What is the least celebrated or noted big city in the US?

[Ximenean]

Yet another furriner chiming in. Columbus, Jacksonville and San Jose stand out for me. The only thing I could tell you about Jacksonville is that for some reason it has an NFL team. Which is more than I know about Columbus. San Jose is just part of the Silicon Valley sprawl, isn’t it?

I wouldn’t say Charlotte (I’m always seeing articles about this new financial boomtown), nor El Paso (border town status makes it slightly noteworthy, and there’s those jars of chili sauce).

Honorable mentions to Portland, whichever one we are talking about. And San Antonio. The Alamo, right? Apart from that, I got nothing re San Antonio.

[OpalCat]

@Boozahol_Squid_P.I

Durham? Really? I mean, considering the size of this place, I think Durham ranks reasonably high on most people’s minds.

You’re probably right but for me personally (I do not follow sports) I forgot it existed until you mentioned it, and probably haven’t encountered the name or any reason think about it for years.

[elmwood]

@Shagnasty

I would have to vote for Charlotte, NC first. It is kind of like the Delaware of cities. I was surprised at how big it is when I found out. I know something about all the rest of them even if it is bad (Detroit, I am looking at you) but I know little about it except for knowing about some banking operations there. Columbus, OH is a meh as well.

I’m surprised about all the people who are saying “Charlotte”. Buffalonians have been moving to Charlotte in droves for the past two decades, and it seems to be the number one place mentioned in discussions of relocation from the Buffalo region. Charlotte has a LOT of buzz in the Buffalo area; it’s not just a destination for transplants, but the destination.

@Charlotte Observer

Since its 1950s high, Buffalo’s population has declined by more than half, to around 280,000. Meanwhile, since 2000, Charlotte has added 46,000 residents. And now, an Observer analysis of new data from the Internal Revenue Service shows a significant chunk of upstate New York’s population has moved to the Charlotte region.

The information, using address changes on tax returns, paints a picture of the migration into and out of the Charlotte region. It shows that Mecklenburg County is the No. 1 out-of-state destination for people leaving Erie County, home of Buffalo.

[LSLGuy]

I think the list the OP uses is fundamentally flawed because it’s based on the population of the central city only, making no allowances for the rest of the urbanized area an outsider would still consider to be part of “Greater Wherever, USA”. As a result, some larger urban areas with unusually small core cities are left off, and other smaller areas with unusually large core cities are included.

This is a list of the 97 urban areas in the US with >500,000 population.

