As a Chicago resident, my first reaction is to rebel against this. Why do they call out Harvard-Princeton-Yale, when US News ranks University of Chicago higher

As a Chicago resident, my first reaction is to rebel against this. Why do they call out Harvard-Princeton-Yale, when US News ranks University of Chicago higher than Yale(1). The Chicago area has 2 schools in the top twenty, I only count one in NYC and one in the bay area. And I see many other top 20 schools in "flyover country". Coasts have no monopoly on world-class academia. How bout fortune 500 company headquarters? San Fransisco gets the prestige of tying with Milwaukee and Cincinnati in 6th, while Chicago is 5th and Houston is 2nd (to NYC at first). Facebook may be the largest social network in the world, and that's great for San Fransisco. But that doesn't give them a monopoly on talent. We have tons of impact here too, for example the biggest restaurant chain in the world (McDonald's) is headquartered in metro-Chicago. If you want to see power in the restaurant space, that's where to look (sorry if it's not sexy enough for you). Chicago's GDP is 50% greater than San Fransisco's (3). O'hare airport has 50% more flights than San Fransisco, and 10% more international travelers(4). Why does the less global city have more international travelers? So in summary: we have better educational institutions, more large companies, a higher GDP, and are more physically connected to the world than San Fran. Just because we're not the cool kid on the block doesn't mean we aren't as powerful as you San Fran. That all said, idk, they might be right. The people I hear about on TV do tend to be on the coasts, and a lot of the super succesful people do seem to end up working on a coast eventually. (1)http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/... (2)http://www.metroatlantachamber.com/docs/default-source/resources/2014-fortune-headquarters.pdf?sfvrsn=4 http://www.metroatlantachamber.com/docs/default-source/resou... (3)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_GDP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_GDP (4)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_airports_by_passenger_traffic#2015_statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_airports_by_pa...