Top Cities According to Resonance

[dimondpark]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

Global university rankings are hard. Caltech is top-notch but niche (I get to say that because I'm a physicist which is exactly Caltech's niche). UCLA is a great school (I have friends and collaborators thrre) with a fantastic research program but it's not really considered that prestigious for undergrad (partially because it's so big I guess). Also maybe I'm a little biased against UC's and Caltech since I went to their rivals for undergrad and grad school :-p.

Paris has the cream of the crop of francophone schools (Saclay, Sorbonne, Science Po, Ecole Polytechnique, etc.).

That's fine and I am quite aware of Paris great universities, but you said LA is dinged because it lacks top universities [compared to Paris] and that is just plain false according to virtually every ranking of world universities, not just USNews.

It's a fact: Cal Tech and UCLA are among the world's elite research universities.

And Im not just saying that because I did my undergrad at UCLA

[Sun Belt]

I'm actually in agreement with The North One.

L.A. is by far the largest/most influential city/metro/region in CA, which is by far the largest single most influential state in the U.S. which is the most powerful, wealthiest, influential nation in the history of mankind.

[mousquet]

Originally Posted by Sun Belt

I'm actually in agreement with The North One.

Once I read this quote in a French novel.

You guys will have no worse sore foe in the world than a woman feeling disdained.

Lol, this is what he sounds like.
A girl feeling scorned.

[iheartthed]

A good way to think about influence is to think about where the attention goes in times of crisis. If there is a global financial crisis or a situation requiring a military response, will we be more interested in what the decision makers in Paris have to say? Or will we be looking to LA for direction?

[badrunner]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

Come on guys, LA Is like number 13, just barely off the top ten. It rightfully gets dinged for relatively poor infrastructure and lack of top universities or museums. Unlike other cities, LA's top cultural amenity is easily consumed anywhere.

That's actually the very reason why LA is so influential. LA's cultural exports are global and ubiquitous, reaching every remote corner of the globe. You could be in deepest Sub-Saharan Africa or the middle of Siberia and you'll have something in common with the locals through the export and consumption of global mass culture. They may even know a few English words and phrases. Where do you think they picked it up? LA's cultural influence is so pervasive and ubiquitous that it essentially becomes invisible.

[badrunner]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

A good way to think about influence is to think about where the attention goes in times of crisis. If there is a global financial crisis or a situation requiring a military response, will we be more interested in what the decision makers in Paris have to say? Or will we be looking to LA for direction?

No. Nobody will be looking to Paris in that situation, and that's just about the dumbest way to rank cities by influence. If you want to rank cities by political power, that's a completely different thread. It would look something like this:

Washington DC
Brussels
Beijing
Moscow
London

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by badrunner

No. Nobody will be looking to Paris in that situation, and that's just about the dumbest way to rank cities by influence. If you want to rank cities by political power, that's a completely different thread. It would look something like this:

Washington DC
Brussels
Beijing
Moscow
London

France is the biggest nuclear power in Europe. If there is a military conflict, it will involve France.

[badrunner]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

France is the biggest nuclear power in Europe. If there is a military conflict, it will involve France.

You are muddying the waters by introducing things like political and military power. Like I said, that would be a different thread and you'll get a completely different list of cities. Refer back to the OP for the stated criteria for this ranking.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

Come on guys, LA Is like number 13, just barely off the top ten. It rightfully gets dinged for relatively poor infrastructure and lack of top universities or museums. Unlike other cities, LA's top cultural amenity is easily consumed anywhere.

LA certainly has top universities. UCLA, USC and CalTech are world-class. UCI and Pomona are also prominent.

Not sure if LA has particularly bad infrastructure or museums either. Infrastructure seems fine to me. Lack of transit is made up for by world's largest freeway system. Getty, LACMA, the Broad, MOCA are all well-regarded. What city outside Western Europe, excepting NYC, has four globally-known art institutions? Do Tokyo, Osaka, Singapore or Hong Kong even have one?

Overall, I would give a (slight) edge to Paris but I think they're both, without question, top 10 cities (and a good argument could be made for both for top 5 status).

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by badrunner

You are muddying the waters by introducing things like political and military power. Like I said, that would be a different thread and you'll get a completely different list of cities. Refer back to the OP for the stated criteria for this ranking.

We have long derailed from the original post. This is what we've been talking about for the last two pages:

Originally Posted by The North One

It's an alpha city but it's not as influential as it used to be (which makes sense since France as a country is a lot lower on the world stage than what it was). I would say it's closer to Chicago than New York or Tokyo, LA is definitely higher up.

[mousquet]

I'll tell you what, guys, when the Champs-Élysées avenue, boring temple of modern consumption and sin suddenly burns from riots, the entire world's media closely watches.

