I grew up near Dayton, Ohio. When someone says “East Dayton,” they’re referring to the area east of downtown Dayton within city limits.
But sometimes it refers to a different city altogether. East Cleveland, for example, is not within the city limits of Cleveland. It is a different city, located a few miles east of Cleveland.
Over the weekend we spend the night in East Lansing, Michigan. Same thing.
Am wondering about examples, especially ones where the two cities (the “main” one and the N/S/E/W one) are in close proximity.
There are an East Chicago, a North Chicago, and a West Chicago, all of which are separate municipalities, and none of them are part of Chicago proper.
Of the three, East Chicago is close to Chicago’s eastern city limits, but does not actually border on the city, and is in a different state (Indiana). North Chicago and West Chicago are both in Illinois, but both are 20+ miles away from Chicago proper.
West Peoria, Peoria, and East Peoria are all separate cities in Illinois, all bordering each other (although East Peoria is on the other side of the Illinois river). North Peoria refers to a region of Peoria. No one ever really says “South Peoria” though.
Similarly, West Lafayette, Indiana, is a different (but adjacent) municipality from Lafayette, IN, and is, like East Lansing, home to a Big Ten university (Purdue).
I’ve got one for you - East New York is a neighborhood in Brooklyn, which is a borough of New York City while West New York is a town in New Jersey just across the Hudson river from NYC.
Remember that big train disaster last year? It happened in East Palestine, Ohio. I was mighty confused there for awhile because there’s a Palestine, Ohio but the news stories’ geography didn’t make sense to me. Until I found out that they’re actually on opposite sides and 4.5 hours apart.
There’s also the city of Brentwood, CA which is quite far from the LA neighborhood of Brentwood. It helps to clarify when someone mentions they’re going there.
Palo Alto, CA: among the most expensive cities in the country. East Palo Alto, CA: it’s been gentrified, but was not a nice place for a long time.
An example nobody else probably knows. I grew up near the Plattsburgh, a small city in northern New York (which, incidentally, is not the same as upstate New York). And there are two towns, South Plattsburgh and West Plattsburgh, which border the city.
Across the lake, there’s Burlington, Vermont, which has South Burlington next to it. Burlington and South Burlington are the first and second most populous cities in Vermont.
I should add: I used to work at an advertising agency which had an office in downtown Chicago, and an office in West Chicago. More than once, we had people visiting who needed to attend meetings in both offices, and who assumed (due to the names) that our West Chicago office was close to our Chicago office. When they discovered that traveling between the two offices could take an hour or more, depending on traffic, they were unpleasantly surprised.
Massachusetts has Southborough, to the west of that is Northborough, and south of that is Westborough. 50 miles away is Middleborough. There is not Eastborough.
Switching to Canada - Montreal East (Est) and Montreal West (Ouest) are separate towns of about 5,000 residents each - with about 15 miles of Montreal between them. Montreal North (Nord) was merged into Montreal around 2000; Montreal South (Sud) was merged into various municipalities (now part of Longueuil) in the 1960s.
But if you look at a properly-orientated map, you will see that Montreal West is almost directly south of Montreal East; Montreal North is/was to the west of both of them; Montreal South was to the east of both of them.
Oregon has Bend and North Bend (near Coos Bay), but they are 150 miles apart (opposite what the OP is asking about). Also, North Bend is southwest of Bend.
Locally, we have Sacramento and West Sacramento across the river - different counties.
Hartford, CT, has suburbs of East Hartford and West Hartford, next to it and in the appropriate directions.
Garden City, NY, on Long Island, isn’t really a city, but a very upscale suburb, so areas around it try to trade off its name. It has Garden City South to its south. There’s an area to its east that called itself East Garden City, to the annoyance of the rest of the village of Uniondale, of which it’s a part.
The geographical center of Boston is in Roxbury. Due north of the center we find the South End. This is not to be confused with South Boston which lies directly east from the South End. North of the South End is East Boston and southwest of East Boston is the North End.
West Roxbury is separated from Roxbury by Roslindale and Jamaica Plain.
All of these are neighborhoods, not separate towns/cities.