What keeps Atlanta from reaching LA, Chicago, or NYC levels?

[caligrad]

Originally Posted by skyscraperpage17

So again, that's just not true.

Not to bring up the conversation again, but let's review the facts:

*Every global auto supplier (if not based in Detroit) has a sizable presence in the city.

*Detroit is home to the densest automotive supply chain in the world.

*The R&D operations of every major automaker is based in Detroit.

*Detroit boasts one of the highest concentration of Engineers in the world.

The fact that even Toyota was lobbying the government to rescue GM / Chrysler / Ford during the financial crisis shows how critical Detroit is to the health of the auto industry.

Youre mixing the 2...oddly.

You're equating Detroit = Auto industry and that's sooooooooo no the case at all anymore. If it were, the city wouldn't be in the state its in now.

For Starters. R&D for EVERY? major auto maker is based in Detroit? Chrysler is based in Auburn Hills, 33 miles north of Detroit and Ford is now based out of Dear Born 10 miles west. The Detroit metro but not the actual city of Detroit. The only one dedicated to Detroit is GM. That's as bad as LA trying to claim Disneyland which is also 33 miles away from the city center.

Toyota lobbied to save GM and Chrysler (Not Ford because Ford never took Bailout money), Toyota did NOT lobby to save Detroit. The only reason why Toyota did what it did was because of a few financial obligations that GM and Chrysler had with Toyota which would have vanished had they completely collapsed. If those obligations weren't there. Toyota wouldn't have cared if its biggest American competition disappeared. They would actually be happy.

Not every Global auto supplier has a presence in Detroit. Does it have the densest ? in terms of number of different suppliers? maybe. Largest? most productive? also no.

Detroit boasting the highest concentration of Engineers? Which Engineers are you talking about since there are sub sections... because most lists I've seen of high engineer concentration actually point to the highest concentration being in the Bay area....

Here's hoping that it bounces back quickly though. I actually like Detroit

[caligrad]

Originally Posted by The North One

It would be easier if you could tell me where I should start first.

Apparently, Houston was a no-name town before Harvey? Or people abroad only know six American cities, Atlanta doesn't have economic power or allure, Detroit doesn't dominate the auto industry? All laughably false. You're the one who made claims, show the facts and the links.

HAHAHA You're reaching for attention. I'll bite. How many movies, songs, TV shows, plays are about Houston ? in comparison to the ones I mentioned ? I never said Houston was a no-name town, I mean, hello, its the fourth largest city in the nation. What I'm SAYING is, in terms of name recognition, its not on the top of anyone's list, when you travel abroad, which is fine.

Did I say people abroad only know 6 American cities ? HAHA again, you're reaching, but ok HAHA. What I MEANT was, if you were to do a survey right now abroad, I'm willing to bet everything that the ones I mention are the ones that appear on the survey the most. Again, nothing wrong with that, they just have a bigger media presence. I mean... Do a survey here and ask people to list cities in France, The UK and Australia. The top of all three will be Paris, London and Sydney. Why? recognition, they are the ones blasted on TV constantly. Atlanta and Houston are both NOT blasted on TV and social media constantly which is FINE.

Atlanta......Never said it doesn't have economic power, again, you are REACHING. It doesn't have ENOUGH economic power as NYC, LA and Chicago. It doesn't have ENOUGH Allure as NYC, LA and Chicago. I mean..... Come on now, I shouldn't have to hold peoples hands and break down word for word what I'm gearing towards.. I mean, I thought we were all adults here and passed the 5th grade hahaha.

And Detroit. I stick by what I said. Chrysler and Ford both are no longer based in the actual city of Detroit, they are in surrounding cities in the county. Most of the big 3s manufacturing are taking place in other states and other country's, I mean.... That has literally been the biggest talking point for the last 3 elections like seriously haha. I mean, to appease those of you who are so nostalgic, yes, Detroit will ALWAY be the motor city, I totally agree. But here back in reality, the city is the way it is because the big 3 dispersed manufacturing and operations. If they didn't, Detroit wouldn't be in the state its in now and Detroit would probably be in the top 5 largest cities in the USA but its not. Decades later its STILL shrinking and shrinking the fastest at apparently nearly 6% every census and down to the 23rd largest city in the country. For a comparison, at its peak, it was the 4th largest city in the country, population peak of 1.8 million. Now down to 679,000???

