Hierarchy of cities in your state

[webny99]

I know it's already been discussed, but here's my Minnesota take:
...

Is Albert Lea only on here because of the interstate junction?

Albert Lea has a population of about 18,000. That's bigger than Bemidji, which he has in a higher tier, and Hibbing, which is in the same tier. It's not very big compared to most cities with 2di junctions, but it's not a total nothingburger.

When you mention Bemidji or Brainerd to a Twin Cities resident, many of them will have the pleasant thoughts of cabin life, lakes, fishing, and associated getaways and vacations. Albert Lea generates no such pleasant thoughts. That's why Albert Lea is in a lower tier than those other cities.

Pleasant thoughts = importance?
Seems legit. I was thinking that the strategic location vs. the popularity with tourists probably cancelled each other out, but maybe not.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

It's just one of those things you'd probably have to live here to understand. Cabin country has a pretty strong pull on us.

It'd be like if I said Buffalo, Syracuse, Rochester, and Utica were of roughly identical importance in my mind and you would say they're four very different places with different levels of meaning to your region, but that's because you live there.

[SEWIGuy]

Is Albert Lea really "strategically located" because its where two interstates meet?  It's pretty much a nothing town in the middle of the crappy part of Minnesota.

[webny99]

It's just one of those things you'd probably have to live here to understand. Cabin country has a pretty strong pull on us.

It'd be like if I said Buffalo, Syracuse, Rochester, and Utica were of roughly identical importance in my mind and you would say they're four very different places with different levels of meaning to your region, but that's because you live there.

OK, I can get that. That type of thing happens here too, and probably in every state.

For example, Auburn and Watertown, NY are almost identical in population, both around 27K, but Watertown unambiguously belongs in a higher tier. It's a control city on I-81, a major regional center for Tug Hill and the Thousand Islands, and the only real waypoint for travelers between Canada/the North Country and Syracuse.  Auburn, on the other hand, feels completely forgotten. Overshadowed by Syracuse, not very charming among Finger Lakes towns, no renowned college or any claim to fame (except the Harriet Tubman home..) and an absolute slog to get to with zero freeway access.

With regards to your example specifically, I have no problem with Rochester, Buffalo, and Syracuse being in the same tier. They're all the clear center of their respective regions and similar enough in population. Utica does belong in a separate (lower) tier, but that's evident enough just from the population figures.

[GaryV]

Is Albert Lea really "strategically located" because its where two interstates meet?  It's pretty much a nothing town in the middle of the crappy part of Minnesota.

It's only a few miles down the road from the Spam museum.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

Utica does belong in a separate (lower) tier, but that's evident enough just from the population figures.

And that I think is the underlying point of the discussion and what makes it more interesting - these lists go beyond just population. Brooklyn Park has the sixth largest population in Minnesota, but no one put it on a list in this thread or is arguing it belongs on one, because it doesn't.

[KEVIN_224]

Maine is pretty easy:

1- Portland
2- Bangor
3- The twin cities of Auburn and Lewiston. There was a vote in the past to combine the two. It failed, as expected.

As for Connecticut? Hmmm...

1- New Haven for Yale University
2- Groton and New London for sub boat industry and the Mystic section of Stonington not too far away
3- Hartford and the insurance industry
4- Stamford with its proximity to New York City, home to WWE, a couple daytime "talk" shows and NBC Sports productions

New Britain was once the Hardware capitol of the world. Stanley Tools, anyone?

[Roadgeekteen]

Maine is pretty easy:

1- Portland
2- Bangor
3- The twin cities of Auburn and Lewiston. There was a vote in the past to combine the two. It failed, as expected.

As for Connecticut? Hmmm...

1- New Haven for Yale University
2- Groton and New London for sub boat industry and the Mystic section of Stonington not too far away
3- Hartford and the insurance industry
4- Stamford with its proximity to New York City, home to WWE, a couple daytime "talk" shows and NBC Sports productions

New Britain was once the Hardware capitol of the world. Stanley Tools, anyone?

No Bridgeport? The largest city in the state?

[The Nature Boy]

Maine is pretty easy:

1- Portland
2- Bangor
3- The twin cities of Auburn and Lewiston. There was a vote in the past to combine the two. It failed, as expected.

As for Connecticut? Hmmm...

