Talk:The City

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[edit] Merger or disambiguation

Perhaps a merger or disambiguation or alternative use is in order, see city. --Piotrus 10:09, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Independent of seeing your comment, I just created a disambiguation page. Hope that's ok. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 10:45, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Notability of SF

I see someone's added "the city" as used by San Francisco locals to refer to San Francisco city. I'm just wondering whether this is really as valid a use as for the City of London (which is referred to as "The City" all over the UK, and possibly the world, when referring to its financial institutions). I guess it is noteworthy that SF isn't actually the only sizable city in the area any more, yet retains the "The City" label, but the worry is where we draw the line between notable uses of the phrase "the City" and local people referring to their nearest city that way, just like they'd say "the high street" or "the station".

Would anyone more versed in the ways of California than I like to vouch for the distinction between SF is "the city" because it is the main city of the SF area and the more noteworthy SF is "the city" for miles around, irrelevant to the fact that it's the main city of the area? - IMSoP 23:21, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

This seems dubious to me. Wouldn't people going from the suburbs into just about any city in the US refer to it as "going into the city"? I come from near DC, and we would say "going into DC" or "going into the District," I think, but just about every other major center would likely have a similar designation. The City of London is very specifically "The City". I don't think that San Francisco or New York is really a similar case. One could, I suspect, just as easily add Philadelphia or Cleveland or Saint Louis or Detroit or whatever, couldn't you? john k 18:18, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

San Francisco has been called "The City" in California for some time (Steinbeck wrote an essay about this in "Travels with Charley"). The use of "The City" for SF is documented on the old San Francisco Warriors basketball uniforms, which had the words "The City" emblazoned across the top. San Francisco for many years was the only true city west of the Mississippi River, which accounts for its nickname "The City." I believe this warrants San Francisco's mention in this article. Griot 17:23, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

It's still vanity, further indicated by the fact that you put it at the top of the list. Wikipedia is not a dictionary, and this is a disambiguation page. I highly doubt that anyone looking for an article about San Francisco first tries to visit an ambiguously titled article named The City. All of your examples are purely of local interest (except maybe the basketball uniforms); authors who have bestowed literary fellatio upon cities are a dime a dozen, and I'd like to see some sources to confirm the "only true city west of the Mississippi" claim. Show me a New York or London or Dayton Ohio publication that refers to The City and means San Francisco. The fact that SF residents have embraced the nickname and are under the mistaken impression that everyone else has, as well, doesn't make SF notable. — mjb 11:21, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
I've gone ahead and reverted the addition of SF since it doesn't belong in the list of disambiguated articles that would otherwise be titled The City, but I have also just backpedaled a bit: I worked the SF examples and links into the prose that follows, using it as an example of non-notable civic pride and self-promotion. This is in the context of a simultaneous effort to tie the entire prose section together a little better (and justify its existence, aside from discouraging the creation of a list of cities that have been referenced as The City at one time or another). The general idea is to explain the ways in which "The City" might come to be seen in print, which might lead people to look it up in Wikipedia, where they should find out that it could be any city, not just San Francisco. — mjb 12:11, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
Alright already. But look what we have now, after all this hair-splitting: "In general, in a rural or semi-rural environment, "The City" tends to be used by local residents to refer to the nearest large conurbation." Conurbation fer chrissakes! I cleaned up this essay some. I think there was an enormous amount of editorializing before. Griot 15:33, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
I'm the conurbation "nerd" - and before you get defensive, I happen to agree with you! It was the best I could think of, and if you can improve it, please do. Unfortnately the wiktionary definition is kinda useless. -- All the best, Nickj (t) 00:47, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Value of article?

Not sure if this is the appropriate area for this, but I am questioning the value of an article that essentially sets forth a way of using the word "city" that is common to EVERY urban area, i.e. anywhere where there is a distinction between "city" and "country"/"not-city", etc. Any input? --Onlyemarie 07:08, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It's valuable as a disambiguation, and the City of London should be mentioned, as it has a worldwide fame along the same lines as Wall Street. The last bit about Chicago, NYC, SF etc all be called the "city" is, I agree, superfluous. Pcb21| Pete 01:03, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

New York City is a special case. It is refered to as "The City" (caps). When you speak of "The City" to Americans (esp. on the East Coast), there is a general assumption that you're talking about New York City.

