Excerpt of the Week--NYC as Oldest City

From Kenneth Jackson's Preface for the second edition of The Encyclopedia of New York City:

New York City is different.  For one thing, it is older than virtually every other American city.  Boston, Philadelphia, Charleston, Savannah, Newport, and Williamsburg come to mind when one thinks of historic places, yet New York City is older than all of them.  As for settlements that were already established when Dutch traders first landed at the southern tip of Manhattan--St. Augustine, Fort St. George, Hampton, Plymouth, and Santa Fe--Jamestown, Plymouth, and Fort St. George disappeared, and the other three failed to prosper for the first three centuries of their existence.