I'm enthusiastic about the idea, but I think the approach is flawed. "Cities over 100k" misses the real regional keystones (some of which are really counties, not cities), so I'm seeing ones that I would expect to be there missing. And the ones I do know aren't the best represented.
Specifics: Alexandria is basically DC, and probably shouldn't be included without several places that are missing in Maryland. I have no idea what Baltimore's icon is supposed to be (edit: wait, is that supposed to be the Domino Sugar sign?), and while the Capitol dome is a decent choice, the Washington Monument would probably work better as a symbol of Washington.
This could really be a launching point for crowdsourcing a more handcrafted set, though.
Yeah, it's not accounting for metropolitan areas very well. I found it kind of hilarious that Federal Way, WA (a minor part of the Seattle metro area) got an icon but Olympia (the state capitol!) didn't- because Federal Way has a population of 100k in the city proper but Olympia only has 55k (but its metro area has 300k).
Is Atlanta really a phoenix or a falcon? Also, why do some cities have more than one icon? Seattle has the Space Needle, yet Dallas is a cowboy hat and not the Reunion Tower. Dallas has fewer cowboy hats being worn than other cities. I'd put all of this down to how lame vibe coded content is due to the limitations of LLMs
How well do the models do if you ask for an SVG instead of just generating a PNG? It would make editing & using them easier, but I don't know if image generation still wins for these types of icons.
AI icons, ofc...some of which are questionable (as it is with AI). Many of them are generic clock tower icons with small variations, while some are showing an icon that is based on a marginal attraction in the area. eg Irvine is known for the Irvine Company, John Wayne Airport, not for the symbolic amusement park hot air balloon raised in 2007.
Cool idea, but evidently most cities do not have an iconic enough thing for this to be viable for them. You'd probably have to dip into sports team logos.
Interesting idea but it is weirdly inconsistent. Their own icon shows Burlington Vermont only has a population of 44k yet it was used as the poster city in the example.
Meanwhile, cities like Nashua, New Hampshire (the second largest city North of Boston in New England) is absent because it only has about ~93k people despite being driving distance to BVT.
It is also worth noting that in the US, city status is not directly tied to population.
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[ 7.6 ms ] story [ 46.5 ms ] threadSpecifics: Alexandria is basically DC, and probably shouldn't be included without several places that are missing in Maryland. I have no idea what Baltimore's icon is supposed to be (edit: wait, is that supposed to be the Domino Sugar sign?), and while the Capitol dome is a decent choice, the Washington Monument would probably work better as a symbol of Washington.
This could really be a launching point for crowdsourcing a more handcrafted set, though.
Meanwhile, cities like Nashua, New Hampshire (the second largest city North of Boston in New England) is absent because it only has about ~93k people despite being driving distance to BVT.
It is also worth noting that in the US, city status is not directly tied to population.
Portland Maine is 66k people and it has an icon.
On the other hand, I can’t tell what St. Petersburg is supposed to be. Is that the Dali Museum?