Geographically speaking it should be either Seattle or Atlanta, it should be a list of 5 tbh
Mexico City is the largest city in North America. Now if they said US that’s a different story
I’m curious, where are you from that “American” used on its own doesn’t specifically indicate united-states-of-?
It’s a stamce on here some people have to dub “American” as belonging to all of North and South America. It’s basically just being anti-US as much of Lemmy is.
They didn’t say “North American,” they said “American.” Everyone who speaks English understands that “America” on its own is almost always in reference to the USA.
It’s Jacksonville, FL obviously.
Umm, what about California??
LA?
California City is a shithole why would you want that one
Ok. Uhmmm, then Oregon???
Oregon City ain’t much to write about either, Portland would be a much better choice
Please, everyone knows the most widely-recognized Fourth City is Salem, OR. 🤣
I’m gonna cast my vote for McMinnville because they have that cool plane
Zamn!! Alright, I’ve got it, uh, Kentucky!
Kentucky Arkansas? Don’t think theres a whole lot over there
The fourth major US city is Springfield. Which Springfield, you ask? Any and all.
They are all the omni-Springfield. Shelbyville differs by state.
I hear when the earth is threatened all the spring fields form into a mega Springfield, with the Simspons Springfield forming the head
I don’t even think Chicago makes the list.
Sounds like a person from not Chicago.
I don’t live in Chicago, but it’s the fucking bomb. Awesome friendly people, good culture, just a goddamn gem of the midwest.
That’s fine, but it’s very far down the list of cities I’d expect to have a conversation or even hear about.
I went and found it altogether dreary. The city feels like it’s trying so hard to be New York with nothing of what makes New York so good, then you go out of the city and find the bleakest landscape on earth. Even leaving isn’t a good experience because you’ve got to deal with getting to O’Hare. I’d take Atlanta, Dallas, Denver, Seattle, Boston or even DC, Phoenix or Philly over it in a heartbeat.
Phoenix? Oof.
Gem of the country
Does that make the Midwest the tiara that gem is set into?
Correct. The cities in rotation are Dallas (the capital of oil), Houston (the other capital of oil), Atlanta (the capital of black people), Miami (the capital of Latino people), SF (the capital of rich people), and DC (the capital).
Denver?
Denver is my city, but I don’t think it qualifies.
I think Denver has a lot of great qualities - it is the home of outdoor/mountain life in the US, has the fittest population of any major city, is one of the biggest hubs of craft beer and cannabis, and is a significant player in tech, aerospace, and finance. Considering “Denver” to be the whole Front Range and I70 corridor, we are also a major military hub, the home of the olympics training center, and a hub for advanced computer chip design. We have a significant EDM music scene, the world famous Red Rocks amphitheatre, and world famous skiing at Aspen and Vail.
However, I can’t imagine putting Denver on the list at #4 for major American cities - the biggest factor simply being population. NYC metro has a population of 24 million. SF: 9 million; Houston: 8 million; Atlanta: 7 million. Denver has 3 million.
That might be forgiveable if it were more influential in culture, politics, or economics - but it isn’t. The political and economic power of Houston-Dallas have been the driving force in all the wars we’ve been in for the past 30 years: oil. Denver’s biggest political claim to fame is making weed legal. Our urbanist movement seems to have stalled out, and as many of my friends have commented - the city itself is fairly ugly in most places. And Denver fails to have any kind of unique and distinctive cuisine, instead, having a food scene that is, in the estimation of everyone who has visited, quite bad.
The three major cultural forces in Denver are Mexican, Midwestern Nice, and Mountain Yuppie. All of these together tend to create culture that is diven and hard-working, but that also has other priorities (like family, work-life balance, and time in the mountains). But this also creates a culture that has less emphasis on relaxation, creativity, and social openness. I’ve often said that the reason Denver punches under its weight on food and night life is because the typical demographic you would see hitting bars and restaurants on a Friday night - young professionals with disposable income - are going to bed early to go hiking Saturday morning. And these cultural priorities (along with the general auto-dependence of the city) combine to create a city that is not particularly welcoming to visitors and newcomers, and which mostly keeps to itself on the national and international stage. And at least politically, I think this has worked out well for us as (Imo) we typically have extremely sensible legislation governing the city and state (compared to other cities and states I hear about, at least).