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population

[AviationGuy]

Originally Posted by caligrad

HAHAHA You're reaching for attention. I'll bite. How many movies, songs, TV shows, plays are about Houston ? in comparison to the ones I mentioned ? I never said Houston was a no-name town, I mean, hello, its the fourth largest city in the nation. What I'm SAYING is, in terms of name recognition, its not on the top of anyone's list, when you travel abroad, which is fine.

Did I say people abroad only know 6 American cities ? HAHA again, you're reaching, but ok HAHA. What I SAID was, if you were to do a survey right now abroad, I'm willing to bet everything that the ones I mention are the ones that appear on the survey the most. Again, nothing wrong with that, they just have a huge media presence.

Never said it doesn't have economic power, again, gurrrrllll you are REACHING. It doesn't have ENOUGH economic power as NYC, LA and Chicago. It doesn't have ENOUGH Allure as NYC, LA and Chicago. I mean..... Come on now, I shouldn't have to hold peoples hands and break down word for word what I'm gearing towards.. I mean, I thought we were all adults here hahaha.

And Detroit. I stick by what I said. Chrysler and Ford both are no longer based in the actual city of Detroit, they are in surrounding cities in the county. Most of the big 3s manufacturing are taking place in other states and other country's, I mean.... That has literally been the biggest talking point for the last 3 elections like seriously haha. I mean, to appease you who are so nostalgic, yes. Detroit will ALWAY be the motor city. But here back in reality, the city is the way it is because the big 3 dispersed manufacturing and operations. If they didn't. Detroit would probably in the top 5 largest cities in the USA but its not. Decades later its STILL shrinking the fastest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population

In your post you say you thought we were all adults here, but then I read your post, with the "haha's" and "gurrllll".

Posts like yours are what gets threads closed.

[skyscraperpage17]

Originally Posted by caligrad

The Detroit metro but not the actual city of Detroit.

I stopped reading there.

When I say "Detroit," I'm referring to the entire metro area. Other than you, no one I know of cares enough to differentiate from the city proper and the suburbs. It's all "Detroit" (just as people consider places like Alpharetta or Marietta all "Atlanta").

[Shawn]

I can't speak for EMEA or other regions, but when it comes to Asia-Pacific, we use travel demand as a proxy for overall destination awareness. Search is an excellent demand indicator, because users are proactively signaling their demand. Pulling average monthly searches (exact match across the top two engines per market, 12 month running median) for "(destination) hotel" in Japanese / Korean / Traditional Chinese for TW:

Hawaii / Honolulu: 180,720 / 157,590 / 92,384
.
.
New York: 84,660 / 65,610 / 49,421
Guam: 66,780 / 51,240 / 43,942
Las Vegas: 31,560 / 24,720 / 19,686
.
Los Angeles: 13,260 / 15,990 / 6,230
San Francisco: 9,120 / 6,480 / 4,396
Boston: 9,090 / 6,120 / 4,274
.
Chicago: 5,220 / 3,970 / 1,921
Washington DC: 5,020 / 2,770 / 1,156
.
San Diego: 2,880 / 2,350 / 924
Miami: 2,040 / 1,890 / 712
Orlando: 1,980 / 1,240 / 643
Seattle: 1,680 / 1,390 / 766
Houston: 1,340 / 980 / 417
Philadelphia: 1,260 / 770 / 309
Atlanta: 1,180 / 590 / 195
Dallas: 290 / less than 100 / less than 100

A couple points:

- Las Vegas is universally well-known; Hawaii and Guam index through the roof among Northeast Asian tourists for obvious reasons.

- New York, Vegas, and Hawaii / Guam are the only American destinations which index on the same levels as other global tourist destinations like Paris, London, Bangkok, and Bali.

- The second tier destinations see similar demand to places like Langkawi, Phuket, and Sydney.

- "Cure for Athlete's Foot" (水虫 治療) has more monthly demand in Japan than "Los Angeles hotels", as a reference point for the demand volume.

- No one wants to visit Dallas.

[mhays]

Does the travel-demand metric treat tourism and business travel differently?

It seems like an odd metric. Also it would downgrade anything farther away and hard to get to.

[Shawn]

Originally Posted by mhays

Does the travel-demand metric treat tourism and business travel differently?

It seems like an odd metric. Also it would downgrade anything farther away and hard to get to.

You can treat them differently if you dive deeper than a basic head term - you need to build out a qualifier list and check demand in aggregate. But there's no real way to differentiate Search intent between a business traveler and a leisure traveler based solely on "(destination) hotel".

