Why American Cities Like Las Vegas Are So Weirdly Shaped

[@jordanjames2956]

I actually live about an hour outside of Vegas so I can tell you truthfully that there is basically nothing in Nevada outside of Vegas. Also the older people who live in the same town as me tell stories about how when the U.S. government tested nuclear bombs they could see the mushroom clouds and about 45 minutes later a hot wind would blow through. Another fun fact a lot of them ended up dying of cancer, including my grandmother. They are called the downwinders.

[@namanjames4]

Wow

[@gemoftheocean]

Tahoe, Reno, and Carson City beg to differ. Great area to visit. I've also been to Elko. Not the end of the world in Elko, but you can see it from there.

[@lucypinsocute]

@@namanjames4 Pahrump or Indian springs? haha

[@brettm3851]

Utahn here. My late mom got thyroid cancer (which she actually survived.) My father in law definitely died from cancer die to the fallout, as did his dad. A common conversation for Americans…”Where are you guys from?”… “Las Vegas.”… “Oh, nice! Which part of Vegas?” … “Henderson.” When there are cities that are part of a larger metropolitan area (here in the West at least,) people tend to just name the largest city. If you are also local, they might say. “We live over in Summerlin.” It’s not a big deal. Finally, the map shows the city limits, but none of us pay attention or know about the boundaries for the most part. If you are a home owner, you’ll know because of school districts, utilities, etc. Vegas is such a fast growing city, outsiders like me (I’ve lived there working a few summers and know many people who grew up there though) just refer to the whole thing as Vegas, for the most part.

[@musicaleuphoria8699]

Yeah it's pretty f***ed. Us, New Mexicans near test sites, had the same health problems.

[@bryanCJC2105]

First, the legal definition of a "city" is quite different in the US than in the UK or Europe. You showed "Greater London" which is much different than "New York City". "Greater London" was formed to streamline metropolitan services such as transport, fire, police and planning while separate London Boroughs control things like libraries, schools, sewerage, parks, and people mostly identify with the borough. Someone from Chelsea would probably want to distinguish themselves from someone from Hackney. Taxes. That is the main reason why city boundaries are the way they are. Many things are dependent on city borders: police, fire and ambulance jurisdictions, water and sewerage systems, sidewalks, gutters, and road repairs, even public transit services (NYC subways operate up to but not across the city boundary), among many other services. Most cities that were formed in the early half of the 20th century had the power to define their own circumstances. In 1909 Los Angeles annexed a 15 mile long arm to capture its harbor and in 1915 it annexed the entire San Fernando Valley to control water access from the Los Angeles Aqueduct (if you weren't in the city limits, no water). Cities formed after that time (such as Las Vegas) largely had to deal with reduced power to take what they wanted. Las Vegas tried to take Paradise (site of the Strip and Airport) and Winchester (site of the Convention Center) for the tax revenues but was struck down in 1975 by the State. The casinos in Paradise and Winchester lobbied the state for "town" status to avoid Las Vegas city taxation which meant Las Vegas had to have County approval (very influenced by the casinos and receivers of casino tax revenue) to annex. A lot of legal wrangling was done by both the "towns", Las Vegas, and the State of Nevada which approved the annexations, but the Nevada Supreme Court ultimately gave the "towns" their own right to exist. When it was formed, Las Vegas city didn't foresee the need to control the entire valley before those areas had enough power to resist. An unincorporated area within a city can have some peculiar circumstances that inhibit the quality of life. For example, they may have to rely on County Sheriff departments for law enforcement rather than the city police dept that surrounds it. They may have to pay more for water and for the infrastructure to deliver that water than the city residents next door. Often, because the unincorporated island (under County jurisdiction) may be a very tiny part of a large county, they have little voice or input. Some places are willing to accept that rather than pay city taxes. If those pockets are wealthy enough, it's hard to force the issue. Some states like California, allow cities to forcibly annex unincorporated areas within or adjacent to their borders if the city can prove that doing so would provide civic and operational benefits. Fresno, is the perfect example of a city with large unincorporated County pockets inside of it that could absorb those areas if the people inside of them weren't wealthy enough to strongly resist.

[@kevincronk7981]

This is always so weird to me, I live in a suburb of DC on the Virginia side, in the part which used to be part of DC before it was given back to Virginia, so the whole area is planned (and also broken up into ridiculously small counties, I live in the smallest county in the contiguous US) so there are almost no weird boundaries, and everything is very strongly based on county, state (or non-state in DC's case), or school district, and there's no weird overlaps. The only time that isn't true is the fire departments, at least within Virginia they all work together and it's just whoever can get there the fastest goes there. A county next door to mine has a way better fire department than mine (despite theirs being all-volunteer and ours being professionals) so most of the time it's the neighboring county's fire department that serves us. And around here, services crossing borders like that is extremely strange.

[@mistersir7882]

TLDR: A 19th century mayor was involved in a sex scandal, which somehow led to this crazy city boundary thing

[@elitecereal]

@@mistersir7882 Thanks.

[@11d7jake]

@@kevincronk7981 actually you live in the 3rd smallest contiguous county Manhattan and Bristol county RI are both smaller than Arlington

[@roxxma]

It even varies by state! In much of New England, the terms city and town are legal definitions of the type of government they have. Cities have councils and mayors and/or city managers, and towns-the vast majority of New England municipalities- have a town meeting/board of selectmen (or select board) form of government. The selectmen are the executive, and town meeting (where voters will assemble and debate on laws, budgets, and bonds and other things) are the legislative branch.

[@joeb4294]

A lot of the weirdness boils down to people trying to minimize the taxes they pay. School district boundaries (which do not necessarily align with the city boundaries) also can be weird for the same reason. People tend to claim the bigger city name when asked where they are from because the actual suburb that they live in is likely not well known. So, rather than saying that they live in Henderson, Paradise, or Spring Valley, and then having to follow up and explain that it's a suburb of Las Vegas people will just say Las Vegas from the start. Also, the whole metropolitan area tends to be centered around the original city which contains the primary central business district and the surrounding area gels as part of that, and this is also reinforced through professional sports teams.

