I made a youtube short that went a little viral on this so I figured why not expound more on the topic since you guys liked it, Welcome to Los Angeles, the city with the dumbest map in the USA! Also UPDATE* Dammit misspelled "Torrance"
For a US example of the city not being everything, look to St. Louis. The city is actually pretty small and the county eclipses it in people, money, land area, etc. That's why the Stl crime stats look so bad.
Not really. Many central cities have used water & sewer access to grow. Some cities extended lines into undeveloped areas without requiring annexation into the city. Others require a short timeline to come into the city. Central cities 'fight' to keep from getting landlocked by their suburbs. Hence, the panhandle. Also depends upon state annexation laws. In Ohio, the process is initiated by the property owner. Cities like going after tax rich producing areas while going around the tax poor ones Look at a map of Columbus, Ohio. It has landlocked suburbs within its borders. It has township remnants. It has panhandles, and it's the fastest growing area in the state. Ohio law prevents discontinuous chunks of cities UNLESS the remnants of a township FINALLY form a city or merge with its township seat city. Curious thing about the South and West as they permit such isolated city chunks until the city connects in between them. Smaller municipalities in South Caroline seem to start out circular and annex from there. Have seen several examples. Must be state laws?
@@JayYoung-ro3vu Maybe the circles are a Southern thing. A few cities in Georgia are also roughly circular shaped. There's actually an outer suburb of Atlanta called Social Circle.
That's not Tokyo City, that's Tokyo Prefecture (actually Metropolis, but whatever) which consists of multiple cities, towns and villages. While there is no single city called 'Tokyo', the special wards area is often considered to be the 'core' of the Tokyo Metro, with each 'ward' having similar powers to (and stylizing themselves in English as) a city, i.e. 世田谷区 in Japanese but City of Setagaya in English.
@@Mario123007Toronto Pearson Airport is similar to Tokyo Disney. The airport is in the neighboring city despite having the name of city/place that it isn't in.
Somewhat, but a lot of the dumb borders came from the city expanding by annexing towns but then not being able to annex certain towns that border towns they did annex
@@duqial Monaco is independence do to the casino. Gambling was in most places not legal. there it is. plus for France there is no incentive to conquer Monaco there is no recourse to be found there to be of use. But it does get money from Monaco for it's defence budget.
So, I kinda dig this new series of more chill videos, where they talk about all sorts of random stuff, like weird admin rules in different countries or cities. They sometimes throw in some news-related videos too, but honestly, I like it. I know it’s not really what Paul had in mind at first-he was more about getting out there, y'know, hitting the ground. But for now, these videos are still pretty cool, and I’m always down to watch whatever’s next, whether it’s more about geography or travel vibes. I get it, though. Keep doing your thing.
Small correction at 7:35 / 11:15, unincorporated means there is NO city government there (the county operates all functions for these areas). Burbank, Glendale, Inglewood, Culver City etc are NOT unincorporated because they operate as a municipality (basically their own city government overlaying over the county). Also at 9:15 / 10:50, that area isn't actually incorporated into the city of Torrance, they simply use Torrance postal addresses. If you go a few blocks west you will be within the borders of LA City but the properties still use Torrance addresses great video, not trying to hate just educate
This video does a great job explaining one of many reasons why it’s really really hard to build housing in LA, because it’s not just LA City you have to work with.
You are correct. I work in RE and LA county is the WORST to deal with in terms of permitting. It’s why we build way more in Orange County and the IE. LA RE is basically a monopoly for major apartment building companies. They make it impossible on anyone else.
Americans, I’m sorry, but your weird city maps is the exact reason why people outside your country just lump different cities into one. That whole urban area is LA to me.
We americans also do that. The weird quirks in our city maps only matter in situations for the purposes of taxes, utilities, or legal/politcal matters. Edit: Clarified when quirks in city boundaries matter.
@@ScreenSage_YTfair enough, but I have spoken to Americans that are from places like Fort Worth, Katy, or Fort Lauderdale, and they’re adamant they’re from completely separate cities 😂 legally they are, but being real here, that’s basically Dallas, Houston and Miami respectively
I live in Pasadena currently and if I’m asked abroad where I live, I will just say I’m from LA because I don’t want to have to explain myself. If I’m in California, I will say I live in Pasadena because it gives people who know, a better idea. You would be the person I’m not trying to explain it to😂
I do remember a handful of conversations where someone says they are from LA and then asked what part, and they say somewhere like El Monte or La Puente and they are teased that that is not actually LA
The real reason comes down to history. The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo legally required the U.S. to recognize Mexican, Spanish, and Californio rights to existing land holdings-mostly ranchos-which were sold off or acquired through eminent domain over the following century. This led to the slow and unsystematic development of cities founded from these land grants.
The video left out that a "City" in the US in an incorporation - it's a corporation, a fictitious person. And like corporations do, a city can buy and sell things, including land. As you point out, historically there were large land holdings and some of them were bought by different corporations (er, cities.)
I really dig these new, more obscure geographic topics that you're tackling now that your main objective is over! They're super interesting and I'm all for it! Sincerely, a subscriber since the Belgium video
@@GeographyNow Would love a whole series about Los Angeles. It's so huge! Like cities within cities within cities. And the history of how it came to be like that.
Seriously. It sums it all up how the two main exterior scenes in Return of the Jedi (the Sarlacc pit and the Endor forests) were both filmed in California, albeit at literally opposite ends (the Sarlacc pit in the Imperial sand dunes in the southeastern corner and the Endor forest near Crescent City in the northwestern corner).
Additional fun fact about london: it has about 20%+ forested area which is one of the highest for a capital city in fact London can technically be classed as a forest. Also Westminster here is like d.c. in the US a separate area normally for government buildings
What's really funny is how most San Fernando Valley residents have absolutely no idea they live in the City of Los Angeles lol Due to many neighborhoods having their own mailing addresses like Encino, Van Nuys, Sun Valley, Woodland Hills, Granada Hills, etc., they are often mistakenly assumed to be their own independent cities, but they're actually not.
@@bradjohnson4126 I live in the San Gabriel valley and we are not city of LA and I even knew that. But I probably should know I am a surveyor and work all over LA.
I live in LA and almost every day I hear people on the radio or in person call their LA city neighborhood with its own mailing address a city. “I live in the city of”: Van Nuys Wilmington North Hollywood Etc. It drives me crazy. I want to yell at all of them that you’re not a city, you’re an LA city neighborhood!!
For me it’s the opposite. Most people in the LA basin or the core of the city don’t know they the SFV is part of LA cuz it’s so far away. They don’t claim us.
Yeah speaking as a Londoner, our city just sprawls out into the rest of southern England and people have differing views on what constitutes as London because of so many different factors
The England is also strange (from a North American perspective) because most authority rests with the national government you can have these more ambiguous boundaries.
I grew up in Fresno. Had no idea it was such a mapping mess. That explains why half the time we drove through Clovis and my 10 year old brain thought we were far away from home. Not exactly sure, but Fresno also has a canal system to distribute water so water supply may also be a factor in its strangeness.
There's a city in the Philippines called Caloocan where it's separated into two pieces. North and South. Story was that Quezon City annexed a large part of the city called Novaliches when it was created. What makes it interesting is how different North and South Caloocan is. South is seen as dangerous, poor and crowded while North is wealthy, leafy, and suburban.
@@ks_ig2728, in Metro Manila, two cities have two separate lands. Manila's city limits has an exclave surrounded by Makati since they have the land of Manila South Cemetery.
If you look at New York City it seems pretty straightforward, until you learn that the neighborhood of Marble Hill is not technically part of The Bronx, but Manhattan across Spuytun Duyvil Creek (Dutch or maybe Old Dutch for Spite the Devil). The creek used to be north of Marble Hill and it was a nightmare for navigation. The Army Corps of Engineers not only deepened it, but decided to slice Marble Hill off of Manhattan to straighten the creek. The old creek bed was then filled in to attach Marble Hill to The Bronx, but it was never legally incorporated with the Bronx. The only difference between Manhattan and Marble Hill is the telephone Area Code, the people wanted 212, but the phone company was like, “That’s too complicated, you’re getting 718 like everything else around you.”
Me being Dutch and having some understanding of old Dutch (still a challange). the Spuytun Duyvil Creek a literal translation would be the spouting devil creek. As it might have been a wild and dangerous or unpredictable creek. a more correct translation would be the raging devil creek. as Spouting could also imply you speaking like a mad man.
Also Ellis Island. A NY enclave landlocked within a New Jersey island. The enclave is the original island. All reclaimed land was later deemed to be long to NJ
1:12 Brussels is similar. The Brussels Capital Region is its own region within Belgium (1 of 3), and generally, when one mentions Brussels, they're referring to the region. But there is also the City of Brussels, which is the largest of 19 municipalities within the Brussels region. The City of Brussels actually used to be smaller-just the Pentagon city center-but it has merged with other municpalities over time and become the largest, but with weirdly shaped, non-contiguous borders.
6:35 You equated San Fernando as "unincorporated" but it is a City government, so it is incorporated. Unincorporated communities don't have city governments they rely on County level for most services instead of just some. Maybe just a small misspeak but a pet peeve of mine.