Remember, demand is different from awareness. Awareness for something unbranded is a lot harder to gauge using Search alone, especially for something like a city destination, where the city name is used in so many unrelated terms (think of all the products and services out there which have "New York" or "Los Angeles" in their names).

[nature's calling]

Originally Posted by Chef

The sort of prominence that we are talking about is partially the result of cultural output over time. Atlanta hasn't been a massive city for long enough yet to rise to the same level as a cultural center. It has yet to spawn an internationally relevant cultural movement or have major cultural institutions. Cultural branding is what gives a city its oomph. It isn't something that can be manufactured by a government or chamber of commerce. It takes time and the accumulation of the works of creative geniuses.

This is a little out of touch. Hip hop?

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by caligrad

You're equating Detroit = Auto industry and that's sooooooooo no the case at all anymore. If it were, the city wouldn't be in the state its in now.

This is an absurd comment. The relative state of the city proper has almost nothing to do with auto industry fortunes. The auto industry had its greatest expansion concurrent with the city's steepest decline (the 1960's).

Originally Posted by caligrad

For Starters. R&D for EVERY? major auto maker is based in Detroit? Chrysler is based in Auburn Hills, 33 miles north of Detroit and Ford is now based out of Dear Born 10 miles west. The Detroit metro but not the actual city of Detroit. The only one dedicated to Detroit is GM. That's as bad as LA trying to claim Disneyland which is also 33 miles away from the city center.

We're talking Metro Detroit, obviously. 95% of "Detroit" isn't in the city limits. I have no idea what the Disneyland non-sequitur means.

And the fact you're talking about GM, Ford and Chrysler is indicative you're uninformed re. the auto industry. Detroit's importance isn't specifically related to any of these firms. Again, it's the automotive supply chain center of the planet. Has nothing to do with where Ford is HQ; the issue is that the engineering and design jobs are all in Detroit. The vast majority of auto jobs have nothing to do with the Big 3 or the foreign brands; it's the suppliers, designers and engineering firms that provide the bulk of jobs and wealth.

Originally Posted by caligrad

Not every Global auto supplier has a presence in Detroit. Does it have the densest ? in terms of number of different suppliers? maybe. Largest? most productive? also no.

Detroit boasting the highest concentration of Engineers? Which Engineers are you talking about since there are sub sections... because most lists I've seen of high engineer concentration actually point to the highest concentration being in the Bay area....

The Bay Area has almost no auto supply chain or engineering presence. It's basically irrelevant. Are you mentioning the Bay Area because of Tesla or something? Tesla is basically a tech firm. It's valued as a tech company and has no local supply chain, really. It aims to one day sell 100,000 vehicles when other firms sell 10 million vehicles every year since forever.

And, yeah, basically every global auto supplier has a sizable Detroit presence. You cannot be a global auto firm without a Detroit presence. The U.S. is, by far, the largest auto market on earth, and almost all the talent is in Detroit. Every German, Japanese and Chinese firm (and those are really the only ones that matter) are heavily invested in Detroit.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by nature's calling

This is a little out of touch. Hip hop?

I doubt Atlanta has a global presence because of hip hop, which is a global phenomenon, not an Atlanta-specific phenomenon. Even within the U.S., NYC would obviously be most associated with hip hop.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by caligrad

And Detroit. I stick by what I said. Chrysler and Ford both are no longer based in the actual city of Detroit, they are in surrounding cities in the county.

Chrysler and Ford have never been located in Detroit city proper. Chrysler was established in Highland Park, MI. Ford has always been in Dearborn, MI.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by maru2501

when people hear SF they don't think tech, they think Full House?

that's awesome.

It's kind of silly, but I think it's probably true. Most people don't associate Silicon Valley and the tech industry with SF, and I don't think you should underestimate global pop culture.

I bet you tons of tourists to NYC are thinking about Sex and the City or whatever instead of finance or insurance or law. Doesn't make much sense, but most people are dumb.

[dc_denizen]

What is full house? Sf known for rice-a-roni?!

Sf is known for being a gay Mecca and for 1960s music and counterculture.

[JManc]

^ You bet your ass...the San Francisco treat!

Because I doubt most people would make the connection to Allen Ginsburg, Kenneth Rexroth or Jerry Garcia?

[jpdivola]

Originally Posted by One ATLien

Every time people tell me how much they liked a place they have visited, whether in the United States or abroad they always go on to explain how charming/fun/exciting/lively and walkable the neighborhoods are. I think urban form plays a huge role in international recognition, generally speaking the most popular cities to visit have a great well connected urban environment. London, Paris, Rome, Vienna, NYC, San Francisco, Hong Kong,...".

