City typically implies centralized infrastructure/services combined with some sort of defined role (political or other) within the area above the rural settings.  

I cannot imagine a scenario where Berlin would not be considered a city.  I believe you've created a romanticized view of the term city which only applies as you see fit.

You need to break out your brain a little more and realize there are a lot more and older cities in the world and not just your narrow examples of few European and New York. Otherwise you'll never learn.

Sometimes Wikipedia is your homeboy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...

What defines a neighborhood? Figure this out first then expand.

Some of it is just about government structure.  Virginia is home to 38 independent cities.  This isn't about size so much as their lack of a connection to a county. The state has a unique constitution that allows for this.  The smallest city in the state has less than 4000 people.  

hahhaha why are people here so passive aggressive? I wasn't looking for a literal definition nor zoning as in legal terms. come on, wikipedia? really? I'm not an architecture student writing my school work. I was asking how YOU would define a city. Because apparently, there are several ways city can be seen including some well known 'terms' like metropolitan areas, urban areas, etc 

Yes, by definition, Berlin is a city. But still, if I were to analyze Berlin, I wouldn't necessarily compare it to other cities I have listed above (london, ny, tokyo etc) Maybe some of you would, and I'm asking in which perspective you would, not to find answers just to listen to different thoughts. and maybe it does have something to do with my 'romanticized' image of a city because that's what I'm asking. Unless I'm in the totally wrong place to question this, I know legal term, I have fingers to google-how pathetic. 

-berliner here, so Berlin was just an EXAMPLE

what defines a city is its psychiatrists per square mile ratio.

Some combination of population density and supporting infrastructure - beyond that I think you are looking for a philosophical statement about urbanity that will inevitably lead to a lot of navel gazing.

Once you're over a few million people it's no longer a city, it's a super-city. (Or perhaps a more derogatory term...) Cities have been around a long time. They are bigger than a town or village. New York, Paris, and Tokyo are in a different class altogether. That's my opinion anyway, having lived in small and mid-sized cities. 

If you can't hail a cab from your front door, you're not in a city... is what I used to say.  Now Uber has changed that point of view.

I’d say a city is a network of different typologies - residential, retail, business, cultural institutions, financial, industry, etc.  

Is Toronto a city?

Was Dresden a city after the Allied bombing? Don't forget: 'Ornament is a crime!'

Fascinating question - but maybe the answers are not what are interesting, but the starts of discussions it might engender. Look up Jane Jacobs the Economy of Cities for an ur-definition (a place for trade) or Mumford. For me, a city is a place with a tram system ;-) 

Hi Helsinki!

For me a city is a municipality with economic, cultural and political dominance over a surrounding area of suburbs and countryside. Las Vegas, Chicago, New York and Portland are cities in my view, Springfield, IL, Eugene, Newark NJ and small towns in the rural areas are not. the first prerequisite for a city is to be able to offer all essential services and goods within one city. This would require shops, hospitals, cultural institutions, institutions of higher learning, and entertainment venues, must have all of these before you can claim to be a city.

Over and OUT

Peter N

I was reminded recently that I once told a room of architecture students that I love the Jim Jarmusch quote about how he thinks of all the cities he's lived in as former lovers. Apparently the students were a bit scandalized. 

Cities have personalities.

A city s a legal fiction....the same way that a corporation is a "legal body". It accords the designated area certain legal protections against annexation by surrounding "cities" (and thereby loss of tax base to said "city".  Where I live, "cities" are "incorporated suburbs". They can be NOTHING BUT BEDROOM COMMUNITIES WITH NO SERVICES WHATSOEVER.  There is no need to be "self-sufficient" and, indeed, no city IS self-sufficient because it does not grow its own food, the most basic requirement of life.  Contiguous "cities" can, and do if it is economically advisable, share police, fire, and other admin services. Being a city means legally no one can mess with you.

Detroit is a place to avoid, not a place to visit or depend on for anything.  It is full of unemployment, crime, and slums. Much of Detroit is suburb-like...from it you could not walk to any city "center". The center is more like a doughnut hole...abandoned and being reclaimed by weeds and wildlife. But when you say Detroit, everyone knows where that is on a map, unlike if you gave your home address as a suburb name.  If you tell people you come from there, they ask you if you've ever seen a murder (true, happened to me as a child and I quit saying I was from Detroit by second grade, but now I say it anyway because it evokes pitbulls and people you don't want to mess with).  We are from Detroit and WE ARE LEGION.  Cut the foofaraw.  Watch your step.  Don't screw with us! If you live near a real city you know about things like guys who run up and deliberately stick their foot under your car tires so they can extort you for money because "you ran over their foot".  You know about arsonists who set rats on fire to run through a building to make it look like a natural fire. You've been robbed while in your car at a stop light.  You've given the finger to a guy who won't let you merge onto the freeway and had him chase you perhaps to ram your car (but you were faster and escaped).  You are not a citizen but a denizen.  And I only live in the burbs.  You might hear about a fictional city called Detroit from someone else...someone who wants your tourist dollars or someone who has money invested there or maybe from an architect(!) I'll bet all major cities have these ills although Detroit has the REPUTATION and we might as well make it work for us! (I have been to many other cities in U.S. and Europe and certainly encountered crime and decay there too). Calvin (mentioned above) says one likes a city because of the questions it answers for you about how you should live.  I don't believe any one "likes" Detroit.  But we live with it and if it doesn't kill you it makes you stronger!

It's an odd question...

In my head, when I picture a "city", it is something with multiple highrise buildings and probably a population over 300k.  But the reality is something all together different; It's basically a legal type term having more to do with elected bodies, powers and duties.  My suburb is technically a "City"...  but it doesn't feel like it should be and I know even smaller ones that don't even have an official 'City Hall' as much as it is a leased office within a small commercial office building...

What is a city?  Take Los Angeles, from a town to an international city-a model of current city with population from least to the greater of increasing booming humanism in the future.  A city depend on the civilization on whose life began into a built structural buildings of simple construction.  Some degree; city can be extreme at taller in form than others at wider ranges.  Buffalo was a city where Buffalo Indians traded, ate, raised families, and build their tepees and log houses.  Buffalo by civilization was the oldest city in America before the formation of USA.  The thought of New York City is built by different human interactions by immigration and emigrants from distant countries.  A city is an architectural fixation of documented buildings with addresses on the grid to the mapping which extract the wholeness of a greater town; thus called a city.