Places and things named after modern presidents
 

There are a lot of places and things in the US named after presidents. However, many of them are named after men who served almost or over 100 years ago, when some sections of the country were still being developed. Will we see places or things named for modern presidents?

Obviously, we will see things named after modern presidents. There are airports named for Reagan, H.W. Bush, and Clinton. There is already a train station named after Biden (but from his service as a Senator and Vice President). What is the most-recent president to have something big like an airport named after him? Is there an Interstate or airport named for W. Bush or Obama? When would Obama or Trump or Biden or #47 get something named for him or her?

Places are a different ballgame. What is the last president to have a county named after him? Or even a municipality named after him? There are counties named Clinton, Carter, Johnson, and so on, but seemingly are coincidences because they were named for someone else. Was there ever a county or township named after Reagan, or Carter, or Kennedy, or Eisenhower?

How about in other countries? There are airports in Canada named for Pearson and Trudeau (elder), to start. Any counties or municipalities named for modern prime ministers?

It's rare for things to be named after living presidents other than perhaps naval vessels and schools. Our airport here was renamed to George Bush Intercontinental Airport while he was still alive which seemed weird at the time. Same with Reagan National and Clinton National airports.

This is not far from me; the 134 Freeway between Glendale and Pasadena is designated as the President Barack H. Obama Highway. He spent part of his undergraduate years in college going to Occidental College, which is in the Eagle Rock neighborhood of Los Angeles (between Glendale and Pasadena). He even lived in Pasadena while he was going to Oxy (which is what everyone here calls it); there's now a plaque embedded in the sidewalk in front of the apartment building he lived in in Pasadena.

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Glendale News Press

And last year in May, a major thoroughfare in Los Angeles (Rodeo Road, not to be confused with Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills) was renamed Barack Obama Boulevard.
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Photo by me

A 75 mile stretch of I-55 from Chicagoland's SW burbs down to Pontiac, IL was renamed the "Barack Obama Presidential Expressway" back in 2017.

Being that Obama was from Illinois, and the state is controlled by the Dems, the politicians here wasted no time in putting his name on a big piece of infrastructure.



As for the current president, "Donald Trump Municipal Dump" has a nice ring to it. :D

The current one probably has his name splattered across more shit than any president since Washington.

The most recent president to have a county named for him is Warren Harding. The second most recent is Theodore Roosevelt.

Harding County, New Mexico

Also Monrovia, Liberia is the only foreign capital named for a US President.

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Donald Trump Total Landscaping, coming to an industrial wasteland near you.

Ottawa's airport is Macdonald-Cartier, named for our 1st PM John A. Macdonald and his partner from Quebec in the early confederation project, George-Étienne Cartier. A lot of people mistakenly think the Cartier is for Jacques Cartier, the French explorer from the 1500s. Macdonald and Cartier also have scenic parkways named for them on the west and east sides of downtown Ottawa, respectively. Note that as per current socio-political trends, anything named for Macdonald is currently under scrutiny and in some cases there is considerable pressure for it to be changed.

The airport in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan is named for 1960s PM John Diefenbaker.

There are almost no towns (and certainly no cities) named for Canadian PMs of any era. The only ones I could find a very small towns or even villages: Laurier-Station, Quebec, named for Sir Wilfrid Laurier the first French Canadian PM (around the turn of the 20th century). The village of Macdonald, Manitoba was named for John A. And bizarrely, the town of Borden, Western Australia was named for Canadian PM Sir Robert Borden, who served during the First World War.

But almost all of the Canadian PMs and even some Ministers have lots of streets, buildings, mountains, etc. named for them.

Generally speaking the international custom of not naming stuff for people until they are deceased is followed. But not always. Though Quebec were I live follows the international standard fairly rigidly.

In other countries, well of course there is Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris.

And the country of Bolivia is named for Simon Bolivar. (There are gazillions of things named for him all over South America.)

We know who wins this one.


• Video Link

Where was his apartment building?


Wow, created on his inauguration day!

jimmy carter blvd and ronald reagan parkway, both in gwinnett county (atl)

PGBT (president george bush turnpike) in dallas

Charles de Gaulle died in 1970, that's one of the reason why the airport (which opened in 1974) has its name.
We also gave the name Charles de Gaulle to the Etoile square where is located the Arc de Triomphe west of the Champs Elysées.

There are many places named after former presidents in France, among the most famous.

-Centre Georges Pompidou
Famous modern art center
It opened in 1977, Pompidou died in 1974 during its mandate.

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-Bibliothèque François Mitterrand
French national Library
It was inaugurated in 1995, Mitterrand died in 1996

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-Musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac
A museum featuring the indigenous art and cultures near teh Eiffel tower. [While it opened in 2006, it only receive the name Jacques Chirac recently just before his death.

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The only president that doesn't have its name attached to its massive cultural project is Valery Giscard D'Estaing.
Musée d'Oray is not called Musée Giscard D'Estaing and I think it will never be.
It opened in 1988 7 years after its mandate.
He was a rather young president when he was elected in 1974 and he is still alive while his two next successors (Mitterand and Chirac) are dead.

Sarkozy , Hollande and Macron are what I would call the next generation of the sense they didn't have any large cultural visible projet.
Sarkozy did launch a massive project but it's a massive subway expansion (Grand Paris Express) and he was wasn't anymore President when the work started.

In France, Presidents lavish money on cultural, economic and transit projects in the primate cities. In the U.S., Presidents neglect, harass and try to destroy the primate cities.

If only the U.S. could have a Mitterand.

Elephants in the room:
Aeroport PET (Trudeau): Montreal
Toronto-Pearson Airport: Toronto


And then you have Airports called Jean Lesage (Quebec), Munro (Hamilto), ...

Seems like every second avenue in Montreal is named after Quebec Premiers. Rene Levesque, Robert Bourassa, Henri Bourassa, Gouin, Sauve, or historial figures (de Lorimier, Jean Talon, ) while the rest are named after Saints.

And then there are the CEGEPS (often named after PQ ministers; not usually known for their modesty), etc.


I think renaming Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository after the outgoing President would be a fitting honor. The Donald J. Trump Toxic Waste Suppository, since there has never in history been someone who is so utterly full of toxic shit

Cincinnati's had the Ronald Reagan Cross County Highway (Ohio State Route 126) since 1994.

To be fair the U.S. has a bunch of primary cities while France only has a few (and Paris ranks well above all of them). Because of our large size the nature of the United States is very regional and a President would likely be seen as favoring one region over the other.

I'd like to see a President go full-bore into revitalizing the Industrial Midwest and Northeast. It's the last real laggard part of the country that could use a shot in the arm. The Great Plains will depopulate on its own accord.

Also, cities in France are directly administrated by the national government. In the United States, cities are under the authority of their states. The only city in the U.S. that is analogous to Paris or Lyon is Washington, D.C.

Yeah, there are tons when you think about it, both in the city and suburbs, and many we're so used to we don't even realize: Honoré Mercier and Gédeon Ouimet (bridges), Taschereau and Maurice Duplessis (boulevards), Daniel Johnson, Boucher (Boucherville), etc.

I will let someone who is French chime in with more details, but French cities do have local municipal city-level government, known as the "commune". Also in the larger cities they have "arrondissements" that are like wards or boroughs.

But yes the French national government does exercise a lot of power over cities and while France is also subdivided into "régions" (larger, kinda U.S. state sized) and "départements" (smaller, almost county-like) they don't really have anything close to the power (over cities, or anything else) that U.S. states have.

And yes I agree that the French national government invests more in its cities (especially the main ones) and seems to value them as the country's "gems".