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What's the most iconic city in England? If I asked you to name a city in England, what's the first one you'd name? If you were going to tour the country, to see its heart, which city would you have to visit? London, of course. The capital city.
What about France? Paris. The capital city.
Egypt? Cairo. The capital.
China? Bejing/Peking. The capital.
You get the idea. Pick just about any country, and it's the capital. But what about the US? Maybe I'm influenced by proximity, but I'd say that arguably the most iconic city in the country is New York. Which isn't even the capital of the state. (That's Albany. And if you've never heard of it before... I can't say I blame you.) LA is probably the second. Going down the list, there's Boston and Chicago... you'd have a ways to go before you got to D.C. (Or at least so it seems to me.)
Why is that? In part, I guess it's the history of it. Most capitals became capitals because they were major, influential cities. DC was created to be the capital, its location a compromise, moved from more northern proposals (such as New York, already an established major city) to help get the Southern states to pay an even share of the more heavily Northern debts from the Revolutionary War.
Even so, that was two hundred years ago. DC has grown, but not nearly so much (or, arguably, so well) as New York and other cities. Outside of the Federal buildings (Capitol Hill, the National Mall, etc.), it's not a city to really show off. (Which I've always thought was a disappointment and a shame.)
Why has it developed this way? What does it say about us?
Or are my perceptions just skewed? (Though since this mostly is about perceptions, any skewing I might have might just be considered exactly the point...)
What about France? Paris. The capital city.
Egypt? Cairo. The capital.
China? Bejing/Peking. The capital.
You get the idea. Pick just about any country, and it's the capital. But what about the US? Maybe I'm influenced by proximity, but I'd say that arguably the most iconic city in the country is New York. Which isn't even the capital of the state. (That's Albany. And if you've never heard of it before... I can't say I blame you.) LA is probably the second. Going down the list, there's Boston and Chicago... you'd have a ways to go before you got to D.C. (Or at least so it seems to me.)
Why is that? In part, I guess it's the history of it. Most capitals became capitals because they were major, influential cities. DC was created to be the capital, its location a compromise, moved from more northern proposals (such as New York, already an established major city) to help get the Southern states to pay an even share of the more heavily Northern debts from the Revolutionary War.
Even so, that was two hundred years ago. DC has grown, but not nearly so much (or, arguably, so well) as New York and other cities. Outside of the Federal buildings (Capitol Hill, the National Mall, etc.), it's not a city to really show off. (Which I've always thought was a disappointment and a shame.)
Why has it developed this way? What does it say about us?
Or are my perceptions just skewed? (Though since this mostly is about perceptions, any skewing I might have might just be considered exactly the point...)
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I don't think this is in any way restricted to the US and has more to do with the fact that people will just pick the biggest city, which is often the capital, but not always.
Australia? People will say Sydney instead of Canberra.
Switzerland? Zürich instead of Bern.
New Zealand? I would say Auckland.
South Africa? Johannesburg.
For Germany, I suppose a lot of people would say Munich, just because of the Oktoberfest :)
I didn't know Washington was built to be the capital and I suspect a lot of other people outside of the US also don't. Says nothing about the US for me and different from what it's like with a few of the other countries I just listed, most people actually know that New York isn't the capital. Try asking people outside of Europe what the capital of Switzerland is ;)
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From:
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I will now not go into the topic of Bavaria and how some people need to learn that it's only one of 15 German states and so on :)