Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Well, Milwaukee has NBA and MLB, so I would guess that Milwaukee is (and really) is, the dominant city.
If we're counting sporting experiences, then Camp Randall holds over 80,000 screaming Big Ten fans, and there's only a 54 person difference in capacity between the home of the Bucks and the home of Badger basketball. One could argue that Madison is then dominant.
If we're counting sporting experiences, then Camp Randall holds over 80,000 screaming Big Ten fans, and there's only a 54 person difference in capacity between the home of the Bucks and the home of Badger basketball. One could argue that Madison is then dominant.
Three words: MLB.
I don’t know that Wisconsin qualifies as having two dominant cities. but Milwaukee would still win quite comfortably.
Whoever thinks Kansas City is the dominant city in Missouri is either a KC homer or hasn’t actually been to one or both cities. St. Louis has a ton of KC transplants and visitors, and while most love their hometown, I have yet to meet one who doesn’t concede that St Louis is the real metropolis. There’s really no debate. St. Louis is an urban behemoth compared to KC. Kansas City is cool and young and definitely has less baggage than STL, but in terms of market size, urban character, cultural/higher educational institutions, parks, suburbs, tourism, historical significance, etc St Louis is clearly ahead, and it’s not really close. In addition, St. Louis has a much greater Jewish and Italian influence, which definitely contributes to the urban flair of the city.
I'm not sure I'd consider a metro population difference of 700k a "behemoth compared to" one. (To put this in comparative perspective, Greater Philadephia has about twice Greater Pittsburgh's population, and the Philadelphia: Pittsburgh core-city population ratio is about 4.5:1.)
I'm also not sure I'd cede the parks crown to St. Louis either. The city doesn't have the green lattice that is Kansas City's beloved network of boulevards, Forest Park may be more centrally located than Swope Park but is smaller in size, and Cliff Drive in North Terrace Park (now Kessler Park, named in honor of the man who created KC's park and boulevard system), which hugs the south edge of the bluff overlooking the Missouri River floodplain on (original built-up) KC's northeast side, is the only scenic byway in the state of Missouri located in an urban area.
It is true, however, that St. Louis is more densely built and developed than Kansas City. This is also true: Kansas City city has more inhabitants than St. Louis city today only because the former could annex a few hundred square miles of corn and soybeans during a period that began in 1944 with the annexation of a small suburb on the city's southern border and ended in the early 1980s. Were Kansas City restricted to its pre-1944 city limits, its population IME would be about 250,000 now, because a good chunk of the city's overwhelmingly Black east side, including much of the area around the 18th and Vine Jazz District, the old black "downtown," has emptied out much like St. Louis' north side has. I'd also say that Kansas City doesn't have a match for the Grand Center district (I called it Mid-City once and was told that's not its name; I'm referring to the area that includes the Fox Theater and St. Louis University, the oldest institution of higher education west of the Mississippi), though it's also my impression that St. Louis doesn't have an entertainment district that attracts the crowds Westport does on the weekends (or did when I last traveled Back Home in 2018). Maybe Delmar Loop, but it's in University City, and I still think that even it gets a little less intense use on weekends than Westport does.
Funny you should mention the Jewish and Italian influence in St. Louis, for those two ethnic groups also helped shape Kansas City's civic life and culture; I read tales of the Kansas City mob in The Star growing up, and the Northeast side was heavily Italian at the time. (It's probably less so now.) The East Side neighborhood of Oak Park, where I grew up, was heavily Jewish when my parents became one of its first Black residents in 1954. (All the whites had moved out by the time I finished kindergarten 10 years later.) KC also has a non-trivial Hispanic population, though about half of it lives in Kansas City, Kan., in the neighborhood known as Argentine, next to the huge Santa Fe railroad yards (many of those Hispanics came up from Mexico to work there). So while I will allow that the city's Irish-American community, which gave us Alderman Jim Pendergast and his son Boss Tom, probably had a greater influence in KC than either the Jews or Italians did, I'm not certain that their influence was "much greater" in St. L, whose cultural values IMO remain heavily influenced by the Germans who made it a center of beer brewing, than in KC, which lacks that German influence completely.
