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I think some are being kinda obtuse. Obviously NY has no peer culturally, economically, demographically, financially in the US, and even in the world it’s probably limited to maybe London.
But as a touchstone for all things Americana, NY has an indelible place in our collective psyche. It’s the city all other places measure themselves against. It’s the 800-pound gorilla of American urban life, and is used as shorthand for all the strengths and weaknesses of it by people from Maine to Alaska (Pace Picante simply had to utter the very name New York City to tell a whole story that everyone immediately recognized). This question isn’t about street grids.
The Texan cities are their own thing, and most people don’t differentiate between them at any rate, and the two are mostly used to define Texas. Miami is also used to help define a state. But regionally, for the vast majority of the South, Atlanta is the city others compare themselves too. It grew with the automobile and therefore served as a template and a cautionary tale for other Southern cities who grew up postwar. Atlanta is the big city our family moves to, and the big city we visit before heading home and thanking our lucky stars we can simply visit and don’t have to live with that traffic.
Atlanta is not structurally like NY, but in its own way it serves a similar purpose on a much more limited range.
Ok a couple of things are wrong in this post. First is your comparing metro areas to city propers to counties. Second how exactly is the Dallas and Houston metro's diversity more like NYC (or the NYC metro) than the Miami metro? Other than the Houston and Dallas metros having 4 percent more of the population being asian I'm just not seeing it. The Miami metro's hispanic, black and white populations are much more diverse (and resemble NYC's demographics more) than the Houston and Dallas metros. Plus the Miami metro has by far the largest concentration of current and ex-New Yorkers in the country.
And the importance of these areas is also debatable. Sure they might have a larger economy (the metro total GDP difference is around 30%, and only 13% for the Miami metro vs Atlanta metro) but that's just one small aspect of importance. There are large economies everywhere in the U.S. The extra GDP of the Houston and Dallas metros compared to the Miami metro doesn't even move the needle at all when looking at the entire U.S. economy. I understand the whole oil thing that Houston has going on but is oil even a good thing these days?
What about how unique each area is to the U.S.? (and to the world for that matter) What about how strong the brand image of each of these places are that is broadcast around the world? Which area is more important to the wealthy? More important to tourists? More important to celebrities? More important to people seeking good nightlife? (which is super rare in the U.S.) More important to people who love water? Love density and tall buildings? Want a lot of urban world class shopping and dining areas? More important to more countries around the world? Etc. Etc.
Miami takes this poll easily. Some people probably don't even consider Miami "Southern" so they don't vote for it, just like I've seen in some other threads.
Atlanta is the least dense urban area over 5 million people in the entire world and the Miami urban area is 3 times as densely populated. City-Data is funny.
Phoenix is on pace to usurp that crown from Atlanta I believe.
I get why people use density as a metric to measure urbanity, but I don't think it's the end-all, be-all that some say that it is. In Atlanta's defense, the metro is spread out partly due to geography (it's located near the southern terminus of the Appalachians) and partly due to the fact that in much of the South, it's far less expensive to build out than it is to build up.
With that being said, it's sort of mind-blowing that Atlanta is larger than Tokyo area-wise. Atlanta anchors an area of about 6M and change, while Tokyo anchors an area of over 35M. That's basically what you would get if everyone in Georgia and Florida moved to Atlanta.
Phoenix is on pace to usurp that crown from Atlanta I believe.
I get why people use density as a metric to measure urbanity, but I don't think it's the end-all, be-all that some say that it is. In Atlanta's defense, the metro is spread out partly due to geography (it's located near the southern terminus of the Appalachians) and partly due to the fact that in much of the South, it's far less expensive to build out than it is to build up.
With that being said, it's sort of mind-blowing that Atlanta is larger than Tokyo area-wise. Atlanta anchors an area of about 6M and change, while Tokyo anchors an area of over 35M. That's basically what you would get if everyone in Georgia and Florida moved to Atlanta.
Did Phoenix UA double in size or something? From the top 15 Urban areas only New York, LA, SF, SD and DC were more dense in the 2010 census
Chicago is the NYC of the midwest and San Francisco is the NYC of the west, but there really isn't an NYC of the south. Miami is the NYC of Latin America, definitely not 'the South'. DFW isn't part of the South. That just leaves us with Atlanta or arguably Houston, but neither feel at all like NYC to me so I don't think they even qualify for comparison.
The American South
Georgia
South Carolina
Alabama
Mississippi
Tennessee
North Carolina
Louisiana
Arkansas (including Missouri south of U.S. Route 60)
Kentucky (minus Cincinnati suburbs, but including Missouri Bootheel))
North Florida (north of Orlando)
South Virginia (from just north of Charlottesville on southward, including most of Shenandoah Valley and the part of West Virginia south of Charleston)
The NYC (or Capital or Primate City) of The American South: Atlanta
In terms of diversity, Houston would be the NYC of the Southern United States.
Why do people think that the Houston and Dallas metros are more diverse than the Miami metro? Other than having only 5% more of the metro population being asian, the Miami metro's hispanic, black and white populations are all more diverse and resemble NYC's demographics more. Plus the Miami metro has many more strong dense cultural enclaves than the Houston and Dallas metros, which NYC does also.
When people discuss NYC of [blank], they aren’t discussing diversity. They aren’t discussing subways, Wall Street, Broadway, or Tin Pan Alley. Not unless they specifically mention those things. New York City has many facets, but at it’s heart it’s simply as aries alluded to, the primate city of the country. It’s the city that the rest of us uses to compare and contrast everything else in the US.
Atlanta fills that niche for the non-Texas, non-South Florida South. Charlotte wasn’t emulating Houston when it began to build a better city through boosterism. And Birmingham didn’t eyeball Miami as it charted a path forward. Atlanta is the city most people in the South envy and denigrate, sometimes in the same breath. It’s not New York, but nowhere in the world is like New York. But it does fill a similar role in the South. It’s the host of the Olympic Games and the SEC championship game, as well as the home to Coke & Chick-fil-a. It’s the runaway success story of the New South.
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