Not sure about these.

For the NE, Boston is a solid contender. DC as “second city” isn’t clear cut.

Also for the west coast, I think the Bay Area is really giving metro LA a run for its money. I mean, I know LA has more people, but in most other metrics the Bay Area is becoming just as prominent.

Agreed, I think for the NE Boston and Philly are kind of equal contenders. DC remains a problem for any contention - 1. It is not in any state, but the bulk of the metro is in MD and VA; it is the Feel Capitol and thus os a special case in itself. IMO its slightly overblown importance is because it is not integrated into a major broad based city such as Berlin, London, Paris, Tokyo, etc. These big cities with embedded National Governments seem to put the government into a broader perspective of thought.

I meant the Fed Capital - not the feel Capitol Hit the submit button too soon.

Yeah, I was thinking about that too. But it's also not hard to imagine Cleveland having become Chicago, if there were a more direct river route from Cleveland to the interior. I think Chicago ultimately won out because there is a more direct way to the Mississippi River from the city, along with obvious location on the Great Lakes, thus made a more strategic location for a rail hub.

Where is Illinois: Chicago?

Obviously it belongs there tnx for spotting

States with one dominant big city:
Alabama: Birmingham
Arizona: Phoenix
Colorado: Denver
Georgia: Atlanta
Illinois: Chicago
Louisiana: NO
Maryland: Baltimore
Massachusetts: Boston
Minnesota: Twin Cities
Michigan: Detroit
Oregon: Portland
New York: NYC
Washington: Seattle

States with 2 big cities domination debatable:
Tennessee
Oklahoma
Missouri
Pennsylvania

States with multiple big cities, domination debatable:
California
Florida
Ohio
Texas

In Canada, I can think of three provinces where it's debatable as well.

Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, and Alberta.

Right or wrong, but when I personally think of the dominant city for each of these provinces, I automatically go to Regina, Fredericton and Edmonton. Maybe because they are all provincial capitals, and in Edmonton's case having that Gretsky/Oilers sports legacy.

Alabama also has Mobile, Montgomery and Huntsville which each are roughly 1/3rd the size of Birmingham. About the same as Pittsburgh to Philly

I'd say Maryland's dominant city is DC. The Maryland portion of DC metro has a larger economy.

And while NYC is obviously NYS dominant city, it's even moreso NJ's dominant city, as a higher share of NJ's population and economy is in the NYC metro.

I'm not sure if Fredericton has even been the second city. For much of the 20th century Saint John was #1 and Moncton was #2 and since around maybe the 90s that reversed.

Got to agree and I live in Freddy.

NB sort of feels a bit more like many states who pick the capitol solely on location more than practicality. Saint John should have been the capital, of this there is no doubt.
As it is Fredericton has been growing at a faster pace and may even overtake Saint John's population at some point. Perhaps on a national stage Fredericton seems more influential, but locally Saint John is still the economic engine of the province, and has WAY cooler bones.

Depending on your definition of "big city", also:

Hawai'i: Honolulu
Indiana: Indianapolis
Kentucky: Louisville
Nevada: Las Vegas
Rhode Island: Providence
Utah: SLC
Wisconsin: Milwaukee

Canada: Montreal
British Columbia: Victoria (strong #2 and a relevant centre)
Alberta: Red Deer or Lethbridge (assuming Calgary and Edmonton are 1a and 1b)
Saskatchewan: Prince Albert (assuming Saskatoon and Regina are 1a and 1b)
Manitoba: Brandon (strong #2, but far far behind Winnipeg)
Ontario: Ottawa (strong #2, but in unique position as federal capital)
Quebec: Quebec City (strong #2, relevant centre)
New Brunswick: Saint John? (as a total outsider, Moncton, Saint John, and Fredericton are all close enough that it feels like it could be a 1a, 1b, and 1c type of thing)
PEI: Summerside
Nova Scotia: Sydney?
Newfoundland and Labrador: Corner Brook (far far behind St. John's)
Yukon: Dawson City (strong #2)
Northwest Territories: Hay River/Inuvik
Nunavut: Rankin Inlet/Arviat?

Metro Vancouver bonus: Surrey (strong #2 after Vancouver)

This would be fun to split into a tier system in a spreadsheet sometime.

The original question about “second cities” was also about influence. This has always been a tricky issue. For example, growing up in NE Iowa, the nearest big city was Minn-SP, nonetheless the city of “influence” was Des Moines probably because it was the capital and the home of the daily newspaper that we read. However, the city to visit was always Chicago, the twin-cities just didn’t register. Similarly, living for some 20 years in Baltimore, we always looked to NYC as the place to go, bypassing Philly on the way. We probably went to NYC twice a year, DC occasionally (mainly if visitors from overseas wanted to see the Capital – and I usually just took them to the train and told them to enjoy the day), and Philly maybe 2 or 3 times in the 20 years. Obviously this is a personal reflection, and unfair to the wealth of things to see in D.C. and Philly, but it represents our experience. Today, some people commute from Baltimore to DC to work.

I think Pennsylvania and California have a clear winner, but a very prominent runner-up.

I would also include North Carolina in the domination debatable category. Charlotte dominates as a city, but by metro area Raleigh is very close on many metrics.

If a province (or state, or country) have a 1a and 1b, then there's no second city. Not every place has a second city.

Absolutely, was just trying to see what it all looked like.

And even in places with second cities, it's possible for that role to mean less. As an example, I'll use the provinces of BC and Manitoba, both of which have clear second cities as well as dominant first cities that each hold over 50% of the provincial population. In BC, Victoria is a clear second city to Vancouver (metro pop. ~2.5 million), and has a metro population of ~375,000, so it has a decent bit of clout itself, being separated on an island, the provincial capital, and a significant tourism centre.

Conversely in Manitoba, Brandon is the clear second city to Winnipeg, but it only has a metro population of about 60,000 people and is only about a 2 hour drive away. So while it does serve as a regional centre in the western part of the province, its orbit is quite limited and it relies a fair bit on Winnipeg still, making it less of a true second influential option and more of the quantitative "second-most populated city" thing.

its ridiculous to have the twin cities, yet not have akron/canton with cleveland. it once was, but then that damned national park divider lol. but thats another story. :shrug:

The weird thing about North Carolina is that the next two rungs down the urban ladder are both multi-nodal urban areas with three cities apiece. Raleigh manages to steal most of the thunder from the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill conglomeration, but Durham still keeps it from speaking as loudly as it could. Meanwhile, Greensboro somewhat dominates the Triad metro area by default, but Winston-Salem, itself a melding of two separate towns, keeps it from reaching its apex. I really wonder what it's like in some alternate universe where Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill, plus Greensboro, Winston-Salem, and High Point all grew as two single urban entities. I'm going to guess they'd be a lot like Charlotte, just with some soul and character, considering how much history survives in all six of those cities. Although, considering the educational resources that you find in those six cities, including such heavyweights as Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem and Duke, NC State, and UNC-Chapel Hill in the Triangle, that either of those imaginary single cities would probably be pretty comparable to Boston.