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I know I can but the lake is warm enough maybe a month every year.
I also like the waves. Pacific is a great value as cities located on the Pacific (or Atlantic) are naturally "America's windows to the world" and enjoy greater diversity and cultural prominence then in-land located cities.
This is pointless if you are talking about CHICAGO. Chicago is diverse and receives immigrants from all around the world. Chicago's O'Hare Int'l Airport has nonstop flights to places all over the world. If you peak into Chicago's diversity, you would see that many ethnic groups and nationalities are well represented. In fact I could make a case that Chicago's population is MORE diverse than SF's.
*2nd largest African American population
*2nd largest Mexican population
*3rd largest Italian population
*Largest Polish population (outside Warsaw)
*2nd largest Greek population
The list goes on and on. Even the Asian populations are well represented. Chicago enjoys cultural prominance like those major cities (immigrant hubs) on the coasts. Your point is irrelevant when Chicago is the subject. I would agree with you if you talked about other midwestern cities, but definitely NOT Chicago.
Chicago is the heart of theatre and opera in the United States. The Lyrical Opera is the most highly regarded institution currently, although for America that's more like winning a race when the other contestants are a day late.
For every television series you watch, for every play you go to, for every show or program or artist you listen to... I recommend looking into their background. Chicago produces an astounding number of commercial heavy-weights, literary geniuses and cultural institutions. It would perhaps surprise many here, but San Franciscans and their supposed bohemian wonderland are not by any measure highly-regarded enough to be welcomed into the homes of the university professionals of Chicago. You'd be hard pressed to find a more starchy, old-fashioned group of poets and scholars than the University of Chicago (my alma mater), even on the east coast. Beyond Chicago, NYC or Boston they regard the rest of the nation as empty wasteland for their craft.
Do not ask their opinion on Hollywood.
San Francisco is a consumer of culture but certainly not a producer. The citizens like to think of themselves as artsy, but there's very little there that is ever reflected on the national scene. When your city has nothing but computer programmers who think the Dandy Warhols are "happening", you really tend to lag behind in the creation of artistic capital.
And contrary to popular belief, Chicago has a significantly greater number of people living as "artists" than San Francisco. Yes, Chicago, the heavy, cold, post-industrial city in the midwest. In the middle of farmland (incidentally, San Francisco is also located to the left of a vast swath of completely empty farmland; the difference is that Northern California is so severely water-deprived right now that the fields are fallow and poorer than ever).
Chicago contributes significantly more to pop culture than San Francisco. Comedy groups and musicians and art schools, theatres and talent pools... I believe many will have to have their idea of Chicago firmly rearranged, but this is the truth.
Actually, San Francisco contributes almost nothing to American culture of any kind. The very culture people associate with San Francisco was misappropriated by cultureless Californians. You are new money. You took culture from New York and Chicago, the fine dining and the cultural eateries, and you made the form without the substance. I don't care how many wine and cheese shops San Francisco opens, trying to think of SF as "cultured" is hard to do when that culture is only mimicked from the uglier, industrial cities of decades past.
Hell, even tech and science are developed outside San Francisco. SF is where the venture capitalists own homes, not where the actual beneficiaries of the funds themselves live or work.
If we were to have an honest comparison between the contributions of two cities regarding popular culture, it would be between LA and Chicago. I think Los Angeles would win, but even then, I do not at all think it would be by a wide margin if the truth were known by more people.
I never think of the Bay Area when I think of Hip-Hop. Atlanta maybe. New York definitely.
That's because the Bay rarely gets its due for how much its truly contributed. Its kind of sad that the Bay doesn't regularly come to mind for so many people when it comes to hip hop, but it has contributed more than most regions. 2pac, Digital Underground, MC Hammer, Too Short, Mac Dre, E-40, Spice 1, Tha Luniz, Dre Dog/Andre Nickatina, Rappin 4-Tay, Heiroglyphics, Paris, IMP, Cellski, San Quinn, Messy Marv, Dru Down, Richie Rich, E-A-Ski, The Jacka, JT The Bigga Figga, Mac Mall, Saafir, Planet Asia, Ya Boy, and Zion I all come from here, just to name a few. Even Master P and The Game both began their careers out here. Strangely enough though, most people don't necessarily relate many of these rappers to a location even if they are familiar with them, so the Bay often gets overlooked as a hip hop contributor.
