The two "dominant" cities in select states- which is the better one? (life, highest)
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LOL, pretty much. That's the reason why Austin has been getting hyped and ranked by outsiders as the best city in Texas for the past 10 years when it's not even HALF the city Houston and Dallas are (the REAL heavyweight cities in Texas), and honestly isn't even as culturally Texan or as tourist friendly of a city to visit as San Antonio is.
Sorry excuse to hate on Austin, especially when it is majority minority.
Hispanic - 33.9%
Black - 7.8%
Asian - 7.6%
Two or more races - 3.5%
White - 48.3%
I have hardly every seen anybody claim Austin is objectively better than Houston or Dallas. Those are huge cosmopolitan metros that are more than three times the size of Austin. There is no real comparison. However, more people prefer it to SA and in most metrics, it is more significant than SA, overall.
Hardly. Neither of these two cities dominate Virginia. Despite Richmond being the capital city and Norfolk being one of the largest ports on the East Coast, neither can compare to Northern Virginia, which is the real dominate "city" in the state.
Hardly. Neither of these two cities dominate Virginia. Despite Richmond being the capital city and Norfolk being one of the largest ports on the East Coast, neither can compare to Northern Virginia, which is the real dominate "city" in the state.
This isn't true. Nobody looks at Nova as a singuoar city, its pretty understood by Virginians that its a huge conglomeration of suburbs...
Richmond is clearly and obviously the most dominant city in Virginia, its Virginia's only alpha city, and close to no native Virginians, place Norfolk as its equal...
This isn't true. Nobody looks at Nova as a singuoar city, its pretty understood by Virginians that its a huge conglomeration of suburbs...
Richmond is clearly and obviously the most dominant city in Virginia, its Virginia's only alpha city, and close to no native Virginians, place Norfolk as its equal...
Northern Virginia is not a singular city, true enough. But it still dominates Virginia. You can't just pretend it's not there just because you'd rather give the nod to a different city. Richmond doesn't even come close. And Norfolk/Hampton Roads don't either. Fairfax/Tyson's/Arlington dominate Virginia as far as cities go. I know that drives CD purists crazy, but it's just the way the populations centers in this state developed.
Northern Virginia is not a singular city, true enough. But it still dominates Virginia. You can't just pretend it's not there just because you'd rather give the nod to a different city. Richmond doesn't even come close. And Norfolk/Hampton Roads don't either. Fairfax/Tyson's/Arlington dominate Virginia as far as cities go. I know that drives CD purists crazy, but it's just the way the populations centers in this state developed.
Bruh, this perceptive angle you're speaking from is your own...
•Northern Virginia "dominates" Virginia in the eyes of non-Virginians or transplanted Nova'ns. Nova isn't a major topic of conversation in any Virginia area outside of Nova...
•I've lived in all three major areas, Fairfax/Woodbridge, Richmond/Petersburg, and Virginia Beach/Norfolk. I'm not pretending anything---->the quintessential Virginia city is Richmond. You sound like a transplant (i know you lived in Fredericksburg before coming to The Beach last year, arent you originally from Colorado?)
•Fairfax/Tyson's/Arlington are indistinguishable hyper-suburbs in the mass of suburbia surrounding DC. To say they have "dominance" in Virginia is intentionally misleading, as neither carries a ton of name recognition. Example, when someone is going to Nova, they typically say "Nova". Tyson's is known for shopping and not much else so you may hear "Tyson's" specifically in that context but its rare because it isnt the only place to shop in Nova;
Arlington is known for military and government related matters as much as anything else and I've never heard anyone say they are going to "Arlington" just to go, besides living and hanging out in Northern Virginia---->no one outside Nova takes leisure trips to Arlington;
Fairfax is the city you mentioned that has the strongest name association but it, like Arlington, is in actuality a hyper-suburban county. Still, most people will say "Nova" before "Fairfax" unless specifically asked where in Nova they are going ..
These places hardly resonate in the larger Virginian's consciousness, to dominate anything. "Northern Virginia" means something, these other areas are just places in Northern Virginia, they aren't special. Insofar as Nova has a "dominant" city that resonates to Virginians outside Nova, its Alexandria...
•the major issue here is you are equating the most populated places with being the places of the highest esteem, which, while somewhat true for Nova in general, isnt really true for any specific location in Nova besides Alexandria, and generally most Virginians don't equate Nova as a "city" comparable to Richmond, Norfolk, Charlottesville, etc. Its not one if the more "dominant" cities in Virginia because it isnt a city abd nobody thinks of it in that way besides transplants and maybe delusional Novans...
Last edited by murksiderock; 03-06-2021 at 01:08 AM..
Florida doesn't belong here. Pennsylvania also kind of, but that one is more acceptable.
Maybe also Huntsville vs Birmingham, AL
A couple of other people pointed this out, but you left out not only the state's only port city, Mobile, but also its capital, Montgomery, which is the same size as Huntsville.
