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.
If a rogue nation were given the power to take away one US city (excluding NYC and DC) to most weaken the fabric of the US and hurt the country, what city would it be?
To be effective for the rogue nation, they'd have to take control over a major port to be able to restrict trade. The area would also have to be pretty populated and produce a lot of necessary goods. I'd say Chicago, LA, or San Francisco. I am going to go with Chicago most though. It would be an ideal location near some of the largest fresh water sources on earth (Great Lakes). A rogue nation would need to be able to make the people dependent on them by rationing their water and threatening to cut it off from time to time. It's also more centrally located in the country compared to the Californian cities. The rogue nation could more easily get into other cities with fewer geographic difficulties like mountains to worry about. From Chicago, they could have easy access and few obstacles to leapfrogging into Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Detroit, etc. Additionally, the symbolism would be important as Chicago has some of the biggest skyscrapers in the country and kinda resembles NYC in some ways.
I decided to view this as an invasion scenario, though it's not clear to me by the original post.
Location: Watching half my country turn into Gilead
3,530 posts, read 4,177,862 times
Reputation: 2925
Gotta go with Los Angeles, here. 2nd largest metropolitan area in the country, with anywhere from 13.5-18.5 million people, depending on how you count it. Taking LA away would be a loss of nearly a trillon dollars in GDP in everything from manufacturing to trade to aeronautics, but the loss in human capital would be enormous, as would the cultural shock against the country. You're getting rid of Hollywood and all that entails, which would be a massive blow to the American psyche. No other city on this list would even come close to weakening the fabric of our country like taking out our true second city would.
Gotta go with Los Angeles, here. 2nd largest metropolitan area in the country, with anywhere from 13.5-18.5 million people, depending on how you count it. Taking LA away would be a loss of nearly a trillon dollars in GDP in everything from manufacturing to trade to aeronautics, but the loss in human capital would be enormous, as would the cultural shock against the country. You're getting rid of Hollywood and all that entails, which would be a massive blow to the American psyche. No other city on this list would even come close to weakening the fabric of our country like taking out our true second city would.
The only reason I didn't say LA is because, aside from the port (which is certainly important), other cities could theoretically take up the slack in other areas (Hollywood, manufacturing, etc.). Like you said, the loss of Hollywood would be a psychological blow mostly. However, the economic synergy that created Silicon Valley isn't easily replicated, if at all; many other cities in the U.S. have tried and failed to do so, and the way we rely on technology in the 21st century is crucially important in all kinds of ways.
Surprised people downplay an area whose products and innovations they use on a daily basis so much (Facebook, iPhones, Google, Uber). Guess LA's GDP really affects your daily lives.
So many people here continue to allow their better judgement to be clouded by envy.
What pain could LA inflict on the world? What flip switched in LA could instantly affect lives in Perth or Paris alike? None that I can think of.
On the other hand:
[Facebook] now has 1.71 billion monthly active users, adding 60 million users from the previous quarter and growing its user base by 15% from the same quarter a year earlier.
On mobile, where Facebook was once thought to be be struggling, the company now has 1.57 billion monthly active users, up 20% year-over-year. And if that's not enough, there are 1.13 billion people using the social network every single day, on average.
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.
