Neville Chaim Berlin,
“OK, I’ll concede. I was wrong in my wording of this statement. I though I was clear enough that they aren’t considered machallel shabbos, but if not I apologize.”
I accept the apology.
“You’re using “rov,” or most way too loosely. The statement “there are no reshus harabim today” was generally made way before Brooklyn or Manhattan were a reality. If there aren’t reshusei harabim today, then there never can be.”
It is a modern day argument that shishim ribo applies to a city, as Rav Moshe himself exclaimed. Warsaw, Lodz, Odessa and Paris, all demonstrate that I am correct. Hence, all the poskim who maintain that there is no reshus harabbim today are even referring to cities such as Brooklyn and Manhattan. Only according to Rav Moshe’s chiddushim are Brooklyn and Manhattan unique. The few poskim who argue that shishim ribo applies to a city are going against the mesorah and the minhag, as stated by the Divrei Malkeil.
There is no such argument that otherwise there can never be a reshus harabbim. In fact that is exactly what those Rishonim and Acronim are arguing, there is no more a reshus harabbim at all.