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A city is a place where the population is high along with the density which is usually higher than state average (depending on what state). I'd also factor in the amount of work that is available considering that most jobs are located in cities (not necessarily all major cities, but cities none the less). You could also find more commercial lots in cities, not even having to be in a downtown section.
A town is mostly residential and single family gritted, with a small downtown where everything is concentrated in one area.
I find it hard to come up with a good definition of what a town is because i know of towns that feel like one big downtown, but it's anonymous of what kind of towns we're talking about.
I will say that population isn't necessarily a factor as the smallest city in NY State is Sherrill with about 3100 people, even though there are villages that have more people. So, I think the charter or government entity has something to do with it.
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Everyone has a different opinion. People would think I live in a city in most of the country, but it's technically just a town. The population density is higher than most cities, but it's still a town. If you go upstate, some cities have a smaller population than where I live. It's all relative.
Deacon, LOL! Would rep you, but have to "spread some."
Chktg and Rachael, I'm going to guess that the OP is asking for subjective perception. You guys are talking about places officially incorporated as cities versus those incorporated as towns. A side note is that it's interesting that you're both from NY, since towns there are a different animal than they are in other states. Anyway, if you're looking totally for objective criteria there is really nothing to discuss. A city and a town are communities incorporated as such under criteria set by each state for urban places located within.
If we are talking about a subjective view, of course it's totally a matter of personal perception. People will have different senses of where the threshold between town and city lies, just as they have different feelings about what makes a big city, which of several cities looks or feels bigger than another, etc. (subjects which show up from time to time on this forum).
In a way, I think that Deacon is really onto something serious beneath the humor. Athough I suspect that there are some fairly small towns that are quite vice-ridden, generally a place that is large enough to allow some degree of anonymity will have more of the kinds of activities Deacon was associating with a city, so it makes sense to think of an abundance of vice as an indicator that you're looking at a larger urban place. Looking at other factors, I think the distinction between "town" and "city" is one of both form and function.
Function is important in the distinction between town and city, but to me (based on my personal perception) there is more to it. There are communities of, say, 15k-20k, in some cases maybe smaller, located outside of metropolitan areas or on the outer fringes of metro areas, which are the largest communities in their vicinities, and which serve as commercial and service hubs for those local areas, which on paper might seem like small cities. Places like this will have a wide variety of the kinds of businesses that serve everyday or frequent needs (banks, drugstores, supermarkets, barber shops and hairstyling salons, large and small restaurants), and usually will also have a collection of stores where people make occasional purchases (travel agencies, florists/nursuries, insurance agencies, clothing, shoes, sporting goods, books, hardware, records/discs/videos), as well as often having a number of stores and dealers that sell large, expensive items people usually keep for at least several years (furniture and appliance stores, auto dealerships).
Often one of these "local center" places will have a variety of specialty businesses (photographers' studios, art galleries, consultants in various fields). Instead of the handful of lawyers, three or four doctors, couple of dentists, and MAYBE one veterinarian a small town will have, one of these service center places will have enough such professionals so that there will be several small office buldings--the sort where you find doctors' and dentists' offices--scattered throughout town.
Outside of the downtown area, one of these local-area commercial/service centers will often have a strip of chain restaurants and motels/hotels, maybe a big-box store or two. There will also usually be little clusters of small neighborhood businesses, such as a convenience store next to a bank branch office next to a laundromat next to a gas station next to a coffee/doughnut shop or fast food place. A town or city like this will be a center of local entertainment for the surrounding area. There may be a movie theater with four or five or six screens, and a bowling alley.
The local economy clearly centers on more than a couple of assembly-line light-manufacturing factories. Instead, there may be a large industrial park, and some trucking distribution centers, warehouses, etc. This place will often be a minor transportation hub, with a bus depot, and several highways connecting within the city/town limits. As a service center, this place also is likely to have a hospital, and may have a small, non-commercial, general aviation airport.
To me, it sounds as if I've just described a small city, at least when considering only function. In fact, I know of places like this which I instead think of as "towns," unless I'm thinking in official terms related to incorporation status. You're still talking here about places with kind of small-town-looking downtowns where most buildings are two or three stories high, where traffic, even during commuting hours, is usually not much of a headache, and the general feel of the place is cozy, slow, and quiet. Form versus function. These towns function as small cities, but are more like towns in form.
That's where form comes in, form as in appearance. To me--again based on personal perception--a place starts becoming a small city rather than a town when it has the features I've described above, AND when downtown covers more than a few square blocks AND has a fairly good collection of buildings with a substantial appearance. There might or might not be a few small skyscrapers of fifteen stories or so, but there will almost certainly be a number of large older city-looking buildings of five, six, ten stories, not just the little two- and three-story buildings that characterize the downtowns of "towns."