@GeographyNow would be a very interesting and insightful episode, especially considering your Italian heritage, looking forward to it! Cheers from malta 🇲🇹😊
Wow. I always thought Burbank, Santa Monica, Pasadena and all the others mentioned in movies and TV shows are like miles away from each other. I knew they were all in California, but California is pretty huge (around 4 times bigger then my home country), so I assumed these are all miles apart. Seeing that these are all in one cluster gives me a whole new perspective...
@shard4756 all of that is driveable in 30 mins(excl traffic). That's average for all big cities. I think the person above meant tens or hundreds of miles away
@@amanshilanov6237 Yes, that's what I meant. We use metric here, so I'm not that familiar with miles and didn't wanted to sound stupid by accidentally giving a ridiculusly large order of magnitude. I meant that these cities are further apart, like Berlin and Hamburg in Germany or London and York in the UK.
When I saw a map of an area near Hilliard, I knew that the decades-long annexation policy had some issues. To get within one subdivision in Columbus, the main road that is mostly within Hilliard must be accessed. Or vice versa. What I have never liked, the multiple areas of unincorporated county land. Signs reading "Entering Franklin County" are very common throughout Columbus.
Technically, Tokyo gets even more complicated because despite there being the Prefecture of Tokyo, there isn't actually a City of Tokyo (kinda sorta). What we call Tokyo is a group of wards with their own cities and their own mayors. It's Shibuya City within Shibuya Ward within Tokyo Prefecture. Prefectures are closer to a State (in US terms), so it's like labelling LA as California City.
About Tokyo. That string that you saw was not the city but the prefecture of Tokyo. Same as a province. There are like Manila and Los Angeles multiple cities in the area. Like Long beach, Anaheim, Hollywood, Beverly hills for Los Angeles and Queson, Pasig, Caloocan, Antipolo, Paranaque for Manila. And its Shibuya crossing not Shinjuku crossing.
Auckland City in New Zealand used to be divided between four cities and several smaller district councils until around 2010. Apparently, the government thought it was a wise idea to copy how LA did things, except that all the councils were successfully assimilated into the "Super City" Borg construct. People were getting tired of the lack of cooperation between the councils impacting infrastructure and responsiveness to local affairs. The idea was a single streamlined local council would be more responsive and quick to act without mountains of bureaucracy getting in the way. What happened instead was the "Super City" council became even less responsive, more incompetent and more undemocratic. Go figure.
It's funny because London is essentially divided into 32 separate borough governments, but still suffers from lack of responsiveness. In LAs case, one of the big problems is the county is governed by just five people, and there isn't really a separate legislative and executive body. So it's VERY unresponsive, plus people don't vote in their county elections.
13:05 CORRECTION: San Pedro is NOT the South Bay. The South Bay refers to the south of the Santa Monica bay. The South Bay is El Segundo through Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, and Redondo Beach, to Palos Verdes. You made this same mistake in your short also
False. San Pedro is part of the South Bay (I live there), this is easily researchable information. The LA Metro website, The Los Angeles County Economic Development Center website, and Wikipedia all list San Pedro as part of the South Bay, along with many other places not on your list such as Inglewood, Carson, Torrance, Harbor City, and Wilmington. I couldnt find a single website that didnt list San Pedro as part of the South Bay.
@@shard4756 What bay do you think is being referred to? It’s the Santa Monica Bay. The South Bay is the cities in the south of the Santa Monica Bay. And even if you for some weird reason consider San Pedro part of the South Bay, calling it “THE South Bay areas” is still wrong
@@shard4756 San Pedro is most often not included in South Bay. Look up "Mapping LA" from the LA Times for a quick example. South Bay stretches from Westchester to Palos Verdes, with San Pedro on the border but in what they call the "Harbor" region along with Long Beach and other cities.
As Jay Foreman said in his Unfinished London video on the subject, even the way the borders of Greater London are weird. For example, where I live, is on the edge of south western Greater London, but according to the postal address, it's in Surrey. A nearby town to where I live, is Epsom, yet despite it fitting the criteria for an out suburb of London, it's not a part of Greater London. Even the Borough boundaries of Kingston upon Thames is weird, it has a narrow panhandle that faces south west, happening to encompass the theme park Chessington World of Adventures. Another London based UA-camr, Geoff Marshall, (who lived in Charleston, South Cariona for a few years and in his final year there did a road trip around the Continental United States visiting places that shared names with stations on the London Underground map) talked about how the boundaries of Greater London are often oversimplified to "everything inside the M25 motorway", when in fact, it's entirely true. There are parts of the M25 that are entirely outside the Greater London boundaries and parts that are entirely within it.
Gothenburg, Sweden have that problem too. I live in, technically, the northernmost municipality of Halland county, but we’re the southern end of the Greater Gothenburg metropolitan area. This’ve become a problem with health care, as the nearest major hospital is in Gothenburg, but everyone with more serious issues is directed to Varberg south of where I live, which is of a longer distance than just going to Gothenburg. And the (Halland) county wants to move the emergency department of Varberg even further south to Falkenberg. The point is that the Greater Gothenburg metropolitan area is effed up, geographically speaking.
Super interesting! Glad you mentioned my city, Houston. Fun fact; unlike Houston, Austin & San Antonio, Poor little Dallas😢 can no longer grow because it is surrounded by smaller suburbs with their own city limits. Houston ,with its octopus fingers that follow major highways, will find new territories to annex in the next decades to come. We annexed Kingwood and nearby Lake Houston to control surface runoff pollution in the area since Lake Houston is a major source of drinking water for over 2 million people. We Love your little geo chats, Barbs! ❤️😎⭐️🥇🏆👍🎤📺
Houston wants the tax revenue from commercial (freeways /1960/6/NASA/ The port), without servicing the residential. And careful when buying fireworks and driving across 1960/6. Depending on the area, you may have illegally transported fireworks into Houston by crossing the street.
I actually work in that Torrance knot section at Harbor Gateway. It's funny because we call the building our "LA office" yet our official address says Torrance.
My compliments on all the complicated graphics you had to get your drone and your computer and god knows what else you had to do to get them on our screens. You’re awesome!
This aspect of local government in the US always fascinated me. You have a gigantic metro area but just a teeny tiny blob in the center is actually, legally, part of the city. In Germany this usually doesn't happen because state governments can order local governments to merge/be annexed whether they like it or not. One can argue that this is undemocratic but it definitely simplifies urban planning.
@Geography Now In my hometown, San Jose, the City Manager A. P. "Dutch" Hamann tried to learn the lesson of Los Angeles sprawl in a bad way. He annexed most of orchards of what is now the Silicon Valley by sending spider legs out all the roadways, taking the corners of major intersections and effectively fencing in any alternative community from being large enough to form a city. He "took" the valley in the 1950's and 60's. He was so aggressive, the State formed LAFCO (Local Agency Formation Commission) to try to prevent other cities from learning his example. I think there is a story to be told.
Loved this video, I know a bunch of "why is this?" for my own locality and love seeing it about other places. Like here in New England the roads can meander all over because they often started as cow paths or hunting trails and why there are so many small scattered cemeteries is because the settlers often buried family on family land (also no one likes to travel "long" distances around here).
3:16 Phoenix’s borders aren’t even that weird by its own region’s standards. A lot of the other cities went so insane with annexing land in the 70s that our state legislature had to curtail municipal annexation powers. Some of the craziness from other cities includes: - Buckeye bordering Surprise, even though the old town sites for those cities are at least 20 miles away from each other, and Goodyear and Glendale are in the way. Buckeye’s borders in general are very weird. - Mesa preventing Gilbert from annexing Williams Field, even though Williams Field is around 20 miles away from downtown Mesa. Mesa is in the top 50 of US cities by population. - Sun City being surrounded on three sides by Peoria, but being unincorporated. - Peoria having a 1 mile wide strip of land that connects the southern half of the city to the northern half, which extends into a different county. - Glendale’s strip annexation around Luke Air Force Base. Our Glendale is probably a bit larger than yours. - Scottsdale being 2 miles wide from the Tempe border to Doubletree Ranch Road due to tribal politics. At least a lot of the valley cities, especially in the west valley, agreed to base their location address systems as an extension of Phoenix. The east valley cities, except Scottsdale and Queen Creek, still use their own address systems. I’m not sure why Queen Creek adopted Phoenix’s system, when the cities between them and Phoenix have their own. The valley is a common nickname for the entire Phoenix region. Also, the city of Phoenix is so huge that some people, especially when referring to the outskirts, use the names of the “urban villages” to refer to those areas, even though the urban village system is something the city government created to try to spread out and concentrate development, and the villages have very little power to do anything.
As a former Angeleno I was always interested in the little nuances of the city of LA's geography. I'm only here to raise my grievances about you revealing the 6th St back to 110 shortcut that I've used for years while living down there and still use when I need to go that way when visiting LA from the Bay Area. I hope you continue to make videos for a long time Barbs and love your segway into city geography and micro-geography.
Basically any large American city does this. No one thinks of it as being a "proper", but they are the same idea. Like I like in Indianapolis. That has little townships in it, but within a stone throw are 5 or so cities that touch the city and are outside the county; fishers, Noblesville, Carmel, greenwood, Westfield, etc. all of that to me is Indianapolis. Its all the same general city line that has grown together and amalgamated. Fort Wayne probably has the same idea, multiple cities attached at the hip to make the whole fort Wayne area. If you look at maps for broadcasting like radio, then it'll extend almost an hour out.
Indianapolis is a little unique in that in 1970 they created Unigov, which basically Incorporated all of Marion County into the city. The enclaves were already their own cities such as Lawrence, Speedway, and Beech Grove. While Indy confines itself to Marion County, cities like Aurora, Illinois straddle four counties.
