Why American cities are weirdly shaped
My understanding is that a city boundary in the US is a big deal. The police force on either side can be completely different, things that can get you in a lot of trouble like gun laws can be different on either side, prices and taxes can be very different.<p>In the UK a city boundary doesn't really mean anything. There might be a nice 'Welcome to X' sign but nothing really changes as it would in the US. I'm not even sure there is a legal boundary for cities here? There is for parliamentary constituencies and for local government areas, but not for cities unless they happen to overlap, that I know of.<p>So city boundaries in the UK don't really matter so aren't rigid, where in the US they are important and so rigid and so carefully designed.