I too acknowledge that St. Louis is Missouri's dominant metropolis for a number of reasons, some of which I already described upthread. But I wouldn't overstate the difference between the two cities or their metros — which in Kansas City's case lies half in another state — either.
DC is though, and you alluded to it being Maryland's most dominant city. According to your own logic, it's impossible for me to be on the outside looking in if I'm a DC/DMV resident.
You're on the inside looking out then. Bottom line: Baltimore isn't Maryland's dominant city.
You're on the inside looking out then. Bottom line: Baltimore isn't Maryland's dominant city.
I don't think that's at all either clear or definite; it's more that Washington's Maryland suburbs and Baltimore vie for dominance — and one of those is a population center, not a city (recall the argument over Northern Virginia).
Of the five most recent Governors of Maryland, two, including the current Governor's predecessor, have been Mayors of Baltimore, and a third represented a Congressional district that stretches across Baltimore's southern and eastern suburbs and includes a little bit of Baltimore City itself.
The current Governor and the one two before him both hail from Prince George's County. The current Governor's father was the county executive, and so was the PG-resident Governor before him.
Washington is not part of Maryland, period, and thus can exert no influence over Maryland affairs. No other city in the state has as much clout as Baltimore does, and that succession of governors says to me that the Maryland 'burbs of DC have not established clear dominance over Baltimore either.
I don't think that's at all either clear or definite; it's more that Washington's Maryland suburbs and Baltimore vie for dominance — and one of those is a population center, not a city (recall the argument over Northern Virginia).
Of the five most recent Governors of Maryland, two, including the current Governor's predecessor, have been Mayors of Baltimore, and a third represented a Congressional district that stretches across Baltimore's southern and eastern suburbs and includes a little bit of Baltimore City itself.
The current Governor and the one two before him both hail from Prince George's County. The current Governor's father was the county executive, and so was the PG-resident Governor before him.
Washington is not part of Maryland, period, and thus can exert no influence over Maryland affairs. No other city in the state has as much clout as Baltimore does, and that succession of governors says to me that the Maryland 'burbs of DC have not established clear dominance over Baltimore either.
I guess all those Maryland suburbs of DC just sort of sprung up completely independent of any larger, central city...
I don't think that's at all either clear or definite; it's more that Washington's Maryland suburbs and Baltimore vie for dominance — and one of those is a population center, not a city (recall the argument over Northern Virginia).
Of the five most recent Governors of Maryland, two, including the current Governor's predecessor, have been Mayors of Baltimore, and a third represented a Congressional district that stretches across Baltimore's southern and eastern suburbs and includes a little bit of Baltimore City itself.
The current Governor and the one two before him both hail from Prince George's County. The current Governor's father was the county executive, and so was the PG-resident Governor before him.
Washington is not part of Maryland, period, and thus can exert no influence over Maryland affairs. No other city in the state has as much clout as Baltimore does, and that succession of governors says to me that the Maryland 'burbs of DC have not established clear dominance over Baltimore either.
That all sounds good on paper, but at the end of the day, DC, and its MD suburbs dominate the state.
Just for context, Baltimore’s MSA has 2.8 million people. DC’s Maryland counties are 2.5 million. This isn’t quite the Virginia situation. Not yet at least.
That all sounds good on paper, but at the end of the day, DC, and its MD suburbs dominate the state.
"on paper"?
I think Maryland Governors are flesh-and-blood creatures.
And the population figures just posted above this post suggest that the two regions are evenly matched population-wise, which makes assertions of dominance problematic.
"on paper"?
I think Maryland Governors are flesh-and-blood creatures.
And the population figures just posted above this post suggest that the two regions are evenly matched population-wise, which makes assertions of dominance problematic.
We currently have a DC oriented governor, who focuses on improving the infrastructure of the DC suburbs. The current governor's primary focus is the MD suburbs of DC; I don't even think Baltimore is a tertiary focus... septenary maybe.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
