Non-Road Boards > Off-Topic

What is considered being "in the city" nowadays?

(1/7) > >>

ZLoth:
This is an offshoot of the topic How much has your metro area grown?, in which I noted several NFL teams are not actually located in the city that they are in, but actually in the neighboring city. During that part, it was noted that the Las Vegas "Strip" wasn't actually in Las Vegas, but in neighboring unincorporated Paradise. Everyone considers it Vegas, there is even a "Welcome to Las Vegas" sign, but it's Paradise.

Here is another situation... Dallas is a major city in Texas, and is part of the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX Metro Area as well as part of the DFW Television Market. It's huge. So, at what point does a resident say they are a resident of a particular suburb city in Dallas verses just saying "I live in Dallas". Consider these facts:

* The city of Dallas is not only in Dallas county, but extends into Collin, Denton, Kaufman, and Rockwall counties as well.
* The cities of Cockrell Hill, University Park, and Highland Park are in Dallas county, and are completely surrounded by the city of Dallas.
* Multiple companies that we think are Dallas-based or have major operations in Dallas are actually in surrounding communities such as Irving, Plano, Richardson, and Addison.
* While Dallas Love Field is within the city of Dallas, DFW International is in Grapevine, although it is jointly administered by both Fort Worth and Dallas. The county line between Dallas County and Tarrent County (Fort Worth) runs roughly through the middle of the airport.
* The city that I live in is ⅔ in Dallas County, and ⅓ in Collin County, and I happen to live slightly north of the county line.
* The University of Texas-Dallas is actually located in Richardson, TX with the county line cutting through the middle of the campus.
* And, the Southfork Ranch is actually located in Parker, TX which is part of Collin County.Or the fact that the Chicago Bears are negotiating for land in Arlington Heights to build a stadium. Arlington Heights can be considered a suburb of Chicago, but outside the control of city of Chicago. There is a LEGOLAND Discovery Center Chicago which lists it's address as being in Schaumburg, IL.

I know that part of the reason is that cities have grown tremendously since the 1950s, and the growth of suburbs has blurred the line between what is considered a "city" and "not a city". Where does one draw the line?

Max Rockatansky:
For me the line is clear, it’s the literal southeast city limit of Fresno.  I live west of that line in twenty year old neighborhood, east and south of that spot is open farm land.  I spend way more of time in that farm land than I do the city to the west of me.  The farmers aren’t likely to sell their land and the city has no plans to annex any of those parcels.  Most of the growth of Metro Fresno is towards the Sierra Nevada Foothills and San Joaquin River.  The growth pattern makes sense since it involves parcels of land not suited for high profit agriculture.

To that end, I wouldn’t consider cities in Fresno County separated by swathes of farm land to be part of the “Fresno” urban area.  Some communities like that include Sanger, Fowler, Selma and Kerman. 

webny99:
When it comes to differentiating between city and suburb, some degree of nuance is not only acceptable, but required.

Here in the Rochester area, being "in the city" corresponds very well with the Rochester city limits. The city has distinct neighborhoods which are usually pretty easy to differentiate from the surrounding suburbs, usually with increased housing density and taller, narrower homes. Neighborhoods within city limits are often, but not always, perceived as inferior to those outside the city. On the east side, Homestead Heights is a good example of this, as are 19th Ward and Lyell-Otis on the west side. However, the southeast side runs counter to this, as the Browncroft neighborhood is notably more upscale than the neighborhoods east of NY 590 in Brighton, and the Rochester/Brighton line in general (which binds some of the city's nicer neighborhoods) is blurred considerably.

Our "outer loop" also corresponds very roughly with the city limits, so that tends to be somewhat of a dividing line too, but again, Brighton is an exception. Irondequoit is also somewhat of an exception, but it is by far the most city-like of all Rochester's suburbs (at least IMO; it's also the only suburb that lost population from 2010-2020, and I'd like to see it become part of the city, but that's another subject).



Even so, when telling someone outside the area where I'm from, I would say Rochester, and expect it to be understood that I mean the Rochester area and not necessarily the city itself. However, if someone from the Rochester area asked me where I live, I'd be more specific, with reference to the suburb, and possibly even the main road(s) nearest my neighborhood, depending on the context.

I've heard that in some areas, such as Detroit, people generally refer to the specific suburb they live in, even in contexts when "Detroit" would suffice, possibly because of the city's bad reputation. I'm not entirely sure how true that is, though.

kphoger:

--- Quote from: webny99 on March 28, 2023, 09:16:23 AM ---Even so, when telling someone outside the area where I'm from, I would say Rochester, and expect it to be understood that I mean the Rochester area and not necessarily the city itself. However, if someone from the Rochester area asked me where I live, I'd be more specific, with reference to the suburb, and possibly even the main road(s) nearest my neighborhood, depending on the context.

--- End quote ---

This.

Before the 4th grade, I grew up in New Lenox, IL.  Back then, I could go two miles south and hit farmland and gravel roads.  When we were on family vacation somewhere, and I was in the hotel hot tub or whatever, I'd tell people I was from Chicago.  But that isn't quite the same thing.  If you had asked me if I lived in a city or a small town, I'd have told you I lived in a suburb.

When we then moved to a small farming town in a county with no stoplights, we might describe the difference between living "in the city" and living "in a small town".  Different context, different vocabulary.

Fast-forward ten years, and I was attending college near Harlem & Division in River Forest (IL), with an L station a mile away.  Even in an urban environment like that, going downtown could be called "going into the city".

Now I live well within the Wichita city limits.  In pretty much all contexts, I say I live in a city—although I might, on extremely rare occasions, mention my part of town as a "suburban neighborhood".

CtrlAltDel:
It's a question of detail affected by familiarity. To people in Texas, I'm from Chicago, because they don't know the suburbs, and so telling them which one is not illuminating. To people in the Chicago area, I can be more specific precisely because they do know. Now, all this is in the first round. If people ask, of course, I can get more detailed as necessary.

It's similar, if admittedly annoying in my view, for companies and the like. For those with one or perhaps two facilities per urban area, they will often go with the name of the main city, even if the facilities are not in that main city. This is often the case with sports teams and the like, as the OP has noticed.

Essentially, what's happening is that "Chicago" can mean the "Northeastern Illinois Area" or the "City of Chicago," and potentially a number of gradations in between.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page