 # Location                                                   2007 population
 1 New York-Newark-Bridgeport, NY-NJ-CT-PA CSA                     21,961,994
 2 Los Angeles-Long Beach-Riverside, CA CSA                        17,755,322
 3 Chicago-Naperville-Michigan City, IL-IN-WI CSA                   9,745,165
 4 Washington-Baltimore-Northern Virginia, DC-MD-VA-WV CSA          8,241,912
 5 Boston-Worcester-Manchester, MA-RI-NH CSA                        7,476,689
 6 San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, CA CSA                           7,264,887
 7 Dallas-Fort Worth, TX CSA                                        6,498,410
 8 Philadelphia-Camden-Vineland, PA-NJ-DE-MD CSA                    6,385,461
 9 Houston-Baytown-Huntsville, TX CSA                               5,729,027
10 Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Gainesville, GA-AL CSA                     5,626,400
11 Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, FL MSA                      5,413,212
12 Detroit-Warren-Flint, MI CSA                                     5,405,918
13 Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, AZ MSA                                  4,179,427
14 Seattle-Tacoma-Olympia, WA CSA                                   4,038,741
15 Minneapolis-St. Paul-St. Cloud, MN-WI CSA                        3,538,781
16 Denver-Aurora-Boulder, CO CSA                                    2,998,878
17 San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, CA MSA                            2,974,859
18 Cleveland-Akron-Elyria, OH CSA                                   2,896,968
19 St. Louis-St. Charles-Farmington, MO-IL CSA                      2,866,517
20 Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL MSA                          2,723,949
21 Orlando-Deltona-Daytona Beach, FL CSA                            2,693,552
22 Pittsburgh-New Castle, PA CSA                                    2,446,703
23 Sacramento-Arden-Arcade-Yuba City, CA-NV CSA                     2,397,691
24 Charlotte-Gastonia-Salisbury, NC-SC CSA                          2,277,074
25 Cincinnati-Middletown-Wilmington, OH-KY-IN CSA                   2,176,749
26 Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton, OR-WA MSA                          2,175,113
27 Kansas City-Overland Park-Kansas City, MO-KS CSA                 2,053,928
28 Indianapolis-Anderson-Columbus, IN CSA                           2,014,267
29 San Antonio, TX MSA                                              1,990,675
30 Columbus-Marion-Chillicothe, OH CSA                              1,982,252
31 Las Vegas-Paradise-Pahrump, NV CSA                               1,880,449
32 Milwaukee-Racine-Waukesha, WI CSA                                1,739,497
33 Salt Lake City-Ogden-Clearfield, UT CSA                          1,686,703
34 Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News, VA-NC MSA                   1,658,754
35 Raleigh-Durham-Cary, NC CSA                                      1,635,974
36 Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro-Columbia, TN CSA                 1,601,403
37 Austin-Round Rock, TX MSA                                        1,598,161
38 Greensboro-Winston-Salem-High Point, NC CSA                      1,535,926
39 Louisville-Jefferson County-Elizabethtown-Scottsburg, KY-IN CSA  1,369,024
40 Grand Rapids-Muskegon-Holland, MI CSA                            1,323,095
41 Hartford-West Hartford-Willimantic, CT CSA                       1,306,151
42 Jacksonville, FL MSA                                             1,300,823
43 Memphis, TN-MS-AR MSA                                            1,280,533
44 Oklahoma City-Shawnee, OK CSA                                    1,262,027
45 Greenville-Spartanburg-Anderson, SC CSA                          1,221,881
46 Richmond, VA MSA                                                 1,212,977
47 Buffalo-Niagara-Cattaraugus, NY CSA                              1,208,270
48 Birmingham-Hoover-Cullman, AL CSA                                1,188,764
49 Albany-Schenectady-Amsterdam, NY CSA                             1,148,416
50 Rochester-Batavia-Seneca Falls, NY CSA                           1,122,845
51 New Orleans-Metairie-Bogalusa, LA CSA                            1,075,283
52 Dayton-Springfield-Greenville, OH CSA                            1,067,741
53 Fresno-Madera, CA CSA                                            1,045,861
54 Knoxville-Sevierville-La Follette, TN CSA                        1,029,155
55 Tucson, AZ MSA                                                     967,089
56 Tulsa-Bartlesville, OK CSA                                         955,643
57 Honolulu, HI MSA                                                   905,601
58 Omaha-Council Bluffs-Fremont, NE-IA CSA                            865,894
59 Little Rock-North Little Rock-Pine Bluff, AR CSA                   841,326
60 Sarasota-Bradenton-Punta Gorda, FL CSA                             839,995
61 Albuquerque, NM MSA                                                835,120
62 Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, PA-NJ MSA                              803,844
63 Baton Rouge-Pierre Part, LA CSA                                    793,028
64 Bakersfield, CA MSA                                                790,710
65 Columbia-Newberry, SC CSA                                          753,663
66 El Paso, TX MSA                                                    734,669
67 Syracuse-Auburn, NY CSA                                            725,359
68 Toledo-Fremont, OH CSA                                             711,952
69 McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, TX MSA                                   710,514
70 Springfield, MA MSA                                                682,657
71 Youngstown-Warren-East Liverpool, OH-PA CSA                        679,402
72 Chattanooga-Cleveland-Athens, TN-GA CSA                            677,820
73 Stockton, CA MSA                                                   670,990
74 Lexington-Fayette-Frankfort-Richmond, KY CSA                       658,217
75 Harrisburg-Carlisle-Lebanon, PA CSA                                656,781
76 Wichita-Winfield, KS CSA                                           630,703
77 Charleston-North Charleston-Summerville, SC MSA                    630,100
78 Portland-Lewiston-South Portland, ME CSA                           619,917
79 Des Moines-Newton-Pella, IA CSA                                    616,122
80 Madison-Baraboo, WI CSA                                            614,103
81 Colorado Springs, CO MSA                                           609,096
82 Cape Coral-Fort Myers, FL MSA                                      590,564
83 Boise City-Nampa, ID MSA                                           587,689
84 Mobile-Daphne-Fairhope, AL CSA                                     576,175
85 Lakeland-Winter Haven, FL MSA                                      574,746
86 Fort Wayne-Huntington-Auburn, IN CSA                               570,779
87 South Bend-Elkhart-Mishawaka, IN-MI CSA                            561,279
88 Jackson-Yazoo City, MS CSA                                         561,234
89 Scranton-Wilkes-Barre, PA MSA                                      549,430
90 Lafayette-Acadiana, LA CSA                                         538,470
91 Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville, FL MSA                              536,161
92 Huntsville-Decatur, AL CSA                                         535,911
93 Port St. Lucie-Sebastian-Vero Beach, FL CSA                        531,958
94 Augusta-Richmond County, GA-SC MSA                                 528,519
95 Lansing-East Lansing-Owosso, MI CSA                                528,193
96 York-Hanover-Gettysburg, PA CSA                                    521,828
97 Modesto, CA MSA                                                    511,263

