Quote:
Originally Posted by dave8721
Fort Lauderdale has a large concert hall and has an art museum but it would qualify more as a "twin city" than an "edge city". West Palm Beach as well.
If anything, I've always thought the reason why South Florida doesn't have 1 amazing anything is because we always have to have 3. For example 3 mediocre art museums (1 for Miami, 1 for Fort Lauderdale and 1 for West Palm) rather than 1 amazing one. Same for concert halls, science museums...everything. 3 pseudo-independent metro's next to each other rather than 1 dominant city with smaller suburbs.
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Some of that's gotta be distance related too.
more than any other "twin city" pairs in the US, Minneapolis/St. Paul most fully embody the "twin" dynamic. neither one is a ring or satellite city for the other. they function much more as equalish dual nodes of one single continuous city.
for starters, they directly abut each other, sharing a 6 mile long municipal border.
their populations are fairly close; Minneapolis 429K vs. St. Paul 308K.
they were both incorporated very close in time. Minneapolis 1867 vs. St. Paul 1854.
the two downtown are only 8.5 miles apart, connected by an intra-city light rail line, not irregularly scheduled commuter rail.
they split major league sports. MLB, NFL, & NBA are in Minneapolis. NHL & MLS are in St. Paul. (and notice how all the major sports teams are named "Minnesota", never one city over the other).
the main art museums and convention center are in Minneapolis, the main science and history museums are in St. Paul.
Minneapolis has the major symphony orchestra, St. Paul has the major ballet company.
Minneapolis has the flagship University of Minnesota, St. Paul is Minnesota's state capital.
Minneapolis has the major airport and St. Paul serves as the main river port.
and on and on and on.
they really do function more like one single city with two major downtown nodes than any other large US city pair that i can think of.