When you hear the term "The City" refering to a specific city

[salin]

what city comes to mind for you?

Having lived in the Bay Area, going to "The City" meant San Francisco.

[TroubleMan]

1. New York, and I've never lived there.

Whenever I hear somebody say "The City" I assume they're talking about NYC.

[supernova]

2. Wash. D.C.

Because I lived in the area for several years.

Otherwise, if it's the East Coast, people are usually talking about NYC.

[salin]

4. I lived in NoVa

back in the eighties and don't recall the term being used - as I think that everyone considered themselves as part of DC. Except when it came to drinking ages and laws - then there was a distinction (each area had different laws - so where one went to get beer or liquor... varied and then I remember distinctions being made. How sad is it that I remember that?)

[northzax]

81. people from Arlington and Bethesda

say they're from DC, it's like people from Trenton saying their from New York...they're OTP (over the perimeter) and deep down, they know it.

[kansasblue]

27. DC... we called it the 'district', not the city.

[Blue-Jay]

3. Chicago. What else?

[ZombieNixon]

28. Other "cities" don't actually exist. n/t

[barb162]

53. same here

[yewberry]

5. "City" is NY, "town" is Boston.

Obviously, I'm from the northeast.

[WCGreen]

6. We never seem to refer to Cleveland as the city...

We talk about going to areas...

Such as I'm goin to Treamont...

Or I'm headed downtown...

Or out by Case....

Or to the Flats...

Or down to the Warehouse district...

[maddezmom]

7. for me it depends on where I'm living

in the past it's meant NYC, Boston, Wash DC, Phoenix, Bogota, Miami, Lima, Houston and now London.

But since I grew up in NY, my first thought is NYC.

[salin]

8. Didn't think of DC as "the city" when I lived there

as the whole metro area, at the time, seemed like one contintiguous area - so the city was a distinction without meaning (more likely to refer to Old Town, or George Town, or Capitol Hill, or worse to metro stops.)

Folks didn't refer to Detroit as "the city" - not likely to hear, for example, UofM students talking about going into "the city" tonight (per Detroit)

Hey - living in Indiana - we really don't have a cosmopolitan area to call "the City" - Indy just doesn't count - now in the nw part of the state the city would definitiely be Chicago.

For me the only place I have lived where "the City" had a distinct reference was the Bay Area (as there are numerous distinct cities in the region - but only one SF!)

I was guessing that while the reference is regional - that NYC would be the one that would get national recognition :D

[maddezmom]

23. ya know now that you mention it

it was either The Hill, G-Town, Old Town, Dupont Circle or Pentagon City....I guess we always referred to exactly where we were going. :D

[salin]

25. curious - when were you in that region?

I lived there from '84-'87 - and with the exception of Pentagon City (which was just getting built up) those were all the places that we would head to.

[TroubleMan]

38. or "I'm from Northeast," "I'm from Southeast," ect.

I lived in NOVA about 8 years.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

9. The City......could only mean.......

San Francisco.......

:woohoo:

And what magic there was in that phrase.."We're going to the City..."

It never failed.......

[ronnykmarshall]

68. Hey Peggy!!

Did you make it to the march in LA yesterday?

[CaliforniaPeggy]

75. Alas, I did not......

Did you go?

Sorry to be late responding...I'm just now reviewing my 48 hour posts file......



:hi:

[MaryBear]

72. Yes! S.F.,

and you hit it with "what magic there was in that phrase"!

[CaliforniaPeggy]

76. Thank you!

Every now and then, I get lucky with the phrases that come from somewhere in my brain....

And that was one of those times.....:hi:

[AlCzervik]

10. I grew a few miles outside Boston so that was "The city" for me

but i live in California now so San Francisco is The City even though i live 10 miles from downtown Sacramento.

[salin]

12. The City still means SF to me

even though I am now about 2,500 miles away!

[AlCzervik]

13. San Francisco is my favorite city of all time.

there is just something about it, my husb and and i take our daughter there about every 6 weeks or so for the day and she wants us to move there so much, i would love to live there as well but we just can't afford it. He works in Cupertino so the commute would be doable for him, he was renting a place in Pacifica during the week and driving to work everyday without a huge hassle.

[salin]

15. before reading the rent thing I was thinking... a daily Sacramento

to Cupertino commute... aye yie yie... the costs were escalating when I left the area (circa '99) and I imagine they are that much worse now.

