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St. Louis may be right behind Charlotte in terms of GDP, but it's ahead of Charlotte in a number of other areas including cultural, historical, name recognition, post-secondary institutions, and possibly political influence.
I'm thinking San Jose should be in the #15 spot.
Yeah, Charlotte recently passed St. Louis in gdp, but St. Louis is ahead on most other criteria, like the ones you mentioned plus other big ones like population, St. Louis is still way ahead. OP, how is your criteria weighted? How is St. Louis behind Charlotte in your opininion? Trying to get an idea since some of your list is a bit inconsistent. For example, Las Vegas is way too high and is hurting the credibility of your list.
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Guys thanks for your responses. The entire list is subjective. Yeah Las Vegas seems way too high at #21 but it gets tremendous boost for its marketing/tourism/pop culture references, despite having weaker metrics/substance than St. Louis, Portland, Tampa, Austin, and even slightly less than Kansas City and Pittsburgh.
I think West Palm Beach at #40 is too high. I’m gonna bump it down a few spots.
mhays25 thanks for the insight. Why didn’t Bremerton get more developed is my question with its proximity to SEA? My guess is geography/ distance. Even as a city nerd, I’m not as familiar with the smaller west coast metros, especially PNW. Bremerton and Bellingham were two cities I had no idea even existed until recently doing all this research on this list. Granted I’ve lived in PA my whole life and never visited PNW.
Let me think some more about Las Vegas’ ranking. It’s a difficult one to rank tbh. Ugh.
How to make an easy, uncontested influential city list that nobody will argue (some troll might)
#1 NYC
...
The end. Lol.
Appreciate everyone’s input thus far. Keep up the great comments and suggestions!
Bremerton is historically a one-hour ferry ride to Seattle. Those are car ferries. Recently a faster passenger-only ferry line has been added, so now you can do it in 28 minutes. Past attempts were cancelled because they caused waves in the narrow passages that are half of the trip. The current version seems to avoid much of the wave issue. But even that is a long commute unless you work within walking distance on the Seattle side.
By contrast, Bainbridge Island is 30 minutes from Seattle on a car ferry, and has always been more popular with commuters. It's in Kitsap County also, and not far from Bremerton as the crow flies, but the two aren't connected by ferry and driving requires going a lot way out of the way.
Bremerton is also a blue-collar area, and that didn't attract office workers, i.e. the people near the Seattle terminal. Even with car ferries, most people walk on, and the various ferries are limited in size so cars don't always make it on and car commuters need to show up really early to be sure of making it to work on time. You don't want to show up in Downtown Seattle by car anyway.
The Navy has always been huge. Bremerton is one of the three major repair/maintenance shipyards on the Pacific along with San Diego and Pearl Harbor. Also it shares some home base duties for the carrier group based in Everett accross the sound. North of town in Bangor is the Trident submarine base.
Downtown Bremerton used to be a dump. It's been improving a lot lately, and turning the area into a more viable commute base as well as gaining some offices. Some condos, hotels, and restaurants have gone up next to the ferry terminal. The traffic jam of cars off-loading from ferries is now out of the way due to a short tunnel that avoids Downtown. The Navy is more of a tourist attraction including a museum and the tourable Turner Joy frigate. There's a nice boardwalk and marina alongside all that.
As for Bellingham...Western Washington University is a big influence. So are malls selling crap to Vancouverites when the borders are open. There's a significant agricultural area. The Alaska Ferry System terminates there as well, making it a common connection to the main world. Forestry is still a big deal.
Yeah, Charlotte recently passed St. Louis in gdp, but St. Louis is ahead on most other criteria, like the ones you mentioned plus other big ones like population, St. Louis is still way ahead. OP, how is your criteria weighted? How is St. Louis behind Charlotte in your opininion? Trying to get an idea since some of your list is a bit inconsistent. For example, Las Vegas is way too high and is hurting the credibility of your list.
Uhm Charlotte is ahead in poltical influence being the epicenter of two different states. Not to mention cultural institutions are really close. St. Louis does have the edge in historically being a bigger city earlier.Metro St. Louis has a population of 2.2 million while charlotte has a metro population of 2.8 million. Their big city amenities are close however Charlotte is gaining faster at this point. St. Louis is a legacy city however Charlotte is the NOW. St. Louis is a fine city and I like it however while Charlotte is moving forward, St. Louis is moving backwards....
First of all. Great post. You put a ton of work into this.
But I guess I also wonder why Charlotte is so high on your list if this is based off urban area? Charlotte's urban area is estimated to be about 1,526,465 million in an area of 741 square miles (2,060 per square mile) and goes about 70 miles N/S from Monroe, N.C., to Statesville, N.C.
If you include Rock Hill, Gastonia and Concord, which are connected, it gets it to 2,064,739 million over 1,156 square miles (1,786 per square mile).
Cleveland's urban area, for example, is at 1,742,437 over 733 square miles (2,251 per square mile). So, it's almost exactly the same size land wise as the singular Charlotte urban area and still has more than 215,000 more people. Cleveland also has connected urban areas ... Lorain/Elyria, which you combined with Cleveland, though for urban area purposes, I see why Lorain-Elyria is split. Both are adjacent industrial cities that collectively peaked in population of 131,000 in 1970 (Charlotte city in 1970 was 241,000). Even today, Lorain-Elyria combined have a population of 118,000.
What I'm getting at, is what metrics are you using (based off urban area), where Charlotte is No. 19 at 1.5 million and Cleveland is No. 29 at 1.7 million. Actually, since you already included Lorain-Elyria in with Cleveland, "Cleveland" is over 1.9 million. Charlotte only passes that if you combine its urban area with the connected Rock Hill, Gastonia and Concord urban areas. ... And Canton to Cleveland is 60 miles, so just as close as far reaches of just the Charlotte urban area.
