I agree to an extent, in that people from the Bay Area are funny about distances (as are people in the Northeast). But at the same time, I have to add a data po

I agree to an extent, in that people from the Bay Area are funny about distances (as are people in the Northeast). But at the same time, I have to add a data point against: I live in the Montrose neighborhood in Houston. If you live here, and people ask where you live, you say "I live in Houston." I grew up in a suburb called Sugar Land (so idyllic that it's creepy, incidentally. Not recommended). Yet while traveling, and asked where you lived, someone from Sugar Land would say "I live in Houston." The cultures, mentalities and lifestyles separating the two places could not be more different, yet they all would say they live in Houston. Tiny geographic distances can translate into massive cultural distances. The difference with the Bay Area is that they take the little names of their sub-regions and stick to them. I guess because they assume that people will know who they are or care? That's the best I can figure. Every once in a while I run into someone talking about sub-regions of SF as if I really, truly have committed every last one of them to memory: "So we moved our company out to a house in Milpitas."