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San Francisco easily takes it imo.
Distant 17th by population but more than makes up for it through business, technological, and cultural influence. (Edit: Especially since the wider San Francisco Bay Area can be credibly lumped together to form such a populous combined statistical area.)
California already has one. What about Seattle?
Seattle definitely isn't the #4 most major city or CSA. It's a great city and has major businesses, but Seattle probably sits behind Dallas–Fort Worth. All jokes about fairness aside: California gets to have this one.
I'm from Seattle and I'm not even mad. I wish it was further down the list, my town was more fun when it was broke and unimportant. A boomtown that only gets fun on the downswing, that's my Seattle.
Something like 1 out of 5 people in the US live in California. If California seceded from the US, it would rightfully join the G7 to make it the G8 again. California can have two cities. (Obviously born and raised in California even if I'm living basically as far as one can still in the US)
The bay area is almost one big city. As such, it would be an easy 4. But separately, not a lock.
Fourth-most important city is the one geographically closest to you. For all others, it's DC.
I like to think that Washington DC is the fourth, seeing as it’s the national capital, the political & historical center of America, and the fact that things that happen in DC have not just national, but international effects.
Also a fair bit of personal bias tbh, seeing as I live in the metro area.
I live in your country but I agree. From outside, DC is more major than Chicago.
DC has the only decent transit system besides NYC, which pushes it over a lot of bigger cities. Realistically it's NYC, DC, SF and LA are the tier one cities. Chicago, Boston, Miami, Seattle and Denver start the tier two list. Charlotte, Minneapolis and maybe SLC also get tier two. I am specifically excluding Texas because fuck Texas, there's nothing redeemable there.
There is no 4th because no one else has 2 baseball teams.
DC has the Orioles and the Nats.
Baltimore has the orioles. The fuck kind of crack you smoking?
Yeah it's a joke. The DC suburbs are a primary TV market for the Orioles. Like, you get O's blackouts on MLB.tv all the way down to Richmond.
Houston or Boston i guess.
This thread literally proves the point of the OP. People just can’t seem to agree on the 4th city lmao
NY, Chicago, and LA for sure. And certainly cities like Seattle, Dallas, Denver, St. Louis, New Orleans, Atlanta, Miami, Philadelphia, Detroit, and Boston would all duke it out for the notoriety of the 4th spot. But, are we going to pretend that DC doesn't edge the rest out for importance, both historically and currently, for landmarks, for cultural relevance?
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 mean, if you're operating purely by population, next in line is Houston.
If you're operating on power and influence, Washington D.C. is #1.
Yea but Houston is on lease from Hell so it doesn't count.
Americans don't get this because they have no idea how the U.N. works.
Thats a risiculous assertation. They wont get this because they cant read.
I'm not sure.. who would be the rotations?
Boston ?
San Francisco
Phoenix
Santa Fe
Houston Austin
Idk
+/-
Miami/Tampa/Orlando
Seattle
Atlanta
DC
Portland
Minneapolis/St. Paul
New Orleans
Kansas City
Kansas City over St Louis?
CityNerd covered it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrj-p5nja7o
What was their conclusion?
The US has a primary city (NYC), a top-3 (NYC, Chicago, LA) and a top-5 (NYC, Chicago, LA, SF & DC). Asking for top 2 or 4 is too hard to call and just asking for trouble.
So it’s like this:
1st tier: NY
2nd tier: Chicago & LA
3rd tier: SF & DC
(Finally learned how to do a single line break on Lemmy - put two spaces at the end of the first line, then Enter)
Four's a bit of an arbitrary number and major is woefully undefined.
Maybe it's just me but I don't think Chicago holds that spot idk
Chicago was historically considered the Second City, after NYC. It's a major shipping and economic hub and has something like the 6th highest GDP of any urban region in the world, over $919 billion in 2024. It has an incredibly diverse culture and is a world class city by every definition of the word.
Depends how you define major. The 4th city rotates by category.
Tourism? Vegas or Orlando.
Politics or history? DC, Philadelphia or Boston.
Tech? San Francisco or Seattle.
Population size? Houston
Land size? Juneau.
Music? Nashville or maybe New Orleans and Atlanta.
Atlanta or Seattle.
Leaning towards Atlanta these days.
Miami, San Francisco, maybe Boston. The only thing DFW is good for is talking about the Cowboys.
I'd say Miam, San Francisco, and Atlanta
NY gets to cover the whole NE and Miami is it's own special place. Atlanta takes care of the SE.
Gotham City