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.
There's no credit for airline connections, headquarters, cultural influence, or a million other things. It's not even very good for "connectivity" which is its target.
Some people use it properly, i.e. as a data point among many. Mostly it's used for clickbait and bragging by people who haven't looked into it. (Caveat: I'm basing this on looking in the past, not now, so not totally following my own advice!)
Great another list of comparing MSA/CSA attributes that more or less cancel each other out.
Yet nothing to explain what happens in the city of San Francisco on a daily basis that's more relevant or important to the nation's daily survival or progress, other than the locals foreign born percentage, and how many new residents are in Chinatown lmao.
Oh, everything youve said has been addressed properly. It's hilarious that you thought 'think tanks' were some sort of smoking gun, that the World Bank was bigger than Wells Fargo(it's not), that a city that hatched some of the biggest names in the corporate world, that led countless cultural, political and economic shifts, would somehow be intimidated by DC? As IF.
DC proper, the seat of the US govt, has a smaller GDP than San Francisco, is far less cosmpolitan and international than San Francisco, is a far smaller international gateway than San Francisco.
SF has repeatedly exerted itself on Washington DC time and time again, leading entire movements and reshaping the national discourse more than one time.
DC is the seat of government, but SF has proven itself time and time again to be a far more relevant agent of change.
There's no credit for airline connections, headquarters, cultural influence, or a million other things. It's not even very good for "connectivity" which is its target.
Some people use it properly, i.e. as a data point among many. Mostly it's used for clickbait and bragging by people who haven't looked into it. (Caveat: I'm basing this on looking in the past, not now, so not totally following my own advice!)
Agreed, which is why I specifically said this is office locations, which is something resident09 brought into the conversation by talking about representation in cities by companies and diplomatic missions.
So the ranking is true for what it is, even if the name of the ranking itself is highly flawed.
Oh, everything youve said has been addressed properly. It's hilarious that you thought 'think tanks' were some sort of smoking gun, that the World Bank was bigger than Wells Fargo(it's not), that a city that hatched some of the biggest names in the corporate world, that led countless cultural, political and economic shifts, would somehow be intimidated by DC? As IF.
DC proper, the seat of the US govt, has a smaller GDP than San Francisco, is far less cosmpolitan and international than San Francisco, is a far smaller international gateway than San Francisco.
SF has repeatedly exerted itself on Washington DC time and time again, leading entire movements and reshaping the national discourse more than one time.
DC is the seat of government, but SF has proven itself time and time again to be a far more relevant agent of change.
Anything else?
I think you are talking about San Jose and the valley, not San Francisco.
There's no credit for airline connections, headquarters, cultural influence, or a million other things. It's not even very good for "connectivity" which is its target.
Some people use it properly, i.e. as a data point among many. Mostly it's used for clickbait and bragging by people who haven't looked into it. (Caveat: I'm basing this on looking in the past, not now, so not totally following my own advice!)
Sure it’s not perfect but I think it’s generally correct. Really the “issue†with these rankings is there isn’t much daylight between 5-12. Boston, DC, Miami, Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, Seattle, Philly you can place in almost any order based of tweaks of criteria. Maybe DC and Boston are more like 5-9 and Seattle, Philly and Atlanta are more 8-12 but basically the variation between the lists below SF is reflective of reality. There is just a big clump of cities that are pretty similar.
The last 10 pages I've been asking people to simply point out. Within these cities themselves. Not the metro, or CSA. What institutions or things about the city makes them top 3,4,5 or whatever. I've laid out multiple points for DC, and have heard nothing but CSA topics for San Francisco. I digress.
Why though? The OP lists Silicon Valley with the blurb about SF and Silicon Valley is in both the SF and SJ MSAs. It also lists Miami as a contender whose actual municipal boundaries are tiny.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MarketStEl
I didn't pick up that you were referring specifically to a true S-Bahn/RER operation. I thought you were speaking just of operating two-way, all-day balanced service, something only a handful of US regional rail systems have.
Level boarding is IMO a must in order to enable SEPTA Regional Rail to operate at true transit-style frequencies the way the systems in Berlin, Paris and Sydney operate. Grade separation isn't as much of a must; consider that one New York City subway line operated with grade crossings at its outer end until the 1960s and one line in Chicago still does so today.
That is what I was referring to, so glad I clarified. SEPTA Regional Rail is the closest to this the US has unless we consider BART, or to a lesser extent, Washington Metro to be such. There is a kind of gradient for these heavy rail systems.
Grade separation isn't a must in terms of specific individual grade crossings as you've mentioned the Brown Line in Chicago does still have grade crossings. You need to have very few of them though and also only in the less frequented parts of the system and in relatively less busy areas as they would otherwise make the RER/S-Bahn system so ineffective that they would not qualify as such. The Brown Line gets away from it by having very few of them that are near the tail end where frequency of service is not interlined so frequency isn't super high and at grade crossings that are relatively little-trafficked.
