We had a multi-location battle in Washington at one stage: War Machine hung his opponent from the top of the Washington Monument, while Iceman froze the pond/moat at its base to trap someone, and Nightcrawler teleported to the top of the Capitol Dome where he abandoned a supervillain after proposing marriage to her (and broke her heart the next day by not turning up) and he then teleported to the Smithsonian.I don't disagree with you that TRPGs have historically overemphasized maps--I never do anything for cities that's more than the neighborhoods in relation to each other, and I've never done anything for larger areas other than overall continent-ish map/s. That said, I don't think having done some sort of maps is a bad thing: I find they help with consistency and with letting the players/characters have an idea of where things are.
I also think I agree with your implication that the Supers campaign is something of a special case: I've never played a Supers game that used anything other than the occasional tactical map (if the game in question had tactical movement, of course).
I've never been to Washington but one or two of the players have. I don't know how much, if any, geography we mucked up in ways that might matter, but free narration of the locations seemed to work.
Also on neighbourhoods: I've lived in the same neighbourhood for 20+ years. It's inner city and has many little sidestreets and lanes (these were once for carrying out the "night soil" and many of them still remain). About a week ago I discovered a little side-street that runs for about 2 blocks, less than 1 km from my house, that I reckon I've never known about before. My partner reckons I have, but if she's right I'd certainly forgotten it completely, because the surprise when I discovered it was genuine.
This is why in urban contexts I think you just add in what you need to make the unfolding fiction work!