Quote:
Originally Posted by yoyobubba
The Internet? LOL. Come on now. Some nice big companies with popular web sites out there but the INTERNET!? That started as a government project in the military.
The internet in its original form began as a way for the military to communicate between remote locations. The internet as we know it now is largely the design of Bay Area companies. And just about any huge internet company most people use on a regular basis is located here. Myspace and Amazon are two big ones that come to mind that are not actually located here.
Not to mention that most of the hardware and software any of us are using to run our computers (aside from Windows) comes from right here as well. So claiming tech and the internet is valid.
Quote:
Originally Posted by yoyobubba
You have a point with the 60's. I am 30 years old and wasn't alive back then but anytime I think of a hippie liberal flowerchild I do think of San Francisco.
As far as everything else, the cities are about even. I mean, when I'm talking on my cell phone, hearing Kanye on the radio, watching a Presidential address for some new stimulus bill, all while eating a McDonald's hamburger and seeing a skyscraper go by, and oops, my fly is open so I have to use a zipper to zip it up, all these things come from Chicago, but I don't ever think about it that way and neither does 99.9% of America. Likewise while people are using Google and surfing on their IPOD they aren't thinking of Apple and Google Inc in the Bay Area.
Was the zipper really invented in Chicago? Lol I've actually always wondered who invented it haha.
I agree though. I don't really think about it like that on a regular basis either. But isn't that kind of the whole point of this thread? To give some thought as to which city/region has had a larger influence? Its not like it really counts for much in the end, but it is interesting trivia.
And one thing to note about your cell phone: the one you have right now was likely not a Chicago creation, so it would make sense that it doesn't bring to mind where it was manufactured. But if there was a Chicago big name brand phone that you had it likely would. I actually am conscious that I have a phone that is a local creation, a Blackberry. I'm not inclined to think about the inventor of the original model though. Just like I'm not thinking about Detroit or Henry Ford when I drive my Nissan. Japan comes to mind in that instance.
Chicago is the heart of theatre and opera in the United States. The Lyrical Opera is the most highly regarded institution currently, although for America that's more like winning a race when the other contestants are a day late.
For every television series you watch, for every play you go to, for every show or program or artist you listen to... I recommend looking into their background. Chicago produces an astounding number of commercial heavy-weights, literary geniuses and cultural institutions. It would perhaps surprise many here, but San Franciscans and their supposed bohemian wonderland are not by any measure highly-regarded enough to be welcomed into the homes of the university professionals of Chicago. You'd be hard pressed to find a more starchy, old-fashioned group of poets and scholars than the University of Chicago (my alma mater), even on the east coast. Beyond Chicago, NYC or Boston they regard the rest of the nation as empty wasteland for their craft.
Do not ask their opinion on Hollywood.
San Francisco is a consumer of culture but certainly not a producer. The citizens like to think of themselves as artsy, but there's very little there that is ever reflected on the national scene. When your city has nothing but computer programmers who think the Dandy Warhols are "happening", you really tend to lag behind in the creation of artistic capital.
And contrary to popular belief, Chicago has a significantly greater number of people living as "artists" than San Francisco. Yes, Chicago, the heavy, cold, post-industrial city in the midwest. In the middle of farmland (incidentally, San Francisco is also located to the left of a vast swath of completely empty farmland; the difference is that Northern California is so severely water-deprived right now that the fields are fallow and poorer than ever).
Chicago contributes significantly more to pop culture than San Francisco. Comedy groups and musicians and art schools, theatres and talent pools... I believe many will have to have their idea of Chicago firmly rearranged, but this is the truth.
