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Top tier, world class city: how do US cities know they have "arrived"?

9K views 52 replies 11 participants last post by  eklips 
#1 ·
One of the things I hate most about the skyscraper forum (and probably have made others sick of hearing me gripe about it) is the ranking of US cities and the feeling that there is a cut-off point (or even that one has to go up for another to go down). And while I do believe there is some limitation to "world class cities", much of that thinking I just plain do not buy.

Quite simply, if London and Paris can exist as world class cities a stone throw away from each other, there is a lot to suggest that the greatness of one city does not depend on the vulnerability of another.

Therefore, I thought I would throw this question out to you:

How do you know that an American city has arrived, that it has truly created an envirnoment that is "world class", major, a player without question?

What are the factors: both physical (facts on the ground), population (size? and diversity), culturally, business, transportation....actually everything!

I'm not into censorship, and even if I were, I don't control what other posts. But as this was the initial post, please note that I

1. did not mention any American city (and included London and Paris only for comparitive purposes)

2. did not feel this thread was subject to "numbers"....that is, this is not a competitive thing, but an assumption that any number of US cities can achieve this status.

So I am trying here to totally eliminate any comparison (or mentioning) of US cities since I'm more interested in the generic things any of them would need to be great.

I'm really trying to come up with "If it walks like a world class city and it talks like a world class city, it is a world class city": so, what factors does it take to walk and talk that way?
 
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#2 ·
Dude you seem to have a massive inferiority complex! Chicago aint a world city and probably never will be!

To be a world class city it has to be the economic and everything else capital of an important country, i.e. New York, London, Paris, Tokyo. In terms of the USA, LA and Chicago could well be world cities if they were economic hubs in their own right, but they'll always play second fiddle to NY!

Secondary World cities i guess could include Sydney, Fankfurt, Hong Kong. Here, they are the showpiece city of their respective country, but aren't in the same league as the big 4!
 
#4 ·
What is this Big 4 crap? Did anybody think to ask Shanghai, Moscow, Sao Paulo, Mexico City, Seoul, Jakarta, Hong Kong, Singapore, Beijing, Cairo, Berlin, Rome, Bangkok, Sydney, Toronto, Istanbul, Lagos and yes, Chicago, LA, SF, and DC how they feel about their respective places on planet Earth.

Let's see....Moscow controls a swath of Earth twice the size of Europe, Beijing and New Delhi are the capital of one billion plus each.

How exactly does Paris come in above these places in the greater scheme of things?????
 
#8 ·
maxpowers20 said:
To be a world class city it has to be the economic and everything else capital of an important country,
Not all "important" countries are equally important. America is FAR more economically, politically and culturally important than Germany, France, Japan, or the UK on their own.

So although France, the UK, and Japan seem to support one alpha, world-class, gobally top-tier city (or whatever you want to call it), that's not a reason why America must only have one city in that category as well.

But that being said, I do have a feeling America has a similar "problem" to Germany. Germany is bigger and economically more important than France or the UK, but unlike those two countries, doesn't have a dominant city. Instead it has maybe 4 more or less equally important ones to split it's arts, business, and media between. So none of those cities can aquire the critical mass of London or Paris, even though Germany as a whole is bigger. America is also very unconcentrated. And no city outside of NY really stands out on the global stage.

LA is already very visible and is a great long-term contender to be as important as say Paris or London (I question how important Paris is by the way), but is kind of stuck with a disfunctional leadership and the recent collapse of it's corporate base.

Chicago unfortunately finds itself in a declining unfashionable (of my ivy classmates, no one outside of the midwest wanted to end up there) region, and plays kind of a second, third or fourth fiddle to NY in too many areas. In other words, outside of derivates and commodities (and there tenuously), it hasn't found any niches where it securely leads NY.

The Bay Area is very globally important in something that can't get no respect on this forum - tech. And it's possible to argue that technological progress is more economically and socially important than anything else in today's world. But even in tech, it feels like Silicon Valley might soon become just a first among equals with competitors like Bangalore, Chinese centers, Japan, S Korea, Boston, etc.