Yeah, I think it is basically this. Atlanta is viewed as more of a suburban regional agglomeration than a vibrant city that you experience at ground level. Thats obvioulsy less true with each passing year as the city infills and develops. But Atlanta still has some ways to go before it is considered a "city" on par with Philly or Boston.

I think Seattle's city and DC's suburbs are a good model for the area to follow. Develop a mix use core, urban villages in the streetcar suburb city neighborhoods and then TOD and town centers in the leafy cul-de-sec post war suburbs.

Atl is pretty much already doing this. It just needs 20-30 years of execution.

[Crawford]

I don't think it has much to do with relative urbanity.

Keep in mind that, in the rest of the world, urbanity is a given, so isn't really appreciated. Outside of NYC there is no city in U.S./Canada where someone from Europe is going to be impressed by urbanity. And Europeans love LA, Vegas and Miami, none of which are particularly urban, and are less enamored with Boston, Philly and Chicago, all of which are quite urban (for U.S. standards).

[cabasse]

Originally Posted by jpdivola

Yeah, I think it is basically this. Atlanta is viewed as more of a suburban regional agglomeration than a vibrant city that you experience at ground level. Thats obvioulsy less true with each passing year as the city infills and develops. But Atlanta still has some ways to go before it is considered a "city" on par with Philly or Boston.

I think Seattle's city and DC's suburbs are a good model for the area to follow. Develop a mix use core, urban villages in the streetcar suburb city neighborhoods and then TOD and town centers in the leafy cul-de-sec post war suburbs.

Atl is pretty much already doing this. It just needs 20-30 years of execution.

i agree with this entirely.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I don't think it has much to do with relative urbanity.

Keep in mind that, in the rest of the world, urbanity is a given, so isn't really appreciated. Outside of NYC there is no city in U.S./Canada where someone from Europe is going to be impressed by urbanity. And Europeans love LA, Vegas and Miami, none of which are particularly urban, and are less enamored with Boston, Philly and Chicago, all of which are quite urban (for U.S. standards).

europeans are definitely impressed with chicago...i think that is a thing.

[jpdivola]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I don't think it has much to do with relative urbanity.

Keep in mind that, in the rest of the world, urbanity is a given, so isn't really appreciated. Outside of NYC there is no city in U.S./Canada where someone from Europe is going to be impressed by urbanity. And Europeans love LA, Vegas and Miami, none of which are particularly urban, and are less enamored with Boston, Philly and Chicago, all of which are quite urban (for U.S. standards).

I see what your saying from a vacation perspective. But, my experience is that people like places like Vegas and Orlando as places to party/visit, not because they think they are impressive cities. LA and to a lesser extent Miami are evolving cities. But I think most people think they punch a little below their weight. They have the glamour/weather/beach factor, but can be underwhelming as urban cities. I dont know anyone that thinks LA is worse off than 15 years ago as it has become more walkable. Extending that logic, if LA and Miami were more walkable I think it would be even more desirable.

In any event ATL will never have the geography/climate of SoCal or the beaches of Miami.

It could go the Vegas route, but I think most people would prefer a Seattle/DC/Philly style city.

[skyscraperpage17]

Originally Posted by jpdivola

I see what your saying from a vacation perspective. But, my experience is that people like places like Vegas and Orlando as places to party/visit, not because they think they are impressive cities. LA and to a lesser extent Miami are evolving cities. But I think most people think they punch a little below their weight. They have the glamour/weather/beach factor, but can be underwhelming as urban cities. I dont know anyone that thinks LA is worse off than 15 years ago as it has become more walkable. Extending that logic, if LA and Miami were more walkable I think it would be even more desirable.

In any event ATL will never have the geography/climate of SoCal or the beaches of Miami.

It could go the Vegas route, but I think most people would prefer a Seattle/DC/Philly style city.

Atlanta's weather/geograhy isn't perfect, but it's miles ahead 80% of the country. It can't do anything about the lack of beaches, but the fact that it sees a ton of sun much of the year, very little snow and is relatively insulated from natural disasters such as Earthquakes and Hurricanes (unlike LA and Miami) are huge pluses for most people.

With the trend in mass migration to the sunbelt region continuing and even heating up (as places such as Georgia, Arizona and Texas start to become political swing states), cities like Atlanta and Dallas will continue to be the biggest destinations away from the coasts.

As someone said earlier, I think Atlanta's going to go the LA route. Nothing's wrong with that.