[@markusklyver6277]

This is reason 2).

[@rachelcookie321]

I’m not from America but when you brought up schools it reminded me of my town. My town is not considered part of the city it’s next to. Like I’m say I’m from that city but the administrative stuff is separate between my town and the city. Like during covid, the city had different covid restrictions to my town. But the schools in my town are considered schools that belong to that city. Like when there was a shooting in the city and every school in the city went into lockdown, that included all the schools in my town too.

[@Kreuzfahrer]

bro shut up as a person that lives in Las Vegas I’ve heard ppl say that they’re from Boulder City or Henderson

[@isaacmarquez5150]

Yeah but as a Vegas local I technically live in the "township" of Winchester that isn't Las Vegas, but it's useless my address always says Las Vegas, NV. Townships like paradise or spring valley aren't really cities, they have no city government, no post offices, no independent police force or firefighter, it's all Las Vegas. Henderson and North Las Vegas ARE actually separate cities. So those are different examples. No one says they're from Winchester, spring valley or paradise ever, there isn't anything for any of those places, it's all Las Vegas and our address is literally Las Vegas Nevada. Henderson and North Las Vegas have local police force, court house, post office so they actually are separate cities.

[@alterbr33d]

There is a school district called the Boulder Valley School District where all the schools are down in the city except one is up in Nederland in the mountains. So if it only snows where the one school is up in the mountains, then all schools are closed in the city where there isn't snow.

[@cjwhitmore1881]

The weirdest major city boundaries that I know of are San Diego CA's. One-quarter of the city is completely cut off from the rest, making it so you have to drive through two other cities to get to the rest of San Diego. Plus, San Diego has a similar arm to it as Denver because of the San Diego Zoo; except the road to get there crosses in and out of San Diego multiple times. Add in the odd coastline boundary because of the military base, and it's a truly odd shape. Also, similar to some of the other places mentioned in this video, there's another town completely inside of Chicago, IL

[@diamondking169]

As someone who has lived in San Diego my whole life people just refer to most of the county as San Diego. The city is just downtown lol. Also if all of the skyscrapers look the same height in google earth it’s because the flight path only allows them to be 500ft or below, which creates a pretty unique sky line.

[@road2stamfordbridge]

Los Angeles and Anaheim also have weird boundaries too

[@hakced]

@@road2stamfordbridge w1xwxjw jdo qw xej19 i cem9i 9in3d 10wxmw1

[@gemoftheocean]

@@diamondking169 the city is a lot more than just "downtown". (have lived in San Diego for 41 years of my 66 years.)

[@thegoldstandard55]

Literally the city of San Diego encompasses the towns of San Ysidro at the Mexican border, has downtown, mission valley, Coronado island, La Jolla, Miramar, then suburban towns of Mira Mesa, Rancho Bernardo and reaches its northern border near Escondido. Literally takes 45 minutes on the freeway from north to south.

[@christhorney]

lol its so funny to me as an australian who has driven through the centre, that you think 130miles to a gas station is so widly far that you did the funny action while saying 130 lol, try 400km to the next servo, then you get there and it looks like its been shut down for 15 years lol then the next one is another 400km away and your not sure if you have enough fuel to get to either direction because its 400km in both directions to the nearest gas station, and this is on the one and only main highway road thing going from the southern coast to the northern coast in australia through the middle, the "towns" marked on the map are just a servo with an indigionous community in the middle of a farm thats thousands of square km in every direction, fuel cost $8 a litre in 2012 when it was like $1.10 in the city, milk and bread was $10+ and the poor indiginous people have no work there, they are not allowed to hunt on the land surrounding them, and their are thousands of them there, and people drive through and judge them it makes me sick and its so sad

[@LUNE.44]

that felt like quite the rollercoaster of emotions

[@easytiger6570]

Australia is a penal colony for a reason

[@chitlitlah]

@@LUNE.44 I know, right? He went from talking about how far it is between gas stations in the outback to how the aborigines are getting screwed, and he did it in a single sentence.

[@mitchellpeters1527]

@@chitlitlah holy shit that was a marathon

[@InvadersDie]

LOLOLOL I hate $10 bread too!

[@Default78334]

If you want to see a place that has the opposite issue, check out China where cities are high level administrative divisions that can cover thousands of square miles and extend well beyond their "metropolitan" areas. Chongqing is the most absurd example of this with municipal boundaries that cover almost 84,000 square kilometers of area, almost the same as the country of Austria.

[@cmbakerxx]

If you want to see a weird city boundary look at Columbus, OH. The city annexed many of the surrounding suburbs by restricting city water and sewer services to communities that were in the city. Ofcourse some communities chose to invest in their own water sources and resist the City of Columbus. So you have a very fractured boundary with dozens of island and many parts of the city connected by narrow strips of land. This also means that Columbus is by far the largest city in Ohio by land and population even though Cleveland and Cincinnati have similar or larger populations in the metropolitan areas.

[@mysteryman7877]

If you want some more weird cities, check out Columbus, OH; the entire Valley of the Sun in Arizona (centered on Phoenix), and most of Southern California.

[@r.j.knoerr1664]

Chicago’s TV outreach goes into 3 others states than Illinois, which is just absurd

[@aviatium7806]

I also think Albuquerque where I am from is interesting

[@knockeledup]

@@r.j.knoerr1664 I live in Iowa City and we get WGN from Chicago on TV.

[@jukebox_heroperson3994]

I live in Illinois around St. Louis (Not in the actual Greater St. Louis area, but close), and the Illinois folk always like to go across the river for gas, fireworks, and other regulated stuff. Missouri may have St. Louis and KSC, but we have Chicago, and it makes the rest of our state almost California tier over-regulated and overtaxed. So we go across the river when we can lol.

[@bmjv77]

Escaping Illinois was one of the best decisions that I ever made.

