NEW YORK, CHICAGO, LOS ANGELES: SAME SIZE; DIFFERENT PARADIGM

NEW YORK, CHICAGO, LOS ANGELES: SAME SIZE; DIFFERENT PARADIGM Is there a different paradigm to consider in the way we view the populations of New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles? IÂ'm not talking about better or worse, or any possible advantage to any of the three; just about how we organize them in our minds? New York has more than twice the population of ChicagoÂ's. And LA has about a million more people than does Chicago. But New York and LA may well be unique among American cities. They, more than any other city, operate on the concept of huge subdivisons within their city limits and with the concept that numerous neighborhoods function as towns and villages. To illustrate: New York is made up of five boroughs. There is nothing comparable in Chicago to the boroughs or the idea of Manhattan being the core and the existence of 4 outher boroughs. That Greater New York come into existence relatively late (end of the 19th c), Brooklyn never lost its sense of city status on its own, a world apart from Manhattan. Meanwhile so much of Queens (i.e. Flushing, Forest Hills, etc.) and virtually all of Staten Island developed as a series of villages or suburbs. SI is so issolated that, in many ways, it doesnÂ't seem a part of NYC. Ironically there are areas in suburban NYC and in NJ that seem more Â"New YorkÂ" than SI is. Of the five boroughs, only Brooklyn and Queens border each other. The rest are separated by water....and with the exception of the Harlem River separating Manhattan from the Bronx, the water is rather wide. Bronx alone of the outer four seems like the true extension of the northward march of Manhattan. If you send mail to Brooklyn, you mail it to Â"BrooklynÂ"...and in Queens, the name of the Â"villagesÂ" appears on the envelope. LA has no legal divisions like the boroughs. But the Santa Monica Mountains slice through the cityÂ's core, creating Â"CityÂ" to the south and Â"ValleyÂ" to the north. There is no question that independent Beverly Hills and Santa Monica are more Â"cityÂ" than the San Fernando Valley, legally a part of LA, is. The entire Valley is made up of communtiies that are like cities and have their own mailing address. Even the elite areas of the westside (Brentwood, Westwood, Bel Air, Pac Pal) come across as separate towns. The harbor is joined to LA by a long narrow string....and its core, San Pedro, is more Long Beach than LA. Contrast with Chicago: one address....Chicago. Nobody would ever suggest that communities within our city limits are villages and, quite frankly very few (Beverly, Edgebrook, Saugansash, Forest Glenn...perhaps Norwood Pk and Edison Pk) have a suburban feel. Even the ones that do are still pretty much part of the city degree, even if to a lesser extent. Sure we have our North, South, and West sides, but in the flat grid, they seamlessly flow into each other. As they flow around the Loop and the rest of downtown, IÂ've never had an exact sense of where the North Side ends and the West Side starts; same with the West and South. Suffice it say that Chicago, alone of the three, is the only traditional , unifiedcity concept. NYCÂ's and LAÂ's sheer size has put them in a mode where much of their cities donÂ't feel a part of those cities the way that all of Chicago does. Population wise, if you compare the population of the city portion of LA (and lopp off the valley and harbor), and look at NYÂ's population as being Manhattan and the Manhattan extension that is the Bronx (the Manhattan numbered street pattern spreads into the Bronx), you find two cities that are comparable with ChgoÂ's population. As I said from the start, this is not a better or worse type of comparison. I donÂ't see where the observation gives any city an edge. Perhaps my point, in the form of a generalization is that when a city gets to a particularly enormous size, it finds more meaningful ways to subdivide itself (and perhaps dilude its identity) because it is simply too large for unity.>