I feel like I need to defend the honor of D.C., I lived in Crystal City and took the Metro to Dupont Circle every day where I worked and I always had a great time. It's the perfect place for young 20somethings. After work you go check out the endless happy hours, or head up to Adams Morgan or wherever. You get get to the monuments mostly through the metro, yeah probably can't see them all in a day but the Jefferson Memorial is the only one that sticks out as being in some random place. Also the metro doesn't go to Georgetown which is annoying. But overall I had a great time living and working there. Lots of young single women you know. I never experienced any violence or crime, don't take the green line past Anacostia and you should be fine. I'd live there again.
Bloomberg's 50 Best American Cities
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It makes sense that it's not - it may have a lot of parkland on a per capita basis, but more of that is situated in several enormous parks on the periphery. Where I live (about 20 minutes to midtown by bike or subway), the closest park is about 2 miles away - and those are some traffic-infested, noisy, dirty miles. Not at all a pleasant walk.
The schools are both terrible and awesome - just like everything else here. If you're rich NYC is a wonderful place to raise a family. If you're middle class it's not bad, but difficult. Many people choose to live in New Jersey or just north of the city.
As for crime, it's pretty low. I very very rarely feel unsafe, but I'm a guy. Women would not say the same.
As for sports teams, NYC is home to relatively very few. Yankess, Mets, Cyclones (baseball); Rangers (canadian baseball); now the Jets (urban baseball)... I think that's it? For a city of 9 million, that's pretty much nothing. Consider some other much smaller cities, and how many teams they have - Chicago comes to mind, or even some of the rust belt cities.
What else was on the list? Economics and air quality stuff. Hmm, air quality is not great. Economics - things are great if you're in financial services or tourism or services. Other than that, the unemployment rate is not at all good.
Leisure activities? NYC has very poor access to the water, even though we have a hundred plus miles of coastline within city limits (a city of islands, after all!). This is changing - one of the things Bloomberg will be remembered for. Recreational boating will soon be within reach of people of modest means here, so that's good.
Cost of living is exceptionally high - neck and neck with San Francisco, I believe.
So, yeah - I'm not surprised NYC isn't higher on the list.
Ann Arbor is most definitely not a whore. I'd throw a similar insult at Colombus, OH but I feel it fitting that as a Michigander I be the better person. That said, Grand Rapids has some problems, but it's definitely large enough and nice enough to make the cut. I haven't spent a lot of time in a lot of large cities, so I really can't compare it to much else on the list though.
LightSpectra
me autem minui
By SW Maryland, you mean "Southern Maryland?" In my opinion, it's gotten worse in the last 10-15 years. Too much of the rest of MD creeping in.
Southwest as in Silver Spring/Takoma, as opposed to southeast like Salisbury.
Probably couldn't come anyway because of work, but where are the meetups just for curious?
Adams Morgan/Georgetown is really the same district in terms of population, i.e. sprawling with douchebag hipsters. And I commute to Dupont Circle every day, let me tell you that although the buildings would indicate it's a nice neighborhood, it's not much better than Mos Eisley. Crystal City is really nice though, although that's technically in Virginia.
Super55
Chieftain
Basing whether an area is a "city" or not based strictly on municipal borders is a pretty narrow view that misses out on a lot. Plenty of cities have areas within their city limits that are pretty suburban in character and construction. I still say urban area is a good indicator, as it's a measure of a cities continuous urban development, as opposed to the sometimes arbitrary city limits that might include empty, low density areas and miss out on high density neighborhoods right next door. Basing whether or not an area is a city because the imaginary line that forms it's city limit does or does not include populous suburban neighborhoods that branch out continuously from it's urban development in either case seems pretty silly to me.
Let's consider another metric, population density. Based strictly on city population, Fort Wayne Indiana is a larger city then Grand Rapids, 253,691 to 188,040. But Fort Wayne's land area is a gigantic 110.62 square miles, compared to Grand Rapids much smaller 44.6 square miles in land area. Consequently, Fort Wayne's population density is only 2,300 people per square mile, compared to almost double that for Grand Rapids, at 4,216.1 people per square mile. If you imposed the lines of Grand Rapids city limits on Fort Wayne, Fort Wayne would be a much smaller town. If you did the reverse, Grand Rapids city population would probably rival that of Milwaukee. Should Fort Wayne be considered a city and not Grand Rapids, just because it's city limits spread further out?
Yes it should. A metropolitian area stretches over multiple local governments, which would make ranking them impossible. Does Ft.Wayne have a geographic advantage in terms of population count? Sure. So do lots of sun belt cities...it's why Houston, Dallas, etc are huge. Doesn't matter.