[@solidjames5704]

I was born in reno and raised in vegas, lived in Paridise (ie “vegas”) right by the mccarran airport. Definitely not the best place to grow up, one of the worst education systems in a country with an already terrible education system, and everything is marketed for people over 21. Dad lost his job doing coding for a slot machine company in 2008 recession so we got out.

[@SupremeLeaderKimJong-un]

So North Las Vegas wasn't founded because they didn't want to be annexed, but rather its founder Thomas L. Williams didn't like the city's rowdiness but loved the valley's potential for agriculture and so he decided to move to a piece of 160-acre land a mile from Vegas. He built roads, power lines, and irrigation ditches. He believed churches should govern the town so he encouraged churches to buy property there. And during the time of Prohibition, since there was no local law against drinking, the town attracted bootleggers from Vegas. It attracted even more people during the construction of Hoover Dam as Vegas was intolerant towards the Hoover Dam workers.

[@chills5100]

Hey can you donate some nukes i want to make a nuclear power plant from the uranium in it.

[@OatmealGrillBlazer]

yes our supreme leader

[@thegoldstandard55]

Yes cities often cross many counties (New York City, Atlanta), sometimes a county and city is one and the same (San Francisco), sometimes is governed by Congress (Washington DC) and not part of any county or state. Sometimes the city you live in for postal purposes is determined by the post office you are served by (like Paradise with Las Vegas addresses) and villages or townships within a city make it hard to determine who is actually your governing city (within Los Angeles, you have post office cities such as Hollywood, Sherman Oaks and San Pedro). There is a town in Minnesota that is entirely located within Canada and we have a commonwealth that is part of the United Stares, for all intents and purposes and state but is Puerto Rico which many Americans think is a separate county. Lastly the state of Hawaii, is named after the island of Hawai’i which is doesn’t actually have any cities on the island.

[@chitlitlah]

Dallas looks pretty strange on Google Maps. Aside from having three enclaves, the main part of the city isn't too strange. However, the city administers Lake Ray Hubbard to the northeast (it's where a lot of our water comes from) which is well outside the city, so Google draws a thin line from the city to the lake and then encloses the lake itself (along with the dam, pump stations, and any other government land). The first time I saw it, I had no idea what was going on, and I still don't know if the small line is officially part of Dallas perhaps because it's the water pipeline or if it's the only way Google Maps can do exclaves.

[@chitlitlah]

There's also some weirdness going on to the northwest around North Lake. I don't know what that's about but probably something similar.

[@RestYourHead]

there's also a part of north dallas that goes way up into the suburbs for some reason

[@carbonfibre_]

@@RestYourHead we call that the nawf with an ugly gangster snarl. It was annexed a while back to accommodate lower income communities

[@wardsdotnet]

Google maps can do exclaves, but some jurisdictions don't allow them

[@MikeV8652]

That's not the imagination of Google Maps. That's the real city limit of Dallas, connecting to the part of the city that is Lake Ray Hubbard.

[@mikehusanj1704]

You should check out Los Angeles, people in LA don't even know were the city boundaries are 😎

[@650]

You can't blame them, there are way too many cities inside our county.

[@rachelcookie321]

I feel like most people don’t really know their city’s boundaries

[@zoneout0]

NA city planners: who cares when everyone has 🚗…just build 😂

[@angelinomunoz7002]

You want to see weirdly shaped us city borders. Just go look at fort worth and nearby by citys. A ton of holes! And lots of long random weird lines

[@AverytheCubanAmerican]

Dude you already know I once lived in Jersey City but seeing you having a hard time trying to find the Red Robin in Secaucus, the one I frequent the most, was excruciating. But yeah it's a small world that you too have been to Harmon Meadow. It really is a nice shopping center with convenient transit to go there (NJT route 78 from Newark, route 85 from Hoboken Terminal, and route 320 from NYC Port Authority). It was where I got my budgies Elvis and Presley (they survived a whole decade) at their PetSmart, it was part of my search for the Lego Mr. Gold minifig at their former Toys R Us (which now has a flagship at the nearby American Dream) in 2013, I've done geocaching/long walks at the Mill Creek Marsh with my uncle and cousin, and it was where I got my 3DS for Christmas 2011. So that place has many memories for me. Also, the name of the town of the first Red Robin you looked up is Clifton, which in Passaic County. And New Durham isn't a town but rather it's a neighborhood of North Bergen

[@TorstenAdair]

One of the closest Walmarts to NYC. A quick bus ride from Port Authority!

[@blanecatledgejr]

Here’s some more on annexation in SC, USA. For me to get hooked up to the sewerage system in a new neighborhood, I had to commit to annexing into the town that manages it, but only if they make it out contiguously to where my neighborhood is. The rule in SC is that there must be some contiguous land border to continue annexing adjacent land.

[@upsidedown6096]

18:15 they say the fries are ‘bottomless’ but they don’t actually come back to give you more fries. You get the silent treatment after they take your order >:(

[@ernimuja6991]

Rlly? I get the opposite problem. They come with extra stuff before I have finished the ones they gave me previously. Sometime they remove my old chips or fries and give me new hot ones.

[@adamgreenhaus4691]

Here's something about that little Utah city you mentioned: Hurricane. It's great that you used the US pronunciation for that type of storm. Hilarious though, because we in Utah actually use the British pronunciation (hurrikin). We only pronounce the city that way. For the storm we use the US version (although we don't get them this far inland.)

[@gerardcote8391]

Europe has cites based on the feudal system, the Kong would build a castle and thr cities developed arround the center of government. So all the main toads radiate away from the government center. In the US most cities developed out of land grants along the routes of the railway system. Train stops became the center and cities developed along the tracks then extended in a grid away from the tracks

[@jaymesonmann6078]

11:16 that means they are part of the township they vote for township laws and they get township taxes. In the us the countys are split up into townships.

[@Default78334]

That's mostly a Midwest and upstate NY (where they are called "towns") thing. Statutory townships as an intermediate level of government between the county and municipal level don't exist in most of the US.