Every other significant city in America (of which there are many) just doesn't have the mass.

Anyway, Paris, probably London and possibly NY will be blown away by Shanghai and Mumbai in 40-50 years, but that's another topic.
 
#13 ·
from wikipedia

Paris
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For other uses of the term "Paris," see Paris (disambiguation).

The Eiffel Tower has become the symbol of Paris throughout the world.Paris is the capital city of France, as well as the capital of the Île-de-France région, whose territory encompasses Paris and its suburbs. The city of Paris proper is also a département, called Paris département (French: département de Paris).

Paris, together with its suburbs and satellite cities, forms the Greater Paris metropolitan area, with a population estimated at 11.5 million as of January 2004. It is the second largest metropolitan area in Europe (after Moscow, and along with London), and approximately the 20th largest in the world.

Greater Paris metropolitan area, with a total GDP higher than Australia, is the largest financial and business center of Europe (alongside London), harboring more than 30% of France's white-collar population, as well as more than 40% of the headquarters of French companies, with the largest business district of Europe (La Défense), and the 2nd largest stock exchange in Europe (Euronext).

Known worldwide as the City of Light (la Ville Lumière), Paris has been a major tourist destination for centuries. The city is renowned for the beauty of its architecture, its urban perspectives and avenues, as well as the wealth of its museums. Built on an arc of the River Seine, it is divided into two parts: the Right Bank to the north and the smaller Left Bank to the south.

Formerly the capital of a colonial empire stretching over five continents, Paris is still regarded as the heart of the French-speaking world and has retained a strong international position, hosting the headquarters of the OECD and the UNESCO among others. This, combined with its financial, business, political, and tourism activities, have turned Paris into one of the major transportation hubs in the world. Alongside New York, London, and Tokyo, Paris is among the four most important global cities.


I didnt said it its wiki! plus we have a disneyland in our metro area. Paris is almost the capital for most of africa too, since most of the francophones africans elite are in paris or often go to paris.



bloody french did it
 
#14 ·
Finally some non-Americans to talk sense! (mass generalisation)

London and Paris are hugely important global cities due to the UK and France's dominating position in the EU. Germany should be in there, but due to some problems (WWII nazis etc) they weren't invited to the party.

Like it or not ask any analyst and they'd say London, Paris, NY and Tokyo are the 'Big 4', in terms of economic and political influnce.

As for the original point of US cities 'making it' it as truly global cities, LA and Chicago are pretty much there, but wont get much further.
 
#15 ·
brooklyn wrote


Chicago unfortunately finds itself in a declining unfashionable (of my ivy classmates, no one outside of the midwest wanted to end up there) region, and plays kind of a second, third or fourth fiddle to NY in too many areas. In other words, outside of derivates and commodities (and there tenuously), it hasn't found any niches where it securely leads NY.


um dude, last time I checked virtually the entire Midwest is growing faster than the entire Northeast. New York and Boston are actually in the middle of the real declining region. And anyone who drops the "Ivy" league crap wouldn't be welcome in the Midwest anyhow.
 
#19 ·
crawford said:
How about global capital of the French-speaking world?
sorry to burst your bubble, but the French-speaking world consists of France, 1/5 of Switzerland, less than half of Belgium, Quebec, maybe Haiti (creole), a few tiny tropical islands, and some of the poorest and least developed countries in Africa, itself by far the poorest and least developed continent in the world.

If those African countries actually mattered for anything, Washington would've taken them away from France's orbit a long time ago. South Africa by itself counts for far more than all of them put together.
 
#21 ·
Rockford said:
um dude, last time I checked virtually the entire Midwest is growing faster than the entire Northeast. New York and Boston are actually in the middle of the real declining region. And anyone who drops the "Ivy" league crap wouldn't be welcome in the Midwest anyhow.
Boston, NY and Washington are by far the single largest concentration of talent and power in the United States. The region is also, along with California, the largest immigrant destination. The decline you're talking about is happening in upstate NY, rural PA, and other places that no one in NYC, Boston or Washington gives a shit about. Not many people in NYC even think of Buffalo or Rochester as being in the same region. We draw talent from the whole country.
 
