this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2026
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I'm not American but is San Francisco not a really important city?
Yeah, it is. There are arguably many more too. Minneapolis, Pheonix, Las Vegas, San Diego, Houston, etc. I just tried to pick a smattering of places off the top of my head from a wide spread of the country.
I'm with you on the rest, but Phoenix? I think they have the largest state college, but that's all I can think of for importance
It's the most populated state capital (5 million) and has a big tech and aerospace presence and semiconductor production. That's all I know about it really besides being hot and dry as hell.
Didn't it have the highest murder rate in the 90s? That place is too hot to support life.
Idk, from an outsider perspective to me the big 3 are NY, LA and SF. Chicago barely registers, nevermind Minneapolis
Oh no Chicago is massive. Has Willis/Sears tower which was once the tallest in the world. Is a major financial hub for thr stock exchange. Has a massive arts and good culture. Has O'Hara International Airport with flights all over the world. Many films and TV shows at there or in its suburbs.
It doesn't have as many familiar landmarks as San Fran, maybe. And San Fran is has gotten more important with the rise of Silicon Valley which shares the bay area. But Chicago is a big deal in the US, for sure.
Minneapolis really only matters within the midwest.
It was a big deal back when railroad connections meant something. Now, its a corrupt rat warren of institutionalized racism, corporate tax havens, and the goofiest accent north of oaklahoma. You guys dont even make good pizza.
Railroads still mean plenty. How do you think most goods get around?
Boats. Have you seen boats? Big metal things that float?
Yeah dude. Boats for water, then straight onto trains for land, then trucks for the last leg. Not getting a lot of boats to Indianapolis.
Indianapolis is tiny and irrelevant. All the big boy cities have ports. Chicago even has some of its own. They just dont matter anymore. I give it less than 40 years before what remains of our rail system degrades to the point that its just not safe to transport anything by train anymore. Boats will never have that problem. Its a lot easier to move a port than move 1000 miles of rail.
Indianapolis is the 16th largest US city by population. Nearly a million people live in the city proper, and 2.2 million living in the city and surrounding metro area. What do you mean it is tiny? More people live there than San Francisco, Seattle, Denver and Nashville.
And regardless most of the country is tiny, and none of it is irrelevant. Without those "tiny" "irrelevant" places the big port cities that make so much money shipping goods wouldn't have anywhere to ship them to. If the only people you care about are the ones living in cities the size of LA and up, I'm afraid you care about very few people.
Indianapolis has a population density of 2500 people per square mile. SF has about 19,000 in the same space. Seattle is about 10,000. Denver and Nashville are around 5k and 1.5k respectively, so you're getting closer. LA is way back up about about 9k. You see why these things aren't the same?
Chicago has the density, but its glory days are long past. Its just not able to compete with better placed city centers. Not with the state of rail.
So you're not a real city unless a 500 sqft apartment is a luxury? Stupid take. Throw it on the pile of other stupid takes.
Edit: Also, I love how your defense of calling it tiny is "yeah, sure, it has a lot of people. But it also has a lot of land too, so... ergo... it's tiny and irrelevant."
Alright, now send some goods from NYC to LA via boat, see how long that takes you.
You do recognize that there are a lot of places boats can't get to, right? That it'd be... whatever I'm not explaining trains to you.
And that's why people build cities next to water pretty much any chance they get. No matter how efficient your transportation system is on land, it cant beat floating stuff on water. Look at history. The best cities always have water (and boats) nearby.
Historically we didn't have rail and the planet had a few million people on it.
Now there's billions of us and we need to make use of more of the land.