Chemnitz
Detskow Selo
St. Petersburg
Stalingrad
New Amsterdam
Tsaritsyn
Peiping
Pogorica
Hollandia
Wesermuende
It is interesting to note that commercial expansion of one city can gobble up smaller towns, as happened at the mouth of the Weser River in Northern Germany when Bremerhaven annexed Wesermuende.
Sometimes the written phonetic representation of Oriental characters in English can be the culprit, as happened recently when a modern method was introduced for spelling such Chinese cities' names as Beijing (Peiping).
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A home computer aficionado with a license plate that says APPL II, our own Tod Wicks is also the originator of the Ian Faber Memorial Rallye. City Names Update 2006 Ah, how times do change, as does the familiar ring of old names of cities returning after the massive changes in Eastern Europe in the late 80s and early 90s. Chemnitz is once again Chemnitz. St. Petersburg is proudly back again. And as noted to the left, some cities simply disappear off the map when other, larger, cities devour them. This is true here in the SF Bay Area where behemouth San Jose is concerned. Always in the shadow of San Francisco, San Jose keeps trying to gain stature among the top metropolitan areas of the world, but no matter hard this former canning center tries, it will never ever match San Francisco for style, fashion, culture, business, architecture, and pure elan. That's not for trying, though, as San Jose has for years been gobbling up small nearby communities and adding them to "greater" San Jose: Such places as Willow Glen, Robertsville, Almaden, Alviso, Coyote, Milpitas, oops, sorry, no one wants Milpitas. San Jose has its eyes on San Martin and Cupertino these days. Too bad, San Jose, you'll always by that little burg at the sourthern end of San Francisco Bay. As a sign over a toilet in a business on Powell Street once urged: Flush twice as San Jose needs the water.
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A writer, editor and bon vivant, he poetizes from San Jose, where he struggles to cultivate the art of graceful living.
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