[AlCzervik]

16. yes, a dump in SF and not even roper SF starts at $500k and it still needs

a wrecking ball and the other problem is that thanks to prop 13 your property tax is based on the purchase price. It's one of those dreams for us that hopefully one day we can do.

[Momgonepostal]

11. SF for me too

[arwalden]

14. The District of Columbia

[tjdee]

17. New York City. Only possibility.

No matter where I've been, if someone says they're going to the city, I think they mean NYC.

The most hilarious time was when I was near Buffalo and someone said they were going to "the city". Buffalo! "The city"! :rofl:

[Kickin_Donkey]

18. San Francisco ...

I'm a Northern Californian, and the City meant San Fran. It was different, elegant, majestic, towering over everything around it.

We used to get dressed up in our Sunday best for a day in the City, but that changed in the mid-'70s.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

19. San Francisco is the only one to which I've heard that applied

[jobycom]

20. Friggin' dooop

[jobycom]

21. New Orleans. Growing up

in Lyman, MS, when you went to town it was Gulfport, and when you went to the city it was New Orleans.

[fleabert]

22. New York first, since I lived in Buffalo for a bit, now SF, since I am Sac

[hfojvt]

24. NOLA or Senloo

"left a good job in THE CITY
working for the man every night and day ..."

[salin]

26. just Rollin'

:D

[Crazy Guggenheim]

29. San Francisco.

[skygazer]

30. New York, always

I live in the SF Bay Area now but I still think of The City as New York.

[China_cat]

31. Never heard any other city called 'The City'

People would sneer at you if you said 'San Fran', 'SF', or (worse) 'Frisco'. We'd even hitchike with signs that just said 'City' on them.

I lived in Hillsborough at the time and would go up to city on weekends.

[yellowdogintexas]

32. New York City, is "The City"

when I was growing up, going into town meant the little towns all over the local area. We would specifically say where we were going if it were to Nashville or Louisville, etc.

so NYC is my instant brain reaction to that descriptor

[tedoll78]

33. When I was a child growing-up in Kenner, it was New Orleans.

When I went off to college at Ole Miss, it was Memphis.

And now that I live in Austin, the term isn't used much any more.

When I move back to Louisiana in a few years, it'll mean New Orleans once again.

[tjwmason]

34. London - specifically the "Square Mile"

The financial district covering (roughly speaking) the City of London (which is very different from Greater London).

If one is referring to London more generally it's "Town" (as in "I'm going to Town"), but the tone of voice has to express the subtle difference between London and one of the near-by towns.

Anywhere else pales in comparison.

[mcar]

35. New York

and it's always annoyed me that people refer to it as "the City." There are others.

[flamingyouth]

36. San Francisco for me too

:hi:

[Telly Savalas]

37. Tonganoxie, Kansas

[AVulgarianHue]

39. The City of Los Angeles n/t

[ikojo]

40. In the St Louis area, even though everyone in the 631xx ZIP

code area says they live in St Louis, when someone says "the city" they mean the City of St Louis.

[deadparrot]

52. Yes, indeed.

The "city" is south city, which I'm a native of. :D

[BuddhaGirl]

41. San Francisco

is "the City" for me. I never tire of the view as I cross the GG Bridge from Marin.

[bertha katzenengel]

42. The City is San Francisco. n/t

[miss_kitty]

43. When I hear 'The City'

I think of London's financial district, the actual city of London.
However, I was born and raised in Seattle. We just never called it 'The City'.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

44. S.F. is the only place I've known with the arrogance to refer to itself as

"THE City".

I've never heard that anywhere else.

S.F. is great, one of my favorite cities, but the "The City" business is just about the most arrogant obnoxious thing I've heard. I remember reading this in the Chronicle or Examiner some time ago when I was staying in the area for a several weeks.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

47. Growing up here...

terms like "the city" were just used as identifiers. You were from/going to the city or East Bay (for anything east of the BB) or San Jose (anything south of 92), or Marin (for anything north of the GGB). Even folks who live in San Jose, which is larger than SF, will still say they are going to "the city" for a concert when they mean SF.

Sometimes our identifiers are fucked with, like when Santa Clara become Silicon Valley. To us who grew up here it will always be Santa Clara.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

49. No, it's the Capitalized 'The City' that is objectionable to me.

Anyone who grew up or lived near ANY major city would understand "going into the city" as heading into town wherever you are. S.F. is the only place where I've seen that capitalized (The City), in writing, as if to say, "what other city is there?"

