No, not the baseball teams! Which is the better city?
In a light-hearted nine-inning match-up, I compare the two cities head-to-head in the categories we normally use to rank places for quality of life. The categories include such areas as climate, crime, economy, and housing.
Which wins? Gritty Philadelphia or sun-splashed Tampa Bay?
After nine hard-fought innings, the winner is crowned in the World Series of Cities.
October 27th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
I am very pleased to see who the winner is. I think I’ll have me a cheesesteak to celebrate!
October 27th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
I am a tremendous fan of you and Mr. Florida’s work, yet the question that consistently enters my mind with these ratings is whether the generalized groupings by “life-stage” is stratified enough, and that general comparisons I am even more skeptical of.
Mostly, this relates to the ability of these categories to provide more marginalized groups, less represented in the population, with the data they may be looking for to make educated decisions. I suppose more research needs to be conducted, or (I hope) is already underway, so that one can do a better job of searching for a place that suits the lifestyle of these groups.
Just as an example of what I am referring to, in Florida’s ‘Who’s Your City?’ stratifying groups by “life stage” seems to be missing some stages I believe we are increasingly seeing in late post-industrial capitalist nations. One is the advent of what I might label “early mid-life crisis” or what I’ve heard some call “quarter life-crisis.”
These is not folks who are well established in their life, have children, hit 45 and then buy a Ferarri. These are “adultadolescents,” yet out of college for some time, may have have been involved in a few professions, but have become increasingly resistant to the more established “young professional” lifestyle, which they may have been a part of in cities like New York, London, and San Francisco.
Some might label many of these folks ‘hipsters’ and may be closer to ‘hippies’ in the 1960s, but I do not see these categories sufficiently providing insight into where these individuals might look to live. In the U.S., Denver, Austin, Portland — and I keep hearing rumors about Philly and Baltimore — somewhat cater to this group, but places like Berlin, seems to do a better job, yet many of these studies we keep reading don’t even mention it as a blip.
San Francisco and New York were once these cities, but I think this is far less of the case today, although people like this still go to live in these places. The problem is I think this is at least in part due to outdated data sources, or more like that they barely seem to exist.
Based on “quasi-qualitative interviews”, I’ve talked to musicians/artists (I’d identify as in “early mid-life crisis” life stage) who’ve moved to New York, are not well established while trying to do so, yet frustrated with the challenges of breaking in. When asked if there were another city in the U.S. where would you go to pursue their craft…
the answer is often…
“I don’t know.”
Yet, New York consistently comes up as a top destination in study after study, despite the high cost-of-living, and dominance of bobo, elite/establishment, and pop culture in the arts.
The Lower East Side, East Village and CBGB’s are gone as these places. Williamsburg/Brooklyn is on its way out, I suspect.
To get back to the original question, I’d love to see more stratified grouping so that folks in to this life stage can find the information they need to make educated decisions. This may be highly important, just for mental-health reasons, as well.
Again, I appreciate all of the work you do, but wanted to express my concerns.
On a lighter note, however, even as a Yankee fan who does not dislike the Mets nor the Rays, I am more than happy to say “Go Phillies!”
October 27th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Hi Ike,
Thanks for sharing your concerns, and believe me, nobody knows better than I do the perils of ranking places for the “average person.” By casting a wide net, there is a very real danger that the resulting analysis is meaningless.
The life stages used by Richard Florida and me are good start to narrow the criteria and have a more customized ranking. I think the best solution is to use a tool as a Best Place Finder such as the one on this Creative Class site or the one on my web site. About 20 years ago, I created an ‘fuzzy logic’ software program to allow users to weight about 60 criteria, and get a ranking of 300 metros.
I know what you mean about the young adults who are seeking an alternative to a professional career lifestyle. I have a ‘young couples’ segment, which seems to fit them fairly well. I often see a life arc which finds the recent grad going to the major metro to establish a career, and at about 30, hooking up with a significant other, and searching for a second-tier city that fun, creative, hip to enjoy life a bit, and maybe to start their own business on the weight on their newly-minted credentials.
Regarding musicians, I recently had a very interesting conversation with a young man, a native of Denmark, who was working at a Guitar Center. He had started his musical odyssey by moving to Austin, then to Chicago, L.A., and maybe a few more places before ending up here in Portland. He played professionally in all those places, and I asked him about the differences in the music scene in those cities. He had obviously been thinking about this a lot, and he was remarkable in that his curious mind looked for the links between cause and effect. Basically, Austin ‘gets it’ due to a variety of factors such as the concentration of venues and the business savvy of the owners, as well as the local pool of musicians. I think I’ll be doing an in-depth interview with him to share his insights with everyone.
Thanks for the comment!
Best, Bert
January 11th, 2009 at 9:53 pm
haha i just woke up from a hangover haha anyway i say boston cause noone takes me serously i live in philly no offenes