Are we not still doing that joke?

But more people pay attention to New York. :)

the 2nd city of the midwest is going to be a tricky one. detroit is big, but doesn't have much reach/hinterland outside of michigan and wasn't a "gateway city" running its own railroads and banking spheres between the east coast and the mountains...and became big for very specific industrial reasons, so it never laid the groundwork as an important trans-midwestern "power" like chicago did. the twin cities DOES have that historical and contemporary reach but is also super isolated up there relatively speaking, takes me about the same amount of time to get to NEW ORLEANS from st. louis. i'd argue that there simply is no 2nd city of the midwest...that's not to say that there are no good arguments for one, or certainly for one at certain points in the past, but i'm not feeling it in st. louis at this time.

^ in the context of the thread, many people are using "2nd city" as the 2nd largest, or 2nd most important (as measured by GDP) city.

by the measures of size and economy, detroit is the midwest's 2nd city. but the twin cities are creeping up on the motor city, and growing faster.


2017 MSA population
detroit: 4,313,002
twin cities: 3,600,618



2010-2017 MSA pop. growth
detroit: 0.39%
twin cities: 7.52%



2017 MSA GDP
detroit: $252.691 Billion
twin cities: $246.689 Billion

gotcha, i'm thinking of 2nd city sort of in terms of the importance of that term vis-à-vis chicago...partially a kind cultural abstraction but also regarding the sort of gravitational pull of a particular city from the surrounding region.

Most people also said Taco Bell was the best Mexican restaurant in the country too. New York has the benefit of being the media capital (shared in part with LA) so it gets more exposure but I still stand by the notion that they share the top category. At least on the east coast. There is a sense of awe I get in DC that I find in few other places. New York is one of them.

...nah. MSP's MSA has definitely been challenging the Detroit MSA for the second largest economy of the Midwest, but MSP is still pretty far behind when measured by CSA. MSP is also not likely to overtake Detroit in population anytime soon.

Otherwise, there is no other city that really comes close, on any metric.

Don't forget that Detroit has its oft-forgotten Canadian counterpart, which adds another 350,000 people to the Metro, putting it easily at a million people over MSP.

It's where 19-year-olds go to party.

Ah ouais, you found out about the Sainte-Catherine street, huh. That's cool of you.
You might have street viewed it for a little while if you've never gone over there yet.
That's the main retail street in town. It is entirely pedestrian, all along.

You'll notice these 2 fast food restaurants are located at the crossing of 2 main streets downtown, and there's a Starbucks to the opposite sidewalk, facing them. Ha.
These US international fast food chains often occupy primary spots because they've got some significant financial means to back them.

Bah, there's nonetheless plenty of independent restaurants all around, so you'd easily find more entertaining and original things.

to further clarify, i wasn't disputing raw numbers. however, the twin cities physical sphere of influence across at least 5 states IS massive enough to muddy the waters if someone wanted to argue it.

I lived in DC for 3 years and I can definitely say that despite its small size, it feels very special. You see more people from around the world there. The only negative is that unlike other major cities, often many of the international people there tend to be very transient. They are there for a few months or years and then they move on. But it's an ongoing churn.

It's a very fascinating place, and I would consider living there again for sure

that depends on how you define "anytime soon".

if the current growth rates so far this decade continue (admittedly, that's a GIGANTIC "if"), the twin cities MSA would overtake the detroit MSA in ~16 years.

i'm not saying it's gonna happen that soon, but the gap has been closing quicker than i think some people realize.

Depending on the sector you work in, Minneapolis already eclispses Detroit in many respects. Detroit has more soul but Minneapolis is a much more important services economy business center. Detroit has autos, Minneapolis has a lot of medtech, etc.

But “second city of the Midwest” is a silly concept anyway because the Midwest isn’t a discrete economy or culture.

^ MSP also has a much, much stronger core than Detroit. And that's the going thing today. Central city living is much more appealing to the professional youngsters.

Even through Detroit is seeing a lot of reinvestment downtown, it has way more ground to recover, whereas MSP's twin downtowns have been going at it for decades without any significant disinvestment issues.

i wouldn't not go that far.

minneapolis lost a good deal of old school urban fabric to urban renewal in the postwar period.

it wasn't nearly as extreme as the evisceration of pre-war detroit, but it saw a significant loss of traditional urban fabric none-the-less (just like all midwest cities).

right...some argument for the second city of the great lakes might make more sense. concepts of the "midwest" start to disintegrate when you're talking about a space between the arkansas and canadian border.

as i said earlier, this "2nd city" notion can work at all different kinds of scales.

metro areas, states, megalopolises, micro-regions, macro-regions, nations, continents, the globe.

there is no definitive "2nd city" of any other city unless we first establish the scale talking about.

as for the midwest, i don't think anyone could make a credible argument that chicago isn't the "1st city" of the region.

as for what chicago's "2nd city" is, depending on the scale, you could answer naperville, peoria, milwaukee, or detroit, and maybe minneapolis in the future.

chicago is the only city that ties the entire region together, from north to south, east to west. there's even a "branded" kc to chicago expressway across the northern missouri plains that never got full interstate funding.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...c_sign.svg.png

the only other city that has that kind of sprawling reach (on a smaller population scale) is minneapolis-st. paul, although you could really argue the canadian border aspect of detroit, which probably is an understated feature of metro detroit.

As some have already pointed out, Brazil's second city in population- Rio de Janeiro- about half the population of São Paulo is the country's cultural capital without question.

Most television production comes from Rio, as well as lots of music. São Paulo, however, has been catching up recently in terms of entertainment and is certainly financially stronger than Rio de Janeiro.

There will likely always be a rivalry between the two cities, as Rio is poised to grow tremendously when the oil industry there is finally in full swing. But São Paulo will most likely always be larger, as Rio as little space to grow since it's smashed between mountains and ocean.

Brasilia is growing at breakneck pace, and it's possible that in a few decades that it be the second Brazilian metropolis in population, passing Rio. But time will only let us know if this will happen.

Iowa has a primate city?

News to me.