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This thread had so much potential. It's a shame that everybody automatically started naming the same 5-7 cities that get discussed all the time.
They're talking about them for good reason.
I picked:
Los Angeles
New York
New Orleans
Miami
San Francisco
I'd also consider Savannah, Charleston, Santa Fe, Portland OR, or Nashville too. But really, it makes sense that it's only a small group of cities that are being mentioned.
I am surprised more people haven't mentioned Las Vegas. I have only ever really adventured around the commerical parts, but it definitely has it's own 'character'.
I am surprised more people haven't mentioned Las Vegas. I have only ever really adventured around the commerical parts, but it definitely has it's own 'character'.
I agree to a certain extent. But that character feels a little more created from tourists rather than locals. By that I mean, I don't feel like its the locals that give it that flavor.
For example, Miami, has that Latin flavor because of the people that live there, the types of businesses it has and the tropical vibes. New Oreans has that unique cajun/creole culture.
To me Las Vegas is like Cancun, the flavor really isn't about it being local it's about just partying when people think of the place (+casinos in Vegas' case). If Miami were only Miami Beach and nothing else, I would lump it with Las Vegas. But because Miami has places like Little Havana, Little Haiti, and such a Latin flavor to the city for all over Latin America, it's different. It's the only place (aside from Toronto) where I hear Brazilian Portuguese being spoke every day by someone. It's the only big city that in pretty much if you only know Spanish you will get by better than if you only know English. You don't get that experience anywhere else in the US on that scale.
Creed was directed by Ryan Coogler. Another director may have instead focused on a few blocks in South Philadelphia.
Showing Boston as a working-class city would be accurate. What's inaccurate is showing it as a white working-class city.
One of the interesting things about "Creed" is that tourists now pop up at the intersection of Broad Street, Erie and Germantown avenues to visit Max's Steaks, which was to that movie what the two places across from each other at 9th Street and East Passyunk Avenue were to the original "Rocky."
I know locals who still warn people away from that intersection. It's North Philly's busiest - a major transfer point between eight SEPTA bus routes and the Broad Street Line, and it looks more city-ish than "Cheesesteak Corner" thanks especially to an abandoned 14-story office tower built in 1926 right in its middle. (It's going to be rebuilt by a "social impact" developer who's negotiating right now with a local hotel operator who wants to turn it into a Marriott hotel. A Marriott hotel in North Philly's heart! Unthinkable as recently as last year.) Temple University Hospital is just two blocks south of this intersection to boot. I pass through it, and not just under it, often enough.
Philly still certainly retains much of its working-class/blue-collar character to this day relative to Boston, but it too hasn't been immune to changing racial/socioeconomic demographics resulting from gentrification or broader American racial shifts (i.e., the much faster population growth of Hispanics and Asians).
The city also has an underrated solid and growing middle-class (one of the few large, urban cities that can claim such these days) and has always had an upper-class niche that's essentially completely ignored/invisible in modern pop. culture depictions of the city.
Has been since the Philadelphia Story years with Katherine Hepburn, unfortunately.
Has been since the Philadelphia Story years with Katherine Hepburn, unfortunately.
We can relate here. Everything here seems to be a 70s/80s/90s portrayal of the mob or mafia and revolve highly around a blue collar grittiness that really doesn't exist anymore.
On another note, I think Vegas is an interesting one to debate. On one hand, there's nothing else like The Strip in the U.S. So it's definitely unique from that standpoint. On the other hand, everything that makes it so unique is also sort of manufactured/fake. Like an adult Disney. It seems disconnected from the rest of the city and entirely geared at tourists. Nothing about it feels like it's an authentic part of the city's culture and locals' regular lives in the same way that, for example, a parade in New Orleans or a Halal cart in NYC does. So I'd lean towards not including Vegas.
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