For those of you who have slogged through this post to this point, well, something else I've thought of might sound funny at first, but it does give an idea of the amount and variety of commercial activity in a "city." It kind of relates to Deacon's description of a "city." I'm thinking about the kinds of areas on downtown fringes, often a bit seedy in appearance, where you'll find some low-brow businesses. At the back edge of downtown in a "town" there might be a couple of used car dealers, then maybe another block or two of ramshackle little buildings where you might find a pawn shop, a loan office, a used furniture store, and/or a dive bar or tiny greasy spoon eatery. In a "city," it's more likely that this fringe area will be an entire district of downtown, covering at least a few square blocks (in a small city this section might cover as much area as the entire downtown of a mid-sized town), with several used car places, a few pawn shops/loan offices/check-cashing places, at least a few cheap-eats places, a scattering of dive bars, maybe an Army-Navy store, possibly a uniform store, a few nail salons, and, yep, as Deacon suggested, possibly a couple of adult entertainment establishments.
There are a few other features I think may often distinguish a small city from a somewhat larger town. The presence of one of these might not ensure that a place is a city, and the absence of these features does not mean absolutely that the place falls short of city status, but the more of these features an urban place has, the more likely it is that you're talking about a city, maybe a small city if these features exist minimally, but still a city. A "small city" may well have minor-league sports, two or three colleges (rather than no college, or one small college that is the centerpiece of the town as you'll find in traditional small college towns), and a moderately significant transportation infrastructure, such as a decent-sized bus station, maybe large enough to warrant the presence of a snack bar in the waiting area, and a few puddle-jumper commercial flights from the airport.
It's kind of a know-it-when-you-see-it sort of thing. I've known people from rural areas who thought the local commercial/service center kinds of towns like I described early in this post were real cities. From the opposite perspective, while some people may be doing a little posturing when they describe anything short of a metropolis as a little tiny podunk town, I'm sure some people who have spent their entire lives in really big cities honestly have that perception. My perception is that a place does not have to be a major metropolis to seem like a "city." There is definitely such a place as a small city, which is clearly a city rather than a town. For a place to seem to me like a small city, that place will probably just about have to have all the features in my description of a commercial/service center larger or mid-sized town, and then will begin to cross the line into "city" territory when it starts having a few of those additional urban features like sports, a few colleges, or commercial flights from the airport.
Anyway, this is getting to be a long post. At least any of you who have read all the way through can be pretty sure you have a significant interest in urban geography. Take care all.
Interesting topic. Beyond the variation among individuals' perceptions of what constitutes a "city" versus a "town," I've long suspected that there may be some regional variation in the use of the terms.
I've often heard many Americans use "city" as a generic term for any populated locality, as it frequently is on official forms and things of that nature. "Town" is then used when the speaker wishes to specify that they are referring to a smaller locality.
As a New Englander, I find this usage rather odd, and I think most people from my region would agree with me. I find that we usually employ the opposite usage -- one would likely ask, "What town are you from?", for example (not "What city are you from?", which would be rather unusual), while the term "city" would only be used when specifying a highly populated place.
I won't attempt to qualify my perception of the differences between towns and cities (ogre already addressed a lot of potential factors ). However, if I were to quantify the difference, in my own application of the terms I tend to apply the following rule of thumb:
Population over 40,000: City
Population 20,000 - 40,000: Large town
Population 8,000 - 20,000: Medium-sized town
Population < 8,000: Small town
This scale is far from exact, but it tends to correspond more or less to my perceptions, at least in New England (other parts of the country have much different settlement patterns in terms of density, geographic size of localities, etc.).
One exception that springs to mind is Portsmouth, NH, whose population is just over 20,000 but which is commonly referred to as a "city." This is a clear case of certain qualitative characteristics overriding the quantitative definition, particularly urban density and sphere of economic / cultural importance.
I would also like to make note of the term "village," which I often use to refer to a small, clustered settlement within a town (as defined by political boundaries). "Village" and "town" are not mutually exclusive, therefore -- villages are almost always in small towns, but there may be more than one village in the same town. Village is a term that applies to a dense settlement of a certain size, akin to a "downtown" but smaller.
Technically it's just whatever the state defines as a city or town. So Hempstead, New York is a town even though it may have several hundred thousand people in all. Meanwhile Amidon, North Dakota is a city with 23 people as North Dakota deems all incorporated places to be cities. Also of potential interest is the independent city of Norton, Virginia which has a bit less than 4,000 people.
Still I'd be tempted to say that a "city" is a place that supports multiple industries, department stores, apartment buildings, public services, and elected officials. (Meaning being an elected official often/usually pays enough for it to be your sole job) Towns tend to depend on one or two industries, the vast majority of people live in houses, and being on the town council can't be a substitute for "a real job." Villages would be like towns, except solely dependent on agriculture and agribusiness. (Or sometimes aquaculture and aquabusiness ie fishing or diving)
The above population graph by Verseau also works for me more or less.
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