I’ll have to say Japan, they hold the future…cars, technology…the futureis with Japan…although I hate to admit it…
Jesus that made me smile.
Now I’m picturing Ralph Wiggum, “Tastes like… burning”.
Japan ain’t a city dude!
Give it time.
From a strictly solipsistic point of view, I would have to say that Boston is the most important city in the world.
Barry
In terms of stand up comedy, I think we can all agree it’s French Lick, Indiana
Or possibly, Bong, Wisconsin
No way.
Monkey’s Eyebrow, Kentucky.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, a man I feel it is safe to say was more wordly (well, at least more famous) than anyone here, claimed that the statehouse in Boston was the hub around which the solar system revolved. Further, there is a plaque in the ground in Boston declaring that spot to be the actual point around which the universe revolves.
That’s good enough for me. Boston it is.
So this is…the Peking order?
HAHAHAHHAHAH AAAHAHHAHAHAHAHAH
City/country thing aside, Japan has had that for a long time already. It’s not a large enough market, maybe. If it’s going anywhere, I’d say it’s China (Beijing, I suppose) also.
I think we can have some fun with the google search gimmick of most important city followed by city name. I just searched Tacoma and got 23 hits. Can anyone find ANY city that doesnt get a hit using this method?
American cities suffer because it’s all spread out: Washington is the centre of government; LA is the centre of the entertainment industry; NYC is the centre of finance, art, theatre and much music (though it isn’t even a state capital - nor is LA of course).
I would say London, since it’s one of the biggest world financial centres (2nd after NYC, I think), is a centre of political power (Britain may not be much, but it’s more than the UN), has a 2000 year history, a rich cultural life in art, literature, popular music, television, cinema and theatre. And University College London and the LSE are excellent seats of learning in science and social science. All this makes it one of the most complete cities in the world. Not that I necessarily want to live there.
Paris and Berlin do well on most of these categories, but not quite the full package.
(milton keynes “most important city” = 10 hits, although none of them are about MK; 1 is about Nottingham and Leicester and more than 1 about London.)
“most important city” “chillicothe” turned up no hits on Google. Figured as much, no one cares about my little hamlet of 22,000.
Let’s imagine you said Tokyo… Well, I’m currently in it and I would have to disagree with you.
Althought it is a nice, great and peaceful city to live in (but with sky-high appartment rent even in these times of deflation), its culture is too homogenous and the home to too many giant corporations that are crumbling under their own weight… Add to that the poor level of English from Japanese (the closest thing we have to a lingua franca in the world right now) and the historically insular attitude and you get something that can’t help in generating the ideas and the energy necessary to have a great impact in the future.
And think about it; what is one of the important symbol of Tokyo? The Tokyo Tower, a slightly bigger copy of Lady Effel in Paris…
Personally, I’m voting Beijing starting at the next Olympics in 2008. China will slowly replace America as the leading empire in the next 50 years (if America doesn’t push the world first into a nuclear holocaust that is…)
For being the most tolerant city on the planet, it sure is fussy about people not calling it by it’s nicknames.