The question isn't who is the most dense, or who has the most attractive suburb. It is what is the best city, and the Grand Rapids Metroplex isn't one city. It is multiple cities.
The question isn't who is the most dense, or who has the most attractive suburb. It is what is the best city, and the Grand Rapids Metroplex isn't one city. It is multiple cities.
ParkCungHee
Deity
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Also, going by Urban Area becomes unwieldy.
The New York Urban area encompasses 29 million people across 4 states. At that point, how good it is to live there doesn't tell you much.
The New York Urban area encompasses 29 million people across 4 states. At that point, how good it is to live there doesn't tell you much.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
You really should just skip to the point and officially name it "Megacity One".
Mango Elephant
Deity
Considering how streets are named in New York, it'd fit.
Cheezy the Wiz
Socialist In A Hurry
Urgh. I lived in Takoma Park a few months ago. Would never move back. (I'm in Silver Spring now).
FWIW, I consider this area to be "central" Maryland.
Always somewhere in the city. We used to go to the Capitol City Brewing Co. down by Union Station, but after that closed the last one we had was at their Chinatown location. We've had others in Dupont Circle, for example.
The deterring factor for Dupont is the cost of living. Median income there is $120,000/year, and the local fare reflects that. Still, there are a few decent dives, if you know where to look. Georgetown is a short walk from there, and offers much better fare, IMO.
Super55
Chieftain
Not taking into account urban or metropolitan populations makes the assumption that communities rigidly form along municipal borders, which I haven't found to be the case at all. You are completely incorrect when you state that it's impossible to rank metropolitian areas. The United States census has several measures for grouping urban and metro areas, including Urban areas , Metropolitan Statistical Areas , and Combined Statistical Areas . Why shouldn't you be able to rank any of these?
Now I'm not saying a list of Best cities needs to be or should be a list of metro areas, but I think it is a factor that should be taken into consideration, just as population density should be.
Anyway, I can't agree with your definition of a city as a municipality over 200,000, or whatever population cutoff you hold it at. You state that the population size of a municipality should determine whether it is considered a city or not, but there is no such official population sized based metric according to the United States government. A City is merely a form of municipal government, which can include 'cities' of less then a thousand people.
The article never stated that they were not considering cities with populations under 200,000, so as a Michigander I reserve the right to feel slighted
, and your personal definition of what is or is not a city won't sway me on my completely emotional response!Ah, if we're talking about literally living inside D.C. itself then I suppose that's different.
ParkCungHee
Deity
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That raises a good point. Isn't it a little awkward for a little while if we name it Megacity One? What if no one names themselves Megacity Two?
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
Well, Megacity Two gets A) drowned in zombies, and then B) nuked into glass. So it's understandable that nobody's jumping to volunteer.
Goodfella
Showing results for
What are you talking about? Cleveland has lots of culture.
I agree with you and I'll add that Cleveland will nearly always show up in a "worst cities" list. MSN: "Residents of the Mistake by the Lake endure brutal winters, high crime and a tortured sports history. They are voting with their feet as the net migration out of the metro area was 71,000 over the past five years."
DC should be ranked lower than it is, Chicago should be higher, and San Fran deserves its place as first.
Mango Elephant
Deity
I nominate Mississippi, or Ohio. Doesn't matter which.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
It could be both, if necessary. "Megacity" and all that.
DroopyTofu
Double Bass Double Bass
I'm proud that Nashville is so high up on the list. It's a great place with lots to do and great people. If number of music venues or number of live concerts were measurements, then Music City would be even higher. Still, I'm so happy to see it is ranked so highly 
I haven't spent any time in any other city on the list, so I can't really comment on any others.
I haven't spent any time in any other city on the list, so I can't really comment on any others.
Archbob
Ancient CFC Guardian
No, actually wrong, they totally did not take Cost of Living vs Average Salary into account into this list which is a very important factor. San Fran would not be first if they did. This is assuming your a multi-millionaire which most of us aren't. Cost of living for most people would rank higher than "culture" or "nightlife".
Chicago is about at the right place. DC is too high. Portland I actually think should be higher.
This is only relavent for rich young people then. For anyone raising a family or retired people crime, education, air quality are going to be just as important, and probably more so than leisure amenities. And income to living costs ratio is going to matter the most for not so rich families.
GoodEnoughForMe
n.m.s.s.
New Orleans is awesome and I will maintain that until my grave.
Also, anyone who says Michigan should have a city on the list is clearly a butt. Michigan has nothing.
Also, anyone who says Michigan should have a city on the list is clearly a butt. Michigan has nothing.
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