“where are you from and what is a city?”

Defining a city is much more complex than you realize until you’re asked what it really means. The question “where are you from” should be a fairly simple answer, however it’s very interesting as to how this answer can change based on who you’re talking to or where you are. Originally, I’m from Dorchester which is a small town outside of London with a population of about 9,000 people. This is where I think of as being from since I lived most of my life there, however it’s interesting to me how I often automatically say I’m from London (to avoid the ‘Dorchester is a small town outside of London’ explanation) or if I’m travelling in another country I just say I’m from Toronto.

I think these interesting little caveats to the question “where are you from” help to understand what we see as a city and how cities often have different kinds of classifications depending on the familiarity with the area. To me, I imagine cities as being densely populated areas with no real limitations on how many people are in that area but I can often see how cities might be defined as both densely populated and with a large number of people. This likely has to do with the visibility of the city, where large cities such as Toronto are likely going to be known in other countries and smaller cities such as London and Dorchester probably won’t be known. This brings up an important consideration in challenging ourselves to think of how cities function and different policy problems that arise based on size. At the end of the day they all face urban policy issues however the scales of these issues and the policy resources available may vary drastically, but I feel it is important to consider all sizes of cities in developing urban policy.