# \ is really just a small town--common in other places than the US? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 26, 2012, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enormous-metropolitan-area-is-really-just-a-small-town-common-in-other-places-than-the-us/614018 "2012-02-26T00:39:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enormous-metropolitan-area-is-really-just-a-small-town-common-in-other-places-than-the-us/614018/21 "2012-02-27T02:22:13Z")
> [@Toucanna](#): > > Off the top of my head, I can think of these “small-town” behaviors frequently done by San Antonians: say hello to the clerk, cashier, bus driver. Greet people when entering an elevator. Play with little kids belonging to strangers when out in public. Allow strangers to play with your kids. Drop whatever you’re doing to help guide a lost tourist. Make change for anyone who asks. Hold doors open for people. Thank people for holding open a door. Xcept this is not “small town behavior” ; I’ve encountered plenty of polite and friendly interaction in Megalopolitan centers as well as terse f-you 'tude in small hamlets. But it IS illustrative of what many people mean when they sing the praises of a “small town attitude” so much. It’s about the perception that in the Big Cities we just step on the dying as we walk along and the response to being addressed is “whadda hell ya want?” ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enormous-metropolitan-area-is-really-just-a-small-town-common-in-other-places-than-the-us/614018/22 "2012-02-27T02:32:16Z")
And in the Toronto area, what you tend to hear, usually from real-estate people and other local boosters, is that specific _neighbourhoods_ ‘are like’ small towns or villages in the city, manifesting the previously-mentioned civic friendliness. The Toronto neighbourhood of Bloor West Village started it back in the seventies, and now it’s a fixture across the megalopolis. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enormous-metropolitan-area-is-really-just-a-small-town-common-in-other-places-than-the-us/614018/23 "2012-02-27T02:38:36Z")
I imagine this cuts across cultures. I can’t think of a culture that doesn’t have some nostalgia for village life- grandma’s home cooking, spending time with close family and friends, and the slower pace of rural life can evoke longing in just about anyone. In China, people would affectionately refer to some fairly large cities as villages. I wouldn’t say it was a selling point- often it was a half-snarky comment on the manners of the inhabitants. But it wasn’t entirely mean spirited, either. People largely loved living in new modern cities, but had a special place in their heart for the villages of their childhood. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enormous-metropolitan-area-is-really-just-a-small-town-common-in-other-places-than-the-us/614018/24 "2012-02-27T02:43:01Z")
“It’s really a small town” = “it’s really very provincial”. Nothing to do with the size of the population, beyond the fact that it’s only said of a place with a reasonably large population that might be exepcted to be cosmopolitan, rather than provincial. ---
**Author:** ![Dave\_Hartwick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@Dave\_Hartwick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dave_Hartwick)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enormous-metropolitan-area-is-really-just-a-small-town-common-in-other-places-than-the-us/614018/25 "2012-02-27T03:50:29Z")
Brisbane, the third largest city in Australia, used to be, and sometimes still is, referred to as an overgrown country town. I don’t think it was meant as a compliment. You can sort of see it. If you get a good view of Bundaberg (pop 67k), you can see some of the same architecture, such as older churches, homes, and public buildings. Throw in some skyscrapers and a few dozen cranes and it would look a lot like Brisbane. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enormous-metropolitan-area-is-really-just-a-small-town-common-in-other-places-than-the-us/614018/26 "2012-02-27T04:45:33Z")
Chicago is sometimes labeled as the “biggest/largest small town” or something to that effect. I would say it’s perhaps more accurate to say that it’s a big city made up of small towns. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enormous-metropolitan-area-is-really-just-a-small-town-common-in-other-places-than-the-us/614018/27 "2012-02-27T05:10:03Z")
Pittsburgh isn’t a small town. It’s a bunch of small towns set really close to each other. ---
**Author:** ![GreedySmurf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a698b9/32.png) [@GreedySmurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreedySmurf)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enormous-metropolitan-area-is-really-just-a-small-town-common-in-other-places-than-the-us/614018/28 "2012-02-27T05:39:27Z")
> [@tellyworth](#): > > Generally speaking you’d be more likely to hear the reverse in Australia - small town X is almost like a big city. For the most part, cities are seen as more attractive than small towns. Spot on. Being from a small town, or being compared to a small country town is often seen as a pejorative in Australia. My home city of Brisbane was often dismissed by the residents of the larger cities in the south (Sydney & Melbourne), as only being a big country town. Despite, at the time, having a population \>1M people. The connotation of that in particular, and of describing someone as being from a country town, is the insinuation that they are a bit slow and backward. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enormous-metropolitan-area-is-really-just-a-small-town-common-in-other-places-than-the-us/614018/29 "2012-02-27T07:42:04Z")
