What 3 cities represent America the best?

39 comments

1. I think the country is too big for three cities to represent it all. I certainly think doing three relatively large cities is going to leave you with some pretty big blindspots.

2. Nope. That’s leaving out Texas, New York, New England, the Mid-Atlantic, etc., which are all very different. You’re probably better off asking which three cities best represent a state/region, depending on the population of the area in question.

3. How can you not include New York?!

4. Good question. I like those 3 choices but LA is a world unto itself and doesn’t necessarily represent most of the country (BTW I love LA so that’s not a rip on it) so maybe a smaller CA city?

5. I’d go with New York, St. Louis, and Phoenix or Dallas

6. Impossible to pick three.

   I like Chicago, LA, and NYC but I also like Boston, Washington, Atlanta, San Francisco, Nashville, Indianapolis, Columbus, Detroit, both Portlands, and like a dozen other cities.

7. MYC, Miami, and LA.

8. There are too many differences and cultures within the US to sum it all up well in three cities. Just to put this into perspective, there are 11 states in the US that are larger than the UK. As a whole, the US is 9,629,091 square kilometers.

9. Columbus, Louisville, St Louis, or Jacksonville FL is probably far more representative of most American cities than some of the mega cities.

10. Chicago, New York, LA or Houston

11. Atlanta, Dallas, San Diego. NYC and LA are awesome places but so different from the rest of America.

12. I’d say America is more represented by small towns like Fairfield, Iowa than big cities.

13. Even if you could pick just 3 cities that represent urban US, this would still be excluding the entirety of rural and suburban US.

14. Statistically anything in the Midwest. But most likely probably San Francisco, Columbus and Washington DC or Philly (west, Midwest, and east coast)

15. There’s no way to encapsulate a country this big in three cities. But, any list has to include NYC, just because of the diversity aspect of it.

16. I’d say a good-sized city, a suburb, and a small town. I think that will give someone a much better feel for America than any 3 cities.

17. 3 Cities? YOU’VE GOT IT!

    1. Philidelphia, Pennsylvania

    Used to be the US Capitol, and is actually an amazing city too! The most walkable one as well!

    2. San Antonio, Texas

    The best food you will ever taste, best place for car culture, and of course some nice skylines!

    3. Los Angeles, California

    Movie Stars, popular destination for your favorite beaches, and of course a lot of other stuff too!

18. New York

19. NYC, Honolulu and Normal, IL.

    Large, medium, small. East, west, middle. Liberal, other, conservative. All very different, but all part of the America experience.

20. New Orleans is America’s most important city culturally. Jazz was born there. Black culture entered through there. The Mississippi River, America’s most important Highway, ends there. The best American food is there. Rich and poor mix and melt there. Love it or hate it it’s the big Easy.

21. My vote is SF/SJ, LA, and NYC.

    SF/SJ due to being silicon valley and the tech hub (Think Google/Apple). LA due to the hollywood and global influence of American culture. NYC being the financial capital/hub of the world.

22. San Diego, New York, Nashville

23. Tennessee Williams already answered this.

24. Washington, D.C.

25. I think NYC, Denver, and LA give a somewhat balanced view of the US. But it’s hard to get a good representation of the US in just 3 cities.

26. 80% of this country is more like Des Moines, Iowa than they are NYC, LA, or Chicago

27. I’m not sure any major city is a true representation of what the majority of America represents?

28. I don’t think any 3 cities could represent the US. I don’t know if you are traveling and just want to see 3 cities that would give you the broadest view, so if that’s what you want to do, that makes sense. But if you were doing a documentary or something, then no. The US is a continent, basically. You need not only big cities, but medium sized cities (many historic cities like St. Louis, New Orleans, Detroit are only 3-4 hundred thousand people today) and small towns. Much (most?) of the US is rural. And rural from the northeast to the northern Midwest to the Great Plains to the Gulf Coast and then to the southern border states and the western states from California to Washington (never mind Alaska and Hawaii!). And of course idiosyncratic areas like the Appalachians and places like South Carolina (is that called mid-Atlantic? I don’t even know). A lot of Americans want to see the entire country in their lifetimes, but never get the chance. There’s just a lot. And I left out Florida.

29. I think someone interested in this should visit somewhere rural too. Like go see Amish country, go to some of the western towns in the west… Like Tombstone, etc. We’re more than just the big cities too.

30. New York- the biggest city, and the capital of multicultural America.

    New Orleans- one of America’s liveliest and most unique cities, filled with history, and a distinct regional culture.

    Denver- a gateway to the West, in many ways a very typical American city (while then other two are not) yet close to spectacular mountains.

31. I wouldn’t even pick 3 big cities. Big cities are just a huge angry mish-mash of different cultures and folks from all over the place trying their best to be one, flavorless bland culture.

    I’d pick some smaller tourist towns, one in New England, Appalachia, somewhere in the West, and somewhere in the Midwest to get a truer sense of the different flavors of America.

    Those tourist cities try their best to hang on to the culture from eras that have gone by, before modern times watered down the old ways.

    So if I were to choose 4 smaller tourist towns, I’d suggest Gatlinburg, Mackinac Island, Gettysburg, and maybe Victor, CO.

    And that’s not even all the good ones, just ones that are distinct enough to learn the most about the different regions and the different eras of American history.

32. I would say either NYC, LA, and Nashville. Classic northeastern icon, good western representative, and then the south, but also splits the rust belt representation with NYC.

    Or just Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati. Yeah, honestly that might just be better.

33. As a Tennessean I do love that you included Nashville

34. I would probably pick Portland, OR (larger west coast metropolis), somewhere like Wichita, KS (midsize town close to the geographic center of country), and I’d say somewhere like New Orleans, LA (port city and cultural hub). I tried to represent multiple sides of American culture but it’s really difficult with only 3 choices haha.

35. Why are people taking Nashville so seriously.

36. This is just a math problem. New York, LA, Chicago.

37. I’m pretty sure everyone has at least heard of New York, Hollywood, and either Dallas or Nashville. Got one city on each coast and one in the middle

38. “America has only three cities: New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans. Everywhere else is Cleveland.” – Tennessee Williams

39. None, because the biggest divide in the country is the urban/rural divide.

    You could ask which three cuties represent Urban America the best, and I think it would be fair to get a Western City, a Mid-Atlantic City and a city in the South or Texas to be representative.