Once again, no, it's not special, it's not true that there is that general assumption among all Americans, and it still does not meet disambiguation criteria. I've also spent a fair amount of time in Boston and heard people say The City in reference to Boston, or the inner Boston metro area (Cambridge, etc.), but never did they mean New York. Both Boston and New York are "The City" to some, but we don't need to name these cities specifically, because they are no more unique in this regard than any of the others that have been encompassed in the current text. — mjb 23:28, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Specific city examples removed

As per the above discussion, and the fact that in the past few months, people have continued to add redundant examples to the list, I have removed almost all of the examples. London is an exceptional case so it can stay. I also expanded on Nickj's prose and added a comment in the source in hopes of discouraging future examples. The prose should be sufficient for disambiguation purposes; if we list every locality that metro-area residents refer to as The City, that's not really disambiguation, it's just cataloging the ambiguity. :) Besides, a disambig page is for disambiguating articles that would otherwise have the same title. If there are no articles for The City (San Francisco), The City (central Chicago), etc., then they don't need to be explicitly mentioned. — mjb 19:24, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

I agree that it was getting a bit absurd. On the other hand, the usage of "the City" for Manhattan might be notable enough to specifically mention - perhaps just as an example of the phenomenon under discussion. New York is, after all, the largest English-speaking city in the world, so usage wrt it is more significant than that for just about any other city that's not London. john k 06:40, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

I only kept a mention of London because it has the financial institutions being called The City. Other than that, it's no different than the many others for which examples could be included. I just don't see the need for any examples, really. It seems like vanity to me. — mjb 10:38, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
Further thoughts on San Francisco-I'd have to argue for the inclusion of San Francisco here given the unique nature of "The City" as its knickname. While it's true that other big cities are known as "The City" within their own metro areas, San Francisco natives actually take great umbrage at hearing their hometown called "Frisco" (or even "SanFran"). To them it is "The City", and should be addressed as such. And as such, I would have to argue for inclusion for that use of "The City" in this disambiguation page. However, I won't make the change until a consensus is reached with others.

— Particle_Man Jul 24 2005, 1:52A

I don't see how the residents' attachment to the term and their distaste for other nicknames makes San Francisco more notable than any other, and who's to say whether their attachment is unique anyway. Also, I'm still not sure it meets the criteria for disambiguation. Is there a citation of 'The City', referring to the center of the Universe San Francisco, where it's not clear from context or the intended audience of the quote what city it's about? I just don't see a pressing need to guide people to the San Francisco article when there are quite possibly thousands of others that would feel deserving of the same level of attention/self-promotion, if we were to use your criteria as the basis for inclusion. Anyone else care to comment? — mjb 05:46, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
Well, by way of comment, let me ask this question of the San Francisco folks: If you stood at the outskirts of Los Angeles, and said to someone "How do I get to 'The City'?", would they give you directions to the centre of LA, or would they give you directions to San Francisco? If to the centre of LA, then it's probably not an exception. The City of London is a bit different in this regard, because it can in some contexts not refer to the city that you are presently situated in. So whereas in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada the financial section of the evening news may say "The market reacted negatively to XYZ corp.'s profit warning", you might hear in the UK (even in British cities besides London) "The City reacted negatively to XYZ corp.'s profit warning", and the American equivalent would probably be "Wall Street reacted negatively to XYZ corp.'s profit warning". -- All the best, Nickj (t) 08:01, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
Precisely - the term is far too ambiguous and dependent on local context to make much sense except as in the London example. EVERYONE calls the closest major metropolitan area "the city." Hence this should be noted in the article, and we should allow our intelligent readers to mentally apply that definition to their favorite metropolis. —Onlyemarie 16:37, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
Well, to toss in my two cents: I'm a California native, and I've lived in Northern California most of my life. At least in Northern California, and often even in Southern California, "The City" always means San Francisco. If someone lives in Oakland, when they say "The City" they mean the city on the other side of the bay, San Francisco. Someone from San Jose would refer to driving "up to The City" to mean San Francisco. (Note to people from out of the area: Oakland and San Jose are very large cities, equally large or larger than the city of San Francisco itself.) Even in Southern California, people usually say "L.A.", not "The City", when they mean Los Angeles; I would argue that when they say "The City" they're more likely to mean San Francisco. So I can personally verify that usage of "The City" to mean San Francisco is reasonably widespread, more significant than the "rural or semi-rural environment" usage described in the article. It does seem likely that this phenomenon is at best specific to the western United States; in the UK, I realize that it has a very different connotation. Even so, the usage in California is probably significant enough to deserve a mention. DPryden 04:52, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Upon further consideration, I think it is worth acknowledging that metropolitan mass-media publications (esp. alternative weeklies like The Village Voice) will cite "the City" or "The City", so I added a note to that effect. Hopefully this will further dissuade people from thinking that their city is unique in this regard. I also thought Nickj's Wall Street example would make a good clarification for the unique case of London, so I added that as well. — mjb 19:25, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Split off The City (disambiguation)

Rather than debate the merits of this article, and since what is needed is a dab page, I went ahead and spun off the dab topics. This is at least a workable solution for the time being.
-,-~R'lyehRising~-,- 02:43, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

…until people start adding San Francisco, etc. to the disambiguation page. —mjb 07:41, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Buckinghamshire?

--78.147.101.95 (talk) 21:21, 23 January 2008 (UTC) I was wondering... It says the "The City" commonly refers to the city of Buckinghamshire in England. 2 Points:

A) No it isn't. Never has, never will
B) Buckinghamshire isn't a city. It's a county (one of the home counties)