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Is Detroit the closest real life analog of Gotham City?

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XRay X Ray from His Chair Since: Nov, 2010
#1: Feb 10th 2012 at 12:32:22 AM

Look, I know that Gotham City is based on several different cities, but please hear me out.

Detroit... isn't exactly known for being a great place to live. It is known for huge crime rates, GM having their building there, and... a lot of art deco buildings?

For extra evidence, see this video here, and this blog here.

What do you guys think? Do you agree or disagree, and either way, why?

X

edited 10th Feb '12 12:33:20 AM by XRay

Care to critique my villain's prison escape plan?
TiggersAreGreat Since: Mar, 2011
#2: Feb 10th 2012 at 5:24:13 AM

Funny, I always thought New York City was the closest real life analogue of Gotham City. Why? For a few reasons.

1. Marvel Comics and DC Comics both have their headquarters in New York City, which would allow both of them to make use of Write What You Know in their stories.

2. What a number of people don't know is that New York citizens tend to use "Gotham City" as a nickname for their city.

3. New York City has long held a reputation of being the biggest, baddest city of them all. Of course, people in Real Life would happily tell that NYC is no bigger or badder than the rest of the cities out there.

That's what I think. Although I've noticed some interesting things said in the Joisey page....

Oh, Equestria, we stand on guard for thee!
XRay X Ray from His Chair Since: Nov, 2010
#3: Feb 10th 2012 at 10:45:35 AM

[up] You are correct, New York is one of many major influences on the design of Gotham City, and you have some valid points. What I'm saying is that Motor City here is the Real Life city that is most like Gotham. Just to be clear, do you disagree with me?

Care to critique my villain's prison escape plan?
Maven Who needs one? from None of your business (Don’t ask)
Who needs one?
#4: Feb 10th 2012 at 1:50:02 PM

Marvel literally does Write What You Know, with most of its action taking place in cities with the same names as "real-world" ones (and most of those originally New York City, at that).

DC way overdid it, with dozens of differently-named cities, ALL of them more or less close analogues of New York City even when there was no reason for them to be so and sometimes even after they were "exposed" as analogues of some other city. "Capitol City" in particular, an early home to the Golden Age Green Lantern before he relocated to Gotham City, was originally written as just another NYC analogue - and then exposed, in All-Star #37, as an Expy of Washington, DC(!). Cue head explosions.

KingZeal Since: Oct, 2009
#5: Feb 10th 2012 at 2:27:03 PM

I live here in Chicago and there's definitely some elements of the town there. A clearly segregated set of neighborhoods, abandoned industry, crime-riddled alleys, and an incompetent/corrupt police force.

AtomJames I need a drink Since: Apr, 2010
I need a drink
#6: Feb 11th 2012 at 6:36:09 PM

Helping the Tourism industry I see. You know it may seem funny, but I never really associated Metropolis with New York. I always saw it as more of Seattle analogue. I guess I can agree with the OP though.

Theres sex and death and human grime in monochrome for one thin dime and at least the trains all run on time but they dont go anywhere.
XRay X Ray from His Chair Since: Nov, 2010
#7: Feb 11th 2012 at 7:12:42 PM

[up] No, I'm not promoting tourism. I don't actually live in Detroit even. grin

Care to critique my villain's prison escape plan?
AtomJames I need a drink Since: Apr, 2010
I need a drink
#8: Feb 11th 2012 at 7:22:32 PM

I was actually referring to King's post.

Theres sex and death and human grime in monochrome for one thin dime and at least the trains all run on time but they dont go anywhere.
KingZeal Since: Oct, 2009
#9: Feb 11th 2012 at 7:24:05 PM

It is what it is. A lot of the city is nice, but there are parts of it that aren't.

Gray64 Since: Dec, 1969
#10: Feb 12th 2012 at 9:34:49 PM

Both Gotham and Metropolis (once it started to be called Metropolis; in his earliest appearances, Superman was based in Cleveland, Ohio) were originally intended to be stand-ins for New York. Now, I think, Metropolis is supposed to be, spiritually, New York, and Gotham Jersey City. There have been Batman comics that have, often in tiny little print, indicated that Gotham's state is New Jersey; likewise, Metropolis has been placed in Connecticut. In the comics, both are clearly supposed to be on the east coast of the US, and both border on the Atlantic. Take from that what you will. In the World's Finest animated film, Bruce Wayne had to take a plane ride to get to Metropolis, which would indicate some considerable distance. All any of this really means is that writers are frequently given quite a bit of leeway on the issue.

As a side note, the Flash's Central City and Keystone City have been indicated to be spiritual stand-ins for Minneapolis-St.Paul, and at another time for Kansas City, Missouri/ Kansas City, Kansas.

Tiamatty X-Men X-Pert from Now on Twitter Since: Jan, 2010 Relationship Status: Brony
#11: Feb 12th 2012 at 9:53:27 PM

I always figured Gotham worked as a Detroit analogue. Metropolis is obviously New York. Since Gotham City is obviously another city, I always figured Detroit fit best. Part of that might actually be my age, though. When Batman was first created, New York definitely would've fit better. It was only in the '80s, and especially the '90s, that Detroit became such a crap city, with a high murder rate, crumbling economy, and all that crap.

Jersey works, too, though.

X-Men X-Pert, my blog where I talk about X-Men comics.
frumfrum from Germany Since: Oct, 2011
#12: Feb 13th 2012 at 6:52:59 AM

[up][up] According to canon Metropolis and Gotham are supposed to be sister cities lying opposite of each other on a bay. Take that as you will.