If that's the case, why combine all those with Charlotte and only combine Elyria-Lorain with Cleveland, when the Akron and Canton urban areas are also connected (and like Lorain-Elyria, Akron and Canton, initially grew separate from Cleveland; just like Rock Hill, Gastonia and Concord initially grew separate from Charlotte)?
As mentioned above, Charlotte, with Rock Hill, Gastonia and Concord is just over 2 million in 1,156 square miles.
Cleveland, with Lorain-Elyria, Akron and Canton is over 2.7 million in 1,365 square miles. Land wise, not much different and combined it still has a similar population density in 1,365 square miles (2,030) as the singular Charlotte urban area does (2,060 per square mile) over 741.
Plus, at ground level (and I'm just using Elyria-Lorain, Cleveland, Akron, Canton), it's essentially one sprawled singular area at this point with urban nodes. I mean the Cleveland urban area includes part of Lorain County (which is all in the MSA), but doesn't include Elyria-Lorain. It also includes the northern third of Summit County, which is the Akron MSA and includes the far northeast part of Portage County (again Akron MSA). The Akron urban area includes most of the other 2/3 of Summit County, but then includes the east Central portion of Portage County, then includes the far southeast portion of Medina County (Cleveland MSA), northern portions of Stark County (Canton MSA) and then portions of Wayne County (non-metro, but in the Cleveland-Akron-Canton CSA). The Canton urban area is almost entirely confined to Stark County, but includes a portion of the city of New Franklin, which is in Summit County (Akron MSA). New Franklin city limits are actually split between two urban areas ... I think that is also the case for a tiny portion of the city of Cuyahoga Falls (99 percent in the Akron urban area, but I believe a small portion is technically in the Cleveland urban area).
Yeah, tough to figure out what's what. It gets even tougher when you look at local high schools and who they compete against in conference play. You got leagues that are half "Cleveland schools" and half "Akron schools"; then you have leagues that are a mix between "Akron schools" and "Canton schools" and then "Cleveland schools" regularly play "Canton schools" as well. Plus, Cleveland-Akron-Canton is one media market, so news wise, especially TV, it's all one as well. I know Cleveland-Akron-Canton is not alone there, though.
I'm not knocking your work, because I know regardless of metric, there is nothing perfect. I'm just saying, if this is strictly just urban area, not sure why Charlotte is as high as you have it.
Personally, urban area is better than MSA when comparing, but still leaves a lot of room for debate ... though once you get outside the top 15 or so areas, it's splitting hairs from about 16-25 and then from 26-35 (which 35 to 15 is closer than 15 to 10) so not that big of a deal.
Last edited by ClevelandBrown; 04-18-2021 at 10:58 PM..
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According to Demographia Cleveland's urban area is actually 2.7 million. Though Demographia gets out of control with things (Boston and Providence -43.3 miles- are one urban area? Uh, no.) I guess the issue is Akron at 700k and Canton at 200ish k take off about a million from a would-be Cleveland urban area. Charlotte has insane upward momentum while Cleveland does not, probably would be considered more stable/mature. No offense to that, my area Harrisburg /Lancaster and much of eastern PA has slow upward or stable momentum, while Pittsburgh and some of western PA has stable or even negative momentum (i.e. Johnstown, PA).
Anyway for marketing purposes Charlotte is the king of its state and even spills into another state with great influence, while Cleveland dukes it out closely with Cincy and Cbus. Though I have always, always felt CLE comes out ahead as the #1.
Idk Charlotte seems where it should be, it has a huge airport, growth pattern similar to Atlanta, it reigns supreme over its state, it has Bank of America and Lowes.
Your argument I agree is much more specific.
Walking distance
Gastonia to Charlotte is 20.9 miles
Concord to Charlotte is 25.4 miles
Rock Hill to Charlotte is 25.9 miles
Cleveland to Elyria is 24.7 miles (included)
Cleveland to Akron is 34.3 miles (gray area but I think this is a slight ever a slight bit too far)
Cleveland to Canton is 55.9 miles (WAY too far)
Keep in mind these are core-to-core distances. You could leave the urban Cleveland city limits and reach the less urban Akron city limits in a shorter distance.
I guess it's also geography, Charlotte can sprawl and grab other areas in all directions from its core, like Atlanta does. Whereas Cleveland is all jammed-up against Lake Erie and therefore can't sprawl northward at all.
Akron proper (which I hate city proper) has like almost 200k population, nice skyline/core, and so that also strengthens some case for Akron being separated (distance too) with its ow identity. Tbf If Akron was maybe just 5 miles closer it would probably make the cut included with CLE. Idk it's definitely a gray area here. Cleveland would have to stretch really hard to pull it in.
I'm most likely not gonna combine Akron with Cleveland but if I did Cleveland would probably be right next to or above Charlotte probably #19 or so. If I did, a lot of people would freak and be up in arms about it. So, I'm gonna go with my gut here.
I do think Cleveland and Charlotte have about the same overall name recognition.I
Well you've given me some food for thought. Should Charlotte and Cleveland be so far apart on the list #20 and #29? Probably not.
Dare I say it, I wonder if perhaps Cleveland should be above Pittsburgh on my list for #28? Idk they definitely are close... Seems like #27-#30 are practically a dead heat 4-way tie.
Yeah, Charlotte is growing faster but St. Louis is still the bigger metro area, and a lot bigger than you seem to think it is.
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