Quote:
Originally Posted by btownboss4
Cincinnati also has a lot of wasted influence on Kentucky. There is a good argument that Cleveland is Ohio’s primary city within Ohio. Even if you think it’s number two as a city
Quote:
Originally Posted by STLgasm
First of all, STL (and all Rust Belt cities) have been declining since 1950. In 1950, St. Louis had 857,000. Secondly, metropolitan area population is what matters in today's world (unless you think Jacksonville is a "bigger city" than Boston and San Francisco). Metro St. Louis has 2.8 million, metro KC has 2.1 million. That's a big difference. St. Louis has a much bigger economy and overall market size. So sorry, KC may be catching up, but there's no doubt STL is the dominant urban area of the state by a comfortable margin.
Also, lots of major cities don't have all major league sports teams, and many teams come and go with economic dynamics.
I boldfaced the first sentence of the first post above because the same applies to the Kansas City metropolitan area, except I wouldn't call KC's influence in Kansas "wasted."
Something else that makes St. Louis/Kansas City more like Philadelphia/Pittsburgh is this: Of all the bi-state metropolitan areas in the country, Kansas City is the most evenly split between its two states. Typically, in a bi-state metro, the state containing the core city also contains two-thirds or more of the metro population. Missourians make up only 55 percent of the metropolitan Kansas City population, and thanks in large part to the edge city of (southern) Overland Park, the GDP is probably more evenly matched than that. These things also diminish KC's influence in Missouri relative to St. Louis'.*
Kansas City, Mo., however, is Kansas' dominant city. (Kansas City, Kan., is the third-largest city in the metro area, with Overland Park #2.) John Guinther recognized as much all the way back in 1948, when he called the city "the capital of a state it's not even in" in his book Inside U.S.A.
*Though it didn't prevent the Missouri General Assembly from doing what it could to protect the economy of the Missouri side of the area during the disastrous "border war" years of the 2000s and 2010s, when Kansas under Gov. Sam Brownback pursued an ultimately self-destructive "job creation" strategy that in effect gave away the store to companies in Missouri that crossed State Line Road. Apparently, the governor failed to notice that the highways in the area make it very easy for Missourians to commute to Kansas jobs without having to move to the state, meaning Kansas and the cities on the Kansas side of the metro actually lost tax revenue as a result of the strategy. But I'm sure there was joy in Jefferson City when the voters of Kansas, weary of cratered state budgets (it got so bad that the Republican-dominated legislature actually overrode Brownback's veto of a tax hike it enacted), replaced Brownback's interim successor with a Democrat in the 2018 election.
Bruh, this perceptive angle you're speaking from is your own...
•Northern Virginia "dominates" Virginia in the eyes of non-Virginians or transplanted Nova'ns. Nova isn't a major topic of conversation in any Virginia area outside of Nova...
•I've lived in all three major areas, Fairfax/Woodbridge, Richmond/Petersburg, and Virginia Beach/Norfolk. I'm not pretending anything---->the quintessential Virginia city is Richmond. You sound like a transplant (i know you lived in Fredericksburg before coming to The Beach last year, arent you originally from Colorado?)
•Fairfax/Tyson's/Arlington are indistinguishable hyper-suburbs in the mass of suburbia surrounding DC. To say they have "dominance" in Virginia is intentionally misleading, as neither carries a ton of name recognition. Example, when someone is going to Nova, they typically say "Nova". Tyson's is known for shopping and not much else so you may hear "Tyson's" specifically in that context but its rare because it isnt the only place to shop in Nova;
Arlington is known for military and government related matters as much as anything else and I've never heard anyone say they are going to "Arlington" just to go, besides living and hanging out in Northern Virginia---->no one outside Nova takes leisure trips to Arlington;
Fairfax is the city you mentioned that has the strongest name association but it, like Arlington, is in actuality a hyper-suburban county. Still, most people will say "Nova" before "Fairfax" unless specifically asked where in Nova they are going ..
These places hardly resonate in the larger Virginian's consciousness, to dominate anything. "Northern Virginia" means something, these other areas are just places in Northern Virginia, they aren't special. Insofar as Nova has a "dominant" city that resonates to Virginians outside Nova, its Alexandria...
•the major issue here is you are equating the most populated places with being the places of the highest esteem, which, while somewhat true for Nova in general, isnt really true for any specific location in Nova besides Alexandria, and generally most Virginians don't equate Nova as a "city" comparable to Richmond, Norfolk, Charlottesville, etc. Its not one if the more "dominant" cities in Virginia because it isnt a city abd nobody thinks of it in that way besides transplants and maybe delusional Novans...
That's partially my point. I'm not talking about any one area in NovA I'm talking about NOVA. It doesn't matter that it isn't one city or that it's actually mostly suburban sprawl from DC, my point is that Northern Virginia is the most dominant populated area in the state. Outside of CD (read: out in the real world) nobody cares that Fairfax is a hyper-suburb. Or nearby Arlington, a county of about 240,000 and isn't even an incorporated city but if it was it would be as large as Norfolk and Richmond. But nobody cares that it's not actually a city, it is simply one of the more developed urban areas in the entire state. Moreso than Richmond or Norfolk.
