[jltsiren]

Cities have traditionally been about two things: opportunities and freedom. For many the freedom is more important of the two. It means the freedom to be anonymous, the freedom to choose your own community, and the freedom to live your own life.

Small towns come with a default community, because everyone knows everyone. It's great if you fit in, and terrible if you don't. Many people move to cities primarily to escape that community.

[kitsunesoba]

And to some extent that freedom and opportunity scales with the size of the city.

I don't think I've ever felt as liberated as I did while living in Tokyo, where everybody is a number and if you want to check out for a bit and steer clear of your usual circles, it's easy to do so. At the same time though, for practically anything I could possibly imagine wanting to do, there were people I could seek out to do it with.