1- New Haven for Yale University
2- Groton and New London for sub boat industry and the Mystic section of Stonington not too far away
3- Hartford and the insurance industry
4- Stamford with its proximity to New York City, home to WWE, a couple daytime "talk" shows and NBC Sports productions

New Britain was once the Hardware capitol of the world. Stanley Tools, anyone?

No Bridgeport? The largest city in the state?

Bridgeport being the largest city in Connecticut seems like it'd be a great trivia question because I feel like the average person wouldn't get it. It's also only 20,000 bigger than Stamford, Hartford and New Haven. Connecticut's "big" cities tend to all be around the same size. I don't know enough about CT to make a ranking but it has amazing parity in size among its cities.

[hotdogPi]

Maine is pretty easy:

1- Portland
2- Bangor
3- The twin cities of Auburn and Lewiston. There was a vote in the past to combine the two. It failed, as expected.

As for Connecticut? Hmmm...

1- New Haven for Yale University
2- Groton and New London for sub boat industry and the Mystic section of Stonington not too far away
3- Hartford and the insurance industry
4- Stamford with its proximity to New York City, home to WWE, a couple daytime "talk" shows and NBC Sports productions

New Britain was once the Hardware capitol of the world. Stanley Tools, anyone?

No Bridgeport? The largest city in the state?

Bridgeport being the largest city in Connecticut seems like it'd be a great trivia question because I feel like the average person wouldn't get it. It's also only 20,000 bigger than Stamford, Hartford and New Haven. Connecticut's "big" cities tend to all be around the same size. I don't know enough about CT to make a ranking but it has amazing parity in size among its cities.

I've received it as a trivia question before.

[golden eagle]

I'll try Mississippi:

Jackson (largest city and metro)
Mississippi Gulf Coast
College towns (Hattiesburg, Oxford, Starkville)
Desoto County (booming Memphis suburban county)
Mississippi River cities (casinos, blues music and Civil War history)
Tupelo (Elvis' birthplace)

[Hwy 61 Revisited]

Pennsylvania:


1a. Philly
1b. Pittsburgh
2. Reading, Lehigh Valley, Capital Region
3. Wyoming Valley, Lebanon, Lancaster, York, Williamsport, Happy Valley
4. All other cities and boroughs over 10,000 people (except St. Marys)
5. Everything else

[Roadgeekteen]

Pennsylvania:


1a. Philly
1b. Pittsburgh
2. Reading, Lehigh Valley, Capital Region
3. Wyoming Valley, Lebanon, Lancaster, York, Williamsport, Happy Valley
4. All other cities and boroughs over 10,000 people (except St. Marys)
5. Everything else

I would put Philly above Pittsburgh.

[kevinb1994]

Florida

Miami- Fort Lauderdale (all considered to be South Florida as a whole)
West Palm Beach
Jacksonville
Orlando
Tampa- St. Pete (known as one big combination called The Tampa Bay Area)
Bradenton- Sarasota- Venice (are now linked together with Sprawl)
Fort Myers- Cape Coral- Naples (another big area known as SW Florida)

Then smaller cities by themselves without being in a regional area.
Tallahassee
Gainesville
Panama City

West Palm Beach and Jacksonville over Orlando and Tampa?

Honestly, I have no problem with that, as Jacksonville has always been THE place where you must decide where to head off for next, and in fact has more railroad history (to say the least) as a result. I have evidence of this via a Florida Memory-hosted 1887 map of Jacksonville Annexation (including the now-S Line rail trail which was part of the Jacksonville Belt Line, a former Seaboard Air Line, though the Belt Line appears to pre-date the Seaboard!). West Palm Beach ain't terribly far as a result of Henry M. Flagler agreeing to extend the Florida East Coast Railway there. Same with both Fort Lauderdale and (intended as a destination mostly due to the availability of citrus there, in the aftermath of the Great Freeze of the 1890s) Miami.

