I like it when cities name themselves after something they feel is worthy or appropriate about the city itself.
For instance, I find it interesting that Long Beach chose to name themselves after what it considered (way back when) to be its most dominant feature: literally a very long beach. Made total sense, and prevented a future disaster like calling themselves Wow Look At All The Giant Container Ships Lined Up At The Port.
Up in the Bay Area – again, an appropriate name for an area surrounding the San Francisco Bay – there is a plethora of cities that are named after what at one time was their most appealing feature.
Redwood City, Mountain View, and Sunnyvale all are beautiful names based on beautiful features that distinguished each beautiful city from each other beautifully.
That is until the Tech Industry annexed the Bay Area, renamed it Silicon Valley, and robbed the sun and the beautiful mountain views from the locals by building gigantic “campuses” that use redwood as a decorative graphic design element in their Family Restrooms.
Bitter? Oh, a tad.
So, as the unofficial expert on All Things Southern California, I think the cities of the SoCal area should follow the lead of Long Beach and choose new names after their own unique characteristics.
I would volunteer the following cities for a name upgrade:
- Santa Monica becomes: Damn, It Took 20 Minutes To Drive 2 Blocks-ica.
- Pasadena: Did We Mention We Have The Rose Bowl-adena?
- Los Angeles: Man Does This Skyline Look Really Good At Night-eles
- Westchester: No Really, You Get Used To The Planes Taking Off At LAX-chester
- Simi Valley: Holy Crap It’s A Long Way Out Here Valley
- Anaheim: Hey You Guys, There Really Is More To Us Than Disneyland – Aw, Never Mind-aheim
Besides, it would be really fun to listen to my GPS say the names.
In Ireland, In County Cork, there exists place called Kilbrittain – now that may or may not be funny but we have a serious history with the English who stole our potatoes.
My hometown of San Francisco should be renamed Sans Affordable Homes-co
I LOL at this piece and sent it to Californian friends because it’s all so-sadly-true.
My home town too! And your rename is exactly why I don’t live there now.
New York City = Millions of People Trying to Get Past Each Other-City
It’s fun, right? And kinda therapeutic.
It’s great fodder for humor writing! 😀
Also: There Is No Smell Anywhere In The World Like The Smell Of A New York Subway-City
Half Moon Bay or should it be Shitty Traffic on a Nice Day-Bay
Or Why Is There Only One Way To Get Here Bay?