Sprawl, Thy Name Is Anaheim

"Sportswriters and columnists have used this year's all-California World Series as a jumping off point for a feast of prose examining the two cities involved - "Birkenstock Man vs. The Sprawl People" in the words of the online Daily Standard. In the Christian Science Monitor, a columnist opines that San Francisco is "simply 'The City,' the fog-enshrouded enclave of California's high caste," while Anaheim is "the backdrop for Disneyland, and the center of America's new suburban experiment - a conglomeration of sprawl so massive that it has become its own metroplex, even though it lacks anything that could be traditionally called a 'city.'" The Baltimore Sun says Anaheim is "one of America's signature pieces of suburban sprawl..." And The New York Times: "The Angels' stadium is out in the sprawl of Orange County, surrounded by parking lots and nothing else." A columnist in USA Today pulls out the adjectives: "All semblance of pitching has disappeared, gone in the cool, foggy San Francisco night, left behind in the ugly urban sprawl that is Anaheim." And, finally, the San Bernardino Sun has some tough words for both ends of the matchup: "As many as seven games flopping between a citadel of featureless sunny SoCal suburban sprawl ... and the romance-drenched, self-absorbed, black-draped capital of Everything SoCal Is Not ... and back again."

Thanks to Dateline APA