A lot of US cities are special for their own reasons! I love Atlanta and am well overdue for another visit. It's just hard to rank cities with any real objective criteria.
Honestly me too. I think a big part of it is cultural. With LA you have Hollywood, skate culture, and a music scene that dominated the last 3 decades or so, etc, and NYC, well, it's NYC. For a while Chicago was the center of the jazz world when jazz was the mainstream, but that was probably over a hundred years ago. I hear Chicago's nice, but that's basically all I hear, I really don't know what goes on over there these days compared to a lot of other American cities.
I did a business trip there once. One of the few places I really didn't enjoy. Maybe it was the area I was in since I found out there was a run down strip club a few doors down from the hotel, getting dinner was like a few miles away but that was 3 hours in traffic. I think I was in far north west corner of Houston.
I had the same experience. I was sent to Houston to help another facility for a few weeks. I could see the building I was going to work in from my hotel window directly across the freeway. It took me 45 minutes to drive there because of the traffic on the frontage roads next to the freeway.
DC doesn't get on there because DC is a one-trick pony. It's the seat of power for the federal government, at which point you may as well be saying that Sacramento makes top three major cities in California. NYC, LA, and Chicago have the first, second, and third-most populous MSAs (DC is 7th) and have a lot going for them individually.
Unlike the San Francisco Bay Area, its CSA with Baltimore etc. that makes it #3 lacks a coherent identity and presence. DC is still populous and does that one trick really well (and has value as a tourist attraction), so it is fighting with DFW for the fifth spot, imo, but probably goes somewhere below it just because unlike in many national capitals (Paris, Moscow, Jakarta, etc.), an outsize chunk of people who live there do so just to work for/around the government.
I don't think that's true at all. San Francisco has an especially major cultural, historical, and tourism presence. Moreover, given we're talking nationwide, I think it's not just appropriate but prudent to consider the San Francisco Bay Area (its CSA that I think has a coherent, pretty singular identity on a nationwide scale), which has both the 5th-highest population in the country of any CSA and has an enormous nationwide and global presence in technology and education.
Atlanta isn't even on the same level (and I don't mean based on the GaWC I'm about to discuss). Funnily, going by the GaWC classification, I was possibly overstating DFW (I consider globalization a big component given we're talking nationwide in such a globalized nation), but I think that's the only mistake I make there. I think New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco are solidly the first four.
Funny enough you skipped over Houston which has the same rank as San Francisco according to your link. It’s also a major global energy hub. It just goes to prove the OPs point that the 4th rotates as there is no true stand out.
I again don't think that shows it. I think 5th is in messy competition in a way one could sort out depending on their priorities but that 4th is solidly SF between population (again, CSA), business, education, and culture.
The GaWC ranking 1) is strictly about global presence, 2) only considers the city by itself with none of its surrounding context (e.g. San Jose is on its own far down the list) and 3) has huge range in what people would consider "major city" characteristics. By this logic, for example, Warsaw is in direct, ambiguous competition with Seoul and Luxembourg City in competition with New Delhi for "city majorness", which is obviously nonsensical.
I provided the GaWC as an explanation for my error that I thought DFW was more heavily globalized than it was, not as the sole criterion for "major city". I think the fact San Francisco is in the Alpha- bracket despite its handicaps from not having its CSA considered along with it shows how solidly above those other cities it is.
SF is also a one tick pony, and that one trick relies heavily on infrastructure built in the DC area. Namely Ashburne VA, which is basically the beating heart of the internet in the US. Arlington and Silver-spring as well are massively important as the headquarters of many important companies.
The federal government and companies closely associated with it are by far the largest sector of the US economy.
feels like its going by kinda date. New York was the first major city, then chicago, then LA but LA population wise overtook chicago. Its kinda funny because texas's major metros combined would surpass new york but then again you start combining cali and you get the same. Both states though are as big as several average sized states combined land wise. Personally I think NY and chicago are kinda special because they are the only ones for their state. Like if your in the state and you say your are going to take a trip to the city you would know what they mean.
