Possible Brooklyn Nets leak

[Still MIGHTY]

Very few cities could pull off that kind of name. LA has a few districts, New York a couple. I can't think of any "city within a city" areas in Chicago, Houston or the other largest cities.

A few? The only one I can think of is Hollywood (unless you're counting Anaheim/Orange County).

And what about Mission, San Fran or Frankford, Phily? They had teams named specifically for them back in the day.

What, no love for my Laurel Canyon?

... Okay, you got me. LA has one.

But heck, if that's the criteria, Racine Street in Chicago could have a team.

I'm not sure that average people in Des Moines could tell you what state The Mission or Frankford are in, much less what city. But I'm confident those same people could easily identity Hollywood, Harlem and Brooklyn.

If we want to get technical, the City of LA has over 80 districts and neighborhoods.

Almost all have their own brand if your from SoCal/LA, but for something national for a sports team, I guess you've got Hollywood, Venice, San Fernando, Bel-Air (Thanks, Will) or Beverly Hills, and maybe Wilshire or San Pedro. Difference between LA and NY is with the whole idea of LA being the big nebulous SoCal compared to the more compact New York City. The bigger brands that could be something like Brooklyn are just outside the city (Long Beach, Santa Monica, Malibu, Anaheim/Orange County). Maybe you could pass Hollywood or Venice as a sports prefix, but the others are residential/functional areas (like Bel-Air/Beverly Hills as the homes of the rich/famous or San Pedro as the Harbor, or San Fernando for porn... but hey, maybe you could spin that into something )

But either way, LA just isn't built/organized in the same fashion that New York is. Not many cities are. If you lived in the 5 borroughs in NYC, it's perfectly plausible to imagine someone never needing to own a car to explore the entire city, right? In LA, you could never do that. LA is practically built on car travel and freeways, hence the spread out nature. It could take you an entire day to cross LA with public transit, where as in New York, you could get from one side of the city to the other quite a bit easier.

For something like that to work in LA, you'd have to market yourself to a completely different area. Malibu could work Oxnard/Thousand Oaks/North LA. Long Beach could work South LA County/North OC. Anaheim could (and has) worked South/East LA County/Orange County/Riverside. But as far as LA proper, unless someone breaks out the Hollywood Stars throwbacks, you won't see a major sports franchise in LA proper with anything other than LA in the name.

[Brian E]

(And for that matter, in terms of culture and identification, Upstate New York might as well be a completely different state from the NYC metro area. Most downstate residents have no desire to be grouped with upstate New Yorkers, and vice versa.)

so true.

[Gothamite]

Well, there's a reason that we talked about sucession in the 1970s and 80s. And heck, why Staten Island talked about it at the same time...

But I think you find that with most big cities. Downstate Illinois doesn't seem to identify very much with Chicago, eastern Washington blanches at being grouped in with Seattle and most towns a couple hours outside of LA or SF only begrudgingly admit that they're in the same state.

[BBTV]

Moral of the story - state lines that were drawn decades, if not centuries ago, are outdated and should be redrawn.

[powersurge]

Brooklyn is definitely the foremost example of a part of a major city having its own identity which is somewhat "separate" from the rest of the city. San Fernando Valley is another example of it, but that doesnt quite have the "brand" that Brooklyn does. Hollywood is of course another (though it's less of a "city" than Brooklyn is). And of course, the other 3 outer boroughs have their own separate identities, though none as cultivated as Brooklyn's.

One of the cool things about the 5 boroughs is that it lends NYC a unique quality, in that it's one giant city, but with 5 regions with distinct identities. It's really not like any other city in the US in that respect, which makes it very hard to look for a parallel for people who don't live here. Perhaps the best way to look at it is like a state - people identify with regions or certain cities in a state, but also with the state itself.

(And for that matter, in terms of culture and identification, Upstate New York might as well be a completely different state from the NYC metro area. Most downstate residents have no desire to be grouped with upstate New Yorkers, and vice versa.)

Not sure if its been mentioned before but I think I read somewhere that if Brooklyn were a city unto itself it would be something like the 5th or 6th largest city in America. So wouldn't THAT simple fact make it more than appropriate to utilize it as the team name?

[xTr1pleXx]

Brooklyn is definitely the foremost example of a part of a major city having its own identity which is somewhat "separate" from the rest of the city. San Fernando Valley is another example of it, but that doesnt quite have the "brand" that Brooklyn does. Hollywood is of course another (though it's less of a "city" than Brooklyn is). And of course, the other 3 outer boroughs have their own separate identities, though none as cultivated as Brooklyn's.

One of the cool things about the 5 boroughs is that it lends NYC a unique quality, in that it's one giant city, but with 5 regions with distinct identities. It's really not like any other city in the US in that respect, which makes it very hard to look for a parallel for people who don't live here. Perhaps the best way to look at it is like a state - people identify with regions or certain cities in a state, but also with the state itself.

(And for that matter, in terms of culture and identification, Upstate New York might as well be a completely different state from the NYC metro area. Most downstate residents have no desire to be grouped with upstate New Yorkers, and vice versa.)

Not sure if its been mentioned before but I think I read somewhere that if Brooklyn were a city unto itself it would be something like the 5th or 6th largest city in America. So wouldn't THAT simple fact make it more than appropriate to utilize it as the team name?

Would be the 4th largest, a little over half a million ahead of Houston, and about 200,000 behind Chicago (and amazingly, the rest of NYC would still by far be the largest).

That's another thing to keep in mind with Brooklyn: it practically has the same population as Chicago, in an area under half the size. It's a truly gigantic place, and when you think of it as a population comparable to that of the City of Chicago, in an area under 100 square miles, it's easy to see why Brooklyn has its own very distinct identity.

[-DASH]

[dmhtfld]

Thats a pretty good concept but it is not real. Its just a photoshop of this picture with the skin lightened, tattoos added and Deron Williams head.