[@rachelcookie321]

“Most people know Nevada for one thing” Me: Aliens “And that is Las Vegas” Me: oh-

[@AverytheCubanAmerican]

The Denver area isn't the only place that has a Gaylord resort! It gets better! There's one in Florida just outside Disney World called Gaylord Palms (right around the corner from the former Nickelodeon Suites Resort). The resort is themed to all things Florida from the Everglades to St. Augustine. Bet you weren't expecting to say Florida Man is a Gaylord...and it doesn't stop there! There's ANOTHER one in TEXAS, AND in National Harbor, MD just outside the DC border! On top of one in Nashville, TN....the Gaylords are taking over and I for one, welcome our new based overlords All jokes aside, it's a chain owned by Ryman Hospitality Properties (founded by Edward Gaylord) and operated by Marriott International. And when it comes to Paradise, Vegas actually tried twice to annex the Strip. First time they tried in 1950, that's when Paradise was created when casinos lobbied county commissioners to make the Strip which was in unincorporated territory, a town (led by Gus Greenbaum of the Flamingo; fittingly where you dropped at 3:36). Vegas tried again with the state government's help in 1975 but it was struck down by the state's Supreme Court as unconstitutional. So the casinos went "Haha, we carry your economy go brrr"

[@BBQPorkSandwich3]

Jacksonville, FL has very easy borders. It is just the entirety of Duval County which is shaped like a deformed triangle but has pretty straight-forward borders

[@guspolly]

7:28 - A great example of that situation is Bristol, TN/VA; legally separate cities with separate mayors and councils, but they act as a single unit whenever possible.

[@kaymillerfromTX]

Don’t start. Have you seen a map of London? Squiggles

[@amosamwig8394]

I really love this channel, this is basically what I'm doing at work lmao

[@jonathanlanglois2742]

Montreal is pretty insane as well, but fortunately, it is the exception to the rule in Québec. Most cities did the sane thing and did not fight the fusions imposed by the government a little over a decade ago.

[@roxypicasso66]

this is the best video for you to post rn because i am currently on a road trip through many states with wack borders

[@loganpeters7543]

I still haven't found your first channel but this is the best channel I have found in a long time.

[@1bitjay]

I am from St. Louis! It's actually super normal to say you are from St.Louis but live in IL. It's all the metro. People work in one then live in another. Gas prices are vastly different. It's normal for us. If we live in IL, we say the town we are going to not x town, Missouri.

[@mofumofutenngoku]

uhh maybe some places, but when someone says they are from Detroit when they really mean Sterling Heights I cringe. Two different worlds.

[@guspolly]

Not to mention St Louis the city is separate and independent of St Louis County

[@salvadorlopez527]

Dude I love your videos I love using google maps to just look at cities lmao

[@SnoopySnoo]

9:32 indianapolis doesn’t show borders because of how weird of an example it is. it consolidated a government with marion county, the county it is in, some decades ago, which is not uncommon among large american cities. however, due to the fact there were already cities there, some of the preexisting cities (beech grove, lawrence, speedway, southport, and half of cumberland) managed to negotiate to be ‘excluded cities’, where they are not within indianapolis, but since they are in marion county (the other half of cumberland is in hancock county), which has the same government as indianapolis, they still vote for mayor and indianapolis still has some control over them. (also, kind of like paradise, the indianapolis motor speedway is in the town of speedway, so this means the most iconic part of the city isn’t even in the city.) also there are some small ‘included towns’, which ARE a part of indianapolis, but also have some independent institutions and some autonomy. this really makes indianapolis have incredibly fuzzy borders where not even google maps can figure out exactly how to define it. also, there are cities like carmel, noblesville, avon, greenwood, etc. that aren’t part of any of this at all (like henderson nevada), due to being in different counties and therefore not being consolidated.

[@kilrati]

There is another reason. State ran an article a while back, about suburbs in Atlanta, GA separating from the city to form their own town. Naturally the wealthier parts of the city are the ones that want to break off. see What does racosm have to do with gridlock by tracy thomson.

[@kevincronk7981]

I live in Northern Virginia, the city where this area is a suburb of is DC, which isn't even *in* a state, and a lot of the things in the area are in Maryland. And then just within Virginia, I live in Arlington, the smallest county in the contiguous US by size, and nearby there's Alexandria, Fairfax, the city of Fairfax which is kind of within Fairfax and kind if separate from it, Prince George's County, and more

[@musicaleuphoria8699]

My favorite kinds of metropolis areas are those that go link cities from different states, or even different countries.

[@BrokenCurtain]

What I find cool about European cities is that many of them have a "crown" consisting of waterways and parks, surrounding their centers. Those are the remnants of bastions, medieval fortifications. You can see one in Zurich in the video at 0:45 - see the blue line zig-zagging around the center? And on the other side of the river, there are some roads which also seem to follow the layout of old fortifications. Other good examples for that phenomenon are Hamburg, Bremen, Emden in Germany or Zwolle in the Netherlands. So if you're a tourist and visiting one of those places, trying to find some worthwhile attractions to visit, that "crown" on the map most likely surrounds some the oldest parts of the city and will probably have some interesting sights within walkable distance.

[@salemite]

Portland, OR has some fun history about this. Portland historically was only west of the Willamette river, and the east side of the river was farmland. As the city grew in the 19th century the east side got developed and became separate towns, including the hilariously named East Portland. Then in the late 19th and into the 20th the City of Portland slowly annexed em all up, so we have all these strange mini downtowns of the old towns scattered about. My favorite one is the story of St. Johns, a small town on the north tip. They tried so hard to avoid becoming Portland that they made a deal with the railroad to cut the railroad line like a hundred feet down and create an artificial border with Portland, bridges and all. Portland took it to state court, sued that artificial boundaries can't stop annexation, won, and annexed St. Johns.

[@chasbodaniels1744]

A book about Connecticut says the church was so strict in the 1600’s, that towns grew around the local meeting house. Everyone had to attend the hours-long services on Sunday, so town and village centers grew up about 6 miles apart. Most people could walk about 3 miles to the nearest church.

