The Audacity of Democracy

Los Angeles with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in the state of California, and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of 468.67 square miles , and is located in Southern California. Often known by... its initials L.A., the city is the focal point of the larger Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana metropolitan statistical area, which contains 12,828,837 people as of 2010, and is one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world and the second largest in the United States. Los Angeles is also the seat of Los Angeles County, the most populated and one of the most ethnically diverse counties in the United States, while the entire Los Angeles area itself has been recognized as the most diverse of the nation's largest cities. The city's inhabitants are referred to as "Angelenos". Los Angeles was founded on September 4, 1781, by Spanish governor Felipe de Neve.
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Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois and the third most populous city in the United States after Los Angeles and New York City. The city has around 2.7 million residents. Its metropolitan area, sometimes called "Chicagoland", is the third largest in the United States, with... an estimated 9.8 million people. Chicago is the county seat of Cook County, though a small portion also extends into DuPage County. Chicago was incorporated as a city in 1837, near a portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River watershed. Today, Chicago is a major, alpha+ global city, ranking seventh in the world on the 2012 Global Cities Index, and retains its status as an international hub for finance, industry, telecommunications and infrastructure, with O'Hare International Airport being the second busiest airport in the world in terms of traffic movements. In 2008, the city hosted 45.6 million domestic and overseas visitors. Among metropolitan areas, the Chicago area has the 4th largest Gross Domestic Product in the world. Chicago is one of the most important Worldwide Centers of Commerce and trade.
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Austin is the capital of the U.S. state of Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in the... nation from 2000 to 2006. Austin has a population of 790,390 . The city is the cultural and economic center of the Austin–Round Rock–San Marcos metropolitan area, which has a population of over 1,716,291 , making it the 35th-largest metropolitan area in the United States. In the 1830s, pioneers began to the settle the area in central Austin along the Colorado River. After Republic of Texas Vice President Mirabeau B. Lamar visited the area during a buffalo-hunting expedition between 1837 and 1838, he proposed that the republic's capital then located in Houston, Texas, be relocated to the area situated on the north bank of the Colorado River near the present-day Ann W. Richards Congress Avenue Bridge.
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