[microtonal]

Smaller cities present issues in Germany (and Europe as a whole) for a multitude of reasons, for example healthcare[0], reliable bandwidth, older populations[1], etc.

Well, Nentershausen is very small ;). We had weekends with friends in Nentershausen for a couple of years. It's a village, not a city.

I was more thinking along the lines of (random Dutch/German university cities): Heidelberg, Tübingen, Ulm, Erlangen, Nürnberg, Nijmegen, Groningen, Leiden, etc.

[ido]

I've had good experience in the outskirts of Berlin.

It's a big city but it's so spread out that living in one of the outlying districts can be like living in a small town near a big city (in many ways Berlin feels more like an agglomeration of many smaller cities than e.g. Vienna).

It's also (still) a relatively affordable city, especially outside the central districts.