That city is basically the definition of urban sprawl. It is slightly larger than the size of Connecticut. I have to explain to people that when you cross Houston during normal/low traffic times, it can take over two hours without stopping to get from one side to the other, highway the whole time.
the 4th spot goes to the last city to cause ice agents the kind of nightmares law&order will make into sympathetic copaganda one day. minneapolis is hoping atlanta or hoston will take over soon.
As a non American, putting Chicago top 3, on the same level as NY or LA is wild. San Francisco is probably the only other city that's on the same as those 2. Chicago is more on the level of Seattle, Houston, Boston, Philadelphia etc. where I've heard of them and they're big cities, but thats all they are, cities.
78 Comments
kibblebits@quokk.au · 25 pts · 39d
I never think about Chicago.
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world · 21 pts · 39d
Spoken like a true West Coast native.
Psionicsickness@reddthat.com · 8 pts · 39d
East coast my whole life. I never think about Chicago.
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 39d
Well that's just mean
Psionicsickness@reddthat.com · 0 pts · 39d
I didn’t mean it like that! Tbf I grew up in Atlanta and am blown away nobody even mentioned it. My first thought was DC instead of Chicago.
Sharkticon@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 39d
Wait does that mean you consider Atlanta the east coast?
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 39d
A lot of US cities are special for their own reasons! I love Atlanta and am well overdue for another visit. It's just hard to rank cities with any real objective criteria.
kibblebits@quokk.au · 8 pts · 39d
West coast best coast.
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 39d
You're not wrong, but Chicago has a lot to offer, and not just for their fabulous pies and comedy incubation. It's not Cleveland, for Christ's sake.
FoxtrotDeltaTango@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 39d
I agree!
EggInDisguise@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 12 pts · 39d
I've been there twice, only once by choice, and I think about Seattle more than Chicago.
Hell I think about Gary Indiana more than Chicago.
deacon@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 39d
I live in Chicago and I think about Gary a lot.
Notyou@sopuli.xyz · 4 pts · 38d
edgemaster72@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 39d
No one warned you about Gary beforehand, I presume
zero_spelled_with_an_ecks@programming.dev · 6 pts · 39d
Everybody that leaves Chicago can't stop thinking about it.
kibblebits@quokk.au · 6 pts · 39d
People in abusive relationships often have flashbacks
0ops@piefed.zip · 5 pts · 39d
Honestly me too. I think a big part of it is cultural. With LA you have Hollywood, skate culture, and a music scene that dominated the last 3 decades or so, etc, and NYC, well, it's NYC. For a while Chicago was the center of the jazz world when jazz was the mainstream, but that was probably over a hundred years ago. I hear Chicago's nice, but that's basically all I hear, I really don't know what goes on over there these days compared to a lot of other American cities.
Danquebec@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 39d
Chicago was also important in blues.
frustrated_phagocytosis@fedia.io · 24 pts · 39d
Houston over here getting ignored like usual, only 7.9 million people live here. It is awful though so I get it.
MintyFresh@lemmy.world · 37 pts · 39d
It's not a city though. More a collection of suburbs.
vrek@programming.dev · 21 pts · 39d
I did a business trip there once. One of the few places I really didn't enjoy. Maybe it was the area I was in since I found out there was a run down strip club a few doors down from the hotel, getting dinner was like a few miles away but that was 3 hours in traffic. I think I was in far north west corner of Houston.
_stranger_@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 39d
That area is called Houston. It's terrible everywhere.
xistera@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 38d
I had the same experience. I was sent to Houston to help another facility for a few weeks. I could see the building I was going to work in from my hotel window directly across the freeway. It took me 45 minutes to drive there because of the traffic on the frontage roads next to the freeway.
neidu3@sh.itjust.works · 7 pts · 39d
If it's any comfort, it's the first city this random dork on the other side of the world thought of.
...for a given value of "great". It's the only city I've visited that somehow manages to be a long distance away from itself.
djsoren19@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 6 pts · 39d
hey you're definitely one of the ones rotating in and out
TemPotato@piefed.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 39d
Houston and Dallas side eyeing everyone as they get passed up as usual.
frustrated_phagocytosis@fedia.io · 7 pts · 39d
What did they expect with all these giant highways everywhere, I can pass up lots of Texas at 90 mph now
gmtom@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 38d
As a foreigner that has been to both, there is a good reason they get ignored.
megopie@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 18 pts · 39d
Putting Chicago before LA is funny. Putting Chicago in the list but not DC is hilarious.
