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St Louis and Cleveland both seem a little bit larger than Cincy/KC/Indy/Columbus, I assume because they are both a little bigger, and also because they have the legacy of being legitimate big cities a hundred years ago. But they are both clearly much closer to being properly grouped into that tier than with the big, prominent midwestern cities like MPLS/Detroit. It always makes the St Louis wish-brigade mad to hear it, but everyone who's been there knows...it's a mid-sized, provincial snoozer like most midwestern cities.
2.5 Million people are still in the 4 Missouri and 2 Illinois counties that make up the core of the St. Louis Bi-State Region. The other 300k are admittedly in smaller outlying rural counties, but the main 6 counties all have populations of around a quarter million or more people, so not exactly far flung places where nobody lives.
I guess I still just don't get the comment from one poster who continues to mention that St. Louis is so much larger than the other three. I just don't see that as being the case. If you take the development from St. Charles County, MO to St. Clair, IL you could easily fit the development from Hamilton County, Ohio to Montgomery County, Ohio as similar distance. Yet Hamilton County and Montgomery County are two separate MSAs.
Cleveland's UA should actually be 1.9mil+ For some reason the OMB has decided that the eastern 1/3rd of it's UA is actually a totally separate UA when there's no actual break in it. That doesn't even count the southern parts that are separated.
St Louis and Cleveland both seem a little bit larger than Cincy/KC/Indy/Columbus, I assume because they are both a little bigger, and also because they have the legacy of being legitimate big cities a hundred years ago. But they are both clearly much closer to being properly grouped into that tier than with the big, prominent midwestern cities like MPLS/Detroit. It always makes the St Louis wish-brigade mad to hear it, but everyone who's been there knows...it's a mid-sized, provincial snoozer like most midwestern cities.
I mean absolutely no disrespect, but to be fair if you’re calling St. Louis and most Midwestern cities “sleepers”, I’m not sure why Detroit and Minneapolis wouldn’t also fit that description. Detroit is one of my all-time favorite cities, but I fail to see what it has going on that makes it head and shoulders more happening than St. Louis. Same with Minneapolis. I know we’re all supposed to marvel at the Twin Cities’ relative “health” compared to many other Midwest cities, but let’s be real- in no way does the Twin Cities metro area really feel like a tier above St. Louis or Cleveland other than on paper, at least based on my visits.
I mean absolutely no disrespect, but to be fair if you’re calling St. Louis and most Midwestern cities “sleepers”, I’m not sure why Detroit and Minneapolis wouldn’t also fit that description
I don't find any midwestern cities particularly exciting, Detroit and Minneapolis included. Chicago lost a lot of what once made it interesting to me, but it's obviously not a snoozer. I do think that to the casual observer, or me at least, Minneapolis and Detroit are palpably bigger cities than StL/Cleveland/Cincy/Indy etc. When a city is about the size and activity level of Minneapolis (or San Diego) is the cutoff for when I start thinking of a city as a "big city" or "real city", and Detroit is certainly still a "big city". The belt of palpably smaller cities that St Louis falls into for me is "mid-sized".
St Louis and Cleveland both seem a little bit larger than Cincy/KC/Indy/Columbus, I assume because they are both a little bigger, and also because they have the legacy of being legitimate big cities a hundred years ago. But they are both clearly much closer to being properly grouped into that tier than with the big, prominent midwestern cities like MPLS/Detroit. It always makes the St Louis wish-brigade mad to hear it, but everyone who's been there knows...it's a mid-sized, provincial snoozer like most midwestern cities.
You have "KC" in your handle here. Did you live there, and what's your assessment of it?
The knock on KC when I was growing up there was "It's a nice place to live, but I wouldn't want to visit there."
I do think that the "provincial" label to describe these cities is generally unwarranted, especially after having spent decades living in a much larger Northeastern city whose residents have a deserved reputation for parochialism and insularity (and yet one I consider highly underrated at the same time). I find the typical Midwest urbanite to be more aware of the world beyond their own metropolis (or for that matter neighborhood) than the typical Northeast urbanite, and that even includes residents of four of the five boroughs of New York City. The residents of the fifth are merely arrogant, but not without justification in their case.
As for the "snoozer" part: I might have called Columbus that once, but that was before I spent a weekend there in 2009 and had a blast working my way through the Short North. I'm aware of the existence of similar districts in every one of those mid-tier Midwest cities save Indianapolis. Cleveland has Ohio City. Cincy, Over-the-Rhine. St. Louis, the Central West End and Delmar Loop. Kansas City, Westport. I don't know what the one in Milwaukee is called.