Actually, San Francisco contributes almost nothing to American culture of any kind. The very culture people associate with San Francisco was misappropriated by cultureless Californians. You are new money. You took culture from New York and Chicago, the fine dining and the cultural eateries, and you made the form without the substance. I don't care how many wine and cheese shops San Francisco opens, trying to think of SF as "cultured" is hard to do when that culture is only mimicked from the uglier, industrial cities of decades past.
Hell, even tech and science are developed outside San Francisco. SF is where the venture capitalists own homes, not where the actual beneficiaries of the funds themselves live or work.
If we were to have an honest comparison between the contributions of two cities regarding popular culture, it would be between LA and Chicago. I think Los Angeles would win, but even then, I do not at all think it would be by a wide margin if the truth were known by more people.
I really do not want to hear one more Chicagoan's comments about how much they hate CA people for the bashing/criticizing they do if I'm going to have to keep reading biased, one-sided, untrue crap like this. Narrow-minded haters like you make me sick. I'd like to see things be civil in here, but reading hateful, exaggerated garbage like this makes me enjoy how thoroughly LANightmare and others are ripping your city to shreds. Way to stoop to the level so many of you claim to deplore. Stay classy Chicago!
San Francisco has contributed a ton to culture. You are straight tripping. Maybe you don't know but SF is the most bitten off region of the US.
Exactly! Its the most bitten w/o hardly ever getting any recognition.
Hell, even Mother's Cookies, Twizzlers and Abba Zabba (Chappelle's best friend in Half Baked) all come from out here. The freakin VCR was invented out here. So was the atomic bomb. All types of influential people and creations have come from out here. But all anyone (at least those that don't know) thinks of when they think of SF is gays, druggies and hippies. And of course mega-ultra liberals and elitists. So if that's the extent of someone's knowledge on the place they shouldn't even be speaking on it.
leave em be....California intimidates the rest of the country in every way. It seems "everything is wrong with every city in CA" to out of staters..yet 38 million people call this place home and millions more want to move here
Right. So how do you respond to this list (which only scratches the surface), already posted by Jman650...that's right, you can't.
Janis Joplin
Maya Angelou
Carlos Santana
Jefferson Airplane
Sly and the Family Stone
The Beatnicks
The Hippie movement
Chinese Mafia presence in America
The oldest and largest Chinatown in the US
Bruce Lee
The Grateful Dead
The gay/lesbian rights movement
Craigslist
Rolling Stone Magazine (originally)
Thrasher Magazine
The rave scene
Clint Eastwood
Shirley Temple
Bing Crosby
Metallica
Journey & a ton of big name groups and one hit wonders from the 60s, 70s, 80s & 90s (too many to name here)
The internet & most major dot coms
The Black Panthers
Prison gangs like the Aryan Brotherhood, the Mexican Mafia, the Nuestra Familia & the BGF
A ton of slang (again, too much to list here)
Rappers like 2Pac, Too Short, Mac Dre, Digital Underground, Spice 1 & MC Hammer
R&B singers like En Vogue, Tony Tone Toni/Raphael Saadiq, Goapele & Keyshia Cole
The West Coast Offense in football
Joe DiMaggio
Barry Bonds
Bill Walsh
Lynn Swann
Tom Brady
Joe Montana
Jerry Rice
Ronnie Lott
Steve Young
Willy Mays
Mountain biking
The VCR
George Lucas/Lucasfilm/Star Wars/Indiana Jones
John Madden (and his entire series of video games)
OJ Simpson
Green Day
Creedence Clearwater Revival
Bill Graham & The Fillmore Auditorium
1015 Folsom (one of the top electronic music clubs in the nation)
Alcatraz
Burning Man
shows like Full House, Dirty Jobs & Mythbusters
The Golden Gate Bridge
Cable Cars
San Francisco Rush
Rice-a-roni
Levi Jeans
The Gap/Old Navy/Banana Republic
Quote:
Originally Posted by Libohove90
Bravo...couldn't have said it any better.
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