Without reading other answers, I nominate my four finalists:
3 Charlotte
10 Jacksonville
22 Columbus
23 El Paso
Charlotte – does have professional sports, but Carolina Panthers don’t have city’s name, and NBA Hornets left for New Orleans before being replaced by Bobcats. Known for banking and for being near evangelist Jim Bakker’s Heritage USA theme park. No songs or TV series come to mind.
Jacksonville – Jaguars are in NFL, but no other major pro sports franchises. Miami is smaller, but much more storied than Jacksonville, which is Florida’s largest city in both population and area (indeed, in the latter category, it’s the most sprawling in the “Lower 48” states). Again, no tunes or other mass-media celebrations of the city spring to mind.
Columbus – I grew up in Ohio, so I’m all too aware of Ohio State, but I can respect non-Midwesterners’ mention of the Buckeye state’s capital. NHL’s Blue Jackets are rather obscure, and are the only major pro sports team representing the city. Family Ties was set there, but didn’t emphasize the fact.
El Paso – No major pro sports clubs, although the Texas Western (now Texas-El Paso) Miners gained fame for winning the 1966 NCAA basketball title after starting five black players against Kentucky. Marty Robbins immortalized the city by making it the title of his signature song, and Old El Paso foods are fixtures on grocery store shelves.
With an admission of possible bias, I’ll make Columbus my third runner-up. El Paso my second, and Charlotte my first. Edge thus goes to Jacksonville as least-celebrated.
Yeah, but Detroit is at least notable for being an egregious hellhole. When I think Detroit I think poverty, abandoned buildings, graffitti, corrupt racist cops, gangs, rusted industrial moonscapes, and soul-crushing despair.
When I try to think of Charlotte or Columbus I can’t think of anything.
Exactly. The list excludes Atlanta, which would be in most people’s lists of top ten or twenty cities in America. The population of the city of Atlanta is less than 500k, but metro Atlanta is pushing 5 million.
El Paso at least has a little history behind it, also being near the border gives it a somewhat more exotic quality than some of the other cities on the list.
My first thought was Charlotte, with Columbus and Jacksonville not far behind.
I entered this thread to nominate Houston, based on the thread title alone. But on discovering the population criteria used in the OP, there are several less-distinguished cities, such as El Paso, San Antonio, Milwaukee, San Jose and Indianapolis.
I grew up in and around Charlotte and both sides of my extended family are from California. Every year at the family reunion they would all ask how things were back in South Carolina.
That said, I’m kind of surprised Charlotte is getting so much – err, so little, love in this thread. When I moved to Phoenix, one of my two best friends from back home thought it was in Nevada, and the other thought it was geographically about where Omaha is.
I’ll go in a different direction. I do think Charlotte belongs on the list, along with El Paso (everyone knows where it is, but can’t tell you a damn thing about it). But I’d also add:
Milwaukee
Indianapolis
Sure they have historical reasons for being famous (Beer! Auto racing!) But I’ve never heard a single person aspire to visit or move to these places. Milwaukee has two mediocre sports franchises that only fans of the sports can easily name. Granted, Indy has a very good Colts team and a formerly good Pacers as well. I only know a handful of people who are familiar with the city and they don’t have terribly positive things to say about it.
Columbus isn’t super famous, but the largest uni in America is in its city limits.
By the way, Austin is the largest US city without a major sports franchise. UT’s big, but I always thought that was weird. It’s probably due to the fact that there are larger top ten cities to the north, east, and south (Dallas/Ft. Worth, Houston, San Antonio) that are a few hours or less away.
I’m from Ohio and I think of Columbus as “the place between Cleveland and Cincinnati” like RickJay said.
I also think of it as “the city that is trying way too hard to be huge by annexing every single city, town and village that touches it, until it LITERALLY is the only city between Cleveland and Cincinnati.” So meh.
I don’t think of Charlotte as so meh. I was told it’s an up-and-coming city to where lots of young people are moving. I may have been told wrong, tho.
It’salsomissinganothersideofDetroit. There are good and bad things about every city, and I see a lot of people who don’t live around here only know the absolute and exaggerated worst, and I get a little tired of it. I’ll thank you not to call this area an egregious hellhole.
I should leave the thread here, 'cause this looks like it could become a hijack.
I also thought Charlotte before I even opened the thread.
I interviewed for a residency position down there, and spent a couple of days checking out the city. The feeling I got was that it was a large city that had absolutely no reason to be there.
I then did three years of residency elsewhere in North Carolina (Greensboro) and while I heard of goings-on in the Triangle and Asheville and even all the way over on the coast, I never heard anything about Charlotte. People went to Raleigh for one thing or another all the time, but no one ever went to Charlotte for anything, even though it wasn’t that much further away. It was like it didn’t even exist.
Columbus and Indianapolis are definitely on the list, but they’re not even in contention for the top spot.
Oklahoma City is pretty far up there, and I’d toss Fort Worth into the mix too. Admit it, all you thought of was cattle, and the fact that it’s the trailing half of DFW.
Some of those cities, such as El Paso, have few or no suburbs; their metropolitan areas are much smaller than cities that are comparatively small, such as Cleveland or Buffalo.
Fairly large cities that seem to be absent from the nation’s popular mindset IMHO include:
Rochester, New York. It’s hard enough being a second-tier city in the state that houses New York City. However, Buffalo is still well-known nationally; pro sports, Buffalo wings, a distinctive blue-collar culture, the home city of several popular musicians and bands, and the setting for some movies and television shows. The Rochester metro is only a bit smaller, but it’s known for … well, Kodak. Otherwise, it’s off the national radar screen.
Jacksonville, Florida. Florida is filled with glamorous tourist destinations such as Miami, Orlando and Tampa. Jacksonville is know for … uhh, I don’t know.
Greensboro, North Carolina. Its metropolitan area has 1.6 million people; a wee bit smaller than that of Austin, Texas or Columbus, Ohio. When was the last time you heard about Greensboro, though?
Sacramento, California.
Any of the second-tier cities in Ohio whose names don’t start with the letter “C”: Toledo, Akron, and Dayton.
Major metros in Kentucky: Louisville and Lexington.
The Hampton Roads area cities in Virginia: Norfolk, Newport News, and the rest. The metro area of the Hampton Roads area is about 1,700,000.
Any of the smaller cities in a twin city metro: St. Paul, Minnesota; Fort Worth, Texas; Akron, Ohio (again); Durham, North Carolina, Oakland, California and a bunch of others.
Durham? Really? I mean, considering the size of this place, I think Durham ranks reasonably high on most people’s minds. It’s got the most famous minor league baseball team, one that a lot of people would recognize before they do teams like the Florida Marlins (two World Series not-withstanding). It’s also the home of Duke University, a fairly well-known institute of higher learning.
I’d say the same thing about Oakland or St. Paul’s noteriety, but I don’t live there. All three of these cities probably come to people’s minds long before Charlotte, Columbus or Tuscon.
I’ll give you Akron in a heartbeat, though. (as a native of Cleveland)