Pascal commented: "For some years now, officially more than half the planet's population lives in cities."
... I wonder how they count that. For example I live in a large town, which for years now has been trying to get status as a city. (Apparently there needs to be a cathedral and an accredited university.) If it becomes one, I guess I'm officially a city dweller. But it really doesn't feel like it.
Also, who do you include? Most cities I've seen have a very wide belt of housing which gradually melts into the country. There were small villages in the nineteenth century, but now they are all joined up with each other and the city they used to be around. How much of that stuff do you consider part of the city?
In the UK it used to be university or cathedral to be a city. In California, a City is an area incorpoated under a city charter. I don't quite understand how it works, but there are all these cities which in the UK would measure as a town. Therefore I think the definition of city is variant, and a standardized definition globally would probably embrace anything larger than a village.
ReplyDeleteIn Manchester, I lived in Didsbury, Longsight and Chorlton cum Hardy. Each of these were villages which the city had swallowed up. Indeed Chorlton cum Hardy implies the two villages or village/hamlet pair merged together previously.
You will see delineation between city/town/borough and county on maps and road side signage. What about the large dormitory communities surrounding cities? Maybe since these, though unincorporated in a city, possibly in a parish outside the diocese, are technically hamlets, ie no shops and services, and not part of a city, will be regarded, because of the residents occupation, and place of work, to be city.
As for your town, wannabe city, you're probably a townie, you're not a bumpkin or yokel, and you're not a city slicker.
My home town, Chester, is both county seat, and cathedral city. It had a very townie feel. Contrast that with Liverpool, Manchester or Brum, where you're unquestionably city.
Back to my Manchester suburbs, a county sized city, each "village" had maintained its infrastructure, some still even had a village green, and everything (banks, pubs, post office) focussed on the cross of "The Manchester Road" and a perpendicular route. You could feel like a townie. The only thing is, you couldn't walk to the edge of the village and find countryside (actually, Didsbury was on the banks of the Mersey, and on the Cheshire border, so you could).
Most cities I've seen have a very wide belt of housing which gradually melts into the country.
ReplyDeletewhere i live eolake here in the states, its like this too. actually i would consider yourself a city dweller. jmho. take care my friend.
I could have been more precise. I think what I read concerned big cities, which are officially and undoubtedly urban areas. Opposed to rural areas.
ReplyDeleteAdmittedly, the transition is always a blurry concept. (Blurry limits are a whole branch of science, anyway. Like defining a "tall" person.) Now, the only real question is: "Are you still in a rural area, with fields and/or nature around you, or in an urban zone with buildings and concrete?"
The deserting of the coutryside in poor countries is a dramatic phenomenon. People cease working at producing food, and try to escape poverty seeking easier work in the cities. The way of life is a good criterium for defining "cities", I think.