One-Dimensional Geography

You may recall how, in the "director's cut" of Blackest Night #0, Geoff Johns started out this way:

Now, I spent a couple of minutes disputing whether or not one could fairly describe Gotham City as the "darkest place in the DC Universe." But hey, it was just one remark, one opinion, not a pattern, right?

From Brightest Day #0:

So, Star City is more corrupt than Hub City, which is "synonymous with venality, corruption, and violence"? More corrupt than Gotham, even though Johns said Gotham is the "darkest place?"

In fairness, whereas the first quote was directly from Johns himself, the second caption is Deadman Lifeman (?) speaking. So it could just be that character's opinion. Or, that line could have been written by Peter Tomasi.

But when you throw on Central City, from Flash Secret Files And Origins 2010 #1:

You begin to perceive a pattern, don't you?

It is a good thing, I think, to try and give some character to some of DC's "fake" cities.

But is it a good thing that Geoff Johns has accomplished the "impressive" feat of bringing one-dimensional characterizations from the personal level to a city-wide level? That we can give each city "personality" by using one word modified by a superlative? No shades of gray, no second place finishers in his DC census. Every town must be the darkest place, or the most corrupt city, or fastest city...

Compare and contrast how James Robinson gave character to Opal City during his Starman run. He made Opal a palpable place, without having to resort to easy one-word slogans or short-cuts.

It strikes me that, if a writer used this approach to a character these days, we would pick on him some little bit for one-dimensional characterization, for lazy writing.

But entire cities? No problem, apparently...