@@timmmahhhh I never thought too hard about Indy and Marion county being the same thing essentially. I know they but, but never put the 1 and 1 together
I’m from Altadena which is a small unincorporated area north of Pasadena but Altadena was able to stay disconnected from LA because it used to be a part of Pasadena and some of pasadenas utilities including water in some areas are present in Altadena, LA county takes care of most other utilities but the remnants of being a part of pasadena can be seen with the strange borders between Altadena and pasadena
If you think Los Angeles city map is messed up, you should see the map of where I live in Huntsville, Alabama as it is literally in 3 counties and it has so many weird border jurisdictional anomalies as our actual airport, Huntsville International Airport and Toyota Field where the minor league baseball team that is called "Rocket City Trash Pandas" as "Rocket City" is Huntsville's nickname is not in Huntsville, but in a city west of Huntsville called Madison which is still surrounded by the city of Huntsville. Go take a look to see how messed up that map is!
It happens quite a bit. A lot of airports aren't technically in the cities they serve, or the cities created messed up borders to annex the land the airport is on. Chicago's airport is WAY outside what should be Chicago proper, but a thin strip of land connecting the airport to the city was annexed, so it's technically in the city but is almost entirely surrounded by other towns. Atlanta did the same thing, except their airport is an exclave. So it's not even connected.
Hey, I was just about to suggest he check out Birmingham’s map! Particularly all the little mini-cities around it (and the atrocious border gore in the southern suburbs). I’ll have to check out the Huntsville one, I’m not quite as familiar since I only ever go up to visit friends
I guess Cities in America are defined differently to cities in Australia. For example I live in Sydney, but not in the City of Sydney. To make it even more confusing there is also a suburb called Sydney, which is located in the Central Business District.
In fresno one exclave is the water treatment plant and we have county islands that are built up surrounded by city. I grew up in a county island and currently live in one. Theyre primarily residential here.
I've long advocated for a "Greater Long Beach" by having Long Beach annex Carson, Lakewood, Signal Hill, Hawaiian Garbage, and Bellflower, and then consolidating it all into its own county. Long Beach is already semi-autonomous from LA County, and it's not the OC. It's more like San Diego than anything.
Thank you, Barbs! I've always wanted to know the reason behind these disjointed neighbourhoods inside and outside the LA but never had the time or was too lazy to actually learn it myself.
I live in a consolidated city-county. So while the city/county limits might have some weird lines, there's no question that everything within thoses lines is part of the city.
In the Philippines, the capital city of Manila is actually one part of a larger region of 16 cities and 1 municipality called the National Capital Region (also known as Metro Manila, hence some foreigners mistake the other cities as part of Manila proper). The region was created in the 70s during the Marcos administration; prior to that, the areas were part of different provinces except for Manila and Quezon City.
Long Beach local here. I've always thought that the port corridor was one of the stupidest looking things ever, but I always thought it was due to port revenue. Even Long Beach has Signal Hill within its city boundaries because of oil.
I was born in Beverly hills. Lived in central LA, then moved to the valley, then to the San Gabriel valley (east LA county) now I'm in the biggest county in the Continental states.
Fun fact (probably not so fun) about water supplies, since you mentioned it: the city of Santa Monica used to get its water from a natural spring called Kuruvungna. Kuruvungna is a sacred site for the Tongva people that eventually became the property of the Los Angeles Unified School District - sitting on part of the campus of University High School. The land was slated to be sold off for private development, but a movement led by members of the Tongva community were able to secure its designation as a historic landmark, and blocked the sale. Technically the land is leased in perpetuity to the tongva people, with the intention for the site to be open for spiritual purposes. This promise has been abrogated repeatedly, and LAUSD red tape has made it such that the site is only open officially one day per month for a few hours
Tokyo isn't even a official city. "Despite most of the world recognizing Tokyo as a city, since 1943 its governing structure has been more akin to a prefecture, with an accompanying Governor and Assembly taking precedence over the smaller municipal governments which make up the metropolis"
Hey Barbs! So I was born and raised in Houston (Texas). I’m glad you brought this City up. I grew up throughout many different parts of Houston and have had experiences learning about the history of its ceaseless expansion. I was born in Houston proper, but spent my early years in Kingwood. Kingwood was one of the last neighborhoods Houston took over / incorporated. It is an area toward the north of Houston, similar to the Woodlands. However the Woodlands is not part of Houston. Then I went to elementary school for a few years in West University Place which is a tiny city within Houston, which is actually bordered by yet another city outside of Houston next to it called Southside Place. I used to get Vietnamese food all the time in Bellaire, another independent city. I’ve visited friends in Sugar Land and went to NASA in Clear Lake. When I was in Kingwood I was part of Humble’s school district (a city between Kingwood and Houston) and then moved to private schools thereafter / Houston’s school district…both HISD by the way. I’ve also visited family friends in Tomball too. We all call it Houston at the end of the day and make jokes about how large it is. Point is Houston is very interesting and diverse with how it is set up. Even the incorporated neighborhoods like River Oaks, Memorial, and the Galleria Area and the Medical Center and Montrose all have their own special vibes ! 🎉
Mexico City, which many people forget or don’t know is in North America, has worse traffic than LA. So do a few other cities in North America. I live in LA and it’s still one of the worst I agree.
thats just it. the map of places dont really matter. people who dont live in la or in californias opinions on california dont fuckin matter. peoples opinions never mean anything important
The original "Port of Los Angeles" was not at the Santa Monica pier you visit today but rather a bit north of it at a site called the "Long Wharf. " That wharf was demolished in the early 1900s since it wasn't needed after Los Angeles got San Pedro.
The area that you are referring to as Torrance in your video is not Torrance. Torrance ends at Western Blvd. Sometimes people get confused by the fact that some areas outside of Torrance, have a Torrance zip code (post office) but are not actually in the city.
@@MrJmdamian89 He's always hated the city yet doesn't move. As a native Angeleno, I'm over it. If you're so miserable here, stop hinting at it and move...no one's stopping you.
@ yes they are. They don't care about you. They don't care about your opinions they would sell you down the river for a few votes. Just because you think you are a part of this special right side of history you're not. You're on the wrong side of history.
Been living in LA for 23 years - great story that even I was only vaguely aware of. There's a story behind the freeway sign where you were driving in DTLA going from 110 North to the 5. For years it wasn't even marked so drivers on the 110 didn't know you could get to the 5. The video is on YT.
The city(town?) I live in is actually a fusion of many smaller towns and two of those smaller towns got included in the fusion despite referendums that showed they did not want to fuse. Fun fact, you can still see remnants of those previous towns, even 20+ years later, since many signs were not changed, so you can still see the old towns' logos on them
For Delhi: There is an area known as NCR (National Capital Region) which consists of Delhi and its surrounding 24 districts from the states of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. It was developed to encompass the huge population that Delhi has and more land was needed for its expansion (kind of similar to New york, New Jersey, Queens, etc.). Delhi is a State (kinda) in India with New Delhi (one of its districts) as its capital and the Capital of India. NCR has 4 major cities of Gurugram (formerly Gurgaon), Faridabad, Ghaziabad and Gautam Buddh Nagar (formerly Noida) with Delhi state as its centre. When someone says Delhi outside of NCR, they mean NCR. For example, if I ask a Gurugram guy in Mumbai where is he from? He would probably say Delhi, rather than specifing Gurugram. If you get confused by everything here, its fine, even many of us Indians gets confused by this NCR concept.
In general (at least in the Midwest), the not-part-of-the-city-proper areas are *not* unincorporated; if they were, the city probably would have absorbed them. Generally speaking, it's usually exactly the reverse: those areas were *already* incorporated as distinct municipalities, and then the city grew out to (and eventually around) them. Sometimes, these surrounding communities grow large enough to touch one another, closing ranks as it were, and prevent city at the center of the urban area from growing its boundaries, resulting in a city whose core municipality is a tiny fraction of the whole urban area. For example, the south side of Cleveland is hemmed in by Parma, Brooklyn Heights, Garfield Heights, Maple Heights, Shaker Heights, and Cleveland Heights; and so Cleveland itself mostly stopped growing a long time ago, when the urban area of "greater Cleveland" was a small fraction of its current size. Other times, the big city in the middle grows faster than the surrounding ones and leaks out through the gaps in between them, which can lead to a much more complex city-boundary map, like Columbus. Local politics can also come into play, because sometimes smaller municipalities will agree to be absorbed by or merge with the larger one, but that tends not to happen when the big city has a negative reputation, either economically or in terms of things like grime and crime. Here again, we can contrast Cleveland, which has always had a bit of a shady, industrial reputation and was not able to annex most of its suburbs, versus Columbus, which, as the (relatively) pristine state capital, with a lot of white-collar economic activity, has had somewhat better luck in that regard (although even there, a number of cities have opted to remain separate, including a couple that are not all that far from downtown).
As a 30 year resident of Los Angeles, and a geography professor, I have to admit, this is a real good take on how crazy our cartography is, and, more importantly, what it reflects. Some of your points about water are not accurate, but your take on the film industry is very revealing and true. Playa Vista was the dreadful Truman Show set that SKG crammed down our throats. You should go there and show people what it's like to live in an ersatz world of bad postmodern design.