I do think SEPTA Regional Rail has by far the lowest barrier to entry to become this out of all commuter rail networks and it'll be exciting if SEPTA goes full in on this. I also think that the relatively new FRA reforms for lighter rolling stock and advancement in battery-electric locomotives and EMUs also open up the exciting possibility of quickly re-expanding out Regional Rail service to places that previously had such. The batteries are much cheaper and more energy dense than ever and selective electrification for expanded rail service beyond the current Regional Rail service on existing ROWs can probably get away with limited electrification of just the track in and around new/revived stations since those are also places where electrical grid access is probably pretty easy to extend and maintain. Write about it! Get the public to go crazy for BEMUs! I can share notes and thoughts with you on the technical aspects and why these are great!
Quote:
Originally Posted by 18Montclair
Nope, DC is the 4th biggest CSA by population and should be 4th in GDP across the board, but it's not, because as impressive as DCs gluttonous tax money spending is, it's still smaller than the 5th largest CSAs GDP.
Yes, INDUSTRY, not taxpayer money funded economic activity. Please don't liken the two as if theyre the same.
DC is Canberra, USA
MarketStEl has a pretty solid rebuttal to that, and again, Canberra's GDP and number of major corporations headquartered in it are substantially lower than those of other cities. This is not the case with DC today as stated below in case you missed it:
Quote:
Originally Posted by MarketStEl
My own $.02 on the ongoing tug-of-war on the significance of the Federal government to Washington's status:
Many people here have pointed to the other national capitals by design (Canberra, Brasilia...) or by selection (Ottawa) as being analogous to Washington.
Never mind where the Washington economy would be if we removed the government from it. The difference between Washington and all those other capitals is that a substantial private-sector economy that does not depend on the government's presence developed on top of the government-based one. That economy was next to nonexistent in the Washington of 1950. It's a major part of the Washington of 2022.
---
Quote:
Originally Posted by 18Montclair
Oh, everything youve said has been addressed properly. It's hilarious that you thought 'think tanks' were some sort of smoking gun, that the World Bank was bigger than Wells Fargo(it's not), that a city that hatched some of the biggest names in the corporate world, that led countless cultural, political and economic shifts, would somehow be intimidated by DC? As IF.
DC proper, the seat of the US govt, has a smaller GDP than San Francisco, is far less cosmpolitan and international than San Francisco, is a far smaller international gateway than San Francisco.
SF has repeatedly exerted itself on Washington DC time and time again, leading entire movements and reshaping the national discourse more than one time.
DC is the seat of government, but SF has proven itself time and time again to be a far more relevant agent of change.
Anything else?
DC proper does have a smaller GDP than SF proper, but it's not like it's an order of magnitude difference. Regardless, it does not make sense to talk about city proper as the original post says multiple things that point to this not being about city proper. DC being the seat of government does exert quite a lot of influence, and I don't see how that's arguable. Multinational companies with headquarters also exert a lot of influence from where their headquarters are, but obviously these by definition also have a lot of constituent parts that are not based at the seat of their primary corporate office, so I don't see a particularly strong rationale for why what's good for the goose isn't good for the gander.
There is a reasonable argument for DC's influence and ranking fairly high, but I think there are reasonable arguments for why DC ranks above SF and below SF and that it's not very cut and dried. I think there's a reasonable argument for the Bay Area to be a solid #2 in a reasonable argument that while taking into consideration many reasonable factors where the Bay Area does very well and weights more strongly towards major, influential corporate headquarters and the design of products (products in a very expansive sense and not just physical products) that are created there which enmesh themselves into people's lives. I think a better tact for arguing for SF is reasonably outlining what the criteria is that you're using to put SF higher up.
No. The reality is that there are many ways to calculate metro areas. In no way shape or form are Baltimore and DC as cohesive as SJ and SF
This makes no sense. What makes them more cohesive? DC and Baltimore are 38 miles apart. San Francisco is 48 miles from San Jose. Driving between the cities in both areas is miserable and SF adds in miserable train service to San Jose.
Because there's continuous urban-level density the whole way, the biggest employment center is between the two, it's a single employment market, and SJ looks, feels, and acts like a secondary core in the SF area. SF has a team that's basically in SJ but labeled SF. The only reason they're not a single MSA is an odd quirk of the USCD rules.
Baltimore has been a separate city functionally and in every other way for centuries.
I think you are talking about San Jose and the valley, not San Francisco.
Nope, and SF financed SV by the way. Stanford is a creation of a San Francisco railroad baron, and so to try and separate SF from SV is like separating a mother from it's child. Fail.
But I'm really talking about progressive politics dubbed 'San Francisco values', a thing that has been scaring the bejeezus out of rightwingers across the country for decades now, that has nothing to do with San Jose. And now half the country more or less subscribes to those values too. I'm not saying that only happened in SF, but SF is 'blamed' for it the most.
Look at this most recent Anti-SF campaign add, all the way in Georgia no less. Hilarious.
And we can talk about various cultural, social and political movements going back decades, SF has always been at the forefront of some shift, the catalyst for some change, not saying it's always been for the best, but still.
Also,
San Franciscans themselves also have a distinct persona, image, stereotype in the national and international psyche. Everyone has some sort of idea of what they think San Franciscans are like, to the point of caricature.
On the other hand, there is absolutely no such image people have for what a Washingtonian is like, there is no 'typical' washingtonian. I think that's very relevant to this city pairing as well.
Houston IS the 4th largest city in the nation, after New York, LA, and Chicago, (and expected to pass Chicago around 2030, by the way). No other city is even close to passing Houston...
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.
