Big cities dominate America’s cultural consciousness in ways that the countryside — amber waves of grain notwithstanding — can only dream of: Manhattan skyscrapers, L.A. movie stars and Chicago’s “big shoulders,” as Carl Sandburg put it in his 1916 poem. Cities can have political power, too, embodied by recently departed but long-serving mayors such as Boston’s Thomas Menino (21 years), Chicago’s Richard M. Daley (22 years) and New York’s Michael Bloomberg (12 years).

Two professional soccer players run side by side, fighting for control of the ball. One kicks and the other falls to the ground, face contorted in pain. Is the seeming injury real or feigned? According to a study by researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, one way to get an idea is to look at the gender of the players.

The “American dream” may or may not be a single-family home in the suburbs, but the American reality is looking more and more like a multifamily rental property.

Under the current system of justice in the United States, people charged with crimes who cannot afford to hire an attorney are provided one by the government. While this has long been true at the federal level, this has not always been the case at the state and local level.