This is relatable, actually. My small hometown in KY has a city that is almost fully encircled by my city and it has a narrow pathway that follows a road all the way out to a bridge and stops there because another city in the county claimed the whole of the lake a few years prior. What's crazy is that the homes or property along the road got to choose if they were part of the city or not. My house could have become part of the city because, even though it's not on the road, it's close enough. All it would have done was send a poli e car by my house once a day and increase taxes. Not worth it. No property in my area took that chance.
This is interesting. You just got a new follower. You should do a few videos on Hot Springs, Arkansas. There’s like at least 6 or 8 different topics you can cover on just Hot Springs alone
What's annoyed me about this where I grew up, San Antonio, is that essentially the tiny cities are reaping the benefits of the large city without really contributing anything in return. It's really just rich people that live in these tiny cities, but do you think they're making their money ONLY within their tiny boundaries? Of course not! They own successful businesses or make their money in the big city, and benefit from the infrastructure and services without giving anything back in return.
One important distinction to make is the use of the word "incorporated." The phrase "incorporated" (for the purpose of the United States) means a municipal government exists and controls an area. Generally, an area is considered unincorporated when the location is not a part of a town, village, or city government; usually when no incorporated municipal government exists, the county government has responsibility and control over an area. Los Angeles County contains 88 incorporated municipalities, the City of Los Angeles is only 1 of those incorporated municipalities. For example, the referenced City of San Fernando, is an incorporated city, not 'an unincorporated area' as stated in the video. Large portions of the deserts around Palmdale are unincorporated areas. Other incorporated city examples include: Beverly Hills, Pasadena, Gardena, Montebello, and 80+ more. There are also several incorporated cities that contract their emergency services to the county, providing for further confusion to the average resident (ex. West Hollywood). Names of places also get wonky, for example West Hollywood is an incorporated city that is west of Hollywood, the neighborhood within the City of Los Angeles, there's also East Hollywood which is another neighborhood, then there's North Hollywood which is actually completely north of the Hollywood mountains and is actually east of Burbank; the LA City neighborhood of North Hollywood doesn't even touch the neighborhood named Hollywood as there are a few other smaller neighborhoods between them, not to mention the mountain. Generally, people as far East as the Cities of San Bernadino and Riverside, in San Bernadino County and Riverside County respectively, and as far South as the southern border of Orange County, consider themselves to be a part of the "Greater Los Angeles area" since, without a map that shows all these drawn lines, all of these cities and areas are one super-giant urban sprawl.
I lived in Edison, NJ sometime. And there is another city called "Metuchen" which was completely surrounded by Edison. Now, here is the fun part. The city of Metuchen is a literal speed/traffic trap. The NJ-27 passes through Metuchen and the speed limit dramatically drops to 25 Mph from 45 Mph while entering the city and the one speed change sign was easy to miss. Next, the cops would stop you even for crossing when the light was Yellow which mostly gets dismissed at court (if there is dashcam video), but the cops hope you'd roll over & pay up the fine or pay the fine to avoid wasting one or more days at court. I've known people getting fined for not having headlights on right around dusk. I've also seen cops (not parking maids) waiting near parking meters for the clock to reach 0, so that they can place a ticket. You may wonder how a city can be so parasitic & won't the people vote such city mayors/administration out. It's simple. They target mostly drivers from other cities, especially Edison. People living in Edison cannot avoid driving through Metuchen for the most part. Once stopped, from the driver's license the cops know the address of the driver. So, the local Govt's coffers are filled up with fines charged to neighboring city drivers. IMO Metuchen isn't a city, but just a big old scam.
9:44 damn I wish I knew about that 110 hack back when I lived in Universal City and worked in Torrance... I had to wake up at 5AM every day to get through downtown before traffic clogged it up. One day it took me 2 hours and 45 minutes to get home! That's when I decided to move to the West Side.
Well, my city has a pretty weird geography too. Zselíz (Želiezovce in Slovak, pronounced Zheleez or Zheliezovce) is currently made up of 7 districts. There used to be three separate villages: Zselíz, Garammikola (Mikula) and Szódó (Svodov), and Zselíz also includes 4 other hamlets, Nagypuszta (Veľký Dvor), Karolinamajor (Karolína), Rozinamajor (Rozina) and Árokamjor (Jarok) Mikola was annexed to Zselíz in 1967 and Szódó in 1976 to keep its city status, which it had received in 1960. Mikola is now incorporated with Zseliz. The border between the two is Kert utca or Záhrádná ulica (Garden Street). Szódó is physically separate, although it is quite close to Mikola. And these two villages could easily have been their own municipality, but no, the idiot commies have merged them with Zselíz. It is a wonder that Peszektergenye (Sikenica) did not remain part of Zselíz for a long time (1986-92) and that Nyírágó (Nýrovce) was not annexed to it. On the other hand, if you look at the border between Mikola and Szódó on the Garam/Hron river, it's something of a disaster. The river was regulated in the 70's and the borders still follow the old bed. And it's a mess. On the left bank of the river, you can cross the border with the neighbouring village (Nemesoroszi/Kukučínov) about 5 times (if the hunters don't shoot you in the process :D) Oh, and the city centre is full of brutalist apartment blocks... It's not the best to live here, because we are in the middle of nowhere, even though Budapest is only 110km away :/
I live in San Antonio, and we have Fort Sam Houston and Lackland AFB, two of the largest military bases in the country, just chilling as enclaves in the city. The city also kinda looks like a spider web cause it’s circular, but there’s holes in the middle from smaller neighborhoods, and shoe-strings hugging all the major highways.
You could do a video on all the different cursed municipalities of Chicagoland but it would be like 10 hours long. Half of them have very similar names too (ie - different permutations of river, lake, oak, park, forest, view, etc.)
I made a youtube short that went a little viral on this so I figured why not expound more on the topic since you guys liked it, Welcome to Los Angeles, the city with the dumbest map in the USA!
Also UPDATE* Dammit misspelled "Torrance"
what isn't dumb there
Welp duh 🙄
I would love a series like this on cities across the world. From Tokyo to Toronto.
Why do you still respond to comments more regularly if your channel is so big
For a US example of the city not being everything, look to St. Louis. The city is actually pretty small and the county eclipses it in people, money, land area, etc. That's why the Stl crime stats look so bad.
The whole "have your own water supply or be annexed" situation sounds like a medieval siege
Not really. Many central cities have used water & sewer access to grow. Some cities extended lines into undeveloped areas without requiring annexation into the city. Others require a short timeline to come into the city.
Central cities 'fight' to keep from getting landlocked by their suburbs. Hence, the panhandle. Also depends upon state annexation laws. In Ohio, the process is initiated by the property owner. Cities like going after tax rich producing areas while going around the tax poor ones
Look at a map of Columbus, Ohio. It has landlocked suburbs within its borders. It has township remnants. It has panhandles, and it's the fastest growing area in the state. Ohio law prevents discontinuous chunks of cities UNLESS the remnants of a township FINALLY form a city or merge with its township seat city.
Curious thing about the South and West as they permit such isolated city chunks until the city connects in between them.
Smaller municipalities in South Caroline seem to start out circular and annex from there. Have seen several examples. Must be state laws?
😂😂
Las Vegas NV is a big upside L in shape 750k+
The Las Vegas Metro is the whole bowl 2.8+ million
@@JayYoung-ro3vu Maybe the circles are a Southern thing. A few cities in Georgia are also roughly circular shaped. There's actually an outer suburb of Atlanta called Social Circle.
When water supply is successful, people don't think about it. There can be a real struggle, visible for resident in the bills only.
That's not Tokyo City, that's Tokyo Prefecture (actually Metropolis, but whatever) which consists of multiple cities, towns and villages. While there is no single city called 'Tokyo', the special wards area is often considered to be the 'core' of the Tokyo Metro, with each 'ward' having similar powers to (and stylizing themselves in English as) a city, i.e. 世田谷区 in Japanese but City of Setagaya in English.
Also it's actually common knowledge among Japanese that Tokyo Disneyland actually isn't in tokyo it's in the Chiba prefecture lol.
Also Kawasaki Motors that makes the motorcycles isn't located in Kawasaki City near Tokyo, they're based in Akashi city, which is right next to Kobe.
Very much like NYC.
@@zeitgeistx5239no. NYC is compromised of 5 counties and is wholly in New York State.
@@Mario123007Toronto Pearson Airport is similar to Tokyo Disney. The airport is in the neighboring city despite having the name of city/place that it isn't in.
The rich areas don't want their taxes going to 'poor' areas?
Mostly yes.
Somewhat, but a lot of the dumb borders came from the city expanding by annexing towns but then not being able to annex certain towns that border towns they did annex
It's probably also like Monaco being independent rather than a part of a bigger country for more comfortable legislation rules?
Land of the NIMBYs.
@@duqial Monaco is independence do to the casino. Gambling was in most places not legal. there it is. plus for France there is no incentive to conquer Monaco there is no recourse to be found there to be of use. But it does get money from Monaco for it's defence budget.
So, I kinda dig this new series of more chill videos, where they talk about all sorts of random stuff, like weird admin rules in different countries or cities. They sometimes throw in some news-related videos too, but honestly, I like it. I know it’s not really what Paul had in mind at first-he was more about getting out there, y'know, hitting the ground. But for now, these videos are still pretty cool, and I’m always down to watch whatever’s next, whether it’s more about geography or travel vibes. I get it, though. Keep doing your thing.
