4 ms·

Maybe he's a caricature, but he's 100% right. I grew up going to school in the burbs, all summer in a small home-town - and have lived in several major cities.

Maybe he's a caricature, but he's 100% right. I grew up going to school in the burbs, all summer in a small home-town - and have lived in several major cities. 'City people' are definitely more about the money. Small towns are communities. Everyone knows everyone - often for multiple generations. Families have ties - not just people. You can't 'not care about' someone you've known for 40 years, even if you don't know them that well. In cities, people are exposed to a lot more people, they have tons of 'associates' but very few friends. People come and go - and they get individualist. I find city people, having been exposed to 'more kinds of people' tend to be more 'tolerant' in the modern sense of that word, but have absolutely no idea what community means and are far more judgemental, ideological, selective in everything. City people walk and talk with a kind of 'facade' - they are trying to project an image - almost all of them. In a small town - this would seem ridiculous. Also in small towns - when people speak to you - they are speaking to you then are 'present'. In the city, people are usually polite - but conversations (and relationships) 'transactional'. My brother (small town) threw a big bar-b-q for his friends birthday, and invited a bunch of people. Some really odd red-necky types showed up - and don't mean negative - just poor. They were welcome. Old guys in wheelchairs. Young partiers. It was an unbelievably mixed crowd. I don't think my brother would have preferred they came - but there is no way on earth anyone would say anything - after all 'it's joe from the corner store' - and 'Mary, Sean from across the streets Aunt'. When you go to social gatherings in urban areas - they tend to be hyper-specific in terms of social groupings. Even the near-homeless/poor people in small towns 'know someone' and most people 'know them' by name. Down the street from where I live (urban) - there are a couple of completely 'nameless' homeless people. Also - small town people tend to have a lot of gatherings where it's mostly family. In the city, often less so. When you hang around mostly your family and extended friends, it's a completely different world from 'people your age in your clique' etc.. The craziest thing about this - is 'city people' often have absolutely no idea what a community actually is. They make all sorts of crazy assertions, but have no clue. You call this guy a 'bumpkin' because - no offence - you might not know what he is talking about - also - your comment might be a kind of bigotry. In the suburb where I grew up - I don't know anyone. They've all moved. I have some contact - but the people, stores, restaurants, neighbourhood - totally unrecognizable. My 'hometown' - I still know some people, epc. through family. It's incredibly boring, and would be nary impossible to live there (it would be nice if it were a commute from a city), but if I don't go back often enough, I go crazy. To someone from a small town, living in a city often feels like 'living in a corporation' - and to some extent they are correct.

jomamaxx 10y ago
FYI I should say 'large cities' - especially North American ones. Please like Munich, Frankfurt feel pretty 'small town' relatively speaking. People tend to stay put a lot longer (like forever, even hundreds of years over generations), and the geography of those cities are completely different as well.
- TillE 10y ago
  So really you're just talking about New York (which is absolutely a rat race nightmare) and some dysfunctional, badly planned American cities. Because I look at this: > 'City people' are definitely more about the money. And then I look at Berlin (3.5 million people!). And I just laugh.
  - jomamaxx 10y ago
    No, I mean most American cities. Berlin is not like Munich or Frankfurt - and does not fit the template of most other German cities. It's quite a bit bigger and spread out. That said - it's more like Frankfurt than it is LA. Also - 'Greater Berlin' is more than 5 million. Also important to note: many European cities don't have 'suburbs'- what they have is 'city core' then 'dense surrounding'- which is not that much - but instead of suburbs, they have tons of 'surrounding towns'. It's really quite hard to describe. Frankfurt - I could almost run across it in my daily run - and it has big skyscrapers. It has the busiest Airport in Europe! Imagine taking all of Maine + Vermont - and instead of 30Km between each small township - make it 3km. So basically, you have tons of 'mini, distinct communities'. Many of those 'mini communities' are 1000 years old type thing, and people are not very transient. Within those communities - generally things are walkable, you have unique local restaurants, often high quality, artisans, small businesses, sometimes Universities. Much of Europe - and to some extent Asia - is like this. It's hard to describe but obvious when you see it. It's the model I think we, in North America, should have used for urban planning - instead of the mega-city model.
mjevans 10y ago
I also grew up in a suburb. I feel like I got the worst of all of the worlds. There wasn't a real sense of community, but there was also a major lack of opportunity.

jomamaxx 10y ago

FYI I should say 'large cities' - especially North American ones. Please like Munich, Frankfurt feel pretty 'small town' relatively speaking. People tend to stay put a lot longer (like forever, even hundreds of years over generations), and the geography of those cities are completely different as well.

TillE 10y ago
So really you're just talking about New York (which is absolutely a rat race nightmare) and some dysfunctional, badly planned American cities. Because I look at this: > 'City people' are definitely more about the money. And then I look at Berlin (3.5 million people!). And I just laugh.
- jomamaxx 10y ago
  No, I mean most American cities. Berlin is not like Munich or Frankfurt - and does not fit the template of most other German cities. It's quite a bit bigger and spread out. That said - it's more like Frankfurt than it is LA. Also - 'Greater Berlin' is more than 5 million. Also important to note: many European cities don't have 'suburbs'- what they have is 'city core' then 'dense surrounding'- which is not that much - but instead of suburbs, they have tons of 'surrounding towns'. It's really quite hard to describe. Frankfurt - I could almost run across it in my daily run - and it has big skyscrapers. It has the busiest Airport in Europe! Imagine taking all of Maine + Vermont - and instead of 30Km between each small township - make it 3km. So basically, you have tons of 'mini, distinct communities'. Many of those 'mini communities' are 1000 years old type thing, and people are not very transient. Within those communities - generally things are walkable, you have unique local restaurants, often high quality, artisans, small businesses, sometimes Universities. Much of Europe - and to some extent Asia - is like this. It's hard to describe but obvious when you see it. It's the model I think we, in North America, should have used for urban planning - instead of the mega-city model.

mjevans 10y ago

I also grew up in a suburb. I feel like I got the worst of all of the worlds. There wasn't a real sense of community, but there was also a major lack of opportunity.