[@HanumanOlam]

I'm from Sunrise Manor, NV and I appreciate this video 👌🏾

[@brandonm8901]

With regards to US metropolitan areas being split into multiple 'cities' across state borders, why do so many cities form on the edges/corners of states?

[@diamondking169]

A lot of cities in the US are built next to rivers for obvious reasons. Coincidentally, many borders follow rivers. River borders are convenient.

[@brandonm8901]

@@diamondking169 ah yes of course, thanks. I was thinking of those Midwest states where the borders are almost arbitrary straight lines, forgot about geographical borders

[@TheRockkickass]

@@brandonm8901 yea, on the east coast a lot of cities are set up like that and the Midwest two. As you go further west, just by looking at maps, you can tell how much newer that section of the country is.

[@dillonhofsommer5648]

To add to the others, different state laws means a lot of people can benefit from living in one state and working/doing stuff in another. For instance, where I grew up there was lower income tax on one side and no sales tax on the other.

[@TorstenAdair]

Also, you have so many straight lines west of Ohio because the federal government tried to keep each new state equal in area. There was a population minimum for statehood, and many states, including Nebraska, have areas with fewer than 2 people per square mile. (You see those squares miles on satellite maps. County roads follow the section boundaries.)

[@mattnykamp2861]

I live in denver! its going to get even weirder in the future. the land south of denver is owned by denver University, the south east by the city of aurora, the northeast is the arsenal and the airport, the north and northwest has room to grow and the west is lakewood. Lakewood is a part of denver but instituted a 1% growth cap. Beyond that is the city of golden. so the city of denver is going to grow north and northwest towards Boulder but not in other directions😊 in denver the airport used to be just south of the rocky mtn national arsenal (which was a military test area before) they then moved out of town because they were planning to massive expansion.

[@EricaGamet]

Which airport was in the mountains by RMNP? I'm from Colorado and when I was a kid the airport was Stapleton, which is actually in the city of Denver. When they built DIA it felt like you were driving to Kansas to get to it! It's already happening near Lafayatte and Louisville, but once the Denver street grid and Boulder street grid really start to overlap, the numbered streets are going to get really confusing!

[@mattnykamp2861]

@@EricaGamet Stapleton is just south of the arsenal is what I meant. That was my bad

[@EricaGamet]

@@mattnykamp2861 Ah, yes, okay... that makes more sense LOL!

[@crazyoncoffee]

One of the many reasons I like San Francisco’s border. Just the city’s boundaries of water on 3 sides and a straight line at the bottom. It does include Alcatraz which is administered by the national parks dept and Treasure Island/Yerba Buena island. The only weird bit is a small triangle of Angel Island and a small triangle of Alameda island which I think has something to do with the center of the bay being part of San Francisco and reclaimed land, I think

[@arrgghh1555]

I think you missed the entire point. It's not the shape, it's the fact any reasonable person would include Oakland, Fremont, San Jose, etc etc in San Francisco, and not have 101 'cities' where there is really just 1.

[@Gallic_Gabagool]

@@arrgghh1555 But they began as separate cities. Even "Greater London" is composed of separate tows/cities/villages.

[@fixpacifica]

@@arrgghh1555 I live just south of San Francisco. Nobody who lives in Oakland, Fremont or San Jose would say they're from San Francisco. They might say they're from the San Francisco Bay Area.

[@arrgghh1555]

@@Gallic_Gabagool Exactly, and now they are all London.

[@Gallic_Gabagool]

@@arrgghh1555 no, they're Greater London which is not a city but a metropolitan area. The City of London=SF, Greater London=SF Bay Area. Greater London does not have completely centralized services, many of the services are provided by the local governments and neighborhoods and towns that make up Greater London not by the Greater London Authority. Wikipedia says "Greater London is an administrative area[3] in England governed by the Greater London Authority, and a ceremonial county that covers the bulk of the same area, with the exception of the City of London, which forms a separate ceremonial county. The administrative area, which has the same extent as the London Region, is organised into 33 local government districts: the 32 London boroughs and the City of London." This sounds very similar to the SF Bay Area to me...

[@HollcomeTook]

Wait a second, wait a second... say "Rockies" again... lol

[@marcor815]

So in the US you can personally decide if you want your land to be part of the city or not? Or how is that regulated who can join the cities?

[@CleanupKrew7]

The cities themselves regulate that. Also the Counties.

[@essr4580]

Varies widely by state

[@uhohhotdog]

Maryland took away Baltimore’s power of annexation long ago, so its probably one of the, if not THE most, compact major city in the country.

[@timg2727]

The city of Miami is also extremely compact (442k people in 36 square miles).

[@nox6855]

im glad a youtuber finally mentioned this ive been curious about this for years

[@cano1one]

I love this guy. He is so excited about places

[@piine2361]

great video as always m8

[@technetium9653]

I like scrolling through America, and the borders of cities are just so weird, holes that trigger my trypophobia, exclaves and enclaves, cities that you would think is one entity but is actually smaller entities,

[@technetium9653]

@Safwaan what do you mean of course, cities with boundaries like the ones in the US are anomalies anywhere else but the norm in America, and if it's "just one country" and boundaries don't matter they would tidy up the borders just so elections, utilities and taxes would be easier

[@technetium9653]

@Safwaan elaborate

[@theknightswhosay]

A lot of cities grew together to form a whole in the U.S. While I’m sure that also happened in Europe, it was like 1000 years ago, so it’s not as visible on a map, and the boundaries have been changed to reflect how and where people live. There also isn’t the same idea that rural or wooded areas can’t be under the political governance of a city.