Funnily enough, this video was posted at 2AM in LA
If only it was posted 4 hours and 16 minutes later in LA
Lol go to sleep lol
And at 5am in Montreal Canada
and at 11 at night in new zealand
@@mayortyranno4645 11 Am in France 😂
Small correction at 7:35 / 11:15, unincorporated means there is NO city government there (the county operates all functions for these areas). Burbank, Glendale, Inglewood, Culver City etc are NOT unincorporated because they operate as a municipality (basically their own city government overlaying over the county). Also at 9:15 / 10:50, that area isn't actually incorporated into the city of Torrance, they simply use Torrance postal addresses. If you go a few blocks west you will be within the borders of LA City but the properties still use Torrance addresses
great video, not trying to hate just educate
This video does a great job explaining one of many reasons why it’s really really hard to build housing in LA, because it’s not just LA City you have to work with.
Don't forget the NIMBY's making it all worse
You are correct. I work in RE and LA county is the WORST to deal with in terms of permitting. It’s why we build way more in Orange County and the IE.
LA RE is basically a monopoly for major apartment building companies. They make it impossible on anyone else.
LA has finally started building, it's the suburbs that need to build as well.
I’m not fully knowledgeable on the small details pertaining to the RE situation, but I can definitely observe it around me living here
Americans, I’m sorry, but your weird city maps is the exact reason why people outside your country just lump different cities into one. That whole urban area is LA to me.
We americans also do that. The weird quirks in our city maps only matter in situations for the purposes of taxes, utilities, or legal/politcal matters. Edit: Clarified when quirks in city boundaries matter.
@@ScreenSage_YTfair enough, but I have spoken to Americans that are from places like Fort Worth, Katy, or Fort Lauderdale, and they’re adamant they’re from completely separate cities 😂 legally they are, but being real here, that’s basically Dallas, Houston and Miami respectively
I live in Pasadena currently and if I’m asked abroad where I live, I will just say I’m from LA because I don’t want to have to explain myself. If I’m in California, I will say I live in Pasadena because it gives people who know, a better idea. You would be the person I’m not trying to explain it to😂
I do remember a handful of conversations where someone says they are from LA and then asked what part, and they say somewhere like El Monte or La Puente and they are teased that that is not actually LA
Totally okay, I live in New Jersey so I totally understand this as whenever people from outside the USA ask where I’m from I just say NYC or Philly
The real reason comes down to history. The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo legally required the U.S. to recognize Mexican, Spanish, and Californio rights to existing land holdings-mostly ranchos-which were sold off or acquired through eminent domain over the following century. This led to the slow and unsystematic development of cities founded from these land grants.
The video left out that a "City" in the US in an incorporation - it's a corporation, a fictitious person. And like corporations do, a city can buy and sell things, including land. As you point out, historically there were large land holdings and some of them were bought by different corporations (er, cities.)
And hence, why so many unincorporated places have names that start with “Rancho” like “Rancho Cucamonga” and “Rancho Palos Verdes”
I really dig these new, more obscure geographic topics that you're tackling now that your main objective is over! They're super interesting and I'm all for it! Sincerely, a subscriber since the Belgium video
They are also shorter, easier to watch, and easier for me to edit, it’s a win-win! Glad you guys like them!
@@GeographyNow Would love a whole series about Los Angeles. It's so huge! Like cities within cities within cities. And the history of how it came to be like that.
Correction: Tokyo Disneyland is located in Urayasu, Chiba Prefecture, not Tokyo. It's called Tokyo Disneyland due to PR reasons.
And Disneyland Paris is not in Paris either.
And Disney World is not in Orlando.
And Disneyland Hong Kong is not on Hong Kong Island.
And Disneyland is not in LA
Not Disney Related: Toronto Pearson Airport is not in Toronto.
California geography could be an entire series in itself
Seriously. It sums it all up how the two main exterior scenes in Return of the Jedi (the Sarlacc pit and the Endor forests) were both filmed in California, albeit at literally opposite ends (the Sarlacc pit in the Imperial sand dunes in the southeastern corner and the Endor forest near Crescent City in the northwestern corner).
I really like this new segment of yours, Geogra-talk, quite niche but interesting stuff. Keep up the great work Barbs!
Additional fun fact about london: it has about 20%+ forested area which is one of the highest for a capital city in fact London can technically be classed as a forest. Also Westminster here is like d.c. in the US a separate area normally for government buildings
I think that would probably be closer to the National Mall and the area around the Capitol
Yeah, westminster is technically its own city, has it in the title, but it's okay being in London so does it really matter?
One of the 32 boroughs even has the word "forest" as part of its name.
What's really funny is how most San Fernando Valley residents have absolutely no idea they live in the City of Los Angeles lol Due to many neighborhoods having their own mailing addresses like Encino, Van Nuys, Sun Valley, Woodland Hills, Granada Hills, etc., they are often mistakenly assumed to be their own independent cities, but they're actually not.
The way the postcode system works would also be an interesting video (to me lol)
I lived in the SF valley. we all knew.
@@bradjohnson4126 I live in the San Gabriel valley and we are not city of LA and I even knew that. But I probably should know I am a surveyor and work all over LA.
I live in LA and almost every day I hear people on the radio or in person call their LA city neighborhood with its own mailing address a city.
“I live in the city of”:
Van Nuys
Wilmington
North Hollywood
Etc.
It drives me crazy. I want to yell at all of them that you’re not a city, you’re an LA city neighborhood!!
For me it’s the opposite. Most people in the LA basin or the core of the city don’t know they the SFV is part of LA cuz it’s so far away. They don’t claim us.
Yeah speaking as a Londoner, our city just sprawls out into the rest of southern England and people have differing views on what constitutes as London because of so many different factors
The England is also strange (from a North American perspective) because most authority rests with the national government you can have these more ambiguous boundaries.
I grew up in Fresno. Had no idea it was such a mapping mess. That explains why half the time we drove through Clovis and my 10 year old brain thought we were far away from home.
Not exactly sure, but Fresno also has a canal system to distribute water so water supply may also be a factor in its strangeness.
There's a city in the Philippines called Caloocan where it's separated into two pieces. North and South. Story was that Quezon City annexed a large part of the city called Novaliches when it was created.
What makes it interesting is how different North and South Caloocan is. South is seen as dangerous, poor and crowded while North is wealthy, leafy, and suburban.
@@ks_ig2728, in Metro Manila, two cities have two separate lands. Manila's city limits has an exclave surrounded by Makati since they have the land of Manila South Cemetery.
Kamusta ka!
I never understood why the island where Manila is located is called _Luzon_ , but Manila's largest suburb is called _Quezon_ City. 🤔
If you look at New York City it seems pretty straightforward, until you learn that the neighborhood of Marble Hill is not technically part of The Bronx, but Manhattan across Spuytun Duyvil Creek (Dutch or maybe Old Dutch for Spite the Devil). The creek used to be north of Marble Hill and it was a nightmare for navigation. The Army Corps of Engineers not only deepened it, but decided to slice Marble Hill off of Manhattan to straighten the creek. The old creek bed was then filled in to attach Marble Hill to The Bronx, but it was never legally incorporated with the Bronx. The only difference between Manhattan and Marble Hill is the telephone Area Code, the people wanted 212, but the phone company was like, “That’s too complicated, you’re getting 718 like everything else around you.”
Me being Dutch and having some understanding of old Dutch (still a challange). the Spuytun Duyvil Creek a literal translation would be the spouting devil creek. As it might have been a wild and dangerous or unpredictable creek. a more correct translation would be the raging devil creek.
as Spouting could also imply you speaking like a mad man.
Or that NYC is 5 counties that mostly gave up their self governance to the city
Also Ellis Island. A NY enclave landlocked within a New Jersey island.
The enclave is the original island. All reclaimed land was later deemed to be long to NJ
@ If the city never consolidated, Brooklyn would be the 3rd largest city in the country.
@ it had whirlpools and because it’s connected to major estuaries at both ends Hudson River, Harlem River the tides were a wild ride.
7:27 like for the story of glendale and burbank
he explained Burbank
1:12 Brussels is similar. The Brussels Capital Region is its own region within Belgium (1 of 3), and generally, when one mentions Brussels, they're referring to the region. But there is also the City of Brussels, which is the largest of 19 municipalities within the Brussels region.
The City of Brussels actually used to be smaller-just the Pentagon city center-but it has merged with other municpalities over time and become the largest, but with weirdly shaped, non-contiguous borders.
6:35 You equated San Fernando as "unincorporated" but it is a City government, so it is incorporated. Unincorporated communities don't have city governments they rely on County level for most services instead of just some. Maybe just a small misspeak but a pet peeve of mine.
I think that's a pretty major item
He also said Universal Studios is in Burbank, when it's in unincorporated county.
I am excited to visit LA for the first time next year!
Also, Barbs: PLEASE Give us a regions of Italy video!!!
@@chrisclancy6756 eat the Mexican food in East LA and/or Boyle Heights
Would love this video 😊
Mind the used needles and hobo dumps.
A lot of people are requesting it… I might have to…
@GeographyNow would be a very interesting and insightful episode, especially considering your Italian heritage, looking forward to it!
Cheers from malta 🇲🇹😊
Wow. I always thought Burbank, Santa Monica, Pasadena and all the others mentioned in movies and TV shows are like miles away from each other. I knew they were all in California, but California is pretty huge (around 4 times bigger then my home country), so I assumed these are all miles apart. Seeing that these are all in one cluster gives me a whole new perspective...
