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People who put San Diego on this list are kinda insane. It's like some myopic city nerd thing (which I understand could describe a sizable constituency on this particular sub-forum), because quite frankly the only 'performance' a city has to deliver is to satisfy the folks that live there. Judging by how eager people are to live in San Diego and how many lists for QOL it tops, it seems like it does a pretty good job at that.
Last edited by Veritas Vincit; 07-15-2022 at 09:01 PM..
At that point it was 585,051 for Austin, 523,105 for ABQ, and 531,443 for Tuscon, so the point remains that these areas were very comparable.
It's fine, but it's also over 40 years ago that these areas were comparable. Lots has gone on in those years to cause Austin to catapult itself ahead. As I said, by 1990 it was already well ahead of Albuquerque and on its way to being the fastest growing large metro area in the U.S. as it is today. Every other large metro area fails and falls behind Austin in this way.
People also always like to try to say that Albuquerque and Phoenix were comparable in 1950, when that's not at all true. Phoenix (Maricopa County) had already well eclipsed Albuquerque (Bernalillo County) by the 1910s. In 1950 Phoenix was already more than two times bigger than Albuquerque.
People have mentioned ABQ but if you think about it Tuscon is even more disappointing. I've always found it interesting how much Austin blew past Tuscon and ABQ. In 1990 those three metros were all about equal and in fact Tucson was the largest of them. All three have flagship universities, renown quirky art scenes, good access to nature, and some history in the tech space.
Now when I visited, I actually liked this city. I thought it had more southwest charm than Phoenix. Yes it isn't growing as much as other cities in the west though. Personally I could use the excuse that it's too hot, but apparently that isn't stopping people from moving to Phoenix. So yeah it's probably underperfroming.
I agree with you...Philadelphia is probably the best food city of the three from top to bottom, but I only brought it into the thread as others were bringing DC into the thread as if DC's core is so much of a "miss", then why not point out what's not "missing" compared to the others.
I totally understand that there isn't a city wide huge gap between the three East Coast big cities that aren't named NYC. And that even with DC as a national capital, most certainly wouldn't think it or any of Philadelphia or Boston would be relevant in a thread about the top 3 cities that were a "big miss". Doesn't make much of any sense regarding those 3 Northeast corridor cities. They each have their own shortcomings, but none of them are really misses at all.
Agreed. The few that mentioned DC, Philadelphia, and Chicago as misses are out of their minds, or just trolling (IMO).
That's too bad. Charlotte lacks a lot compared to other peer downtowns. I think it is changing, but it is a slow process.
Like what?
There are tons of restaurants, bars, clubs, and lounges. There are grocery stores, museums, sports complexes, transportation centers and light rail. It is home to Major league sports and college championships and major games. There are over 20,000 residents living in the center city. It is dense and walkable. Charlotte's uptown does very well compared to its peers and cities in other tiers as well.
The only thing possibly lacking is more shopping....
Seattle - Wanted so badly to love this city. I had a romance in my head due to the city's past with music, counterculture, movies/media, etc. But downtown Seattle was disgusting. Complete lawlessness. Junkies were, no exaggeration, in the middle of the street shooting heroin. Junkie zombies were shuffling around all over. There were bodies sprawled out over the sidewalk either dead or passed out. The massive tent encampment around Pioneer Square was insane. I'd say Seattle misses the mark alright. Lots of potential with its history, natural beauty, and economy but just yikes.
Portland - See Seattle.
Charlotte - A city with ~900k people and the skyline of a city 2X that. And yet, downtown on the street level is SO sterile and so bland and so boring. There are 0 quaint, historic districts. There are 0 architecturally interesting buildings. That was all torn down to make way for faceless bank towers, luxury condos or apartments and parking decks. Surprising lack of street level retail. This opinion is based on my last visit to Charlotte in November 2019, so just before the pandemic. I have another visit planned for late summer.
I'm not sure u visited the Charlotte that I live in. While the retail can be improved, There are tons of restaurants, bars, and lounges on the bottom of all of those buildings. There are grocery stores, museums, sports complexes, performing arts centers, etc..there is light rail and street cars and alot of activity...and there is also the Overstreet mall which connects to all the skyscrapers Uptown which have restaurants and retail inside of it along with EpiCenter....
Houston - This place didn't need to be so ugly. It would have been great had this place developed in a much better way. Imagine if they had kept the bayous as parks and they didn't develop so much on the floodplains. This place could be a warm weather nice city close by the coast. It could have still grown to be a large size, but much more loved if it was developed differently. Texas doesn't need two large cheap cities. (Dallas & Houston) Dallas could have been the cheap one and Houston could have been the nicer one.
I agree there's no good reason for it to be so poorly planned. Although for what it offers I think it would serve as well being a smaller city around the size of Orlando or Minneapolis. As of 2022 it's kind of a larger city than I think it should be and punches below its weight in several categories. Dallas isn't coastal and may be more bland, but I think its centralized location justifies it being a larger metro
I'm not sure u visited the Charlotte that I live in. While the retail can be improved, There are tons of restaurants, bars, and lounges on the bottom of all of those buildings. There are grocery stores, museums, sports complexes, performing arts centers, etc..there is light rail and street cars and alot of activity...and there is also the Overstreet mall which connects to all the skyscrapers Uptown which have restaurants and retail inside of it along with EpiCenter....
The light rail is fairly undeveloped for how fast the city is growing and the infrastructure is suffering as well. So many outrageously expensive apartments are going up while wages stagnant. CLT will be a homelessness capital of the east coast in the next decade or two.
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