> [@Toucanna](#): > > Off the top of my head, I can think of these “small-town” behaviors frequently done by San Antonians: say hello to the clerk, cashier, bus driver. Greet people when entering an elevator. Play with little kids belonging to strangers when out in public. Allow strangers to play with your kids. Drop whatever you’re doing to help guide a lost tourist. Make change for anyone who asks. Hold doors open for people. Thank people for holding open a door. By that definition, Barcelona, Valencia or Bilbao are freaking hamlets… in Spain we call most of that having the manners your mother taught you. The kids and grown-up strangers part is ok if it’s the kid who’s approached the stranger, the stranger is ok with it and the stranger has obtained the caretaker’s permission; kids and stranger kids are expected to play together all the time, the concept of “play dates” isn’t used here… you go to a public park, the kid meets other kids, they make friends. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2012, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enormous-metropolitan-area-is-really-just-a-small-town-common-in-other-places-than-the-us/614018/30 "2012-02-27T14:28:24Z")
Another point is that US cities/towns/villages/hamlets generally have a lot more autonomy than in many other countries. Here in Canada the provinces have forced amalgamation in several provinces to get rid of inconviently small and inefficient hamlets between or by metropolitan areas. Places like Detroit or Miami seem to be small cities with a vast number of surrounding cities/villages/towns, some quite tiny, some almost as big as the center; the boundaries seem to have been arbitrarily created before the population arrived and made them absurd. Contributing to this problem is that in many other countries, the higher governments step in and impose urban planning, something also lacking in more populist and democratic America. ---
**Author:** ![Harvey\_The\_Heavy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Harvey\_The\_Heavy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harvey_The_Heavy)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 10:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enormous-metropolitan-area-is-really-just-a-small-town-common-in-other-places-than-the-us/614018/31 "2012-02-28T10:35:35Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > It’s definitely not positive for me, as I observe that San Diego is a big city with a small-town mentality–a willfully self-imposed, small-town mentality. (That’s why I fled the place once I turned 18.) The problem is that it definitely is _not_ a small town, in terms of demographics and industry. It just refuses to “grow up” culturally. I think some of it may be medium sized cities trying to disassociate themselves from nearby larger cities. Very obvious in SD; the small town attitude is their polite way of saying “We’re not like those L.A. assholes.” ---
**Author:** ![Tristan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tristan/32/18058_2.png) [@Tristan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tristan)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enormous-metropolitan-area-is-really-just-a-small-town-common-in-other-places-than-the-us/614018/32 "2012-02-28T16:26:36Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > Pittsburgh isn’t a small town. It’s a bunch of small towns set really close to each other. This is actually true, due largely to the unique geography of this area. If the area wasn’t cut into sections by rivers and tunnels, it probably would have developed very differently. When I lived in Sacramento, a lot of folks referred to it as a small town, but that was way more disparaging than a selling point. Invariably, these are folks that felt the only way to experience “Civilization” was to make the trip to San Francisco. These folks were usually also pretty ignorant of what Sacramento had to offer, culturally and entertainment wise. ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enormous-metropolitan-area-is-really-just-a-small-town-common-in-other-places-than-the-us/614018/33 "2012-02-28T16:45:33Z")
Washington, DC proper is only 68 square miles (7 of which is water), smaller than many other small towns with only a tiny fraction of DC’s population (≈618,000). ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enormous-metropolitan-area-is-really-just-a-small-town-common-in-other-places-than-the-us/614018/34 "2012-02-28T18:14:40Z")