TheTechnician27@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 39d
It definitely goes NYC, LA, Chicago, SF.
DC doesn't get on there because DC is a one-trick pony. It's the seat of power for the federal government, at which point you may as well be saying that Sacramento makes top three major cities in California. NYC, LA, and Chicago have the first, second, and third-most populous MSAs (DC is 7th) and have a lot going for them individually.
Unlike the San Francisco Bay Area, its CSA with Baltimore etc. that makes it #3 lacks a coherent identity and presence. DC is still populous and does that one trick really well (and has value as a tourist attraction), so it is fighting with DFW for the fifth spot, imo, but probably goes somewhere below it just because unlike in many national capitals (Paris, Moscow, Jakarta, etc.), an outsize chunk of people who live there do so just to work for/around the government.
ramble81@lemmy.zip · 6 pts · 39d
Eh, you could easily swap out SF with DFW, Houston, Atlanta, Seattle… hence why the 4th city rotates.
TheTechnician27@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 39d
I don't think that's true at all. San Francisco has an especially major cultural, historical, and tourism presence. Moreover, given we're talking nationwide, I think it's not just appropriate but prudent to consider the San Francisco Bay Area (its CSA that I think has a coherent, pretty singular identity on a nationwide scale), which has both the 5th-highest population in the country of any CSA and has an enormous nationwide and global presence in technology and education.
Atlanta isn't even on the same level (and I don't mean based on the GaWC I'm about to discuss). Funnily, going by the GaWC classification, I was possibly overstating DFW (I consider globalization a big component given we're talking nationwide in such a globalized nation), but I think that's the only mistake I make there. I think New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco are solidly the first four.
ramble81@lemmy.zip · 0 pts · 39d
Funny enough you skipped over Houston which has the same rank as San Francisco according to your link. It’s also a major global energy hub. It just goes to prove the OPs point that the 4th rotates as there is no true stand out.
TheTechnician27@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 39d
I again don't think that shows it. I think 5th is in messy competition in a way one could sort out depending on their priorities but that 4th is solidly SF between population (again, CSA), business, education, and culture.
The GaWC ranking 1) is strictly about global presence, 2) only considers the city by itself with none of its surrounding context (e.g. San Jose is on its own far down the list) and 3) has huge range in what people would consider "major city" characteristics. By this logic, for example, Warsaw is in direct, ambiguous competition with Seoul and Luxembourg City in competition with New Delhi for "city majorness", which is obviously nonsensical.
I provided the GaWC as an explanation for my error that I thought DFW was more heavily globalized than it was, not as the sole criterion for "major city". I think the fact San Francisco is in the Alpha- bracket despite its handicaps from not having its CSA considered along with it shows how solidly above those other cities it is.
megopie@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 39d
SF is also a one tick pony, and that one trick relies heavily on infrastructure built in the DC area. Namely Ashburne VA, which is basically the beating heart of the internet in the US. Arlington and Silver-spring as well are massively important as the headquarters of many important companies.
The federal government and companies closely associated with it are by far the largest sector of the US economy.
HubertManne@piefed.social · 4 pts · 39d
feels like its going by kinda date. New York was the first major city, then chicago, then LA but LA population wise overtook chicago. Its kinda funny because texas's major metros combined would surpass new york but then again you start combining cali and you get the same. Both states though are as big as several average sized states combined land wise. Personally I think NY and chicago are kinda special because they are the only ones for their state. Like if your in the state and you say your are going to take a trip to the city you would know what they mean.
craftrabbit@lemmy.zip · 16 pts · 39d
NY, Chicago, LA, Rio de Janero
OldChicoAle@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 38d
NY, Chicago, LA, Winterfell
imsufferableninja@sh.itjust.works · 13 pts · 39d
Boston obvs
bangupjobasusual@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 38d
We are fourth most expensive, fourth worst traffic, third population density of cities with more than a million people. It’s obviously Boston.
