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NYC? LA? San Fran? Chicago? DC??????


Razors Edge

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Oh, man, this list will piss off all the usual characters (and make RG and ChrisL unbearable)!  :D

 

The Best Cities in the United States in 2022

How the cities are ranked

To determine which cities would be considered for this list, Resonance looked at U.S. cities with populations of more than 500,000. Each city was ranked based on a combination of qualitative evaluations from locals and visitors, as well as core statistics, including median household income and crime rates. Those ranking metrics covered 25 areas grouped into six core categories: Place, People, Programming, Product, Prosperity, and Promotion.

Place: Metrics in the Place category include weather (specifically the average number of sunny days), safety (violent crime rate), as well as outdoor spaces and sights and landmarks (specifically the number recommended by locals and visitors on TripAdvisor).

Product: The Product category is where the infrastructure of the city is considered, including its airport connectivity (the number of direct destinations served by the city’s airports), the size of its largest convention center, plus the number of attractions, museums, and major league sports teams. University rankings within each of these cities were factored into this category, too.

People: The People category takes into account the percentage of the city’s population with a bachelor’s degree or higher, plus its diversity (or percentage of foreign-born residents).

Prosperity: This category includes the number of Global 500 corporate headquarters located within each city, median household income, post-COVID unemployment rate, and income equality (which is measured through the distribution of income across income percentiles). While travelers typically don’t consider these things when deciding where to go, Resonance believes that a well-paid, economically secure population generates innovation and economic growth, which eventually leads to more cultural institutions, more quality restaurants, and even better airport connectivity in the long run.

Programming: This is what you’d typically call the “things to do” category, which covers the number of performing arts and cultural experiences recommended from TripAdvisor, restaurants, and nightlife experiences, as well as shopping.

Promotion: The Promotion category essentially ranks how popular each city is online. Resonance quantified this by looking at the popularity of each city in Google Trends over the last 12 months, as well as the number of Instagram hashtags, Facebook check-ins, Google searches, and TripAdvisor reviews shared online about each city.

“Of course, the pandemic has upended our cities as a whole and, for many of us, changed what we consider to be desirable in a place to live, work, or play,” said Fair.

 

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5 minutes ago, Randomguy said:

Housing prices used to be pretty reasonable, I think maybe I am out of touch a bit.  I suspect they are still far cheaper than most of the others on the list, though.

I've looked, and it's the usual mishmash of location location location.  You have $10M penthouses facing the ocean a block from $500k condos that don't have an ocean view or a balcony.  

If you want to spend $$$ in Miami, just like NYC, you can spend MUCHO $$$, but you don't have to.

Didn't realize there was affordable housing on Fisher Island, but $240k for a 1br/1ba ain't so bad!!!!!

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3 minutes ago, Randomguy said:

Housing prices used to be pretty reasonable, I think maybe I am out of touch a bit.  I suspect they are still far cheaper than most of the others on the list, though.

In Miami itself??? I guess the mean value is influenced downwards by Liberty City. But lots of very expensive property options.

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It all depends on what the list evaluates.  Big cities will typically  do well for rankings regarding medical care, cultural opportunities, education  and variety of lifestyle options, but they also tend to be more expensive, crowded and have more crime. They also tend to be more "walkable" than more suburban locations.  So if a list gives more credit to those attributes than affordability/outdoor recreation/safety etc, then the usual suspects will rank high.  In that way the lists are a lot like people, what you value most will determine what's "best" for you.

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Washington, D.C. has expensive neighborhoods that must be great to live in.  There are also expensive restaurants: Chinese ones with chefs from China, etc.  The Arts are sometimes reasonably priced, though most top performer's concerts are expensive these days. The Arts are much better around D.C. than within hundreds of miles in any direction until you hit New York City, 5 hours away.

This was an expensive ticket I managed to get in 2006 for free when I told the woman who sold me my piano and who worked for one of the sponsors that I had two backstage passes to Lang Lang's Concert if she could come up with two tickets for us to go.

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Me and Piano Virtuoso Lang Lang at his after-concert party (my also-Chinese Virtuosa music teacher Frances Cheng-Koors slipped me the two tickets he sent her) in the Music Center at Strathmore in the D.C. Suburbs.

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But, for a middle-class home, I'd rather live in the Baltimore Suburbs in the state with the highest median avg. income or in Arlington, VA and points south, and drive 1 hour to see all the great free stuff in D.C. than live in the middle-class areas of D.C.

Just today, I talked with my BiL about doing the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum this summer. And the National Zoo in D.C. is awesome with everything from Komodo Dragons to Giant Pandas and it's free with about $20 parking and you can bring your own food and drink if you want.

