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The name "Second City" actually comes from the rebuilding of the city after the Chicago Fire. Read any well researched history of Chicago and the area, (and I apologize, but do not have any references handy), and it will tell you the name is applied to the new or second city which was rebuilt.
In respect to this, why is there a second city?
The origin of Chicago's numbered nickname A minority opinion holds that as Chicago arose from the ashes of its Great Fire of 1871, the city's rebuilding by such architects as Louis Sullivan constituted a new beginning, a "second city" as it were.
In respect to this, what are second cities?
Simply put, second-city travel refers to a destination that doesn't immediately spring to mind when a country is mentioned. In the USA, a first city might be New York and a second city might be Cleveland. The first city has the postcards, the songs, the crowds. Most tourists skip the second city altogether.
New York is still No. 1, but Los Angeles, the western anchor of the fast-growing Sun Belt, has replaced Chicago as the nation's second largest city, the Census Bureau reported today. Chicago, which has been the nation's second city since 1890, lost population from 1980 to 1982 and slipped to No.