Of those, Westport IMO jumps the most on weekends — when I went Back Home in 2018, the crowds and traffic in Westport on weekend nights had gotten so heavy that the city closed the central intersection and the blocks around it to all auto traffic from 10 p.m. to closing time of 4 a.m. and set up perimeter barricades where everyone had to present an ID to police officers in order to enter. It's my impression that the analogous districts in St. Louis aren't as mobbed as this, though.
I credit the difference to Kansas Citians having finally made peace with their inner Boss Tom Pendergast and concluding that the wide-open city his machine ran in the 1920s and 1930s (Prohibition? What Prohibition?) really wasn't that awful a place and may have been even downright fun.
But the Short North was hardly devoid of action, and I hear that Ohio City isn't either. And while St. Louis may be a little more conservative (culturally, not politically) than Kansas City, the sidewalks there don't roll up at 5 p.m. either.
III.
St. Louis, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland, Kansas City, Milwaukee
IV.
St. Paul, Omaha, Grand Rapids
V.
Des Moines, Madison, Dayton
VI.
Akron, Toledo, Wichita, KC Kansas
Top 20 Midwest cities, broken into six tiers, inspired by the Southern City Tiers thread...
The most interesting question I have is regarding the Ohio cities' reshuffle. Has the hierarchy officially flipped to Cleveland being last of The 3 C's? What do people familiar with Ohio, what's the general feeling right now? How long until Columbus stakes it's claim as the alpha city?
With Chicago's national profile declining--it seems most agree it will eventually lose prominence to San Francisco and Washington--; how long until, or how much of a drop, does Chicago have to decline before Detroit can, if ever, become competitive for regional supremacy with It? Because no disrespect to Minneapolis, but I doubt that it could ever reach that level...
How thin has the line become between St. Louis and Kansas City? And is it safe to say these are the Top 20 cities in the Midwest? This is all in fun to me, so let's just continue having fun with these and allow this starter dialogue to open up other avenues of discussion!
Yes, let us discuss this very interesting question.
For us to believe that Columbus has somehow become, or could ever be the "alpha city" of Ohio, we must place suburban population growth over things like Cleveland being home to a "Big 5" rated symphony orchestra (recognized as recently as 2020 as being the top orchestra), a heavy rail subway with an airport connection, buildings that stood as the tallest outside of NYC for decades, among other things.
Especially relative to the midwest/rust belt, population is not indicative of stature.
Yes, let us discuss this very interesting question.
For us to believe that Columbus has somehow become, or could ever be the "alpha city" of Ohio, we must place suburban population growth over things like Cleveland being home to a "Big 5" rated symphony orchestra (recognized as recently as 2020 as being the top orchestra), a heavy rail subway with an airport connection, buildings that stood as the tallest outside of NYC for decades, among other things.
Especially relative to the midwest/rust belt, population is not indicative of stature.
Yes, let us discuss this very interesting question.
For us to believe that Columbus has somehow become, or could ever be the "alpha city" of Ohio, we must place suburban population growth over things like Cleveland being home to a "Big 5" rated symphony orchestra (recognized as recently as 2020 as being the top orchestra), a heavy rail subway with an airport connection, buildings that stood as the tallest outside of NYC for decades, among other things.
Especially relative to the midwest/rust belt, population is not indicative of stature.
If you look at the urbanized area populations SPonteKC posted, the order of the 3 Cs remains unchanged from its historic norm.
But I guess this also speaks to your comment about prioritizing growth on the fringe.
This discussion could also apply to my native state, whose two most populous cities traded places around 2000.
And the metropolitan population gap between the two has been narrowing.
But in terms of assets and influence, it's close to a wash. St. Louis has the better orchestra but KC's plays in a newer and better performing-arts center. KC has the better art museum but St. Louis' is hardly a slouch. Both have major league teams in baseball and soccer; St. Louis has hockey and Kansas City football (Go Chiefs!); neither has an NBA team but KC both hosts more college basketball tournaments and has a college hoops powerhouse a half-hour to its west (and in its CSA now). KC barbecue has a higher national profile than St. Louis-style pizza, but both cities have strong dining scenes now.
Economically, St. L has more Fortune 500 corporate headquarters than KC, but the latter is home to one of the biggest and best-known privately held companies in the country: between Hallmark Cards and Russell Stover candies, KC owns Valentine's Day (next Tuesday as I post this).
St. Louis remains Missouri's alpha city for now, but to borrow a quote from Satchel Paige (who played for the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro American League before jumping to the majors and who died there in 1982), St. Louis shouldn't look back — Kansas City might be gaining on it.
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