City Insets Question

[Henry]

In older (pre-1980) editions of the Rand McNally Road Atlas, you'd see insets of downtown Washington, DC, as well as the two approaches to the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, but no downtown insets for other large cities like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. I wonder why that was?

[SkyPesos]

I'm wondering how Rand McNally chooses which cities to add a downtown insert in general. Looking through my 2015 Rand McNally, Cincinnati and Cleveland have an insert, but not Columbus, even though it's the largest of the three. Indianapolis, another comparable city in terms of population to Columbus, have an insert. Neither Charlotte or Raleigh have an insert for NC. For Florida, Jacksonville, Tampa and Orlando don't have inserts, while Miami does.

[HighwayStar]

In older (pre-1980) editions of the Rand McNally Road Atlas, you'd see insets of downtown Washington, DC, as well as the two approaches to the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, but no downtown insets for other large cities like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. I wonder why that was?

One theory would be that in the 1970's Rand did not want to encourage tourists to visit the likes of New York, Chicago and Los Angeles for fear that they would erode their customer base though either scaring them out of traveling or getting them killed. 

[usends]

I guess it depends which version of the RMN atlas you have.  My 1977 has huge 2-page spreads for NYC, Chicago, and LA; plus inset maps of all the other cities mentioned by SkyPesos.  My 2015 RMN still includes insets of all those cities, plus additional insets of cities that have become big enough in more recent years.  (I'm talking about what I consider to be the "standard" size RMNs, about 11" wide x 14" tall.)

[kphoger]

but no downtown insets for other large cities like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.

My 1977 has huge 2-page spreads for NYC, Chicago, and LA

Pertinent portion bolded.  Do those insets have secondary insets for just the downtown area?