Well Boston isn't in the same class as NYC. NYC is a world class city and much, much bigger.
The Oklahoma City comment isn't really fair. OK City itself is about the same population as Boston proper (about 675,000 people). But OK City proper is about 620 square miles and Boston is about 90 square miles. About 7 times the size. It's like when people just look at the population of Houston and say how big the population is. Well sure, the city itself is about the size of almost the entire Boston metro area.
And the Boston metro area is almost 5 million people while OK City is about 1.4 million. You tell me which city/metro area has more going for it and influence in the world. Not even an argument.