January 6th, 2008
A Car’s-Eye View of Newark
Suppose you wrote the names of the largest hundred or so municipalities in the United States on a series of index cards. What’s the logical way to arrange them? By population, land area, age, or density? By the proportions of various ethnic groups?
Now, suppose you arranged the cards by something more qualitative: levels of prestige. At the top, you’ll find the obvious subjects: New York, say, and Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco. You’ll maybe even find St Louis, with its arch, and New Orleans, with its history, and the lot of other American cities which have created some level of mythos around them. And moving toward the end, you’ll find Newark, New Jersey.
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