[@valoeghese]

I remember seeing a video at one point about multiple cities in england that are now considered legally one place, so yeah definitely happened in Europe

[@MoonLiteNite]

@11:00 basically why would you want to be part of the city? If you already pay for private trash service, private water, sewage, etc... you are already getting a deal. The moment you get annexed by a city your taxes WILL go up. And depending on the city, you may, or most likely, will get screwed by having the city take over all utilities and services, which imeans a government run monopoly thus higher prices for all the services. So when you see those littles areas NOT in a city, that means those are some smart people.

[@C3R0_N1L]

There's an exception to rule 1 lol. It's called Texarkana, it literally is in 2 states

[@CajunGators]

Amen. It’s not like Kansas cities. We share the court house and downtown

[@inaweoftheworld]

I was looking for this comment. 👍🏽

[@Mr.Nichan]

7:33 Not QUITE. Cities definitely can cross COUNTY lines, and often do. For a weird example, II know Dallas even has weird very tiny parts in Denton county because of dealing with voter registration records. There also towns that are just have in one county and half in another.

[@Default78334]

Even weirder example, NYC covers five counties and there is no land in those counties that is not part of NYC.

[@Mr.Nichan]

@@Default78334 Actually, now I think about it, the reason I thought Dallas was weird was because I saw the NYC situation as more normal. There are a lot of cities fully contained in one county, and some counties fully contained in one city, and there are also cities on county boundaries, But Dallas is weird because almost all of Dallas is in Dallas county, as much of Dallss county is NOT in Dallas, yet there is a tip of an appendage of Dallas in Denton county, I once had to figure out which county an address right on the border was using Goolge maps, and I found it very annoying that Google maps stops showing highlighted regions, not to mention county and city borders, when you zoom in close enough to actually see which side of the border an address is on.

[@r22gamer54]

In california metropolitan areas are weird like literally I apparently live in the los angelas metropolitan area lol while the area I live feels more riverside than LA

[@kinggator8231]

This is so bizarre to see as someone living in Canada. Generally, many cities here have towns/suburbs outside city limits but in the metropolitan area, but the borders are often fairly clean, intuitive and don't have enclaves or exclaves. It's also weird to hear about how cities fall within counties in the US. Here in Alberta, a community that incorporates into a municipality will be completely distinct legally from the surrounding counties. There's also a town called Lloydminster whose city limits span the Alberta/Saskatchewan border.

[@robgronotte1]

In the Commonwealth (State) of Virginia, areas incorporated as cities are not part of a County. In nearly every other state, people in a city also are part of a county, and may pay taxes to both. I believe there is one other state like that, but I can't remember which one.

[@ddurlon]

Yea but then Montreal

[@essr4580]

@@robgronotte1 Maryland has Baltimore that is seperate, but it's the only one. Goes back to pre-revolutionary war

[@kinggator8231]

@@ddurlon i did say "generally" with Montreal as the exception in mind 😂

[@ddurlon]

@@kinggator8231 xddd

[@joshdok1995]

80% of the Manitoba population lives in Winnipeg

[@Stache987]

Check the municipality of Texarkana both in Arkansas and Texas, city is one shared government, state government is maintained separately, one side of the street is in a dry county etc. I lived in Kansas city, I don't remember Birmingham being adjoining the state line, so it's mention is moot for this video.

[@iPhone_3GS]

5:54 as a New Yorker (Long Islander) We clearly believe and want staten Island to be part of New Jersey

[@WaluigiLebron]

Detroit has 2 seperate towns inside of it that border each other. One of those is Hamtramck, the only Muslim majority city in the US

[@jayayebee]

In the US, taxes, school districts, and racism are 90% of why these things happen. Even the first 2 often amount to some shade of racism or classism. Also, if you want to cry sometime, check out county lines around Metro Atlanta. Georgia had trash policies over a century ago that led to tons of counties converging right around the city. Then, another set of laws were recently overturned, which has led to a wave of city incorporation in a metro where half the population lived in unincorporated areas for years.

[@rengalafuze8700]

Thanks for this video. Did you know that we also have villages in Westchester County, north of NYC? There is Bronxville, Takahoe, Pelham. These are very lovely areas and suburbs of NYC that are not cities.

[@perfilgenerico8717]

23:00 Brazilian equivalent to valentine's day (Dia dos namorados) is today, so maybe if you are brazilian and both you and your significant other speak english you might want one of those

[@vermillionmoore4577]

From Las Vegas here- to say that Henderson is a "suburb city" is correct, but about 80-90% of the Las Vegas metro area is suburbs anyway. As for things that tourists miss out on, probably the best places that I've been to would be Downtown Summerlin, as well as the libraries. Downtown Summerlin (often shortened to DTS) is really nice for all sorts of shopping, and is.a great place for kids as well. The libraries I feel are under-appreciated here, as they are actually really nice most of the time. They don't have the largest catalogue of books, but they are still very nice places to spend some time at.

[@braiden02]

I can't believe a British person knows more about the United States than I do and I lived my whole life in the U.S. Well done toycat. I should know more than I do about my own country. PS: love ur content, pls keep making these videos PPS: I have no clue why I'm including postscripts in a KZbin comment.

[@thenamesjonas]

It was nice to see my home state of Indiana get mentioned but then I heard how you pronounced Muncie lmao. But the reason why Indy is so "regular" is because it takes up most of the county it's in so it's pretty much a square.

[@jeannewilson1655]

Slidell, Louisiana is gerrymandered in order to collect sales tax at NorthShore Mall and to capture the road going to the airport. If you're on Airport Rd., the road itself is covered by Slidell Police. If you're in the ditch next to the road, it's handled by the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's office (unincorporated St. Tammany Parish). I had to have a welfare call on a patient at the hospital I worked at. I was sent back and forth between the Slidell Police and St. Tammany Sheriff (both of the Live PD show fame) as to who would handle the call because the boundary was the middle of the street.

[@LukeTheSchoolBoy]

Las Vagas needs that shape because it will increase the money they make in the casinos. It is all part of the plan. 🗿

[@mpf1947]

Paradise exists because Las Vegas raised the gaming tax. All the casinos on The Strip got together and supported a smaller increase to the state's gaming tax in exchange for getting them out of Las Vegas.