While I would love to see Denver grow into one of the great cities in north america, at present I see it as more of a character actor - a city that is known and relevant because of a certain aspect of itself, but which is not a major player. Thus, it finds itself in the company of cities like Portland, New Orleans, Austin, Orlando, Las Vegas, or Detroit - cities that a foreigner has a 50/50 shot of knowing about because of a distinctive characteristic they have.
Denver is going on The Bucket List! Cool.
There’s also Portland, which now in recent years has become the city of trans people. But that’s only from the last few years.
Not a large enough population. Maybe Seattle
[sad Boston noises] they only get to be on the list when one or more of their sports teams is doing well and everyone hates them for it.
Ah yes Boston the capital of assholes.
(Surprisingly, when I lived there, I thought people were very nice)
People, very nice, drivers… Massholes are very real, but did you ever notice how they rarely break things? Agressive, yes, but they also learned to drive in a place where the road itself is also an adversary.
This is the right answer. Anyone can look at a list of populations. This is also a question about culture.
Who cares about Dallas, Houston or Atlanta - do people actually go those places when they don’t have to? I mean travel there by choice rather than necessity.
My criteria wasnt about appeal, but influence. Dallas and Houston are the biggest hubs of cowboy culture, which is probably the most iconic American look recognized around the world. These cities define the way other US cities are built, leading the way in car centric design. And the oil industry is responsible for every war we’ve been in for the last 30 years.
Atlanta, in addition to having a large population, is a huge center for music, food, and civil rights, and plays an outsized role in national politics as turnout there can sway presidential elections and congressional balance.
No one goes to Texas on purpose. Something has to go wrong in your life to land you there.
There are people who having decided to move there was the beginning of everything going wrong with their life, and i’m not even joking
This is true. As someone trapped in TX, I know lots of people who moved here excited that they sold their [insert civilized place] house and can buy a mansion in TX. Golly geez, people sure are nice here. Then they realize why the house was comparatively so inexpensive. Then they learn the difference between nice and kind. Then they leave or wish they could.
People have a hard time understanding that in a capitalist economy, everyone is bidding against each other for resources like housing. If two areas have comparable median income levels, they will tend to have comparable costs of living.
But that “cost of living” includes way more than just the mortgage payment. If people are paying more for property taxes, homeowners insurance, and commuting costs, there’s less money in the budget to go to the mortgage payment. Areas where property taxes, insurance, and commuting are cheap have high housing prices. Texas has extremely high property taxes, insurance, and commuting costs, so people can’t afford to bid the houses themselves up as much.
And this effect can trap people. The real value of a mortgage goes down with time - inflation helps you. But property taxes and commuting costs go up with inflation. And insurance costs rise much faster than inflation due to climate change. If your wages don’t keep up with inflation, then your total cost of housing goes up with time rather than down.
Indeed. Commuter costs is a funny one because people will move here thinking they can share a car with a spouse. That lasts about a week, less if they have children. Suddenly the lower mortgage or higher wages don’t look so great when the average new car is $49k.
No wait, what I meant to say is living in TX is great. Everyone should buy a house here. Drive up the market, then buy mine.
Welcome to Atlanta where the players play, and we ride on them thangs like every day
Being forced to go there is what makes them the rotating 4th.
I had Miami and SF on my list, but the others make sense.
The people who live in Houston seem to think it’s as good as Chicago, I’d disagree with them but at least there are good restaurants. Also from a population standpoint, Houston is basically the same size as Chicago so it invites comparison in one regard.
Houston has some amazing neighborhoods, cultural diversity, a solid professional job market, and great parks and museums. Unfortunately, this is only a fraction of Houston, where the rest is concrete wasteland and/or culturally devoid
In the city of Houston, you can eat any cuisine, from any nation on the face of the Earth…as long as you’re willing to do it in an old run down 1980s strip mall.
Genuinely some of the best food I’ve had anywhere I’ve ever been. I ate at an Indian restaurant Anthony Bourdain visited on his show and it was incredible. It was in an 80s strip mall about 30 feet from the I-10 service road, concrete in every direction, deafening traffic, and car exhaust heavy in the air. It’s hard to consider that people created that space for people to exist in
Dallas and Miami for sure. SF is basically the same as LA with Golden Gate. But Boston, Seattle, (New) Detroit, and maybe Omaha/Wichita if there’s tornado chasers or country/city clashes.
