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Originally Posted by iheartthed
LOL. Whut? No offense to L.A., I like it a lot, but it is nowhere near the league of Paris. Paris is home to some of the world's biggest companies, across a plurality of industries... not just finance, all of the French automakers are based there too. Paris is far and away the most high profile city in the French speaking world, and it's a pretty high profile city in the English speaking world too. It is certainly more high profile among English speakers than L.A. or Chicago.
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Paris as a city is in a completely different league than LA is, I would say. They have the grand boulevards, ornate architecture, world renowned museums, world famous landmarks, and a history that goes back many hundreds of years. LA is a young city, and simply cannot compete with Paris on that front.
But in terms of resonance globally, I think LA is much closer to Paris. The entertainment industry has presented America and specifically LA to billions of people around the world. People in Paris know about LA through movies and music, and the celebrity culture of LA is revered around the world. Even reality stars like the Kardashians are known world wide in a way that dwarfs the most high profile French/Parisian stars.
And to the point about Paris being a really big deal in the French speaking world, I think a similar point could be made with LA's importance in Latin America and increasingly Korea. Coupled with the huge population of Southern California and the success of selling the whole California image of surfing, palm trees, skateboarding, etc. to the world, I think LA is pretty damn culturally important in modern times.
Finally, a little anecdote to this point. I met a couple 20 something German guys from Berlin while waiting for a bus here in LA a couple months ago. I asked what made them decide to visit LA, and they quickly replied that gangsta rap was their favorite type of music, and that because of it, LA had been a dream destination for years. Now I'm guessing they didn't go exploring the streets of Compton and Watts, but nonetheless I found it interesting that music would prompt someone to travel across the globe. They also said they enjoyed LA because it was so different than most of the cities they had traveled to in Europe. In that sense, they thought New York was more or less similar to the European cities, and thus they found it less interesting than LA.