[@lovecraftianwalrus4490]

Love your vids!

[@IloveRumania]

4:58 As a person from Nevada, I can confirm!

[@KDG702]

Hey, Utah guy here. You pronounced Hurricane, Utah wrong. I know you must think I’m crazy. But it’s pronounced hurr-uh-kin by the Utah locals. If you say hurricane the normal way there you will get weird looks and people will openly correct you lol. I’m not from Utah but I’m from Henderson, NV actually lol. I’ve taken many trips to Utah. Thanks for covering my home town. “The valley” as we say. Great video

[@mofumofutenngoku]

After pronouncing Muncie as munchy, I think its clear he couldn't give less of a shit.🙂

[@baseballfan99]

A large amount of US drama dialogue pronounces places wrong.

[@KDG702]

@@mofumofutenngoku we actually had a pleasant email exchange lmao. Plenty of shits were given. But honestly, NO ONE knows about hurricane unless you go there. And nobody does lol. So when I see an opportunity to teach, I’m going to, and if you don’t care, then cool. You’re one of many!

[@emmettspear9174]

San Jose, California has the grossest boundaries ever and just sticks out into random places where nobody lives.

[@pghrpg4065]

If you want to cross a lot of jurisdictions, try following the Allegheny County Belt System in Pennsylvania (or moving about anywhere in or around Allegheny County). Other counties with lots of local jurisdictions are Cook County, IL and Los Angeles County, CA.

[@enrique1422]

Growing up in Las Vegas, mainly on the east side, and seeing the city grow in such a short time still baffles me. And they way the people here identify themselves with in the area of town their in, is sort of a new thing. And we have names or essentially memes accociated with differents parts like hender-tucky, the whole of Boulder highway, naked city, etc. Not a fan of high traffic now and constant construction tho

[@spacedudejr]

I lived on the east side most of my life and it really upsets me how people categorize it nowadays. Like I feel like people talked about how bad the Eastside was before it actually got bad, Sort of like a self-fulfilling prophecy

[@alexanderstevens8774]

Like others who noted here, the US (by virtue of state/county laws) vary widely in terms used and legal definitions. In general (at least for western states), if land isn't incorporated into a city it is administered by the county. If residents choose, they can decide to legally incorporate into a city which means it is a legally distinct government entity. This is done for a variety of reasons, but usually it boils down to avoiding annexation from another city, to maintain and enforce their own municipal laws, gain local control from a broader county, taxes, and/or providing a particular resource. In the case of the Las Vegas MSA, that means Las Vegas and North Las Vegas are legally separate cities with different municipal codes (many things align, but theoretically if the City of North Las Vegas passed a law, it's only enforceable within their city limits). All those other places like Paradise or Spring Valley are simply place names, but are under the control and domain of the Clark County government. Mailing addresses and ZIP codes are designated by the USPS. What this usually means is that the USPS goes with what the first few bits of mail addressed as and then never changed the name of the "city" part of the envelope as the unincorporated areas were given different CDP names. Likely, when mail was first sent the USPS designated the whole area with Las Vegas. As a city was incorporated, the address changed (i.e. mail to North Las Vegas had to be addressed as such). On the opposite end, places such as Encino, CA or Van Nuys, CA used to be separate cities before they were annexed by the City of Los Angeles. However, the USPS continues to prefer mail to these areas to be addressed as Encino or Van Nuys, but will still deliver mail if you write Los Angeles, CA with the appropriate ZIP code. Meanwhile, if I write Westwood, CA 90024 on an envelope, the USPS may misdirect the mail to the city of Westwood, CA in northern CA, when in reality it is meant for the Westwood neighborhood in Los Angeles. Without an incorporated city, virtually all public services (usually fire, law enforcement, EMS, transportation, trash, etc...) are provided for by the county government or independent special districts (often schools, water, power, mass transportation, etc...). In the sense of law enforcement for the Las Vegas metropolitan area, most incorporated cities have their own separate police departments (Henderson Police Department and North Las Vegas Police Department) with their own staff, core jurisdiction, and operating policies. Meanwhile, the county by default operates a sheriff's department which they brand as the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police (technically the City of Las Vegas and Clark County had separate departments which they merged). The Nevada Highway Patrol would then be above all of those with a generalized statewide jurisdiction. In the case of California, many incorporated cities have their own police departments, but some contract with and pay the county sheriff's department to act as their local police department. Some other examples are transportation departments, where a county likely has their own transportation agency for highways, roads in unincorporated areas, and county-wide transit, whereas a city department would maintain roads and local transit services within the city limits or with the interests of the city in mind. As for why cities have holes or weird shapes, it comes down to reactive or proactive annexation. Some cities, like Signal Hill, CA, were created reactively (in their case because of oil companies didn't want to pay a new tax on oil production imposed by Long Beach, CA). Meanwhile, Long Beach began annexing more land to eventually encircle Signal Hill. Others were incorporated long before an adjacent city proactively annexed land (whether by force, desire, or unmaterialized opportunity). In the Los Angeles area, there is the City of San Fernando surrounded by the City of Los Angeles. As Los Angeles required cities to be annexed to access LA's water resources, San Fernando decided not to due to having adequate groundwater wells whilst the neighboring cities voted to be dissolved and annexed by the City of LA for that wonderful municipal water. Some states have laws that also require city limits to be contiguous. Another example is Culver City where the founder had a desire for a city to the sea. He kept buying property westward and annexing them into the city once they bordered the city, creating an odd appendage before he died. Finally, one thing to keep in mind is that if you live in an unincorporated area, at least in western states, you can only vote for the county government and special districts that cover your residence. If you live in an incorporated city, you vote for council members and the mayor in addition to county officials. That means people in incorporated cities can vote for a government that doesn't have total jurisdiction over them, but has complete jurisdiction over others. In a hypothetical scenario where you have 50 people, 30 in the cities and 20 in the unincorporated areas for a county board representative. If the UA people vote for one candidate and the cities vote for the other candidate, then the city people are effectively picking a representative for the other 20 people who will decide on issues that mostly only affect those in the UA areas.

