5 ms·

> A town of 100K people I know it doesn't really mean anything, but it always just seems peculiar to me when people refer to places with tens or hundreds of th

> A town of 100K people I know it doesn't really mean anything, but it always just seems peculiar to me when people refer to places with tens or hundreds of thousands of residents as "towns" I guess mainly because the general consensus is that a "town" is smaller than a "city". The "town" I grew up in had about 3k residents. To us, the place a half hour away with the big box stores where we'd do our shopping was the "city". It had all of 30k people. Then again, that was 10x the size of where we lived.

stephenhuey 6y ago
I was born in a town of similar size and have always been fascinated by my friends who grew up their entire lives in Houston who have no relatives in such small places and really have no concept of how different it can feel an hour outside of the city. Recently I was surprised to read that at the time of the Revolutionary War, Philadelphia was the nation’s largest city with only 20,000 residents!
davidw 6y ago
Hah, ok fair enough. It's the county seat and to get to a larger city you have to drive 3 hours. It was also 30K 30 years ago, so it still conserves some 'small town feel'.
deanCommie 6y ago
It all depends on what you're used to. I was born in a City of 6 million people. I then moved to a City of 2 million people. It feels small by comparison. To me a "city" is a place with an opera house, multiple museums, multiple options for every type of good international cuisines, shops open in the evening, and a transit system beyond bus (tram, or metro/subway). I lived for a couple of years in a place that was the capital of a European nation, but was only about 600,000 people, and had "only" 3 Ramen restaurants. It felt like a town to me, not a city. So yeah, I basically feel like every place below 1MM is a town. In a city, I should to be able to (though I never have, and never will) streak naked down the street during rush hour, and for it to be a non-event. The European capital I lived in that thinks it's a city once had a frontpage story in the daily newspaper with the headline "Man on <street name> gets on all fours and barks like a dog at passerbys". That's not a city to me. 3k residents I would call a village.
- profile53 6y ago
  It’s interesting how different everyone’s perspective is on this — it hadn’t crossed my mind before. My parents grew up in a town of one thousand people. There was a small bakery in the town and we had a leg up on all the other towns because we had a post office. If I ever misbehaved and did something I wasn’t supposed to, my parents knew before I even made it home because all of the residents knew each other and could call my parents to tell on me. Anything smaller than that was a village. Later, I moved to a city of about 300,000 people. There were multiple big box stores and, as you said, shops and restaurants open late into the night. That city was surrounded by suburbia. That was a big city in my eyes. Now, I live in a city of about 50,000 people and I guess that’s what a normal city looks like in my eyes. It has a few restaurants, a few somewhat culturally distinct areas, and a college and university. When I visited New York City, I would have characterized it as a metropolis, not just another city. Going back, I think the defining characteristic for a city is that it’s large enough not to keep everything in your head. You don’t know everyone or everything in the city anymore, so you’re forced to make subdivisions. It’s not “the bakery next to the Jones’s up the street” but instead it’s downtown/uptown/Westside/Eastside.
  - deanCommie 6y ago
    That makes sense too! I think by most people's definitions yours is closer to the standard. My wife did not grow up in the 6MM city like I did but towns of 70,000, 500,000, and 3,000 respectively, and she thinks my "It's not a city unless it's over 1MM people" take is the highpoint of douchey elitist snobbery. I think that "keep everything in your head" is a reasonable cutting off point. Despite me scoffing at that "only 3 ramen restaurants" city I lived in, it's not like i know and have been to every restaurant in the place. A town you probably would be able to go to each one if you wanted to after a year.

stephenhuey 6y ago

I was born in a town of similar size and have always been fascinated by my friends who grew up their entire lives in Houston who have no relatives in such small places and really have no concept of how different it can feel an hour outside of the city. Recently I was surprised to read that at the time of the Revolutionary War, Philadelphia was the nation’s largest city with only 20,000 residents!

davidw 6y ago

Hah, ok fair enough. It's the county seat and to get to a larger city you have to drive 3 hours. It was also 30K 30 years ago, so it still conserves some 'small town feel'.

deanCommie 6y ago

It all depends on what you're used to. I was born in a City of 6 million people. I then moved to a City of 2 million people. It feels small by comparison. To me a "city" is a place with an opera house, multiple museums, multiple options for every type of good international cuisines, shops open in the evening, and a transit system beyond bus (tram, or metro/subway). I lived for a couple of years in a place that was the capital of a European nation, but was only about 600,000 people, and had "only" 3 Ramen restaurants. It felt like a town to me, not a city. So yeah, I basically feel like every place below 1MM is a town. In a city, I should to be able to (though I never have, and never will) streak naked down the street during rush hour, and for it to be a non-event. The European capital I lived in that thinks it's a city once had a frontpage story in the daily newspaper with the headline "Man on <street name> gets on all fours and barks like a dog at passerbys". That's not a city to me. 3k residents I would call a village.

profile53 6y ago
It’s interesting how different everyone’s perspective is on this — it hadn’t crossed my mind before. My parents grew up in a town of one thousand people. There was a small bakery in the town and we had a leg up on all the other towns because we had a post office. If I ever misbehaved and did something I wasn’t supposed to, my parents knew before I even made it home because all of the residents knew each other and could call my parents to tell on me. Anything smaller than that was a village. Later, I moved to a city of about 300,000 people. There were multiple big box stores and, as you said, shops and restaurants open late into the night. That city was surrounded by suburbia. That was a big city in my eyes. Now, I live in a city of about 50,000 people and I guess that’s what a normal city looks like in my eyes. It has a few restaurants, a few somewhat culturally distinct areas, and a college and university. When I visited New York City, I would have characterized it as a metropolis, not just another city. Going back, I think the defining characteristic for a city is that it’s large enough not to keep everything in your head. You don’t know everyone or everything in the city anymore, so you’re forced to make subdivisions. It’s not “the bakery next to the Jones’s up the street” but instead it’s downtown/uptown/Westside/Eastside.
- deanCommie 6y ago
  That makes sense too! I think by most people's definitions yours is closer to the standard. My wife did not grow up in the 6MM city like I did but towns of 70,000, 500,000, and 3,000 respectively, and she thinks my "It's not a city unless it's over 1MM people" take is the highpoint of douchey elitist snobbery. I think that "keep everything in your head" is a reasonable cutting off point. Despite me scoffing at that "only 3 ramen restaurants" city I lived in, it's not like i know and have been to every restaurant in the place. A town you probably would be able to go to each one if you wanted to after a year.