Omaha and Wichita are not on the same level as any of the rest you’ve listed. Very random to put them in here. Omaha is the 42nd largest city and Wichita is 52nd. And if you’re comparing Metro areas I would guess that disparity would place them much lower.
SF same as LA??? Have you been to either? Scale. LA is huge. SF is a tiny city. Weather. LA has nice weather. SF has four seasons: windy, foggy, ok, rainy. Always somewhat cold. Food: LA is so much bigger and has much more to offer. SF has good food if you can afford it. Vibe: in LA everyone is nice to you but doesn’t care about you unless you’re rich. In SF no one cares about you. Architecture: suburb vs Victorian suburb.
Yes, I have. On camera they both look so similar that the only way to discern the difference between Culver City and the Mission district is the background or having lived in those areas. This is how movie planning goes - what looks similar enough to pass as the area. It’s why Atlanta was used for New York in The Matrix (but you don’t seem to notice) with street names from Sydney (which you also don’t notice).
LA and SF have the same architecture from the early 1900s. Both have big parks, dense downtowns, and multi-storey sprawl for housing.
Have you been to these places and actually looked around?
No one is arguing for Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh is just fine with that.
pretty sure the only people thinking about pittsburgh are the ones suffering from pittsburgh.
oof
They got cool bridges
Yeah, one and two lane bridges. Everywhere.
The whole city has to merge down to two lanes and often to one lane. there is no avoiding it.
I used to live there and I’m so glad I don’t anymore. Getting anywhere in that fucking place was a goddamn pain in the dickhole. Slow drivers, miserable merges and everyone goes through the fort pitt tunnels at .5 MPH.
Fuck that city.
“America has only three cities: New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans. Everywhere else is Cleveland.”
Tennessee Williams
I think I agree with Tennessee Williams on NOLA that’s a great town, the food there is worth almost any distance flight.
Agreed, I’m particularly fond of Jaques-Imo’s Cafe.
Philadelphia. Paddy’s Pub is a landmark
I bet it rotates between Atlanta, Philadelphia, Detroit, Austin, Dallas, Seattle, and Portland, with occasional layovers somewhere in Florida.
Back to food the Detroit metro is right up there everything from great sliders, BBQ, Middle Eastern, Eastern Europe. If a food exists you’re going to find a pretty great representation there.
Then there’s the museums, the car culture, Motown, and now tech. Lots of shade has been thrown at Detroit but in 2026 if I was in tech or engineering it would be my first stop. Major sports teams, great jobs, the water, cool art deco architecture that all seems pretty great to me.
But WINTER
The water? How close is Detroit to Flint?
Flint is in the metro Detroit are but the water I was talking about was the riverfront and the islands just off the coast.
Could probably throw Denver in there and atl
ATL is Atlanta, but good catch on Denver
I is dumb
Denver is much more likely than Portland or Philly
My Mother in law got me one of their shirts when she visited a few years ago lol
I feel like Las Vegas takes fourth just purely from cultural relevance.
If it was by population then the 4th would be Houston but no one gives a shit about Houston.
Nah, Vegas isn’t so much a city as a big theme park. Hell, the casinos aren’t even in Las Vegas.
The Statue of Liberty isn’t actually in New York but they still put it on the T-shirts.
Oooo yeah Vegas is a good candidate
LA, NY, ChiTown, Miami.
My vote is probably Seattle, Philly or Boston, but I just happen to like them a lot. SF is lovely except it’s a bit too small and if you include Oakland and Berkeley (you should), it has some serious issues. Portland is nice too, but again pretty small.
Y’all who nominate any Texas (or any other deep red state city, save for maybe New Orleans) are fucking crazy though; even if they’re an oasis in an idiot desert, I’ve never enjoyed being in those cities. Even ignoring the state politics bringing them down, most are hot, humid and inconvenient to visit. I’m sure there’s some public transportation in places like Dallas or Houston but I have my doubts, I’ve always had someone I was visiting drive me.
Boston or DC.
But it is Philly
good old robot murdering Philthadelphia
Well, it contained batteries.