[CoreySamson]

I'll give Texas a shot:

Tier 1 (nationally relevant & major population centers, including metro areas)

Dallas/Fort Worth
Houston

Tier 1a (nationally relevant, but to a slightly - just a little bit - lesser degree)

San Antonio

Tier 2 (regionally to nationally relevant)

Austin
El Paso

Tier 3 (regionally relevant)

Amarillo
Brownsville/Harlingen/McAllen
Corpus Christi
Laredo
Lubbock
Wichita Falls

Tier 4 (influence over a few counties, typically with their own radio market, or large suburbs)

Abilene
Beaumont/Port Arthur
Bryan/College Station
Galveston
Georgetown
Killeen/Temple
Lufkin/Nacogdoches
Midland/Odessa
Plano
Round Rock
San Angelo
Texarkana
Tyler/Longview
Victoria (on the edge)
Waco

Tier 5 (of significance in their local area)
Brownwood
Corsicana
Denison/Sherman
Gainesville
Jacksonville
Paris
Stephenville

Tier 6 - outposts of civilization (West Texas)
Alpine/Marfa
Brady
Childress
Dalhart
Del Rio
Iraan
Junction
Llano
Van Horn

Tier 6a (equivalent - small cities in East/South Texas, and just about every city (that I didn't already mention) with a loop around it)
Alice
Athens
Fairfield
Jasper
Orange
San Augustine
Palestine
Weatherford

I would add a tier 5a to this list: small cities that are part of a larger metropolitan area, but are important enough locally to count as their own tier.

New Braunfels
Brazosport area
Ennis/Waxahatchie
Fredericksburg
Columbus
Huntsville

[frankenroad]

For Ohio, I'd say

Tier 1 - Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati
Tier 2 - Dayton, Toledo, Akron, Canton, Youngstown
Tier 3 - Hamilton, Middletown, Springfield, Warren
Tier 4 - Zanesville, Findlay, Chillicothe, Lancaster, Delaware, Marion, Sandusky, Mansfield, Lorain, maybe a couple others??
Tier 5 - any county seat not listed above, plus Oxford & Kent

On further reflection, I would add Lima to either Tier 3 or 4, and Athens to Tier 4.

[mrsman]

This would be my perception, based mainly on economic and social/cultural influence. The first part is pretty close to population order (in parentheses).

1. Los Angeles (1)
2. San Francisco (4)
3. San Diego (2)
4. San Jose (3)
5. Sacramento (6)
6. Oakland (8)
7. Long Beach (7)
8. Fresno (5)
9. Anaheim (10)
10. Bakersfield (9)

Next tier, no particular order. Secondary urban centers with significant business/retail districts, and anchor cities of medium metropolitan areas:
Santa Ana, Riverside, San Bernardino, Pasadena, Glendale, Irvine, Stockton, Modesto, Berkeley, San Mateo, Palo Alto, Santa Rosa

It's hard to know how best to classify areas that are likely considered suburbs of bigger cities.  I largely agree with your hierarchy, but I would downplay immediate suburbs and add in a few more mid-sized cities around the state.

1. Los Angeles
2. San Francisco, San Diego
3. San Jose,  Sacramento
4. Fresno, Bakersfield
5. Riverside, San Bernardino, Stockton, Modesto
6. Monterrey, Santa Barbara, Indio, Redding, Santa Rosa

[Flint1979]

Michigan

Detroit
Grand Rapids
Lansing
Rest of state

Mine (suburban cities "belong" to their central city), with cities within the tiers in no particular order:
Tier 1: Detroit
Tier 2: GR and Lansing
Tier 3: Kalamazoo, Flint, Ann Arbor
Tier 4: Saginaw/Bay City/Midland (either separately or as Tri-Cities), Battle Creek, Jackson
Tier 5: Benton Harbor/St Joseph, Holland, Muskegon, Port Huron
Tier 6: Included because of their regional importance) Traverse City, Mt. Pleasant, Big Rapids, Marquette
Tier 7: Important to smaller regions: Escanaba, Alpena, Gaylord, Sault Ste. Marie, Houghton, Ludington

Arguably Traverse City could fall into tier 4 or 5 (Traverse City has a Costco while none of the other cities listed under Tier 5 have one AFAIK)

None that I know of either as far as Costco goes. Midland is getting one I know though.

[DTComposer]

This would be my perception, based mainly on economic and social/cultural influence. The first part is pretty close to population order (in parentheses).

1. Los Angeles (1)
2. San Francisco (4)
3. San Diego (2)
4. San Jose (3)
5. Sacramento (6)
6. Oakland (8)
7. Long Beach (7)
8. Fresno (5)
9. Anaheim (10)
10. Bakersfield (9)

Next tier, no particular order. Secondary urban centers with significant business/retail districts, and anchor cities of medium metropolitan areas:
Santa Ana, Riverside, San Bernardino, Pasadena, Glendale, Irvine, Stockton, Modesto, Berkeley, San Mateo, Palo Alto, Santa Rosa

It's hard to know how best to classify areas that are likely considered suburbs of bigger cities.  I largely agree with your hierarchy, but I would downplay immediate suburbs and add in a few more mid-sized cities around the state.