And you're right (I'll give you a lot of props for remembering so much about me, that's actually really impressive) I'm from Colorado. In Colorado you have Denver and that's about it as far as big cities go. It's going to be the first CITY you think of when someone mentions Colorado. I'm not convinced anyone outside of Virginia thinks of Richmond or Norfolk first when they think of Virginia Cities. NoVa steals the show. NoVA decides all the elections here. NoVA has the states two largest airports. I'm not looking up economic data but I'd be willing to guess NoVa's economy is larger than either Richmond or Norfolk (and that's saying a lot because the shipping industry in Hampton Roads is huge).
I also don't think this is an outsider perspective. I know plenty of lifelong Virginia residents who feel the same way. I think Richmond/Norfolk will get props on CD because they are more traditionally/historically urban. Places like that are valued more here, but the large segment of population that doesn't check in on CD forums probably doesn't care or even notice. Northern Virginia, despite not being an actual city, is a much more dominant and influential national-level city. You can't pretend it's not there. It is by far the largest and most influential population center in Virginia.
As for "highest esteem" that isn't the topic. The topic is most dominant.
Bruh, this perceptive angle you're speaking from is your own...
•Northern Virginia "dominates" Virginia in the eyes of non-Virginians or transplanted Nova'ns. Nova isn't a major topic of conversation in any Virginia area outside of Nova...
•I've lived in all three major areas, Fairfax/Woodbridge, Richmond/Petersburg, and Virginia Beach/Norfolk. I'm not pretending anything---->the quintessential Virginia city is Richmond. You sound like a transplant (i know you lived in Fredericksburg before coming to The Beach last year, arent you originally from Colorado?)
•Fairfax/Tyson's/Arlington are indistinguishable hyper-suburbs in the mass of suburbia surrounding DC. To say they have "dominance" in Virginia is intentionally misleading, as neither carries a ton of name recognition. Example, when someone is going to Nova, they typically say "Nova". Tyson's is known for shopping and not much else so you may hear "Tyson's" specifically in that context but its rare because it isnt the only place to shop in Nova;
Arlington is known for military and government related matters as much as anything else and I've never heard anyone say they are going to "Arlington" just to go, besides living and hanging out in Northern Virginia---->no one outside Nova takes leisure trips to Arlington;
Fairfax is the city you mentioned that has the strongest name association but it, like Arlington, is in actuality a hyper-suburban county. Still, most people will say "Nova" before "Fairfax" unless specifically asked where in Nova they are going ..
These places hardly resonate in the larger Virginian's consciousness, to dominate anything. "Northern Virginia" means something, these other areas are just places in Northern Virginia, they aren't special. Insofar as Nova has a "dominant" city that resonates to Virginians outside Nova, its Alexandria...
•the major issue here is you are equating the most populated places with being the places of the highest esteem, which, while somewhat true for Nova in general, isnt really true for any specific location in Nova besides Alexandria, and generally most Virginians don't equate Nova as a "city" comparable to Richmond, Norfolk, Charlottesville, etc. Its not one if the more "dominant" cities in Virginia because it isnt a city abd nobody thinks of it in that way besides transplants and maybe delusional Novans...
I have a different take on this. It seems like when the rest of a state's population likes to dismiss another portion of their state as completely alien, then that's a good clue that that area is the dominant area of the state, because it's so economically different. For example, I know some Alaskans joke that a benefit of Anchorage is that it's close to Alaska, suggesting they don't really see that city as being part of the "real" Alaska. Vermonters say a similar thing about Burlington. Some New Yorkers see NYC like that. People in Western Massachusetts often view the Boston area as alien. But, Anchorage, Burlington, NYC, and Boston are by far the dominant areas of their state. So, maybe if the rest of Virginia views NOVA as being that alien from the rest of Virginia, then that might be a clue that NOVA is actually the dominant area of the state, unlike any other.
I have a different take on this. It seems like when the rest of a state's population likes to dismiss another portion of their state as completely alien, then that's a good clue that that area is the dominant area of the state, because it's so economically different. For example, I know some Alaskans joke that a benefit of Anchorage is that it's close to Alaska, suggesting they don't really see that city as being part of the "real" Alaska. Vermonters say a similar thing about Burlington. Some New Yorkers see NYC like that. People in Western Massachusetts often view the Boston area as alien. But, Anchorage, Burlington, NYC, and Boston are by far the dominant areas of their state. So, maybe if the rest of Virginia views NOVA as being that alien from the rest of Virginia, then that might be a clue that NOVA is actually the dominant area of the state, unlike any other.
The difference is NOVA is alien because it’s economic and cultural center isn’t in. VA. It’s basically DC residents who happen to Live in Virginia
That’s not the same as Chicago which is in Illinois. Or Upstate/Downstarw regions of NY which are centered on New York.
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