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There really is no scientific way of determining the quality of universities, so going by reputation might be the most effective measure. Which of these three *metros* do you think has the highest quality colleges/universities?
I'm not going to include Baltimore in my definition of D.C. metro, but you may if you wish.
Just the more well-known schools in the areas, but by no means all of them:
Los Angeles: UCLA, USC, Cal Tech, Pepperdine, Claremont schools, UC Irvine (debatable), etc.
Washington D.C.: Georgetown, George Washington, American, Catholic, George Mason, Johns Hopkins SAIS, etc.
New York City: Columbia, NYU, Fordham, Barnard, Pace, etc.
Why these three metros, but not the Bay Area or Greater Boston?
I'll add that New Haven (Yale) and Princeton (Princeton) are both part of NYC's metro, so NYC pretty much wins this without too much sweat. NYC also has a lot of specialized schools that are very well known such as:
Julliard (fine and performing arts)
The New School (does its own thing, and does it quite well, and also includes Parsons)
The Fashion Institute of Technology (fashion)
The Cooper Union (engineering, architecture, arts)
Pratt (architecture, design)
Rockefeller University (biomedical)
The CUNY system has had a pretty illustrious history as well, though it definitely took a big dip in the past few decades. It's back on the rise though.
Why these three metros, but not the Bay Area or Greater Boston?
I'll add that New Haven (Yale) and Princeton (Princeton) are both part of NYC's metro, so NYC pretty much wins this without too much sweat. NYC also has a lot of specialized schools that are very well known such as:
Julliard (fine and performing arts)
The New School (does its own thing, and does it quite well, and also includes Parsons)
The Fashion Institute of Technology (fashion)
The Cooper Union (engineering, architecture, arts)
Pratt (architecture, design)
Rockefeller University (biomedical)
The CUNY system has had a pretty illustrious history as well, though it definitely took a big dip in the past few decades. It's back on the rise though.
I'm not saying they're the 3 best, I just chose them because I think they're comparable. I think if I included greater Boston in the poll it would have won handedly, so I tried to make it more interesting.
It also seems like a stretch to include Princeton in the NY metro - it's more affiliated with Philly than anywhere else.
Maybe in the giant NY CSA area, but if you're going to do that you have to include Baltimore (Johns Hopkins) with D.C. New Haven is 80 miles from NYC. Is it really fair to say that NY can claim both Princeton and Yale in its metro? That doesn't seem right. You could argue they're in the same "urban area", but New haven and NYC are totally distinct metros, just like Baltimore and D.C.
If you include those in the NYC metro, you might as well claim all of the Baltimore schools and University of VA in DC's metro which would raise it a lot. UVA is the #2 public university in the country and Johns Hopkins is obviously a top school as well.
Also, University of MD is right outside of DC and is a great school as well.
If you include those in the NYC metro, you might as well claim all of the Baltimore schools and University of VA in DC's metro which would raise it a lot. UVA is the #2 public university in the country and Johns Hopkins is obviously a top school as well.
Also, University of MD is right outside of DC and is a great school as well.
I'd have no problem including an expanded definition of DC's metro and still declaring NYC the "winner." Any area that has a commuter line to the heart of the city should probably be rolled into the metro region, methinks. However, even if we were to throw out Princeton and Yale, NYC will probably still rank at the top though not nearly as handedly. Depending on what kind of criteria we're using, I might even say NYC metro ranks at the top of the nation above even the Greater Boston area.
I suppose we could just continue sweeping cities together to make gigantic mega-cities, but I think we should keep the metros as localized as possible. Incorporating New Haven into NYC is like grouping Sacramento and San Francisco together.
I think we should keep L.A. metro to L.A. and Orange counties, D.C. to just VA and MD suburbs (not Baltimore) and limit NYC to long island and northern Jersey, those seem like the most plausible definitions of metros.
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