. Miami is a major fashion/lifestyle center and the US hub of Caribbean/South American culture, Atlanta's MSA is a major center of African-American culture, white conservatism and it is the LGBT mecca of the south. Seattle is likely to have huge cultural cache among outdoorsy types, hippies, white liberals, techies, and maybe as an Asian-American hub.
Location: That star on your map in the middle of the East Coast, DMV
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Originally Posted by manitopiaaa
When it hits 5 million CSA, then it joins the big boy club to me. Until then, I lump it with the other 9 CSAs at 3-5 million.
5 million MSA, not CSA. By then it’s CSA will be pushing 6 million, and who knows how high the GDP will be. So basically some time after 2030. At that point we can all concede to Seattle officially officially being a part of that club.
Culture, is harder to rank. Seattle has more international "cache" than Atl or Philly. But, this has a much to do with the spectacular geographic setting as the city itself. The intellectual elite will also likely rank it above Atl, Philly and Miami as a place to reside/visit. Again, hard to see it overtaking Boston on this measure given the Harvard/MIT/MGH ecosystem.
I think that Philadelphia's educational and biomedical ecosystem gets underrated by many. There are almost as many college students studying here as there are in Boston, and while Boston has two top-rank research universities compared to one in Philadelphia, Philadelphia is home to three of the country's best liberal-arts colleges in its suburbs, many of whose graduates now stick around. (Boston has several of these too, but I'd say that only one of them sits on the same plane as Haverford, Bryn Mawr and Swarthmore.)
And while Boston dwarfs Philadelphia in terms of biomedical research funding, only one other city outranks Philadelphia in that regard: New York. The biomed sector accounts for a lot of this region's economic strength as well as the turn of employment fortunes and the growth of a real startup ecosystem in the city. The core city still hasn't recovered all the jobs it lost since 1970, though, while its other East Coast peers have - but job growth in the city has accelerated since the Great Reccession, during which it lost very few jobs.
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Cultural influence is relative to your social orbit. Miami is a major center or Caribbean/South American culture and Atlanta is a major center of African-American culture. Seattle is likely to have huge cultural cache among outdoorsy types, hippies, white liberals, tech nerds, and maybe Asian-Americans.
Good point. I don't think any city is going to dislodge Atlanta as the cultural capital of black America in the foreseeable future. I will, however, point out that Philadelphia does have a rich African-American cultural legacy that it continues to draw on: "TSOP" was to 1970s R&B what Motown was to the 1960s, and the "Philly sound" had one very distinct, and distinctly Philadelphian, element: lush string arrangements, often provided by Philadelphia Orchestra musicians who headed one block down Broad Street to record songs for Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff at Philadelphia International Records. (The building that housed its studios just got knocked down so that a 41-story condominium tower can rise on its site.)
There was more than a $50b gap between Seattle and Atlanta at the start of last decade if I recall correctly and Atlanta wasn’t “stagnant”. Unless disruption occurs, Seattle is only going up, and quickly.
I've tended to think of cities as being at or before their peak of cultural and economic influence.
I see Seattle as beginning to reach its apex around 2016 and growing faster economically than any other city maybe in the world. Because of that, this city is in no way prepared for the effects of that. There is a severe housing shortage, and no high capacity Metro system. I think Seattle is already nearing "peak Seattle" right now, although culturally speaking, it's peak may be well into the 2020s once it's status is more known.
I think of San Francisco as having reached "peak San Francisco" around the middle of this past decade, although culturally it's been at its peak since about 1970. As of 2018, with it's lack of space for people to live, and compounding social problems, I don't see this city as working it's way up the ladder anymore. It has reached its highest possible place in world importance and notoriety.
I think Boston began it's ascent to the world stage around the middle of the past decade, although it's always somewhat been world class because of its educational and medical presence. Since Boston is already much more well known around the world than Seattle, and it's facing the same problems, it will definitely reach its peak in the mid 2020s. It's also viewed as unique to other US cities to Europeans, who view this city as having more similarities with Europe than any other big US city.
I think Atlanta is a city that is already playing on its strengths as an entertainment and transportation hub. With large capacity Metro system and lost of room to expand, this city should be able to keep its cost of living manageable. Economically, it's already within the top 10 in the US which is very surprising since its city population is only 500,000. It's world reputation may not be super solid, but it's fairly well known for its diversity and it's status as the capital of the south in entertainment, education, culture, and transportation.
Chicago has always been near it's cultural and economic prime. I think the only things left for this city are to lower it's crime rate to be a little more comparable with New York City, and to use it's unique strengths to increase its reputation and appeal to foreign investment. I see all of this happening in the next few years or so. This country should be supporting Chicago the same way it supports and relies on New York and Los Angeles.
The future of Philadelphia is a bit more uncertain. I believe Philly is held back economically by a lack of foreign and domestic investment; and held back culturally by lack of reputation even on the domestic stage, and lack of recognition as a big urban city surpassed only by New York City and Chicago in most aspects. Philadelphia is not constrained like San Francisco, Seattle and Boston. It has many open areas for development and blighted areas that can be redeveloped. I think even with its problems, if this city can just become recognized throughout the world for what it is, it will grow and thrive as other cities have.
I voted No. Till the CSA hits 6M I will not group it with Houston, Philly, Boston, Atlanta or Dallas. Currently I group it with the 8 to 9 metro areas that have 3M to 5M in population.
Regarding cultural influences, I don't remember a single instance where someone bought up Seattle in a conversation. SF yes, LA yes but Seattle No. It punches above it's weight in the economy segment and that's that.
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