Including yours in the US. I think just last week, it was quite over your headlines, while it is hard to have the self-centered American media report about anything outside their borders.
Look at that, it's been going a bit wild today again.

• Video Link

Paris and France as a whole are at the very center of all issues caused by globalized contemporary capitalism and related inequity.
That's why we still matter much much more than you'd like it. Social issues are mostly discussed here, not in your materialist place worshiping money like savages.

Ok, the Chinese in general are now a tiny bit less poor, which is great. I'm glad about it.
But who is actually monopolizing wealth? What they'd call their 1%, something like that.
While your population is left to crappy healthcare and low education that yet cost more and more.

Seriously... The French welfare state has been a scam for decades. People pay taxes and get nothing delivered in return.
That's why these people in their yellow vests (some road distress signal here, when your vehicle just broke down) are upset. I feel like I'm on their side, basically.
It's not that they would be bad citizens. They are okay to pay taxes, but they want positive results in return.
That's all.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

and you know, los angeles has always been complimentary or ambivalent to paris, culturally a vapour paris/france interacts with as it pleases or not. sure they are both in the west but mars to venus, or at least a big moon.

Hey, I've thought this too and I thought I was alone!

Obviously the two are physically very different from one another, and their histories are very apples to oranges, but there is a certain je ne sais quoi affinity between the two cities.

I'll throw some ideas against the wall and see which of them stick:

- Paris and LA have an affinity to each other because they are the Western world's urban alternatives to the London-NY axis, which is dominated by things like finance. Even though Paris is just as old and venerable as London, and moreso than New York, there is a certain "old guard" feeling in New York and London that kind of is missing in Paris. I know that sounds absurd - and it probably is - and I probably wouldn't be saying that if I was a Francophone steeped in French culture. But I'm an Anglophone and that's the way I've come to see Paris.

- They were both very cool and pumping out great architecture in the late 1980s PoMo era, and some of the designs could have been plopped in one city or the other. Like the la Defense arch could be in Century City and look good

- Both were places for the English-speaking world's early 20th century's literary and cultural greats to escape to, either to get away from America and England or to make a quick buck screenwriting. For a certain group of people, both cities are romanticized for their escapism.

- OK, this one is totally stupid: Michel Foucault once said that the greatest moment of his life was dropping acid at Zabriskie Point, so one of the most French things I've heard of involved Southern California. Jim Morrison dying in Paris and being buried in Pere Lachaise is the same feeling reversed.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

- Paris and LA have an affinity to each other because they are the Western world's urban alternatives to the London-NY axis, which is dominated by things like finance.

Paris isn't a bit player in finance, like LA, though. Paris is a banking center and has a decent amount of PE and VC jobs (and growing).

Also, the "London-NY axis" thing is exaggerated, and more emphasized in the UK. NY has almost-as-strong ties to Paris. London needs NY more than NY needs London and the whole "finance rivalry" thing is more on the London side.

And LA has a large UK presence. There's a much bigger UK presence in LA than French presence.

[dimondpark]

Los Angeles is the principal city of a fast growing and very dynamic state economy.

[JManc]

I was last in LA this past July and then Paris in September...these two cities cannot be anymore different. LA is so decentralized and massive while Paris is so dense and compact, you feel like you're in a more globally connected city with Paris.

[mousquet]

^ Once someone (from the US) told me that the worst spoiled people they'd ever seen were in LA and here in Paris.

I guess that's the correlation. I went to LA too. It is not so different when you've explored Paris's outer suburbs.
Lots of various stuff in a lower density.

Central Paris and the neighboring municipalities are just some worldwide renowned oddity, but France is nothing much dense.
There is room in the country...

[healthiswealth]

You guys are idiotic. When it comes to this, the most annoying people in the world are New Yorkers and people from LA. Paris is on a whole different level. End of. By any measure besides film/fame. And guess what? More people don’t give a shit about that stuff than do.

[10023]

LA isn’t even the principal economic force in California. The Bay Area is more globally relevant economically.

GDP isn’t the whole story, and is largely just a function of population and living standards.

[Shawn]

Yeah... plus, I’d bet 2/3 of this survey’s panel couldn’t define “GDP” to save their lives. And they certainly weren’t thinking about relative GDPs when picking which cities are seen in a positive light.

Keep the survey’s stated purpose and audience in mind, guys.

[badrunner]

Of course it's a silly list using a silly methodology. That much was clear from page one. It's hilarious how you guys dismiss GDP though. I mean, if all you did was rank cites by GDP you would get a better list:

Tokyo
NYC
LA
Seoul
London
Paris
Osaka
Chicago
Moscow
Shanghai

In:
LA, Seoul, Shanghai, Osaka

Out:
SF, Barcelona, Singapore, Dubai