They are miles apart. Santa Monica is 25 miles away from Pasadena, and 24 miles away from Burbank.
@shard4756 all of that is driveable in 30 mins(excl traffic). That's average for all big cities. I think the person above meant tens or hundreds of miles away
That map of LA Barbs shows in this video is really big.
@@amanshilanov6237 Yes, that's what I meant. We use metric here, so I'm not that familiar with miles and didn't wanted to sound stupid by accidentally giving a ridiculusly large order of magnitude. I meant that these cities are further apart, like Berlin and Hamburg in Germany or London and York in the UK.
@@franciskafayeszter4138a mile is 1609 meters or the length of one Imperial Class Star Destroyer.
Columbus Ohio looks like something from the Holy Roman Empire
or fallout.
Oh sweet Jesus it's awful
Okay so Go resurrect Napoleon
When I saw a map of an area near Hilliard, I knew that the decades-long annexation policy had some issues. To get within one subdivision in Columbus, the main road that is mostly within Hilliard must be accessed. Or vice versa. What I have never liked, the multiple areas of unincorporated county land. Signs reading "Entering Franklin County" are very common throughout Columbus.
Technically, Tokyo gets even more complicated because despite there being the Prefecture of Tokyo, there isn't actually a City of Tokyo (kinda sorta). What we call Tokyo is a group of wards with their own cities and their own mayors. It's Shibuya City within Shibuya Ward within Tokyo Prefecture. Prefectures are closer to a State (in US terms), so it's like labelling LA as California City.
About Tokyo.
That string that you saw was not the city but the prefecture of Tokyo. Same as a province.
There are like Manila and Los Angeles multiple cities in the area.
Like Long beach, Anaheim, Hollywood, Beverly hills for Los Angeles and Queson, Pasig, Caloocan, Antipolo, Paranaque for Manila.
And its Shibuya crossing not Shinjuku crossing.
Auckland City in New Zealand used to be divided between four cities and several smaller district councils until around 2010. Apparently, the government thought it was a wise idea to copy how LA did things, except that all the councils were successfully assimilated into the "Super City" Borg construct.
People were getting tired of the lack of cooperation between the councils impacting infrastructure and responsiveness to local affairs. The idea was a single streamlined local council would be more responsive and quick to act without mountains of bureaucracy getting in the way. What happened instead was the "Super City" council became even less responsive, more incompetent and more undemocratic. Go figure.
It's funny because London is essentially divided into 32 separate borough governments, but still suffers from lack of responsiveness.
In LAs case, one of the big problems is the county is governed by just five people, and there isn't really a separate legislative and executive body. So it's VERY unresponsive, plus people don't vote in their county elections.
13:05
CORRECTION:
San Pedro is NOT the South Bay. The South Bay refers to the south of the Santa Monica bay. The South Bay is El Segundo through Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, and Redondo Beach, to Palos Verdes.
You made this same mistake in your short also
False. San Pedro is part of the South Bay (I live there), this is easily researchable information. The LA Metro website, The Los Angeles County Economic Development Center website, and Wikipedia all list San Pedro as part of the South Bay, along with many other places not on your list such as Inglewood, Carson, Torrance, Harbor City, and Wilmington. I couldnt find a single website that didnt list San Pedro as part of the South Bay.
@@shard4756 What bay do you think is being referred to? It’s the Santa Monica Bay. The South Bay is the cities in the south of the Santa Monica Bay.
And even if you for some weird reason consider San Pedro part of the South Bay, calling it “THE South Bay areas” is still wrong
@@shard4756 San Pedro is most often not included in South Bay. Look up "Mapping LA" from the LA Times for a quick example. South Bay stretches from Westchester to Palos Verdes, with San Pedro on the border but in what they call the "Harbor" region along with Long Beach and other cities.
Why not make LA geography more confusing?!
As Jay Foreman said in his Unfinished London video on the subject, even the way the borders of Greater London are weird. For example, where I live, is on the edge of south western Greater London, but according to the postal address, it's in Surrey. A nearby town to where I live, is Epsom, yet despite it fitting the criteria for an out suburb of London, it's not a part of Greater London. Even the Borough boundaries of Kingston upon Thames is weird, it has a narrow panhandle that faces south west, happening to encompass the theme park Chessington World of Adventures.
Another London based UA-camr, Geoff Marshall, (who lived in Charleston, South Cariona for a few years and in his final year there did a road trip around the Continental United States visiting places that shared names with stations on the London Underground map) talked about how the boundaries of Greater London are often oversimplified to "everything inside the M25 motorway", when in fact, it's entirely true. There are parts of the M25 that are entirely outside the Greater London boundaries and parts that are entirely within it.
Gothenburg, Sweden have that problem too. I live in, technically, the northernmost municipality of Halland county, but we’re the southern end of the Greater Gothenburg metropolitan area.
This’ve become a problem with health care, as the nearest major hospital is in Gothenburg, but everyone with more serious issues is directed to Varberg south of where I live, which is of a longer distance than just going to Gothenburg. And the (Halland) county wants to move the emergency department of Varberg even further south to Falkenberg.
The point is that the Greater Gothenburg metropolitan area is effed up, geographically speaking.
Super interesting! Glad you mentioned my city, Houston. Fun fact; unlike Houston, Austin & San Antonio, Poor little Dallas😢 can no longer grow because it is surrounded by smaller suburbs with their own city limits. Houston ,with its octopus fingers that follow major highways, will find new territories to annex in the next decades to come. We annexed Kingwood and nearby Lake Houston to control surface runoff pollution in the area since Lake Houston is a major source of drinking water for over 2 million people. We Love your little geo chats, Barbs! ❤️😎⭐️🥇🏆👍🎤📺
50 years from now Dallas and San Antonio will be part of Houston, right? And then a century from now all of Texas will be Houston.
Houston wants the tax revenue from commercial (freeways /1960/6/NASA/ The port), without servicing the residential. And careful when buying fireworks and driving across 1960/6. Depending on the area, you may have illegally transported fireworks into Houston by crossing the street.
Non-americans: Why your city limits are like this?
Americans: A LOT of reasons.
Non-americans: Money and Taxes?
Americans: Money and Taxes.
I actually work in that Torrance knot section at Harbor Gateway. It's funny because we call the building our "LA office" yet our official address says Torrance.
My compliments on all the complicated graphics you had to get your drone and your computer and god knows what else you had to do to get them on our screens. You’re awesome!
Sorry, brief correction on Tokyo. Tokyo Disneyland isn't actually in Tokyo, but in Chiba, a separate prefecture.
This aspect of local government in the US always fascinated me. You have a gigantic metro area but just a teeny tiny blob in the center is actually, legally, part of the city. In Germany this usually doesn't happen because state governments can order local governments to merge/be annexed whether they like it or not. One can argue that this is undemocratic but it definitely simplifies urban planning.
That's an interesting difference between our Federations
@Geography Now In my hometown, San Jose, the City Manager A. P. "Dutch" Hamann tried to learn the lesson of Los Angeles sprawl in a bad way. He annexed most of orchards of what is now the Silicon Valley by sending spider legs out all the roadways, taking the corners of major intersections and effectively fencing in any alternative community from being large enough to form a city. He "took" the valley in the 1950's and 60's. He was so aggressive, the State formed LAFCO (Local Agency Formation Commission) to try to prevent other cities from learning his example. I think there is a story to be told.
Loved this video, I know a bunch of "why is this?" for my own locality and love seeing it about other places. Like here in New England the roads can meander all over because they often started as cow paths or hunting trails and why there are so many small scattered cemeteries is because the settlers often buried family on family land (also no one likes to travel "long" distances around here).
01:50
Actually, Tokyo Disneyland isn't really in tokyo, it is located in Chiba prefecture.
Tokyo Disneyland isn’t even in the special wards. Angry Chibans will be after you now.
3:16 Phoenix’s borders aren’t even that weird by its own region’s standards. A lot of the other cities went so insane with annexing land in the 70s that our state legislature had to curtail municipal annexation powers. Some of the craziness from other cities includes:
- Buckeye bordering Surprise, even though the old town sites for those cities are at least 20 miles away from each other, and Goodyear and Glendale are in the way. Buckeye’s borders in general are very weird.
- Mesa preventing Gilbert from annexing Williams Field, even though Williams Field is around 20 miles away from downtown Mesa. Mesa is in the top 50 of US cities by population.
- Sun City being surrounded on three sides by Peoria, but being unincorporated.
- Peoria having a 1 mile wide strip of land that connects the southern half of the city to the northern half, which extends into a different county.
- Glendale’s strip annexation around Luke Air Force Base. Our Glendale is probably a bit larger than yours.
- Scottsdale being 2 miles wide from the Tempe border to Doubletree Ranch Road due to tribal politics.
At least a lot of the valley cities, especially in the west valley, agreed to base their location address systems as an extension of Phoenix. The east valley cities, except Scottsdale and Queen Creek, still use their own address systems. I’m not sure why Queen Creek adopted Phoenix’s system, when the cities between them and Phoenix have their own. The valley is a common nickname for the entire Phoenix region.
Also, the city of Phoenix is so huge that some people, especially when referring to the outskirts, use the names of the “urban villages” to refer to those areas, even though the urban village system is something the city government created to try to spread out and concentrate development, and the villages have very little power to do anything.