Based from Statistical area (United States) - Wikipedia

The OP asked about which city is least-known. In my longer list any of those well down in the list would qualify.

Considering just the top 27 (the size of the OPs list), I’d say Charlotte or Kansas City have a pretty good shot at least-known.

[OpalCat]

it’s interesting that the list in your list is different in ranking from my list of metropolitan areas in post 34. I wonder how they’re grouped differently?

[Lemur866]

@Jenaroph

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 never said my mental image of Detroit was fair or accurate. Just like people’s mental image of San Francisco probably isn’t very accurate either, it’s not all gay pride and sea turtle rescue foundations, and Seattle isn’t entirely populated by latte-swilling flannel-wearing grunge-listening software developers, and so on. But when people talk about Seattle they think they know a few things about Seattle, even if those things aren’t really true.

Same with Detroit.

[LSLGuy]

@OpalCat

it’s interesting that the list in your list is different in ranking from my list of metropolitan areas in post 34. I wonder how they’re grouped differently?

You used MSAs. I used PCSAs, which are different. There are also CBSAs & CSAs. The differences are subtle, but I chose PCSA as the measure best representing the idea of a free-standing conurbation that an outsider would understand as “Greater Fill-in-the-blank, USA.”

Essentially, MSAs are the smallest unit, while PCSAs combine MSAs which are closely connected. CBSAs are a subset of PCSAs with a single well-defined core, while CSAs are the largest grouping and can include multiple cores. And there are mu-SAs as well. Clear as mud?

[JThunder]

@RickJay

I’d have to go with Columbus. I mean, when the heck does anyone talk about Columbus? It’s Ohio’s capital, anda big city, and yet for most people it’s just the city between Cincy and Cleveland.

And Cleveland doesn’t get much respect either.

At least Columbus has the distinctive honor of having been named after Peter Falk.

[OpalCat]

@LSLGuy

You used MSAs. I used PCSAs, which are different. There are also CBSAs & CSAs. The differences are subtle, but I chose PCSA as the measure best representing the idea of a free-standing conurbation that an outsider would understand as “Greater Fill-in-the-blank, USA.”

Essentially, MSAs are the smallest unit, while PCSAs combine MSAs which are closely connected. CBSAs are a subset of PCSAs with a single well-defined core, while CSAs are the largest grouping and can include multiple cores. And there are mu-SAs as well. Clear as mud?

blank stare
starts drooling

[Martini_Enfield]

@LSLGuy

You used MSAs. I used PCSAs, which are different. There are also CBSAs & CSAs. The differences are subtle, but I chose PCSA as the measure best representing the idea of a free-standing conurbation that an outsider would understand as “Greater Fill-in-the-blank, USA.”

Essentially, MSAs are the smallest unit, while PCSAs combine MSAs which are closely connected. CBSAs are a subset of PCSAs with a single well-defined core, while CSAs are the largest grouping and can include multiple cores. And there are mu-SAs as well. Clear as mud?

En Anglais, Sil Vous Plait?

[Tibby]

@Simplicio

I live near Jacksonville, and I’m hardly even aware of it.

