Cities of the world (Part 3 – The size of cities)

 “A city really, is only a means to a way of life.”  A beautiful quote, from a charismatic leader – former mayor of Bogota, Columbia, and a persistent advocate of the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), which, in a way, brings us back to the old Aesop’s fable, “The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse.”  Really, if it is retold today, it should be “The City Mouse ...” For it is in the last century and today where the city emerges as the main habitat for man.  By city I mean the urban metropolises that we now live, rather than the majestic cities of centuries past.

As in most of the realities of the real world often governed by fuzzy logic, the distinction between cities, towns, and on to the countryside is blurred.  What’s a town?  Is it the “municipality” that we call in the Philippines?  Then why do we call a certain area of the city, “downtown” and another area “uptown?”  In many Philippine cities, these do not exist but in Cebu, we all know where these are.  Is there a downtown Mandaue?  Why do we call a new development in the city, a “township?”  We have municipal halls where mayors have offices.  US Presidential candidates debate in townhalls.  Are they one and the same?

Then there’s the term “cityhood” and that notorious Supreme Court case where it flip-flopped 6 times whether to call them cities or not.  What happens when a municipality is granted cityhood?  Does it in a magical way transform itself to a new fancy place the same way computer games “level up” upon reaching a certain “numbers?”  Does one Filipino family’s life become better when the town they live in become cities?  Or does it stay the same, only the address becomes more “sosyal?”  In Aesop’s tale, the country mouse decides to return home, preferring security and simplicity to opulence, and the luster of neon lights.

How does a town (or a municipality, in the Philippines) become a city?  There are many ways depending on the jurisdiction, but in this country, it depends on population, land area, and income.  Mind you, it’s the income of the local government and not of its inhabitants.  So the bigger one jurisdiction is, the better – that seems to be the cue.  In the last few centuries, leading world cities did have big population, at least, in relation to the rest of the world.  London, New York, Tokyo, etc., were large cities.  And better and more affluent, too.  But the last century saw the emergence of cities where poverty existed with affluence, as people migrated to the cities in search of better things - a future and a hope.

A new question arose – are we really better off with the world’s megacities today, majority of which, are located in Asia? We in (Metro) Cebu pride ourselves of being a big city, “comparable” to any in the world.  But we’re just 2. 5 million people.  In China a medium-sized city is one which has at least 5 million, we’re a town by their standards.  Shanghai, the largest, has 16.5 million population.  Beijing, the great Chinese seat of power, is actually smaller at 12.5 million.  Do you know its official name? The Municipality of Beijing.  Oh well, what’s in a name.  Makati remained a “municipality” until the passage of the Local Government Code, when it became fashionable, not to mention profitable, to be a city.

A city is only a means to a way of life.  One can enjoy Tokyo, the world’s largest at 32 million, or live quietly in Vienna, which many considers the most livable, but with only a million plus.  Many of the cities in the Netherlands one wishfully dream of living in are just some hundreds of thousands.  How does one look for a livable city in the world?  Aha! – we go back to our main thesis – find one where you don’t groan and endure a fifth of your waking hours in a traffic jam!  (To be continued – “What is a street?”)