As a former Angeleno I was always interested in the little nuances of the city of LA's geography. I'm only here to raise my grievances about you revealing the 6th St back to 110 shortcut that I've used for years while living down there and still use when I need to go that way when visiting LA from the Bay Area. I hope you continue to make videos for a long time Barbs and love your segway into city geography and micro-geography.
Basically any large American city does this. No one thinks of it as being a "proper", but they are the same idea. Like I like in Indianapolis. That has little townships in it, but within a stone throw are 5 or so cities that touch the city and are outside the county; fishers, Noblesville, Carmel, greenwood, Westfield, etc. all of that to me is Indianapolis. Its all the same general city line that has grown together and amalgamated. Fort Wayne probably has the same idea, multiple cities attached at the hip to make the whole fort Wayne area. If you look at maps for broadcasting like radio, then it'll extend almost an hour out.
Indianapolis is a little unique in that in 1970 they created Unigov, which basically Incorporated all of Marion County into the city. The enclaves were already their own cities such as Lawrence, Speedway, and Beech Grove. While Indy confines itself to Marion County, cities like Aurora, Illinois straddle four counties.
@@timmmahhhh I never thought too hard about Indy and Marion county being the same thing essentially. I know they but, but never put the 1 and 1 together
@@timmmahhhh Jacksonville has a similar arrangement with Duval County, the city limits cover like 99% of the county.
New York City, San Francisco and Washington DC are notable exceptions.
I’m from Altadena which is a small unincorporated area north of Pasadena but Altadena was able to stay disconnected from LA because it used to be a part of Pasadena and some of pasadenas utilities including water in some areas are present in Altadena, LA county takes care of most other utilities but the remnants of being a part of pasadena can be seen with the strange borders between Altadena and pasadena
Altadena should stay that way too. Pasadena City is so corrupt. I'm from Monrovia/Arcadia unincorporated area.
I find it concerning that I don't think the map of LA doesn't look that bad.
If you think Los Angeles city map is messed up, you should see the map of where I live in Huntsville, Alabama as it is literally in 3 counties and it has so many weird border jurisdictional anomalies as our actual airport, Huntsville International Airport and Toyota Field where the minor league baseball team that is called "Rocket City Trash Pandas" as "Rocket City" is Huntsville's nickname is not in Huntsville, but in a city west of Huntsville called Madison which is still surrounded by the city of Huntsville. Go take a look to see how messed up that map is!
My city (NYC) are 5 full counties or as we call them “boroughs” 8.5 million people spread out throughout those 5 counties.
Oklahoma City is in three counties, too;
It happens quite a bit. A lot of airports aren't technically in the cities they serve, or the cities created messed up borders to annex the land the airport is on.
Chicago's airport is WAY outside what should be Chicago proper, but a thin strip of land connecting the airport to the city was annexed, so it's technically in the city but is almost entirely surrounded by other towns.
Atlanta did the same thing, except their airport is an exclave. So it's not even connected.
Hey, I was just about to suggest he check out Birmingham’s map! Particularly all the little mini-cities around it (and the atrocious border gore in the southern suburbs). I’ll have to check out the Huntsville one, I’m not quite as familiar since I only ever go up to visit friends
Woah you weren't kidding! Huntsvilles map is ridiculous!
I guess Cities in America are defined differently to cities in Australia. For example I live in Sydney, but not in the City of Sydney. To make it even more confusing there is also a suburb called Sydney, which is located in the Central Business District.
In fresno one exclave is the water treatment plant and we have county islands that are built up surrounded by city. I grew up in a county island and currently live in one. Theyre primarily residential here.
I've long advocated for a "Greater Long Beach" by having Long Beach annex Carson, Lakewood, Signal Hill, Hawaiian Garbage, and Bellflower, and then consolidating it all into its own county. Long Beach is already semi-autonomous from LA County, and it's not the OC. It's more like San Diego than anything.
Thank you, Barbs! I've always wanted to know the reason behind these disjointed neighbourhoods inside and outside the LA but never had the time or was too lazy to actually learn it myself.
I live in a consolidated city-county. So while the city/county limits might have some weird lines, there's no question that everything within thoses lines is part of the city.
1:29 in lithuania we have a city Klaipėda with 5 different citys in it and 9 cities bordering it
I live on the eastern edge of LA county. I do not want to be part of Los Angeles City.
Map guy, map guy, map map map guy
Guy guy
I’m glad to see someone finally talk about the odd borders cities have. I mean have you seen the one for Columbus, Ohio.
In the Philippines, the capital city of Manila is actually one part of a larger region of 16 cities and 1 municipality called the National Capital Region (also known as Metro Manila, hence some foreigners mistake the other cities as part of Manila proper). The region was created in the 70s during the Marcos administration; prior to that, the areas were part of different provinces except for Manila and Quezon City.
I spent a lot of time in Cubao.
Close enough. Welcome back, holy Roman empire
Long Beach local here. I've always thought that the port corridor was one of the stupidest looking things ever, but I always thought it was due to port revenue.
Even Long Beach has Signal Hill within its city boundaries because of oil.
I was born in Beverly hills. Lived in central LA, then moved to the valley, then to the San Gabriel valley (east LA county) now I'm in the biggest county in the Continental states.
Wow i love the effort and the whole format of this video! More of this mini docu discussion on city anomalies!
Fun fact (probably not so fun) about water supplies, since you mentioned it: the city of Santa Monica used to get its water from a natural spring called Kuruvungna. Kuruvungna is a sacred site for the Tongva people that eventually became the property of the Los Angeles Unified School District - sitting on part of the campus of University High School. The land was slated to be sold off for private development, but a movement led by members of the Tongva community were able to secure its designation as a historic landmark, and blocked the sale. Technically the land is leased in perpetuity to the tongva people, with the intention for the site to be open for spiritual purposes. This promise has been abrogated repeatedly, and LAUSD red tape has made it such that the site is only open officially one day per month for a few hours
Reminded me of Demolition Man where in the future all of these cities merged to become San Angelas.
I was literally just in San Fernando 37 hours ago.
Also, take a gander at the borders for Birmingham, Alabama. It’s pretty weird.
Tokyo isn't even a official city.
"Despite most of the world recognizing Tokyo as a city, since 1943 its governing structure has been more akin to a prefecture, with an accompanying Governor and Assembly taking precedence over the smaller municipal governments which make up the metropolis"
Awesome Video Barbs. Would love to see more stuff like this talking about weird anomalies at the city and state level
Hey Barbs!
So I was born and raised in Houston (Texas). I’m glad you brought this City up. I grew up throughout many different parts of Houston and have had experiences learning about the history of its ceaseless expansion.
I was born in Houston proper, but spent my early years in Kingwood. Kingwood was one of the last neighborhoods Houston took over / incorporated. It is an area toward the north of Houston, similar to the Woodlands. However the Woodlands is not part of Houston. Then I went to elementary school for a few years in West University Place which is a tiny city within Houston, which is actually bordered by yet another city outside of Houston next to it called Southside Place. I used to get Vietnamese food all the time in Bellaire, another independent city. I’ve visited friends in Sugar Land and went to NASA in Clear Lake.
When I was in Kingwood I was part of Humble’s school district (a city between Kingwood and Houston) and then moved to private schools thereafter / Houston’s school district…both HISD by the way.
I’ve also visited family friends in Tomball too. We all call it Houston at the end of the day and make jokes about how large it is.
Point is Houston is very interesting and diverse with how it is set up. Even the incorporated neighborhoods like River Oaks, Memorial, and the Galleria Area and the Medical Center and Montrose all have their own special vibes ! 🎉
10:18 that's is not the la river that's the Dominguez Channel.
LA has the worst traffic in North America
Mexico City, which many people forget or don’t know is in North America, has worse traffic than LA. So do a few other cities in North America.
I live in LA and it’s still one of the worst I agree.
*The US. If you've been to Mexico (specifically Tijuana), it's way worse and I'm a native Angeleno.
thats just it. the map of places dont really matter. people who dont live in la or in californias opinions on california dont fuckin matter. peoples opinions never mean anything important
This video is so interesting and refreshing on the entire UA-cam site. and hope to see more of this type of content in the future!
The original "Port of Los Angeles" was not at the Santa Monica pier you visit today but rather a bit north of it at a site called the "Long Wharf. " That wharf was demolished in the early 1900s since it wasn't needed after Los Angeles got San Pedro.
The area that you are referring to as Torrance in your video is not Torrance. Torrance ends at Western Blvd. Sometimes people get confused by the fact that some areas outside of Torrance, have a Torrance zip code (post office) but are not actually in the city.
This was a really interesting and well shot video. Love to see more like this!
Bro sounds burnt out on LA.
@@MrJmdamian89 He's always hated the city yet doesn't move.
As a native Angeleno, I'm over it. If you're so miserable here, stop hinting at it and move...no one's stopping you.
@@gambit85 or maybe actually fix your cities's problems and stop making excuses for your dictators that run your city you're not being virtuous
@@zachv Dictators? 😂
Conversation Over. Bye Sparky
@ yes they are. They don't care about you. They don't care about your opinions they would sell you down the river for a few votes. Just because you think you are a part of this special right side of history you're not. You're on the wrong side of history.
@@gambit85 enjoy being on the wrong side of history
Been living in LA for 23 years - great story that even I was only vaguely aware of.
