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1. Seattle- most explosive high rise growth downtown ever plus a great iconic Space Needle
2. NY- biggest city in the U.S. and media center with lots of high rises and it has lots of things to do
3. LA- huge high rise construction boom. It will have 02024 Olympics, and it has tons of things to do
4. Philly-a city with best downtown in America and has a good and strong bone
5. Chicago- very strong downtown with construction booms and has a lot of respects.
Unluckiest Cities:
1. San Jose-completely overshadowed by SF and downtown stalled by its own people
2. Fresno- downtown with nothing to do show for despite Fulton remake, which is failing, and not much to do
3. Albuquerque- little or no downtown growth. Not much is happening
4. Amarillo- not much is happening with a mediocre downtown
5. El Paso- lackluster downtown with not much development, and there's not a lot to do
1. Seattle- most explosive high rise growth downtown ever plus a great iconic Space Needle
2. NY- biggest city in the U.S. and media center with lots of high rises and it has lots of things to do
3. LA- huge high rise construction boom. It will have 02024 Olympics, and it has tons of things to do
4. Philly-a city with best downtown in America and has a good and strong bone
5. Chicago- very strong downtown with construction booms and has a lot of respects.
Unluckiest Cities:
1. San Jose-completely overshadowed by SF and downtown stalled by its own people
2. Fresno- downtown with nothing to do show for despite Fulton remake, which is failing, and not much to do
3. Albuquerque- little or no downtown growth. Not much is happening
4. Amarillo- not much is happening with a mediocre downtown
5. El Paso- lackluster downtown with not much development, and there's not a lot to do
Id substitute Philly for Boston, and move NYC down to 6-8
1. Seattle: Common Sense.
2. Washington DC: Beautiful, rich and diverse downtown, nice CBD, Georgetown, HUGE Developments coming along. Also the capital of America
3. Boston: Education capital of the world, huge developments in Seaport/Somerville/North End, Highest QOL in the metro
4. San Diego: The Weather, The growth of the city, the overall atmosphere. Its #1 for climate.
5. San Francisco: Amazing city iwth amazing food. Has the most respect for a city, everyone loves San Fran. Super cool landscapes around it, and the mecca of LGBT life. I was debating switching it with San Diego and Boston.
*Honorable Mentions: NYC, Portland, Miami Beach and Salt Lake City.*
Unluckiest
1. Cleveland: Its just sad.
2. Detroit: The luck they had from 1950-2010 was just awful. Population loss and job loss was sad, ut hey its starting to come up a bit.
3. Syracuse: For many reasons.
4. St. Louis: It got abandoned faster than Stapleton Airport. But atleast it has the Arch, and WUSTL.
5. Hartford: It can be something. But uhm.. hm...
*Honorable Mentions: Buffalo, Amarillo, Springfield MA, Atlantic City, Daytona Beach*
Some of these don't seem like luck they just seem like good decision making or bad decision making
Some of these reasons don't seem like lucky or unlucky
Unluckiest
1. Galveston - I was destroyed by a hurricane and could never come back to compete with Houston. A hurricane could have destroyed any city on the gulf coast, as recent events have proven.
For Luckiest
Maybe Houston or oil boom cities in Texas. Cities on the coast were settled because of their good harbors. Gold rush cities were settled because of the gold. The oil cities were already settled and there as railroad cities or cotton cities or port cities and then it was like hitting the lottery when they found out "hey we have oil too"
If anything, San Jose should be lucky for San Francisco and Silicon Valley's success, without those, it would be just an exurban community or company/agricultural town.
My luckiest list:
1. Las Vegas (For those who were pulling one-armed bandits, it may be unlucky for them, but the benefit of the economy, along with its proximity to other populated centers, led by Southern California. It's growth has been phenomenal in the past few decades)
2. Dallas (Given that its location is far from a major river or body of water in a rather bland landscape, it's remarkable that this is a Top 5 metro in some metrics, and it continues to grow pretty quickly. It should be, since its cultural footprint is bland for a metro its size.)
3. Los Angeles (It hasn't really seen a mega earthquake on the level of San Francisco, became the primary beneficiary for the automobile age, became the entertainment capital of the Western World, prides itself with sports and cultural events, continues to stride in growth, and continues to close the gap and notion that its a giant collection of suburbs with mini-downtowns thanks to more high-rises, street-level retail, and transit, along with of course some of the best weather in the country)
4. Orlando (From just a citrus town on the level of an Ocala today back in the 1960s, Walt Disney transforms itself into a tourist mecca, and helps out Florida in general)
5. Washington, DC (If it weren't for a certain act to select a permanent capital, this region would basically have a couple smallish cities today that are sort of at the South's northern fringe. Let's not forget Maryland remaining in the Union during that war which if it wouldn't have happened, the CSA could have captured it and potentially burn it down. In addition, it's made some great gentrification in this century, stopping it from becoming another Baltimore)
My unluckiest list:
1. St. Louis (At the turn of the 20th century, this was pretty much the second most popular creative city in America after New York, being the center of the ragtime and early blues movements, an escape from more hostile Jim Crow laws just to the south, an Olympics, railroad and shipping center, and still an important jumping off point for residents not brave enough to venture to the plains and westward. But corruption, deindustrialization, crime, and the lack of a major headline industry or event to attract people has basicaly made it the fastest-decaying city in terms of importance, with the loss of the Rams NFL team another sign. It's gentrification has been slow, and its suburbs seem to be stagnating despite growth for decades after WWII)
2. Detroit (The worse may be behind itself, but it has an awful long way to go, and a possible trade war threatens to derail its economy once again, especially as on the day of this post, President Trump ordered steep tarrifs on imports, of which retaliation may backfire against automakers).
3. Baltimore (Although it still has great bones and some underappreciated culture and is practically a smaller Philadelphia, it was hard to believe that this was the nation's Third City and second largest by city limits back in the 1800s, and even a top 10 city as late as the 1970s, and now is seen as just a mid-sized metro with a downtown weaker than you might expect for having a rather compact core)
4. New Orleans (The South losing the Civil War was the first real defeat, but then hurricanes Betsy, Camille, and eventually Katrina happened, and of course that was purely luck-based. Houston now is the dominant city of the Gulf South, though it still has a charming core and Mardi Gras).
5. Buffalo (A Top 10 city in the early 1900s, climate awareness and a shift in jobs have made it New York's Detroit, despite being close to some great attractions and cities).
Springfield was part of Connecticut originally. Springfield left Connecticut to join Massachusetts because of Colonial disputes with other cities in Connecticut. Today in Massachusetts there are 300,000 people in the Berkshires and 700,000 people in the Connecticut River Valley (Springfield Metro) the rest of the state is in the Boston CSA and Western Mass is kind of an afterthought.
If Springfield was in Connecticut it would be 26 miles from the state capital and part of the New Haven-Hartford-Springfield axis that would be central to the state economy, instead of just a city 100 miles from Boston.
That earthquake goes for the entire state of Washington, Oregon, and Northern California as well. “The Big One” will wipe out all major cities that people rave about (SF, Portland, Seattle etc...)
1. Portland
2. Seattle
3. Austin
4. Denver
5. San Francisco
Unluckiest
1. Detroit
2. Cleveland
3. St Louis
4. Baltimore
5. Oklahoma City
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