#22 ·
again, Massachusetts, the state, tiny that it is, lost population last year. St. Louis had some of the fastest growth in terms of jobs last year. The Midwest is drawing an increasing number of immigrants from both abroad and from the coasts themselves. Hindu temples are popping up in places like Omaha.

Your perceptions of the Midwest are obviously comtrolled by the same places you think are uber alles, the coasts.

Here's a prediction for 2010, the Coasts will be bleeding population as a housing crash in those regions send people inward. It's already happening in California.
 
#23 ·
there won't be a crash in Rockford :)

from an NPR show

Coastal Housing Bubble May Be Set to Burst
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4572672

and from the left coast
San Francisco Bay Area Housing Crash Continues

Charlie Munger of Berkshire Hathaway: "There are some very extreme housing price bubbles going on."

Foreclosure listings nationwide went up 50% from February to March 2005.

PMI mortgage insurance now refuses to insure more than $350,000 of risk in speculative markets like San Jose/San Francisco.

A large majority of Bay Area houses are now bought with interest-only adjustible rate mortgages, exposing owners to bankruptcy.

New house sales plummet 9.2% nationally in January nationwide, while median prices fall 13%.

Speculators now account for 25% of all purchases nationally, and an additional 13% are vacation houses, making a market free-fall possible when they all sell.

Sydney, London, and Las Vegas are already well into their crashes. Now it's our turn.

Why?

# Interest rates going back up. When rates go from 5% to 7%, that's a 40% increase in the amount of interest a buyer has to pay. House prices must drop proportionately to compensate.

82% of Bay Area loans are now adjustable, not fixed. This means a big hit to the finances of many owners every time interest rates go up, and this will only get worse as more adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) get adjusted upward.

From CBS.MarketWatch.com on 13 Jan 2005: "There is a double whammy inherent in these ARMs," said Frank Nothaft, chief economist for Freddie Mac. "At the end of fixed-rate period you face a hike in interest rates and you have to start paying principal. There is more default risk in these interest-only ARMs than in a fully amortizing product."

# Massive job loss. More than 300,000 jobs are gone from Bay Area since the dot-com bubble popped. This is the worst percentage job loss in the last 60 years. It's worse than Detroit car problems or Houston's oil bust. People without jobs do not buy houses and owners without jobs may lose the house they are in. Even the threat of losing a job inhibits house purchases. Santa Clara County posted its third straight year of job losses in 2004, so it's not over yet.

# Salary declines. From http://www.mccallstaffing.com/need/needsal.html we hear that "salaries have in fact returned to 1997 and 1998 levels." Local incomes are nowhere near what they need to be to sustain current house prices.

# Mortgage fraud. Incidents of mortgage fraud tripled in 2004 compared to 2003, according to the FBI. A typical scenario is where the seller, buyer, both agents, and the appraiser all collude to inflate the price of a house to get a huge loan. They split the excess amount of the loan between them. The buyer then hides his share of the excess and defaults on the loan.

# Stock option expensing. The Financial Accounting Standards Board issued final guidelines that will force companies to deduct billions of dollars of employee stock options from profits starting in mid-2005. This will reduce the amount of money that local technology employees will get, and that in turn will depress housing prices even more.

# Population loss. San Francisco continues to lose population at the fastest rate of any city in the US and most of those are professional jobs. The problem is not only the dot-com crash, but also the outsourcing technical jobs to India, which continues at a frantic pace as corporations realize they can pay an Indian only 20% of what they must pay a similarly qualified employee in the Bay Area. Fewer people in the Bay Area means less demand for housing.

# Stock market crash. The NASDAQ at about 2000 is still only 40% of the 5000 it was at the peak of the recent stock market bubble. The crash in the NASDAQ probably hit the Bay Area harder than anywhere else because of all the stock held by employees of tech companies. That money would have been spent on housing, but is now gone.

