So tell me – do you live in the big city?

And where exactly is this city of big stature?

Who decides the criteria for a big city vs. a small town?

As someone who is not native to my current big city, I find many people classify my birth  place a small town.

Defining a “City”
According to Wikipedia a city is considered: “A city is a relatively large and permanent settlement, particularly a large urban settlement. Although there are no agreed on technical definitions distinguishing a city from a town meanings, many cities have a particular administrative, legal, or historical status based on local law…”.

Side Story – Mount Pearl the “City”
This next part will be lost on most of you, but the community next to St. John’s, NL known as Mount Pearl was officially recognized by the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador as a “city” many years ago. If you look at the geography of Mount Pearl, it’s somewhat like Japan only instead of being surrounded by water, it’s surrounded by the City of St. John’s and the town of Paradise. A lot of people in St. John’s turn their nose up at Mount Pearl’s city status. In my own family it’s even been joked, “to be a city you need to have a clearly defined downtown area and at least ONE elevator!” So even in our small towns we’re arguing over who’s really a city and who’s just trying too hard.

It’s all relative really when you think of “going to the city” or “getting out of this small place and moving on up to a bigger place!”

Experience Can Influence Perspective
I attended Occupational Health and Safety training in July and our instructor (who was very entertaining and managed to make a rather technical topic fun) joked that what we consider traffic and rush hour in Toronto and the surrounding areas is nothing to stress about. Now while he currently lives in the Brampton area (and has no intention of moving closer to Toronto), but as he put it, as already “done his time” in the big city by living in New York for several years. At one point he worked in the heart of the city  near the Empire State Building. It was normally for him to stand on a sidewalk and watch hundreds (thousand probably?) of people move in waves, shoulder-to-shoulder. No, he doesn’t worry about traffice in Toronto. Instead of suffering three hours in bumper to bumper gridlock, he’ll invite a friend out for dinner or a drink and wait until 6:30 p.m. or so and drive home without any problems.

His take on the whole big city perspective left me thinking. If you ask any of my friends from back home (Newfoundland & Labrador), they would say I live in a big city. But I also have friends who are from small outport communities in my home province and they would consider moving to St. John’s as a move to “the big city”.

Heck, I remember visiting my in-laws , who live about an hour outside of Tononto and while waiting for a Greyhound at the “lovely” bus terminal, I approached a local teen and had the following discussion:

Me: Hi. Do you know if the next bus going to Toronto is already here?
Teen: No it’s not here yet, but it’ll be pulling in over there. *points over to the #5 spot*
Me: Oh ok. Thanks!
Teen: *sulks a little* You’re luckly you’re going to Toronto.
Me: *currently homesick for Newfoundland* Thanks, but I don’t feel overly luckly.
Teen: Yeah, well it’s better than being stuck HERE!

It didn’t take a rocket surgeon to tell she wasn’t overly proud or loving her current community. And she’s probably just a normal teen who can’t wait to get out and move into the big city.

Toronto the Big City
Some of my friends who aren’t in Toronto find it amazing that I don’t mind living here and that I don’t find it overwhelming. I think their amazement is more a transference on how they wouldn’t want to be in my shoes. And I’ll be honest – I know a lot of people who would do very well in a larger population, but there are a lot who would go insane and be lost to all of society.

I don’t mean to sound harsh, but not everyone is cut out for certain conditions. Example: riding the subway in rush hour. Besides the clastriphobic tendencies a lot of us get when gammed into a tin can subway car like a sardine, you suddenly become up close and personal with dozens of people. I’ll admit, I suppress a lot of rage sometimes when riding public transit.
Compare that to an average day in St. John’s where I’d likely commute in my own car (possibly alone), and I’d really only experience the closest thing to population overcrowding by going into a supermarket on a Government cheque day or the liquor store the day before a civic holiday.

But is somewhere like Toronto really all that big city?

According to Worldatlas.com’s city population lists, Toronto isnt the first city on the list… in fact we don’t even make the top 10.

Toronto is actually number 50 on the list!!

There are more people accounted for in Tokyo than all of Canada.

So I ask again – do YOU live in a big city?