[santaclaus]

America has lots of rad cities with strong economic opportunities: NYC, Boston, Chicago, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, LA, Austin, Denver, ...

[eli_gottlieb]

I live in the Boston area, and the only things that are world-class here are the Ivy League universities and Massachusetts General Hospital. This place doesn't deserve anything remotely like the ego it actually has.

(Take note: I'm originally from New York. There is a rivalry at work here.)

[sremani]

As a person who had the misfortune of taking Public transport from La Guardia to Manhattan, I would not label entire NYC "world-class" unless I get to append it with "mess".

[mirimir]

Jamaica LIRR station, right?

[gipp]

That's JFK. Considerably easier, despite being considerably further away.

[greglindahl]

You should have taken the private express bus, and instead you complain about your poor choice? Eh?

[greglindahl]

Uh, thanks for the downvotes? My point is that there is no express public transit service from LaGuardia to Manhattan; there's a express private service, and most people know about it. If you look on the Internet it's pretty visible.

[sgift]

This kind of makes the point. A world-class city, but no good public transportation from airport to city center? World-class mess.

[greglindahl]

So NY would be a better city if they started an express bus service that competes with the existing, popular private bus service? Either way, I take the bus.

[la_oveja]

If a city wants to be truly world-class it needs to have a good public transportation system.

[tacomonstrous]

I found Boston to be super provincial (outside of the university crowd), and way overpriced for what it offers. Moving there from a city like Chicago was really quite a shock for us. A fraction of the culture and food scene for a multiple of the price. We spent a year there and ended up moving to Providence, which is much better value for money and also has better food.

[rayiner]

Boston is a fine city, but not world class. First time I flew into Logan I looked around thinking I must've flown into the small secondary airport.

[L_Rahman]

@eli_gottlieb: You're being downvoted for what reasons that should seem fairly obvious, so here's some support from a fellow native New Yorker :)

@sremani: We have really fucked this up. The lack of a direct rail link from any one of our three airports to Manhattan is shameful.

[vostok]

There's a world class non Ivy League university just outside Boston too.

[eli_gottlieb]

I was including MIT in "Ivy League", even though it doesn't play football with the rest of them.

[MarkMMullin]

They do have an excellent reputation for participating in the games under their own rules, tho :-)