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0 pointsjustin666y ago0 comments

The cities that can lay claim to being the greatest city in the world without getting laughed out of the room can - unless I'm missing a few - be counted on one hand. I wonder what other cities in the United States you believe qualify.

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7 comments · 2 top-level

umanwizard6y ago· 3 in thread

I dunno, I liked living in Tucson, AZ better than New York. Yes NYC has a unique grandeur but different people like different things; it’s silly to think one city is better than another on some objective scale.

(That said, I don’t endorse GP’s flippant dismissal of NYC either.)

justin66OP6y ago

> it’s silly to think one city is better than another on some objective scale

I think very old, classic measures like economic activity, the number of great works of art that come out of a place, the influence of a city on its surrounding region and its world, and the progress toward better public health and safety measures (highly relevant here) are a lot more quantifiable than one might at first believe.

umanwizard6y ago

Yeah, NYC is better than Tucson on all those metrics. Tucson is better on metrics like "I subjectively think the landscape looks nice", and "I like the sort of people who live there". What's your point?

justin66OP6y ago

I was engaging with the grandparent post about "the best America's got," which is an interesting topic generally, but also specifically in terms of public health. And then I corrected your statement it’s silly to think one city is better than another on some objective scale by naming a number of very reasonable - and I think, important rather than silly - objective scales by which a city can be measured.

I mean, if you don't think a city's economic output is an important objective measure, congratulations on never having lived in an area with a serious economic contraction (or read about one, apparently). If you don't think a city's rate of cholera cases (to use a classic example) or, more to the point, COVID 19 cases, is important, I don't even...

(I wouldn't want to live in NYC either, but I think that's uninteresting and not what any of this is about.)

Mountain_Skies6y ago· 2 in thread

Most communities don't aspire to be the "greatest city in the world", especially given the criteria upon which NYC would win such a contest. Most people are more interested in living a peaceful secure life than having the prestige of hosting Wall Street or having the most fusion restaurants per square mile. The best cover ever put out by the New Yorker was on the March 29, 1976 issue that showed just how myopic the city can be in regards to the rest of the world.

justin66OP6y ago

> Most communities don't aspire to be the "greatest city in the world"

Undeniably true, but honestly, what's your point? The OP's words were "the best America's got." I think in the context of the conversation we were engaged in, a suggestion as to what is the greatest city we have in general, or the greatest city we have in terms of public health, might both be interesting. I'm surprised by these "who cares about how good a city is, mannnn?" comments.

alistairSH6y ago

The two largest metro areas in the US have 10% of the total population.

The top ten metro areas have about 25% of the total population.

So, not a majority, but an absolutely massive number of people.

And that myopia goes both ways.

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