Counter-city
New York often enters through comparison with Los Angeles, recollection, aspiration or exasperation. The two cities are not simple opposites; they form a recurrent bi-coastal scale against which changes in culture, price, movement and self-description are measured.
Memory geography
Repeated references to missing New York or remembering being there show how a place can persist as a portable internal environment long after the immediate scene has ended.
Source audit: 12 published source documents / 18 direct string hits in the August 11, 2026 archival snapshot. Representative sources: ADVENT 1.2: The Aleatory City · It's Mental Health Awareness Month Somewhere · .EXE: 150 People I Don't Need, Described · Blonde Unread (ATTN: Nervous White Scribes).