There's a story behind the freeway sign where you were driving in DTLA going from 110 North to the 5. For years it wasn't even marked so drivers on the 110 didn't know you could get to the 5. The video is on YT.
The city(town?) I live in is actually a fusion of many smaller towns
and two of those smaller towns got included in the fusion despite referendums that showed they did not want to fuse.
Fun fact, you can still see remnants of those previous towns, even 20+ years later,
since many signs were not changed, so you can still see the old towns' logos on them
For Delhi: There is an area known as NCR (National Capital Region) which consists of Delhi and its surrounding 24 districts from the states of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. It was developed to encompass the huge population that Delhi has and more land was needed for its expansion (kind of similar to New york, New Jersey, Queens, etc.). Delhi is a State (kinda) in India with New Delhi (one of its districts) as its capital and the Capital of India.
NCR has 4 major cities of Gurugram (formerly Gurgaon), Faridabad, Ghaziabad and Gautam Buddh Nagar (formerly Noida) with Delhi state as its centre.
When someone says Delhi outside of NCR, they mean NCR. For example, if I ask a Gurugram guy in Mumbai where is he from? He would probably say Delhi, rather than specifing Gurugram.
If you get confused by everything here, its fine, even many of us Indians gets confused by this NCR concept.
My personal "favorite" is Birmingham, AL. Huntsville, Columbus, Columbia, and Fort Worth are also up there.
This is a great video Barbs, doin good work out here man!
In general (at least in the Midwest), the not-part-of-the-city-proper areas are *not* unincorporated; if they were, the city probably would have absorbed them. Generally speaking, it's usually exactly the reverse: those areas were *already* incorporated as distinct municipalities, and then the city grew out to (and eventually around) them. Sometimes, these surrounding communities grow large enough to touch one another, closing ranks as it were, and prevent city at the center of the urban area from growing its boundaries, resulting in a city whose core municipality is a tiny fraction of the whole urban area. For example, the south side of Cleveland is hemmed in by Parma, Brooklyn Heights, Garfield Heights, Maple Heights, Shaker Heights, and Cleveland Heights; and so Cleveland itself mostly stopped growing a long time ago, when the urban area of "greater Cleveland" was a small fraction of its current size. Other times, the big city in the middle grows faster than the surrounding ones and leaks out through the gaps in between them, which can lead to a much more complex city-boundary map, like Columbus. Local politics can also come into play, because sometimes smaller municipalities will agree to be absorbed by or merge with the larger one, but that tends not to happen when the big city has a negative reputation, either economically or in terms of things like grime and crime. Here again, we can contrast Cleveland, which has always had a bit of a shady, industrial reputation and was not able to annex most of its suburbs, versus Columbus, which, as the (relatively) pristine state capital, with a lot of white-collar economic activity, has had somewhat better luck in that regard (although even there, a number of cities have opted to remain separate, including a couple that are not all that far from downtown).
Is always good to see another video from this channel
Indeed. Even after being done with UN countries 😊
@Yurinkin exactly
I still wanna move to LA.
I guess it goes without saying why Beverly Hills didn't need to join Los Angeles.
9:56 You still have to attempt a dangerous merge with no merging area, especitally when there is no traffic
As a 30 year resident of Los Angeles, and a geography professor, I have to admit, this is a real good take on how crazy our cartography is, and, more importantly, what it reflects. Some of your points about water are not accurate, but your take on the film industry is very revealing and true. Playa Vista was the dreadful Truman Show set that SKG crammed down our throats. You should go there and show people what it's like to live in an ersatz world of bad postmodern design.
This is relatable, actually. My small hometown in KY has a city that is almost fully encircled by my city and it has a narrow pathway that follows a road all the way out to a bridge and stops there because another city in the county claimed the whole of the lake a few years prior. What's crazy is that the homes or property along the road got to choose if they were part of the city or not. My house could have become part of the city because, even though it's not on the road, it's close enough. All it would have done was send a poli e car by my house once a day and increase taxes. Not worth it. No property in my area took that chance.
I like this kind of geography trivia. Would be cool to cover other strange borders in future episodes. Thanks Barb
This is interesting. You just got a new follower. You should do a few videos on Hot Springs, Arkansas. There’s like at least 6 or 8 different topics you can cover on just Hot Springs alone
What's annoyed me about this where I grew up, San Antonio, is that essentially the tiny cities are reaping the benefits of the large city without really contributing anything in return. It's really just rich people that live in these tiny cities, but do you think they're making their money ONLY within their tiny boundaries? Of course not! They own successful businesses or make their money in the big city, and benefit from the infrastructure and services without giving anything back in return.
he finally shows the LA map at 4:56
Love Geography Talk Barbs ! Keep it up !
Really awesome video, Barbs!
One important distinction to make is the use of the word "incorporated." The phrase "incorporated" (for the purpose of the United States) means a municipal government exists and controls an area. Generally, an area is considered unincorporated when the location is not a part of a town, village, or city government; usually when no incorporated municipal government exists, the county government has responsibility and control over an area.
Los Angeles County contains 88 incorporated municipalities, the City of Los Angeles is only 1 of those incorporated municipalities. For example, the referenced City of San Fernando, is an incorporated city, not 'an unincorporated area' as stated in the video. Large portions of the deserts around Palmdale are unincorporated areas. Other incorporated city examples include: Beverly Hills, Pasadena, Gardena, Montebello, and 80+ more.
There are also several incorporated cities that contract their emergency services to the county, providing for further confusion to the average resident (ex. West Hollywood).
Names of places also get wonky, for example West Hollywood is an incorporated city that is west of Hollywood, the neighborhood within the City of Los Angeles, there's also East Hollywood which is another neighborhood, then there's North Hollywood which is actually completely north of the Hollywood mountains and is actually east of Burbank; the LA City neighborhood of North Hollywood doesn't even touch the neighborhood named Hollywood as there are a few other smaller neighborhoods between them, not to mention the mountain.
Generally, people as far East as the Cities of San Bernadino and Riverside, in San Bernadino County and Riverside County respectively, and as far South as the southern border of Orange County, consider themselves to be a part of the "Greater Los Angeles area" since, without a map that shows all these drawn lines, all of these cities and areas are one super-giant urban sprawl.
I lived in Edison, NJ sometime. And there is another city called "Metuchen" which was completely surrounded by Edison. Now, here is the fun part. The city of Metuchen is a literal speed/traffic trap. The NJ-27 passes through Metuchen and the speed limit dramatically drops to 25 Mph from 45 Mph while entering the city and the one speed change sign was easy to miss. Next, the cops would stop you even for crossing when the light was Yellow which mostly gets dismissed at court (if there is dashcam video), but the cops hope you'd roll over & pay up the fine or pay the fine to avoid wasting one or more days at court. I've known people getting fined for not having headlights on right around dusk. I've also seen cops (not parking maids) waiting near parking meters for the clock to reach 0, so that they can place a ticket.
You may wonder how a city can be so parasitic & won't the people vote such city mayors/administration out. It's simple. They target mostly drivers from other cities, especially Edison. People living in Edison cannot avoid driving through Metuchen for the most part. Once stopped, from the driver's license the cops know the address of the driver. So, the local Govt's coffers are filled up with fines charged to neighboring city drivers.
IMO Metuchen isn't a city, but just a big old scam.
9:44 damn I wish I knew about that 110 hack back when I lived in Universal City and worked in Torrance... I had to wake up at 5AM every day to get through downtown before traffic clogged it up. One day it took me 2 hours and 45 minutes to get home! That's when I decided to move to the West Side.
Well, my city has a pretty weird geography too. Zselíz (Želiezovce in Slovak, pronounced Zheleez or Zheliezovce) is currently made up of 7 districts. There used to be three separate villages: Zselíz, Garammikola (Mikula) and Szódó (Svodov), and Zselíz also includes 4 other hamlets, Nagypuszta (Veľký Dvor), Karolinamajor (Karolína), Rozinamajor (Rozina) and Árokamjor (Jarok)
Mikola was annexed to Zselíz in 1967 and Szódó in 1976 to keep its city status, which it had received in 1960. Mikola is now incorporated with Zseliz. The border between the two is Kert utca or Záhrádná ulica (Garden Street). Szódó is physically separate, although it is quite close to Mikola. And these two villages could easily have been their own municipality, but no, the idiot commies have merged them with Zselíz. It is a wonder that Peszektergenye (Sikenica) did not remain part of Zselíz for a long time (1986-92) and that Nyírágó (Nýrovce) was not annexed to it.
On the other hand, if you look at the border between Mikola and Szódó on the Garam/Hron river, it's something of a disaster. The river was regulated in the 70's and the borders still follow the old bed. And it's a mess. On the left bank of the river, you can cross the border with the neighbouring village (Nemesoroszi/Kukučínov) about 5 times (if the hunters don't shoot you in the process :D)
Oh, and the city centre is full of brutalist apartment blocks...
It's not the best to live here, because we are in the middle of nowhere, even though Budapest is only 110km away :/
I live in San Antonio, and we have Fort Sam Houston and Lackland AFB, two of the largest military bases in the country, just chilling as enclaves in the city. The city also kinda looks like a spider web cause it’s circular, but there’s holes in the middle from smaller neighborhoods, and shoe-strings hugging all the major highways.
You could do a video on all the different cursed municipalities of Chicagoland but it would be like 10 hours long. Half of them have very similar names too (ie - different permutations of river, lake, oak, park, forest, view, etc.)