This page has all US cities over 50K in the last census and East Orange is the only one there with East in its name. East LA is bigger, but it’s not incorporated, so it’s not in the list. So unless some other East-city has grown really fast since 2000, East Orange is it.
Wow, is East St. Louis that small now? I haven’t been there in a number of decades, and I am quite stunned. The last time I was there it was a tough city but growing.
Poking around Wikipedia has netted me a few more cities with “East” in their names and populations above 25,000:[ul][li]East Providence, RI, pop. 49k.[]East Lansing, MI, pop. 47k.[]East Point, GA, pop. 40k.[]East Chicago, IN, pop. 32k.[]East Cleveland, OH, pop. 27k (though given the population trends on the Wiki page, this may be below 25k now.)[/ul][/li]East Orange is still the largest, though (or East L.A. if we’re counting it.)
East St. Louis is currently counted at 30k by Wikipedia, though the total area of the St. Louis metropolitan region located in Illinois (known as Metro-East) is home to around 500k.
East Oostburg, Wisconsin (unincorporated) maybe 30 (probably the largest town in the world that uses a term for ‘east’ in its name twice, but in two different languages)
No industry, no retail, no health care, no unincorporated area to annex and a decrepit housing stock. The number one employer and tax revenue producer in East St. Louis is a casino.