LovableSidekick@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 39d
I can confirm that this is a really trivial thing to obsess over.
makefile@programming.dev · 9 pts · 39d
Anything to waste Americans' time rather than caring about the Epstein files
missingno@fedia.io · 7 pts · 39d
Philly, Philly, Philly, and Philly.
makefile@programming.dev · 4 pts · 39d
Was looking for this comment. People are really saying Houston before Philadelphia
Delphia@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 38d
Everyone in the comments arguing and proving the meme right.
FavouriteShapes@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 38d
Fact check: TRUE!
Independently fact checked by non-american nationals.
Eat_Your_Paisley@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 39d
NY, Chicago, LA, and Miami
eestileib@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 39d
So many people are forgetting Houston. It's humongous.
MrEff@lemmy.world · 27 pts · 39d
That city is basically the definition of urban sprawl. It is slightly larger than the size of Connecticut. I have to explain to people that when you cross Houston during normal/low traffic times, it can take over two hours without stopping to get from one side to the other, highway the whole time.
TemPotato@piefed.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 39d
Everyone forgets Houston in these things. We're the biggest real fake underdog, lol.
eestileib@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 39d
Blowing on that Endo
Game cube Nintendo
Jet black tinting
All up in my window
meh@piefed.blahaj.zone · 5 pts · 39d
the 4th spot goes to the last city to cause ice agents the kind of nightmares law&order will make into sympathetic copaganda one day. minneapolis is hoping atlanta or hoston will take over soon.
FavouriteShapes@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 38d
The latest.
gmtom@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 38d
As a non American, putting Chicago top 3, on the same level as NY or LA is wild. San Francisco is probably the only other city that's on the same as those 2. Chicago is more on the level of Seattle, Houston, Boston, Philadelphia etc. where I've heard of them and they're big cities, but thats all they are, cities.
joenforcer@midwest.social · 4 pts · 38d
As an American, this is incorrect.
OldChicoAle@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 38d
As an American, I don't know.
MimicJar@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 38d
As an American, not knowing things is American.
You check out.
Not_mikey@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 39d
Houston / DFW makes sense to balance out the 4 regions of the US, Northeast, south, Midwest and west
SF / DC make the most sense for political / economic impact and that they actually feel like a major city and not a giant sprawled out suburb.
winkerjadams@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 38d
Boston
explodicle@sh.itjust.works · 0 pts · 38d
I'm gonna say New Orleans. Not the biggest city, but it just matters more than some big parking lot in Texas.
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 39d
Seattle / San Francisco / Cleveland
Danquebec@sh.itjust.works · 12 pts · 39d
As a foreigner, I know a few things about Seattle and San Francisco. But absolutely nothing about Cleveland.
raspberry_confetti@lemmy.ml · 15 pts · 39d
You're not missing anything
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 39d
Oh, come on. Maybe wait to hear from somebody that lived there for thirteen years.
Yeah, you're not missing anything.
MintyFresh@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 39d
It's no Toledo, that's for sure!
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 39d
Every time I manage to successfully forget about Toledo, somebody brings it up again.
Can we all please just forget about Toledo?
MintyFresh@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 39d
Mud hens forever!!!!
raspberry_confetti@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 39d
Corporal Klinger would like a word
vic_rattlehead@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 39d
It's my understanding that Cleveland rocks
dohpaz42@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 39d
Home of Drew Carry, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and a bunch of crazy rednecks.
And the storied Cleveland Browns.cabillaud@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 39d
Rockets From The Tombs!
zout@fedia.io · 4 pts · 39d
All I know is that you're supposed to say "Hello Cleveland!" when visiting.
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 39d
That was the joke. I almost put "Dayton," but then it would have been too obvious.
Milksteaks@midwest.social · 2 pts · 39d
This might clear up some things about cleveland. The guy has 2 more cleveland tourism videos too
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ysmLA5TqbIY&pp=ygUJY2xldmVsYW5k0gcJCaMLAYcqIYzv
Sharkticon@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 39d
Lol Cleveland?
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 39d
The Mistake on the Lake!
Alexstarfire@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 38d
We found Drew Carey.
peteypete420@sh.itjust.works · -2 pts · 38d
Its philly. Its actually the number one. History, culture, food, all the stuff. Sorry u ny punk bitches