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Originally Posted by someone123
I don't disagree but I also think you could think of this as showing the limitations of a model that tries to predict what cities will be like based on their metro populations. The model sort of works within most countries and completely falls apart internationally.
London ON is like a bunch of larger US cities in terms of its role and importance. There are lots of US metropolitan areas with populations of over 1 million that are in the shadow of another nearby city, are one-trick ponies economically, etc.
At global extremes you have factory towns in Asia with hundreds of thousands of people who assemble widgets for subsistence wages, and then say a small capital and national primate city like Reykjavik, which I would presume manages to hold on to many of the best and brightest of Iceland.
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That definitely explains most of what is happening although there are still some other things at play. American cities a level or two smaller can often be more urbane than nearby cities of a million, even if those cities are, themselves, secondary places that aren’t really regional centres. Asheville, NC or Santa Barbara, CA are two examples. I took cities that aren’t very large in their regional context and aren’t home to a major university- at least not a university that dominates the local economy. If I included those, then there also be cities like Ithaca, NY or Ann Arbor, MI and many others.
The US is a place where people move much more frequently and sort themselves into places that fit their values, often far from their birthplace. But Americans of all stripes don’t necessarily gravitate to the largest cities.
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