> [@Harvey\_The\_Heavy](#): > > I think some of it may be medium sized cities trying to disassociate themselves from nearby larger cities. Very obvious in SD; the small town attitude is their polite way of saying “We’re not like those L.A. assholes.” Yes, the people in San Diego like to portray L.A. as an obnoxious place. (Though it seems to me that most people in San Diego don’t come to L.A. enough to know, considering how close it is and how much happens here.) However, the provincialism of San Diego, I think, is strongly derived from a self-image of being a beachy, touristy place where supposedly what people mostly do is recreate. (The city government has always driven this as part of tourist boosterism.) The assumption behind this self- image (and desired tourist appeal) is that it could only be true in a “small town,” (i.e., a “safe” city, without crime, much lower density, etc.). But Los Angeles has beaches and tourism, too. There aren’t many tourist-type things in San Diego that aren’t also in L.A. (Sea World, the zoo, are about the only ones). So San Diego has to distinguish itself somehow, and it does so with this image, and the population buys into it 100%. It doesn’t matter that San Diego also has gangs, crime, traffic, drugs, etc. ---
**Author:** ![vd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b19c9b/32.png) [@vd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vd)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enormous-metropolitan-area-is-really-just-a-small-town-common-in-other-places-than-the-us/614018/35 "2012-02-28T18:21:58Z")
Well the 'Zonies are certainly convinced. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2012, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enormous-metropolitan-area-is-really-just-a-small-town-common-in-other-places-than-the-us/614018/36 "2012-02-28T18:57:36Z")
My wife grew up in Nanjing (population ~8 million) and I grew up in Saskatoon (population ~ 200 thousand). So we have **way** different ideas of what a “small town” is. For her, it’s probably anything less than 500,000 people and for me it’s probably anything less than 5,000 people! ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2012, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enormous-metropolitan-area-is-really-just-a-small-town-common-in-other-places-than-the-us/614018/37 "2012-02-29T00:07:53Z")
It is quite common for people to remark that Irish cities (including Dublin, with a population around 1 million) are really like small towns. The people who say this like to think that everyone knows everyone (or knows someone who does, or at least everyone that matters). It’s a form of self-delusion, as even towns with 10s of thousands of people are far too large to be communities in any meaningful sense, so people form their own communities (based on geography, shared interest or shared background) and imagine that their communities are the whole town. The illusion is easy to sustain - if you walk for a kilometre through the centre of the city in which you work, you will likely meet several people you know along the way. Somehow this experience obscures the fact that 950,000 of your fellow citizens are complete strangers whose lives will never intersect with yours in any meaningful way. ---
**Author:** ![gurujulp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ba9def/32.png) [@gurujulp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gurujulp)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2012, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enormous-metropolitan-area-is-really-just-a-small-town-common-in-other-places-than-the-us/614018/38 "2012-02-29T00:30:22Z")
I understand the good and the bad sides of this- and I also agree with multiple sides of it. I work in a small city (\>100K) in the middle of a major metropolitan area, and I will likely see someone I recognize multiple times in a day, even if I go to areas of the city (or cities nearby) I do not _normally_ frequent. Now, those who will recognize me will be a much smaller group, but they exist. That is what I call ‘small town’ syndrome, and it is NOT a compliment. Living in small towns \<5K is horrid- backstabbing evil behavior where people piss on each other for the drama, as there is nothing else to do, and few people have the money for cable tv. For some reason, when you get shoehorned into someone’s facial recognition software, they either make you friend or enemy… even if you don’t know them at all. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2012, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enormous-metropolitan-area-is-really-just-a-small-town-common-in-other-places-than-the-us/614018/39 "2012-02-29T07:23:57Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > Places like Detroit or Miami seem to be small cities with a vast number of surrounding cities/villages/towns, some quite tiny, some almost as big as the center… Actually the “Miami” whose population is given in the OP, the City of Miami “proper”, is shaped more like an amoeba extending between a bunch of more-compact places. Hialeah or Coral Gables are completely surrounded by Miami; Miami Beach is not because the sea is on the other side. Many people don’t care a lot about whether the area they live in is simply “a part of town” or an actual separate township unless its street setup is evidently mismatched with respect to the surrounding area (which happens to be the case for both Coral Gables and Hialeah; Hialeah’s setup is tilted and Coral Gables’ streets have names). When I lived there (mid-90s), the official population for Dade+Broward counties was about 2M; utility companies said they figured on 3M. It’s spread on a very large area, it takes hours to drive from one end to the other on I-95 or the Palmetto with no traffic. Definitely not my definition of “a small town”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enormous-metropolitan-area-is-really-just-a-small-town-common-in-other-places-than-the-us/614018.md?page=1)