“I’m a big city guy,” a colleague said. “But I have no interest in moving St. Louis because it isn’t a real city.”
This was the first time I heard that North American cities can be subdivided into real and not real ones. The real cities are the ones whose inhabitants have not moved out to the suburbs and continue to live their lives in the city. They sleep, eat, work, and do everything in the city and only visit the suburbs if they have a specific goal.
The not real cities are the ones that people only visit if they have a specific goal: working at one of the downtown offices, watching a baseball game or a music show, etc. Otherwise, the city just stands empty.
According to this classification, the real cities include Montreal, San Francisco, New York, Philadelphia, and since quite recently Toronto.
The not real cities are St. Louis, Phoenix, and Detroit.
Which other real and not real cities do you know in North America?
Clarissa's Blog 
Seattle is a real city, Philly is not. I would argue that Boston is not a real city, but some disagree with me on that.
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I’ve never been to Boston, so I can’t say but Philadelphia was very animated and had many people both times I visited.
Was that an illusion? Are the people normally not there?
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When I went it was deserted on a weeknight! There are lots of tourists for the historical things, but not many people actually live in the city.
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When housing is expensive in central cities, those central cities are emptying. Montreal begins to empty right now because of it.
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In Montreal the not-so-central areas are getting insanely expensive. Take Bois Franc. Who buys all those insanely ugly houses for up to 2 million $$?
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I live in St. Louis. WHY DIDN’T ANYONE TELL ME IT WASN’T REAL!?!? It’s real as f$&k. What it isn’t is super cutting edge urbane. Also it’s quite pedestrian-unfriendly. And also it’s cheap. What it isn’t is San Francisco, for better and worse. It also has an albeit small community of insufferable holier than thou yuppie snobs, so your friend might fit right in.
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I’m like a broken record on this subject but STL is always empty. And I find that disturbing. I could like the city if only it weren’t always empty.
Of course, the STL suburbs are always empty, too. I don’t know what it is that people in this area do inside all the time. Back in Montreal, crowds if people are always outside even when it’s 20 degrees below freezing.
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The STL suburbs make me SO depressed. Not only are they empty, but they are (largely) full of either active or passive racists. The County siphons off all the local money, and the City starves (and is a ghost town, like you say). Did you know that the highest mileage driven per capita in the US is in St. Louis County–more than Orange County, CA! More than San Bernadino County, CA, the “inland empire”. AMAZING. We use our car once a week to go to Trader Joe’s in Brentwood.
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“Not only are they empty, but they are (largely) full of either active or passive racists.”
– All of the efforts to brink Metrolink to my town are thwarted by idiots who are afraid that “city people” will inundate the town. It took me a while to understand who these city people were supposed to be and why it was so important to keep them away. Simply disgusting. People would deprive themselves of a comfort just because they need to hold on to these racist beliefs.
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yes, because if there’s anything “city people” love doing, it’s coming to suburbia where there’s nothing to do. the Riverfront Times ran a piece about 5 years ago about how Metrolink ruined the Galleria (because BLACK KIDS WHO AREN’T RICH dare LOOK at the CARTIER), and I was so livid I wrote a letter to the editor (that didn’t get printed, probably b/c I’m Not From Here).
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There is a trendy area slightly west of the downtown St. Louis business district in the old shoe factory district on Washington and Market to Washington and 18th St. The old factories were converted to loft apartments and the street level is full of restaurants and bars. I think that the main occupants are young professionals without school age children. The inadequate school system is a big minus to central city living., and this is true even in the “real” cities. NYC is famous for having large numbers of private schools, with intense competition to get into the “best” pre-schools(?).
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