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Pittsburgh uses the term "The City" meaning anywhere in the City of Pittsburgh proper. "Downtown" is used for the Central Business District. "Pittsburgh" is anywhere in Allegheny County., Some will try to even use "Pittsburgh" as a synonym for all of Western Pennsylvania.
I'm sorry if you live in an outer county you DO NOT live in Pittsburgh. You live in Pittsburgh Metro, Outside of Pittsburgh, Western PA, but you DO NOT live in Pittsburgh.
NYC - Inside NYC "The City" means Manhattan, Outside of the 5 Boroughs and "The City" means anywhere in NYC proper.
Philly - Center City and Downtown are used interchangeably among natives, transplants are strictly Center City. Outside Philadelphia, people either say Center City or Philly. Philly uses the term "City" to juxtapose "County", the term "County" is used for any of the collar counties that surround the city of Philadelphia.
Nope. SF is widely referred to as 'the City' in Northern California-even in neighboring metro areas like Sacramento, there's no mistaking where 'the city' is. This goes back to the mid 1800s so it's not a recent thing.
you're right. And Herb Caen is turning over in his grave bc the other guy made light of the fact that SF is "the city". Acually it's not; SF is "The City"
D.C. is referred to as "the city" also locally, or just simply the District.
Everything else is viewed as the "suburbs" here, even if it is actually urban.
My friend lives in Arlington and refers to D.C. as "The District". She grew up 20 miles from Manhattan, though, so "the city" for D.C. probably doesn't come easy.
Pittsburgh uses the term "The City" meaning anywhere in the City of Pittsburgh proper. "Downtown" is used for the Central Business District. "Pittsburgh" is anywhere in Allegheny County., Some will try to even use "Pittsburgh" as a synonym for all of Western Pennsylvania.
I'm sorry if you live in an outer county you DO NOT live in Pittsburgh. You live in Pittsburgh Metro, Outside of Pittsburgh, Western PA, but you DO NOT live in Pittsburgh.
NYC - Inside NYC "The City" means Manhattan, Outside of the 5 Boroughs and "The City" means anywhere in NYC proper.
Philly - Center City and Downtown are used interchangeably among natives, transplants are strictly Center City. Outside Philadelphia, people either say Center City or Philly. Philly uses the term "City" to juxtapose "County", the term "County" is used for any of the collar counties that surround the city of Philadelphia.
I don't know. I live in NJ, and I only refer to Manhattan as "The City". If I am going to Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, or Staten Island, I refer to them that way.
Philly - Center City and Downtown are used interchangeably among natives, transplants are strictly Center City. Outside Philadelphia, people either say Center City or Philly. Philly uses the term "City" to juxtapose "County", the term "County" is used for any of the collar counties that surround the city of Philadelphia.
I'm a transplant and I use Center City and "downtown" interchangeably. So do a lot of other people I know who aren't natives also. Although ironically, I travel "uptown" on the train to get to "downtown".
Location: Live:Downtown Phoenix, AZ/Work:Greater Los Angeles, CA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ajams22
In the time I've lived here, I've never heard "Los Angeles" said out loud unless I leave the city and go elsewhere. It's usually just LA.
It also seems (from my observations) when people say they're "going to LA" they're referencing anywhere west of DTLA (unless it's specifically West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, or Santa Monica).
I've also noticed for a lot of people, "LA" and "downtown LA" mean the same thing.
I know that the SFV is not considered "LA" even though it is in the city limits (with the exception of Burbank and the city of San Fernando). "LA" generally only refers to the parts of the city in the LA Basin
Here's the Dialect Prevalence Map from 2013. The question was What is "The City" to you?
Here is a heat map for New York. The redder the area, the more prevalent that the respondent replied NYC. The bluer the area means that locals there refer to another place as "The City"
my image
That map has a lot of information. You can see all the NY transplants in Florida and The Carolinas. You can also clearly see Houston and Columbus, OH on this map for NY which stood out to me as interesting since they seem different from the rest of their States and I’ve never known either of those places to be particularly big on NY transplants, or have any sort of connection with us.
On the flipside of things you can clearly see Chicago and San Francisco being the 2 other big ones throughout their regions. Seattle as well to a lesser extent. And somewhere in Minnesota that doesn’t look like the Twin Cities so IDK what that is.
In PA you can see a lot of NY but a small bubble around Philly that goes into South Jersey.
So it looks like Seattle and Philly are 2 more answers to OPs question. I think I see a little bit for Boston too.
That map has a lot of information. You can see all the NY transplants in Florida and The Carolinas. You can also clearly see Houston and Columbus, OH on this map for NY which stood out to me as interesting since they seem different from the rest of their States and I’ve never known either of those places to be particularly big on NY transplants, or have any sort of connection with us.
On the flipside of things you can clearly see Chicago and San Francisco being the 2 other big ones throughout their regions. Seattle as well to a lesser extent. And somewhere in Minnesota that doesn’t look like the Twin Cities so IDK what that is.
In PA you can see a lot of NY but a small bubble around Philly that goes into South Jersey.
So it looks like Seattle and Philly are 2 more answers to OPs question. I think I see a little bit for Boston too.
In Boston "the city" is never used.
CBD is considered Boston, as in between the South and North Ends. People in South Boston or Hyde Park will say "I am going to Boston" if they are going to the Common.
What about Baltimore? Do they say it to differentiate from Baltimore County?
"The City" and "The County" that's pretty much it. I wonder if St Louis doesn't it the same way.
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