Here are people reaching out to brace themselves so they won't fall 100 miles down to Earth from the absolutely realistic VR experience of the Space Shuttle docked to the International Space Station.  The seats rock in all directions to add to the realism.  You can also look up, down, and behind you and in all directions it looks like you're really there.

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Here's an Orangutan at the National Zoo checking out then-7 year-old Nephew Adam (now 6' tall and 14).

IMG_20150819_123835_900p.jpg.2f0b3d49697a714f0b57dc6ca5352c22.jpg

 

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It depends on what you are looking for. Yeah LA has a lot to do and I enjoyed working there.  I have taken my kids on numerous LA tours, Venice, Santa Monica, Malibu, Getty, Downtown, Miracle Mile, Hollywood & etc and they thought it was cool. 

But I would never live in LA or it’s neighboring suburbs.  
 

 

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15 hours ago, ChrisL said:

But I would never live in LA or it’s neighboring suburbs.  

To us, you and Beanz live in LA :D

We had this conversation with our nieces a couple weeks ago. They are from Huntington Beach, and my wife was Brentwood & Irvine, and to me and my one niece's boyfriend, those places are LA.  But man did the table erupt at that interpretation of the "facts".  All the CA folks were VERY QUICK to shoot us down on what LA is and what these other - to me - LA areas are.

Too funny.  I'm not sure what is considered LA, LA suburbs, and not-LA suburbs, but all I know is the LA traffic starts at least at the Irvine exits, so I'm clumping ALL of that together. 

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Yeah, another one of those "choose the statistics that support your conclusion" studies. Most of these cities would also be on the list of highest cost of living and highest crime rates. Someone's trying to slap a coat of paint on a burning house to make it look better...

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7 minutes ago, UglyBob said:

Yeah, another one of those "choose the statistics that support your conclusion" studies. Most of these cities would also be on the list of highest cost of living and highest crime rates. Someone's trying to slap a coat of paint on a burning house to make it look better...

Hey, speaking of those cities and burning.  Never mind, it was mostly peaceful. 

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36 minutes ago, Razors Edge said:

To us, you and Beanz live in LA :D

We had this conversation with our nieces a couple weeks ago. They are from Huntington Beach, and my wife was Brentwood & Irvine, and to me and my one niece's boyfriend, those places are LA.  But man did the table erupt at that interpretation of the "facts".  All the CA folks were VERY QUICK to shoot us down on what LA is and what these other - to me - LA areas are.

Too funny.  I'm not sure what is considered LA, LA suburbs, and not-LA suburbs, but all I know is the LA traffic starts at least at the Irvine exits, so I'm clumping ALL of that together. 

I get the LA metro moniker and if you haven’t lived here it’s hard to discern.  The LA Metro area is huge and encompasses more area than the DC Metro area.  Beanz is pretty far removed from the City of LA but still lives in LA County do is more easily lumped in with the greater LA Metro area. 

Orange County has a different vibe and we don’t like being lumped in with LA.  It’s really that simple.  I think we align more closely with San Diego’s vibe than LA’s.

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12 minutes ago, UglyBob said:

Most of these cities would also be on the list of highest cost of living and highest crime rates.

Relative to?

Other cities or to small towns?

Relative to other cities, Chicago (9th) is the only top-10 one when rated versus cities.  NYC (80th), San Fran (66th), and LA (63rd) are WAY down the list.  

Cost of living is a tougher ranking, in that it costs more but you make more. And you can "get" more - ie Mick's post (and the various ranking criteria).

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1 hour ago, bikeman564™ said:

Me too. our population is ≈18K people.  Not as small as some, but I wouldn't want it bigger. Large cities can shove it :D

We just went over 8,000 and still no traffic lights. 

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48 minutes ago, Razors Edge said:

We're at 60,000+ and they won't stop putting in traffic lights! :runcirclsmiley:  It's why I walk or ride most places :D

Oh man my part of town is miserable for lights and the city is adding more.   My place is wedged between 3 freeways so the surface streets are already congested due to people coming & going via the freeways.  Just to go to the grocery store which is maybe 1.5 miles I have 15 traffic lights.  And, they are adding one more… Back in the day the way I took my kids to school there are two more traffic lights (so 10 lights for the 1 mike trip)

The high traffic volume necessitates all of the lights otherwise you are trapped in your neighborhood and can’t get out.  My tract doesn’t have a light )yet)  but there have already been traffic surveys.  If they add one, there will be 5 lights in about a 1/4 mile stretch of road…

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10 hours ago, maddmaxx said:

Whew.  I was afraid that it might be a list of Russian nuclear targets.

I am pretty sure it is!  :) 

I was walking around Red Square with a coworker once and he says "Does it make you feel uneasy knowing there are nuclear weapons pointed right at this spot?"   He didn't like my response when I said "Have you ever had the same thoughts walking around NYC?"  :) 

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