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Originally Posted by JRG1974
I see this argument on whether San Antonio is a World Class city pop up from time to time. I think I finally have the answer for it.
Who cares!
Last I check, we don't get a bonus, plaque, or medal for being a world class city. I love San Antonio. I grew up here, went to school in Austin, and have lived and worked in different places across the US. They are all have their pluses and minuses.
I have since moved back to San Antonio, and it is a beautiful, unique, and amazing city. It really is a great place to live and visit. Population growth numbers for the area show this to be the case. But as Micahinsa pointed out, we have problems that need to be addressed. Not because we want to be a World Class city, but because we owe it to ourselves, our families, and our friends to make this a great city to live in.
Crime is getting worse (there are different reports to look at rank, but they all say we are getting substantially worse). We should do something about it. The drop out rate in San Antonio is scary. We should do something about that as well. Public transportation needs to get better (I don't think rail is the answer, but it does need to get better). We should do something about that. People get caught up in a silly argument about world class cities, and we ignore the issues staring us in the face.
Overall, I think the two main issues facing San Antonio are education, and unchecked urban sprawl. If we can resolve those issues, I think that would greatly improve this city. Would we then be a World Class city, I don't really care.
In the end, I have to agree with sirkingwilliam. There are no World Class Cities in Texas. The only sure fire world class cities in the US, in my mind, are New York and LA. Chicago, Boston, San Francisco and Seattle could make a case. But that is about it.
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During the months-long debate about whether San Antonio is a world-class city, I’ve been puzzled that there has not been a single mention of the numerous organizations that routinely evaluate and classify cities all over the world for that exact reason. The one which I find to have some of the most detailed information is the Globalization and World Class Cities Research Network (lboro.ac.uk/gawc/). The GAWC publishes a list divided into a dozen tiers arranged in descending order according to the rankings for each city tier group. Among the factors used for evaluation are economic strength, financial influence, transportation, educational institutions, presence of multi-national corporations, overall infrastructure and a variety of additional criteria. San Antonio is actually found among the cities contained in the eleventh-ranked tier, which is designated “High Sufficiency Cities”. As one might reluctantly expect, Dallas and Houston are in the fourth tier, while Austin made it to the eighth. Other good sources for reviewing similar rankings include the Global City Competitiveness Index, the Global Metro Monitor Map and the Global Financial Centres Index.
It should come as no surprise that San Antonio is found so low on the list, but at least we’re on the radar, so to speak. What was surprising to me, however, is how many cities in the U.S. are ranked way above us that we may have regarded as somehow inferior or behind us in overall development or growth. Is is true that these lists are the product of the opinions of the researchers, albeit opinions arrived at after considerable research and analysis. One may choose to disregard them as such, although that might be a little more difficult to do in light of likely scrutiny by disinterested entities who have left them largely unchallenged. After all, it has not been that long since we were reminded that opinions are not truth. Data and statistics are always subject to interpretation and that may well involve more subjectivity than objectivity on the researchers’ part. Since a lot of the data are provided by the municipalities, themselves, I am inclined to regard the information as fairly reliable.
I was born and raised in San Antonio but left when I was seventeen and did not return until I retired in '06. It is my home town, warts and all. I was fortunate to have lived and worked in seven states and three foreign countries and can truthfully say (can truth be opinion?) that I found some cities that were much nicer than San Antonio from a variety of perspectives, that being my humble opinion. Be that as it may, those posters who comment on a perceived lack of progress should have seen what it was like here fifty years ago when I was in high school. While it is certainly appropriate to focus on future goals, we must give due credit to those who have contributed so much to being where we are today.
Finally, I would certainly hope to see an eventual diminishing of the rancorous criticism leveled at some of our posters who have done nothing more egregious that offer their opinion on some topic in which they share our interest. To pile on someone for merely making a statement we happen to disagree with is a mark of childish immaturity, as well as a lack of patience, tolerance and simple, good manners. I salute those who persistently state their case while probably knowing that someone will crab endlessly for no particular reason.
Thus endeth my epistle of 7 August, 2018.