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What I'm getting at here is cities that don't tend to lose their "big city" vibe after you live in them or even spend an extended amount of time in them. By "big city vibe" I don't mean physical boundaries, I mean that dizzying feeling that you're in a big, exciting, urban place.
I think in general, the peak of getting a big city vibe is when you first arrive at a city. You're disoriented and everything feels a bit more expansive and exciting. Once you've spent at least 6 months in a place, you probably have a decent orientation of the layout of the neighborhoods, the social and cultural geography, the exciting nightlife, restaurant and shopping areas. Familiarity makes a city feel smaller in my experience.
Based on my experiences (although admittedly in a couple of these cities I haven't spent more than a month at a time), the American and Canadian cities that lose their big city vibe the least with time are NYC, Chicago, and Montreal. What do you think?
But a city that's on its way there is Atlanta. Not only is the core of the city developing, it's suburbs are as well. Give it 20-30 years and it's going to be way more dense and feel like a larger city.
I would say only New York and maybe Chicago and Toronto are the only cities that comes to mind.
Montreal remind me a lot of Philadelphia and Boston and they lose their big city vibe after you live there. They are big bustling cities, but not so bad once you learn them.
I would say only New York and maybe Chicago and Toronto are the only cities that comes to mind.
Montreal remind me a lot of Philadelphia and Boston and they lose their big city vibe after you live there. They are big bustling cities, but not so bad once you learn them.
LA is just big, but its missing that vibe IMO.
Agree re: Philly and Boston. I'd put SF in that category as well. But Montreal felt a tier above in terms of not losing its big city feel - more than Toronto to some extent. Probably because Montreal's urban fabric and big city vibe (in the classic sense a la larger European cities) remains intact further out than Toronto's. Toronto is very dizzying and "big city" feeling when you first arrive, but it lost that pretty quickly for me once I got to know the city and realized that outside of Old Toronto the big city vibe is fairly lacking.
I would say only New York and maybe Chicago and Toronto are the only cities that comes to mind.
Montreal remind me a lot of Philadelphia and Boston and they lose their big city vibe after you live there. They are big bustling cities, but not so bad once you learn them.
LA is just big, but its missing that vibe IMO.
Maybe Philly and Boston are losing it, but Montreal keeps getting more hectic as more people are moving into the core. Metro is more packed, downtown is more packed, schools, museums, etc...
Maybe Philly and Boston are losing it, but Montreal keeps getting more hectic as more people are moving into the core. Metro is more packed, downtown is more packed, schools, museums, etc...
“With time” refers to the time a person spends in a city, not over time generally.
I just wanna say - your user name is cool AF. I love Bojack Horseman too!
I went to the stock market today. I did a business.
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