The newspaper column I was referring to discussed this specific phenomenon, it was some old timey columnist for either the Chronicle or the Examiner, can't remember which. Can't remember if he thought it was a good or bad thing.

To me, the fact that S.F. IS in fact so much better than just about every other city makes what I see as arrogance about it that much more unseemly, just my take on it... just accept your greatness with grace but don't rub everyone else's face in it already...

[MaryBear]

73. SF as "The City" comes from outer areas.

My parents, and grandparents (who were married in The City in 1900), lived elsewhere and always called SF "The City," as do I. For too many years that is exactly what it was in northern and central california -- the City. Even in Oakland, SF was "the City."

The SF media picked it up at some time - prob Herb Caen - and ran with it for PR.

-MB

[HEyHEY]

45. Oddly we don't use it where I'm from

People just say, "I gotta go into Vancouver"

[Hell Hath No Fury]

46. Journey gives us the answer...

"When the lights
go down
in The City..."

"The City" ain't nothin' but San Francisco. :)

[RoyGBiv]

48. Oklahoma City ...

Even people who live here call it that, partly because it and Tulsa are the only ones in the entire state. :-)

[fishwax]

54. Yeah, me too

even though I've recently moved, when I think of "the city" I think (of all things) of OKC :)

[Z_I_Peevey]

55. Me also.

Although sometimes Bokchito comes to mind.

[hickman1937]

50. New York. No body ever references Detroit. n/t

[fudge stripe cookays]

51. Dallas.

We live right outside of it. Hopefully not much longer!

FSC

[LeftyMom]

56. San Francisco nt

[Kazak]

57. OKC

But, I grew up in Norman. To this day, I live in Norman, and work in "the city".

[GRLMGC]

58. San Francisco

Just because I remembered reading somewhere that San Franciscans hated the term "Frisco" and preferred "the city". I sorta thought it was presumptuous but what the hell? It's a pretty cool city.

[Arugula Latte]

59. I grew up in the Bay Area -- "The City" means S.F. to me, too.

[Kathleen04]

60. NYC

In fact, we went to the city today on a whim, it was fun! :)

[KitchenWitch]

61. Minneapolis

[Fox Mulder]

62. Here in Minnesota, we say "The Cities"

referring to Minneapolis and St. Paul.

[Vektor]

63. Also San Francisco for me.

Love it.

[Robeson]

64. Nashville.

[fujiyama]

65. NYC

Gotta say NY is the city and always will be.

Even though I live only a half hour away from Detroit...and about 4 hours from Chicago.

[tyedyeto]

66. San Francisco! Is there any other "The City"?

"The City by the baaay"

[ronnykmarshall]

67. San Francisco

[malachibk]

69. NYC is The City. End of story.

n/t

[anarch]

70. manhattan

Which is odd, since I live in DC.

It always amuses me when people make a big deal about "coming into the city" and they're talking about DC. And it's even funnier when people come here from other towns, and look across the river at Rosslyn (which has the only relatively tall buildings around) from the Mall or wherever, and say "is that downtown over there?" No, dude, that's Virginia. You're standing in "downtown".

[La Lioness Priyanka]

71. manhattan

[catbert836]

74. New York, what else?

Although having a family entirely from that region might have helped a little. I used to think that everyone knew "the City" as New York.

[Groggy]

77. Nobody says that here...

I guess we don't have very big cities here....people just say the place they are going to.

[Zuni]

78. Annapolis, Baltimore or DC

the three cities that most dominate my life.

I live in the city of Annapolis, Baltimore is the big city I visit most by far, and DC dominates the region

[Ladyhawk]

79. Modesto...LOL!

:rofl:

[MaryBear]

83. Oh, yah. Right, Ladyhawk. LOL.

:rofl:

I did meet some very nice folks
at the march in The City, though,
who were from Modesto.

No offense meant to them!

[Ladyhawk]

84. But I'm serious. :) Modesto is the largest city near me and it's an hour

away. :D

[MaryBear]

86. Wow

Are you up near Yosemite or down in the valley?

[northzax]

80. "The City" is New York

second the above comment that "town" is Boston. The only other one I use is "the District".

[Selatius]

82. Did anyone ever watch the show The Tick?

In it, the name of the city was..."The City." I'm talking about the animated version, not the FOX live action version.

[NYC Liberal]

85. Manhattan is "The City"

for me! :)