[@CasuallyIncredible]

Also another reason is Geography because what if there's mountains & rivers & but the USA has two parts the way more populated & dense eat & the dry broken up west plays in many circumstances for a cities shape.

[@toastedbread7610]

please stop with the pogface thumbnails i am losing my mind

[@awsomemodels]

Lol i don't blame you 😂

[@dragonli1y]

They are great

[@cubeeggs]

How are you getting 16.8% at 2:16?

[@toycat]

I think it was an editor mistake, looking back it's definitely 21.5% or so

[@anthonyliloia8301]

The first Red Robin you clicked on is about 5 minutes from where I live. I found that hilarious for some reason.

[@notpok2932]

I think the worst city borders I’ve personally found are those of Eugene, Oregon. Mostly just weird in general, but one particular section is cut out of the middle except for a few exclaves. It’s filled in by unincorporated communities like River Rd.

[@E4439Qv5]

It's slowly but surely eating Santa Clara on it way towards Junction City.

[@NicksDynasty]

Back during the heyday of redlining, some wanted to protect their property values, put their kids in different schools and disassociate themselves from other populations. So they marked up the maps

[@newwaveinfantry8362]

9:30 It's "mun-see" and it's the home of Garfield the cat.

[@solace6700]

Bro is so the type to eat red robin LOOL

[@MrHarvywallbanger]

At least out west this is a major issue. Cities not annexing areas because then they'd have to provide services is a huge issue, especially high crime areas (think East LA, Watts, "The Finger" in Sacramento). They love annexing empty land for track home sprawl. That and richer suburbs making their own cities, but still everyone is tied to main city so people complain about them being to politically crazy, but you have no voice.

[@christophershirley3279]

As a Northern Arizonan, I grew up uninterested in Nevada in any way, but as Southern Nevada has gained influence over the southwest over time, I've become increasingly dependent on Vegas as a meeting point for family, shopping and entertainment, with family from AZ, CA and UT always being willing to meet in Vegas. So it's like the center of my little world now. Years ago I would've deplored that idea, but now Las Vegas is one of the most diverse medium-sized cities in the western US. There are pockets of culture all over and it's so amazing. And it is weird to think how only a portion of the land is actually Las Vegas, but ultimately it's all practically Vegas, unless you actually live there and are affected by your zoning. Even the police are a metropolitan police force that can cross between the different jurisdictions.

[@gallanosa]

Lol. "Muncie" as "Munchie" cracks me up. I grew up in nearby Anderson, and found that hilarious! 😂

[@reeceoshaney5971]

Here’s a fun city to look at, Orono, Minnesota has square borders to the north and west but has a mess of island to the south and in the upper east side it entirely surrounds another city

[@brodynwilson4589]

Well the reason why Spring valley straight up didn't exist before 1981, because Las Vegas as a whole is very new for a Major U.S. City, even though the United States is known for its cities being very young, most major U.S. Cities are about 200-300 years old, while Las Vegas is 117 years old, being established 1905, and incorparted in 1911, and gaining any traction at all in the 1930s, before it exploded in population the 1960s. To put that into perspective Lucile Randon the oldest person alive, was born in 1904, meaning when she was born, Las Vegas didn't even exist yet. So yeah Las Vegas is a baby city if you think about it.

[@joedellinger9437]

There are some disconnected pieces of Denver that are forest land preserve out in the mountains too.

[@highnoon9333]

I live in Columbus, OH, and our city is super super weirdly shaped. There are tons of enclaves. Columbus always wants to expand and annex other unincorporated areas, but these areas don't want to be annexed so they become their own cities.

[@CasuallyIncredible]

Well Columbus, Ohio is a circle shaped city same with Charlotte, North Carolina Houston & Dallas-Fort Worth, & San Antonio, Texas all are circles same with Indianapolis etc.

[@brianking8080]

Wait till somebody tells him that cities intentionally annex land with a highway running through it so they can set up a speed trap to increase municipal revenue

[@essr4580]

Or in states that require municipalities to be contiguous, a strip all the way around huge areas to "capture" them

[@stevenkramer3431]

It is a bit odd to be lectured about "weird American cities" by a person from a country which has The City of London inside the city of London.

[@chasbodaniels1744]

Great observation!

[@friedtamale7454]

Can confirm, as someone that lives in Las Vegas and the street next door to my house is officially The City of North Las Vegas territory. Also we don’t talk about East Las Vegas….

[@roxxxydubois]

I live near 2 Bristols, Bristol Virginia and Bristol Tennessee, basically the same city split in half by state borders but they are legally 2 distinct places

[@lukeward7408]

How long is toycat staying in the USA im just curious, I don't know if he's mentioned I anywhere.

[@christophermckinney3924]

Check out Bristol Virginia / Tennessee where the main street of town is in two different cities, two different counties, and two different states. So one city is under seven governments' jurisdictions counting the federal government.

[@arandana5400]

In the US you can live in X city in terms of culture, opinion,etc. But formally you're not. In Peru is the opposite(In other contries of latin america is the same). Here you can live OUTSIDE of X city in terms of culture, opinion,etc but formally you are part of city X. I mean you can live in a satellite town that is very near to a big city but the urban areas between the 2 cities are only connected with a highway. But formally both the satellite town and the big city are part of the same city. That's why here the cities cover the entire territory of what you call a county. So in official terms, the city's territory covers the urban area of ​​the city and the surrounding satellite towns.

[@d-treec9215]

Speaking of citys that cross state lines I find it very interesting that there are citys that cross the country borders like Sault Ste. Marie MI USA and Sault Ste. Marie ON Canada, Niagara falls NY USA and Niagarafalls ON Canada, Detroit MI USA and Windsor ON Canada, San Diego CA USA and Tijuana Mexico and meny more

[@dragountastified8083]

Check out Columbus, OH. It was a lot of holes in the city border map