# Extreme use of leverage. Leverage means using debt to amplify gain. Most people forget that losses get amplified as well. If a buyer puts 10% down and the house goes down 10%, he has lost 100% of his money on paper. If he has to sell due to job loss, he's bankrupt in the real world. Even a small price decline will bankrupt buyers with small equity. Buyers foolish enough to buy with no money down are already bankrupt, but still unaware of the fact.

# Inflation warp. The rest of the economy shows little inflation, but housing inflation has been very high. This disconnect makes houses more expensive in terms of real work. There is no increasing salary to pay off the ever higher interest, so the only way to do it is more work. Many recent buyers will have to postpone retirement because they overpaid for their house.

# Surge in foreclosures. We are already reaping the consequences of bad lending. Foreclosures are at the highest rate they've been in 40 years, about 1,500 per quarter in Santa Clara county. There are only about 4,500 sales in the quarter, so on average, about one third of house sales are ending in foreclosure.

# Shortage of first-time buyers. According to the California Association of Realtors, the percentage of Bay Area buyers who could afford a median-price house in the region plunged from 20 percent in July 2003 to 14 percent in July 2004.

# Lightbulbs going on in many brains in the Bay Area: "Hey, I can just go to New Mexico or Oregon, buy a gorgeous house outright, and comfortably retire on the rest of the price difference. My neighbors just did it, so I'll have friends there too."

# Surplus of speculators. Nationally, 25% of houses bought in 2004 were pure speculation, not houses to live in. It is now possible to buy a house with 103% financing. The extra 3% is to cover closing costs, and the buyer needs no money down. All this is on the unwise assumption that housing will rise ever higher, covering interest payments through appreciation. Even the National Association of House Builders admits that "Investor-driven price appreciation looms over some housing markets."

# Trouble at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They are now being forced to tighten up sloppy lending. This means they are not going to keep buying very low-quality loans from banks, and the total money available for buying houses is falling. Fannie Mae recently announced a $9 billion loss and its mortgage portfolio shrank at an annualized 16.8 percent rate in January 2005, on top of a 10.1 percent decline in December 2004.

# The best summary explanation, from Business Week: "Today's housing prices are predicated on an impossible combination: the strong growth in income and asset values of a strong economy, plus the ultra-low rates of a weak economy. Either the economy's long-term prospects will get worse or rates will rise. In either scenario, housing will weaken. Caveat emptor."
 
#24 ·
Rockford said:
Are you sure you are in Cambridge?

More people speak Portuguese than French, does that make Lisbon more important than Delhi???

Globalize people, gloooobalize. Outside of Europe and the northeast of America, such opinions are downright embarassing.
You do of course know European Portuguese is virtually unintelligable to a Brazilian? I'm not sure what Delhi has to do with Portuguese or French (or with Chicago for that matter).

French is one the top 10 languages on the planet and its capital is Paris. The Arab world, though isn't primarily French-speaking, looks first to Paris. Places like Cario and Beirut have much closer ties to Paris than to London or New York. Most people in the Arab world probably haven't even heard of Chicago.
 
#25 ·
Rockford said:
again, Massachusetts, the state, tiny that it is, lost population last year. St. Louis had some of the fastest growth in terms of jobs last year. The Midwest is drawing an increasing number of immigrants from both abroad and from the coasts themselves. Hindu temples are popping up in places like Omaha.

Your perceptions of the Midwest are obviously comtrolled by the same places you think are uber alles, the coasts.

Here's a prediction for 2010, the Coasts will be bleeding population as a housing crash in those regions send people inward. It's already happening in California.
Care to cite a reference to the "housing crash" or the "bleeding populatiion" in California?

You do realize Chicago's population is decreasing, right?
 
#26 ·
crawford said:
The Arab world, though isn't primarily French-speaking, looks first to Paris..
For what? Moral support against Israel? How about education? Investment? Oil expertise? America is the dominant political player in the middle east, and America and the UK the dominant foreign economic players.

Again, the French speaking world consists of France, Quebec, Haiti, 1/5 of Switzerland, less than half of Belgium, a few tiny tropical islands, and some of the poorest and least developed countries in Africa, which is itself the poorest and least deveoped part of the world. How is that important?
 
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