I now live next to Jacksonville, too. And, ditto your sentiments. It’s a fine city and all, but it’s a little bland—the working class city amongst a state full of playboys. I spend much more time in St. Augustine than Jax.

I’ll nominate Philadelphia, however, for the city that has fallen off the radar screen the most. First capital of the U.S.; once the second largest city in the British Empire; ground zero for the American Revolution and the struggle for Independence; eclipsed NYC through the 18th century; home of Benjamin Franklin, Betsy Ross and Dick Clark; birthplace of Horn & Hardart automats, the Mummers, cheese steaks, soft pretzels, Italian hoagies and scrapple.

Philly rocked the new world for a long time. Now? It takes a back seat to all the cities it once stood head and shoulders over. It got old and retired from the world stage with hardly a whimper. It was a great place to grow up in, though. Still number one in my book.

[Cisco]

@elmwood

I’m surprised about all the people who are saying “Charlotte”. Buffalonians have been moving to Charlotte in droves for the past two decades, and it seems to be the number one place mentioned in discussions of relocation from the Buffalo region. Charlotte has a LOT of buzz in the Buffalo area; it’s not just a destination for transplants, but the destination.

When I was in high school I worked at a little restaurant north of Charlotte. IIRC we had about 27 employees and 21 of then were from the Buffalo area. Shorty afterwards I worked at a pizza joint with a similar ratio.

. . . and is Charlotte really a banking “boomtown”? It’s been a banking hub as far back as I can remember and probably long before. We got the Nations Bank headquarters (tallest building between Philadelphia and Atlanta) in . . . shit, Wikipedia says 1992 but I thought it was the late '80s. Still, Charlotte = Banking is nothing new at all. It’s been 2nd in the nation for banking for over a decade at minimum.

[LSLGuy]

@Martini_Enfield

En Anglais, Sil Vous Plait?

It’s US Federal Bureaucratese. I don’t make it up, I just report on it.

Bottom line, there are several ways to define where a given chunk of houses & businesses either fade into wilderness or farmland, or merge into the adjacent chunk of houses & businesses.

Opal Cat & I chose different lists based on different criteria. So, unsurprisingly, we got different results.

[Martini_Enfield]

@LSLGuy

It’s US Federal Bureaucratese. I don’t make it up, I just report on it.

Bottom line, there are several ways to define where a given chunk of houses & businesses either fade into wilderness or farmland, or merge into the adjacent chunk of houses & businesses.

Opal Cat & I chose different lists based on different criteria. So, unsurprisingly, we got different results.

I can understand Legalese and Bureaucratese; I just had no idea what the acronyms all stood for…

[Airblairxxx]

@yabob

In spite of billing themselves as “The Capital of the Silicon Valley”, most of the country does not really associate “San Jose” when they hear “Silicon Valley”, and they don’t get much cachet from it. I think people mostly view San Jose as an appendage of San Francisco, in spite of the fact that they are about 50 miles apart, and San Jose is actually the largest of the Bay Area cities.

Bolding mine. It’s a point that many folks don’t realize, but it’s true. Despite being larger, San Jose is often overshadowed by San Francisco and Oakland.

@elmwood

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.

As I was saying.

[MaxTheVool]

An interesting (although perhaps not actually meaningful) way to rank how “well known” something is is to search for it in google and count the hits. So it would be interesting to take the 30 or so largest metro areas, search for them, count the hits, and then compare their rank-by-population with their rank-by-google-hits.

[Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor]

Baltimore is famous for-
[LIST=A]
[li]Unemployment[/li][li]Abandoned buildings[/li][li]Decay[/li][li]Being the only port in America the terrorists won’t nuke, cause it would be an improvement.[/li][/LIST]

[MaxTheVool]

@Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor

Baltimore is famous for-
[LIST=A]
[li]Unemployment[/li][li]Abandoned buildings[/li][li]Decay[/li][li]Being the only port in America the terrorists won’t nuke, cause it would be an improvement.[/li][/LIST]

Or, to sum up, The Wire.

[Mahaloth]

@Jenaroph

As I said, this is hardly celebratory, is it?

It’s also missinganother side of Detroit. 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 don’t want to go on, either, but you are right. Nothing is as bad as people make Detroit seem.

[KneadToKnow]

I haven’t seen Charlotte this much talked about outside of a Dopefest thread.