Maven Who needs one? from None of your business (Don’t ask)
Who needs one?
#13: Feb 13th 2012 at 10:11:11 AM

"Canon" is a very fluid thing and has been constantly changing ever since about 1940. There were times when Metropolis and Gotham City were neighbors, and times when it took a long-distance train ride to get from one to the other. Most of the time nobody cared, because comics were a disposable art form - to be enjoyed, tossed and forgotten.

Stan Lee's Marvel changed all that.

Keystone City and Central City were originally one and the same in parallel universes, until Crisis on Infinite Earths jammed everything together and they became "twin cities" - which is when all the arguments started about just what and where they were.

edited 13th Feb '12 10:13:11 AM by Maven

Gray64 Since: Dec, 1969
#14: Feb 13th 2012 at 11:23:04 AM

True enough. And it should also be taken into account that it's entirely possible that a fictional city isn't meant to be particularly analogous to any real city. Most of the cities occupied by DC's heroes were pretty generic until fairly recently. I recall, when the Mayfair DC Heroes RPG came out in the 80's, it contained some pretty detailed maps and descriptions of Metropolis, Gotham, Central City, Coast City, and Star City, even providing names and descriptions for individual neighborhoods and whatnot. I had assumed they were mostly made up for the game until I started seeing Batman and Robin refer to some of the neighborhoods in the Batman comics; this persisted into the 90's.

TiggersAreGreat Since: Mar, 2011
#15: Feb 13th 2012 at 3:34:22 PM

Funny enough, I remember this one set of Justice League stories put in a book titled Divided We Fall. One story has the Queen of Fables take over Manhattan and turn it into a place right out of the Brothers Grimm fairy tales! This results in an interesting bit of dialogue:

The Flash (Wally West): Manhattan's transmogrifying by the second. No one yet knows why, but witnesses claim it began at an upper west side brownstone. Now the whole city — which was bizarre enought to begin with —

Plastic Man <interrupting>: — Says Mr. Midwest

The Flash: — Is overrun with the stuff of nightmares.

It seems that New York City, or at least Manhattan, actually makes at least one appearance in DC Comics! As if things weren't confusing enough having a number of cities strongly resembling NYC being featured in comics, they go and apparently feature NYC in the flesh!

Well, at least we have a hint on where the Flash hails from - the Midwest. I know that doesn't sound like much, but it just shows that not every character in the comics is a New Yorker!

Oh, Equestria, we stand on guard for thee!
KingZeal Since: Oct, 2009
#16: Feb 13th 2012 at 3:42:58 PM

Every real-life city still exist in the DC and Marvel universes. Metropolis, Gotham, Keystone, and Coast Cities don't override the real-world places.

Gray64 Since: Dec, 1969
#17: Feb 13th 2012 at 4:15:10 PM

[up] Quite right. For example, during Marv Wolfman's tenure on The New Teen Titans, they were based in New York City. Titans Tower was located on a island in the east river.

HopelessSituationWarrior Naïve Newcomer from Canada. The middle part. Since: Sep, 2010
#18: Feb 16th 2012 at 7:16:23 PM

[up]Detroit itself has been featured several times in the DC verse. JLA operated there very briefly and John Stewart lives there more recently.

Interestingly, the Nolan films seemed to have settled more on Chicago and Pittsburgh as Gotham influences, seeing as they were filmed there and the Gotham Rogues football team that will be appearing in TDKR are basically the Pittsburgh Steelers.

edited 16th Feb '12 7:18:02 PM by HopelessSituationWarrior

"Weird doors open. People fall into things."
Rotpar Always 3:00 am in the Filth (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Always 3:00 am in the Filth
#19: Feb 19th 2012 at 8:43:30 AM

The Big Applesauce is so big it gets to have two analogs. I've always pictured Metropolois as being Frank Sinatra's "New York" while Gotham was The Warriors version.

edited 19th Feb '12 8:43:41 AM by Rotpar

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frodobatmanvader Since: Sep, 2010
#20: Feb 25th 2012 at 7:16:05 PM

[up] Agree with this. Metropolis is the "idyllic" New York; Gotham is the "wretched hive of scum and villainy."

TiggersAreGreat Since: Mar, 2011
#21: Feb 26th 2012 at 5:58:10 AM

Here's a pretty interesting tidbit I found regarding The Question (Victor Sage):

In the O'Neil series, Victor Sage is an investigative reporter for the news station KBEL in Hub City, who uses the identity of the Question to get the answers his civilian identity cannot. Unlike other vigilante superheroes, O'Neil's Question is primarily focused on the politics of his city, and rather than hunting down the perpetrators of petty theft, he tends to fight the corrupt government of Hub City. O'Neil's Hub City is noted as being "synonymous with venality, corruption, and violence", perhaps even outranking Gotham City as the most dismal city in the DC Universe version of the US. Despite the impoverished and scandalous nature of Hub City, O'Neil insisted repeatedly that it was based on an actual US city, though for most of the series' run he refused to comment on which one that might be. He eventually confirmed, near the end of the run, that Hub City was based on East St. Louis, Illinois.

I don't think Hub City has ever been brought up again, but it's pretty scary when one city makes Gotham City look like a pristine, saintly city in comparison! surprised

Oh, Equestria, we stand on guard for thee!
Cider The Final ECW Champion from Not New York Since: May, 2009 Relationship Status: They can't hide forever. We've got satellites.
The Final ECW Champion
#22: Feb 26th 2012 at 10:42:46 AM

Yes, lets insult real places. Americans are acceptable targets right? Is New York the closest real life analog of New York?

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