1. Los Angeles
2. San Francisco, San Diego
3. San Jose,  Sacramento
4. Fresno, Bakersfield
5. Riverside, San Bernardino, Stockton, Modesto
6. Monterrey, Santa Barbara, Indio, Redding, Santa Rosa

Your logic about downplaying suburbs makes sense, but Oakland and Long Beach do not function as suburbs in the traditional sense - they are both secondary anchor cities (the Census Bureau calls the CSA Los Angeles-Long Beach, not Los Angeles-Riverside or Los Angeles-San Bernardino). Both have significant and historic downtown cores, headquarters for nationally prominent companies, major airports (OAK more so than LGB), major ports (LB being 2nd in the nation behind LA and Oakland being 10th), significant cultural and social institutions, and both are well north of 400,000 people. Riverside and San Bernardino have none of those.

The cities in your sixth tier would all be next on my list had I continued it. If I were to do a second version using the tier system, and focusing only on metropolitan or urban anchors:

1. Los Angeles
2. San Francisco
3. San Diego
4. San Jose, Sacramento
5. Oakland, Fresno, Long Beach
6. Anaheim, Bakersfield, Stockton, Santa Ana, Riverside, San Bernardino, Modesto
7. Santa Barbara, Palm Springs, Santa Rosa, Monterey
8. Redding, Napa, Santa Cruz, Salinas, San Luis Obispo, Ventura
9. Eureka, Chico, Merced, Visalia, Santa Maria

[webny99]

Utica does belong in a separate (lower) tier, but that's evident enough just from the population figures.

And that I think is the underlying point of the discussion and what makes it more interesting - these lists go beyond just population. Brooklyn Park has the sixth largest population in Minnesota, but no one put it on a list in this thread or is arguing it belongs on one, because it doesn't.

Well, right, but population is still an important part of it. There's really two different things going on here:

(1) Should the city even be included in the rankings to begin with? For a lot of suburbs, the answer is probably "no".
(2) For cities that are worthy of being ranked, are they ranked where you'd expect based on population? And if not, why?

I agree these local and subjective factors are what makes it interesting, but not necessarily in every tier. Generally, the smaller the city, the more subjectivity comes into play.  As I mentioned above, for Rochester-Buffalo-Syracuse, I would say that similar population = similar ranking. This is probably the case for most of the top tiers in most states, but the lower tiers is where you get more variance.

[thspfc]

Wisconsin

Tier 1:
Milwaukee

Tier 2:
Madison

Tier 3:
Green Bay

Tier 4:
Appleton, Kenosha, Racine, Oshkosh, Eau Claire, Wausau, La Crosse

Tier 5:
Fond du Lac, Sheboygan, Manitowoc, Stevens Point, Wisconsin Rapids, Marshfield, Superior

[Big John]

^^ Are Janesville and Beloit out of the picture?

[SEWIGuy]

Wisconsin

Tier 1:
Milwaukee

Tier 2:
Madison

Tier 3:
Green Bay

Tier 4:
Appleton, Kenosha, Racine, Oshkosh, Eau Claire, Wausau, La Crosse

Tier 5:
Fond du Lac, Sheboygan, Manitowoc, Stevens Point, Wisconsin Rapids, Marshfield, Superior

I did Wisconsin up above.  We were close.

1. Milwaukee
2. Madison
3. Green Bay

Next Tier - center of larger population areas

-Appleton
-Wausau
-Eau Claire

Larger Cities within other metropolitan areas

-Kenosha
-Racine
-Waukesha
-Oshkosh
-Stevens Point
-Superior

Other Significant Cities

-LaCrosse
-Sheboygan
-Fond du Lac
-Janesville
-Beloit
-Manitowoc

[cjk374]

Louisiana simplified:

1. New Orleans.

2. Baton Rouge

3. Shreveport/ Bossier City

4. Lafayette

5. Alexandria

6. Lake Charles

7. Monroe

8. Ruston

After Ruston would several other parish seats. I base my list on which cities I think have the most political clout in Baton Rouge.

[Takumi]

Virginia (?) -
1-97. Northern Virginia
98. Hampton Roads
99. Richmond
100. Everything else

I'd be tempted to lump Richmond with the "everything else"  part, honestly, and add another one to Nova.