Agreed, and yet, maybe it's the other way around: a false impression of a proper noun? At any rate, let's look back at the sentence taken from the New York Times:
"In a world with a million things coming at you and especially in the United States where there's no aristocratic class, . . . ."
Sans a comma is OK, but the comma is optional in that context. Place names are specifically located, and so they don't need to be redefined with restrictive information. Speakers known intuitively that if 'where' modifies a place name of the proper noun type, its function is that of a complement, be there a comma or not. Otherwise, if we assume 'where' sans a comma is an integral part of the noun phrase (i.e., restrictive), then we'd be redefining the already defined. The comma is left out because it's redundant. The proper noun says it all--no comma required. The meaning expressed by the comma is already housed inside the semantic structure of the place name.
About OneStopEnglish's observation, thank goodness we've decided not to reword it, because we'd have to send the same "memo" to Oxford Dictionary of Current English, a pocket-sized paperback, worth all of $15 US, but nevertheless states the same 'observation' as OneStopEnglish provides.
In short, I believe the observation is fine as is. On closer look, the apparent exceptions to the 'rule' don't appear to be exceptions at all, but rather related to our interpretations concerning a) punctuation, and b) what consititutes a count noun and a proper noun.
OneStopEnglish states something like, 'where' does not function as a relative adverb if the noun it modifies is a proper noun, and given our apparent exceptions:
A) . . . Boston where. . .
B) . . .the United States where. . .
C) . . .the Manchester where . . .
'where' is non-defining/non-restrictive in A) and B), the commas are left out because they are redundant, and in C), 'where' functions as an relative adverb, and rightly so. 'the' restricts 'Manchester', defining it as one of many Manchesters.
That's my take on it, and since being proven wrong is better than being proven right, I leave it to you to find the exceptions.
All the best,
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