Quote:
Originally Posted by PepsiFree
You don't entirely understand the chart. It factors in more than what you've listed in building it's list, but ranks it's list based on each city's importance and connectedness to the world economy.
Your definition is just tourism based, which is sort of narrow minded and pointless when considering what the city should spend money on in terms of infrastructure and development. Tourism accounts for a very small margin of a city's quality or class. People love going to Anaheim because Disneyland is there, that doesn't make Anaheim significant. Nor does the Strip make Vegas a world class city. You are thinking strictly in terms of tourism which isn't that applicable in this situation. This entertainment venue is primarily purposed to serve the citizens of Calgary. It is not a tourist attraction. I don't go to LA to see the Staples Center.
The point was: the argument over "world class" is a pointless one, because most people have variable definitions on what that means and why it matters. What IS true is that Calgary is a significant and important city on the world stage. By any measure it ranks among the top 5% of all cities in the world, and often much better than that. Call that world class, or call it whatever you want.
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No I understand the chart just fine. The only factors that truly matter relate to financial services. As I said there is no measure in the world where people would legitimately consider Columbus, Ohio and Indianapolis, Indiana as more "world class" than Las Vegas unless it relates to financial services, of which those two cities have significantly more than Las Vegas. As far as culture goes, Columbus has Ohio State and.....ummmm.....Nationwide Arena? Cool I guess. Las Vegas obviously has significant cultural offerings, far more than most American cities. The Anaheim example is an extremely poor example because Anaheim is part of the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area. Nobody is going to Anaheim, they are going to SoCal which includes Los Angeles. Within an hour of Anaheim is 20 million people and hundreds of things to do. It's like the Bay Area, you might fly to San Jose, but you are almost certainly heading up to San Francisco and maybe Sonoma (naturally skipping Oakland).
The bolded is interesting, because unless the new facilities significantly increase the number of events Calgary will host, they essentially are just replacements to existing facilities that, as mentioned, will simply be more expensive to attend for effectively the exact same experience. So as I said, is that the qualifier for world class status? Paying more for the same basic experience? I know some have convinced themselves all Calgary needs to do for more events is have new facilities, but those people are in for a very rude awakening when it doesn't happen.
We all know the "world class" argument is pointless, but we also know Calgary is not a world class city unless the measurement is purely economic. Which is fine, because it allows us to earn good enough livings to travel to world and enjoy the true world class cities. That people feel we need more concerts to get into the "world class" discussion kinda says it all about how people really feel about Calgary culturally doesn't it? Concerts pretty much have dick all to do with world class status. That Louisville and Edmonton can host Taylor Swift concerts and not Calgary does not make them more world class.