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Yes, cities that are arrogant turn me off. If you live in a great city, let the city's greatness speak for itself. You don't need to rub everybody's face in it, and put other cities down to try and prop your city up.
Anyone know if there is an irony award on the city data?
Anyone know if there is an irony award on the city data?
I never put any city down unless their posters are acting arrogant, or calling my city a dump. Then I feel compelled to "put them in their place" by giving them a little bit of reality. It's not that I'm saying the city is bad, I'm just saying it's not as great as you think it is.
If you live in a great city, let the city's greatness speak for itself. You don't need to rub everybody's face in it, and put other cities down to try and prop your city up.
I agree with this completely. We have a poster from another city who incessantly comes onto the Minneapolis-St Paul forum for no reason other than to trash Minneapolis and those who live here. From time to time, he even does this on forums not related to Minneapolis. As best as I can tell, he's been doing this for years, and has even done so under two different screen names. We've pretty much concluded that it's a pathological compulsion on his part, which may perhaps be related to some kind of traumatic event he experienced here.
As to the original question: I think civic hubris has far more to do with individuals who tend to define themselves vicariously through the city in which they live than it has to do with the cities themselves. I see no value in stereotyping millions of people as behaving in a specific manner in this regard.
I do think that cities which tend to attract a lot of young adults have more than their fair share of these kinds of individuals. In a society dominated by pop-culture, cities with a high pop-culture profile tend to receive attention that is disproportionate to those cities' ultimate standing within the hierarchy of US cities.
Honestly, I felt this way about Portland. I didn't move because of this reason but after living there for three decades the OP's description matches my feelings about that city. I had to move because I could no longer afford to live there. It was either move to a bad section of town as so many others who have been forced out of their good neighborhoods ( I had lived in mine for over 25 years) or relocate to a much more reasonably priced city.The choice was easy. The changes in the city for me made it easier.
The saddest thing is how some Portland people chose to bash Cleveland when I told them I was moving there even though they had never set foot in this city. There was no reason for that. Portland has its nice features and its charms for some just like any other city. But like any other city it isn't for everyone and it was no longer for me in many ways especially if I wanted to be able to live within my means.
My Seattle friends, BTW, did no such thing. They just wished me well. I didn't get that arrogant attitude that I was leaving a great city for a not-so-great one from them. I should probably add that my long time Portland friends, most of who were natives or who had lived there for almost as many years as I had, 36, did not have this attitude. It was mostly the younger people I knew or the more recent transplants. There might be a reason for this, I don't know.
OP:
I totally agree; the smugness and Groupthink here is one reason why I want to move.
Still, it's an intriguing idea as to whether or not it's in other places too. Part of it may be that the Government-Media-Academia Complex does its utmost to keep people divided and at each others' throats---so maybe what we're seeing is entire communities polarizing in this way.
I'm from Seattle and there's definitely that pervasive element of arrogance but New Orleans and Austin are 100x worse.
New Orleans is actually the most annoying because they have the most flawed city of the bunch and when you bring up valid points they resort to just calling you names and devolve into angry people.
Having said that, I do appreciate the civic pride and think having some is healthy.
Yes. I have lived in Big Cities my whole life and have recently found myself more comfortable around rednecks. They are far more real and nicer. I have switched up my search and stopped looking for another city to move to. I am focusing on small towns.
Just for a little perspective, I moved to a tiny little town in Northeast Washington state, about an hour North of Spokane, from Seattle a little over a year ago to help take care of my wife's aging parents who are both dealing with some very serious health issues. To say that people here are less arrogant and elitist than in Seattle would be a massive understatement. People here are generally more friendly and laid back. At the same time, everyone is unemployed, unless they make the hour-long commute to Spokane for work. And there are problems here that I never had to deal with in Seattle. There's not much to do here for one, and I really miss the variety of people and culture in Seattle. At least in Seattle, it seemed like I could meet people from all walks of life. Some of them were your stereotypical snobby, stuck-up yuppie jerks, and I certainly don't miss them... but others were also friendly, open, genuine, and warm. It's just that the arrogant ones seem to stick out more. Here, in my small town world, everybody just kind of seems the same. Only so much "diversity" in a town of 2,600 people. There is also quite a shocking amount of property crime in this little town. Our next-door neighbors told me they have been robbed 7 times in the last 3 years. Our house was even broken into about 6 months ago. They didn't steal much, but they made a huge mess that took a week to clean up and cost quite a bit of money. I never got robbed once in the entire 4 years I lived in Seattle. Meth is kind of a big problem here, and the local cops don't seem to care about it. You see the tweekers everywhere here, day and night, walking the town streets like zombies. It really stands out in a small town.
My point is, you can leave the city to escape the arrogance, but there's a good chance you'll just be trading one set of annoyances for another. It's a "grass is always greener" thing. Perhaps Seattle is worse than other cities, but I think it's probably something you'll have to deal with, to varying degrees, anywhere you go. Unless you come to a dying little town like this one, where the only reason everyone is humble is because life is constantly kicking their butts.
Yeah, people in Seattle are more snobby, but they aren't nearly as bad as the people I dealt with in Southern California. At least people in Seattle are more educated and intellectual.
Its true that you constantly talked crap about Southern Ca when you were here. I hope you are less miserable where you are now.
A tell-tale sign of insecurity on this message board is when somebody repeatedly starts "global cities" comparisons, or vigorously participates therein. They continuously split hairs about which city is more "global" while everybody else around them actually contributes something to the global status of whichever city they live in. In short, I don't think Donald Trump, Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg have City Data accounts, and I doubt that Steve Jobs had one either.
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