> My comments: Auckland, New Zealand, with about a million people, is a LOT larger than I expected it to be in contrast with U.S. cities. Sure, NYC has 7.5 times as many people, but there aren't as many other U.S. cities that are bigger than Auckland as I thought. In particular, Boston only has half a million people, and this shocked me. I knew Boston wasn't a big city by U.S. standards, but somehow I figured it must still dwarf Auckland. It certainly LOOKS like it dwarfs Auckland if you compare the two at a glance.

What that chart does not take into consideration is the amount of people living in the suburbs of the cities. Since I live in the city of Sacramento, I'll use it as an example. The city ranks at number 37 on the chart, with 406,899 people. However, there are over a million people in the "greater Sacramento area." For instance, Carmichael is a city with a population of roughly 50,000 people just to the east of Sacramento. There are a few signs that point out where Sacramento ends and where Carmichael begins, but I don't think anybody really thinks of Carmichael as a separate city--other than the "city officials" of Carmichael. I lived there for a while and if I drove three blocks west, I was suddenly in Sacramento. Nope, no difference at all. A lot of the people who live in Carmichael work in Sacramento, and I know there are also Sacramento citizens who work in Carmichael.

> I don't understand how people can stand to live in cities. If I had free reign to live anywhere, without any constraints at all, I'd find some area that's an hour away from a big city, so it's accessible, yet out in the country where there are sparse 3000-8000 people towns nestled in little valleys.

Some people around here know that I grew up in a small town. It had a population of 3,000, with an additional 1,000 in the surrounding area. Ten miles to the south is the city of Mt. Shasta, with a population of something like 4,500 (maybe more). Then 15-20 miles to the north is the city of Yreka, with about 8,000 people (maybe a couple thousand more--I'm rusty on these numbers). We really did have the small town atmosphere and mentality, so packing up and moving to Sacramento was a bit of an adjustment.

I do still get homesick for the mountains and the quiet solitude and the trees, but I think I also adapted to city life fairly easily. Yes, I get annoyed if I get stuck in traffic for too long, but I think my love of, and my fascination with, people has made the change of pace much easier. I love to see and experience new things, although I'm actually quite resistant to personal change. There are just so many interesting people in a larger city.

> When you live in an area where rush hour stops traffic dead twice a day, or where you can turn a wrong corner and not have reasonable odds of getting out alive, or where you smell exhaust instead of freshly cut grass, something's just not right.

Let's see. Yes, rush hour tends to stop traffic on the major freeways twice a day. As for turning wrong corners, I'm still alive. I tend to get lost the first time I go somewhere, and I've wound up in some questionable areas once or twice. However, I've lived to tell about it, and I've never been shot at, or come close to being shot at, as far as I know. I've been in this area for almost four years, and I haven't gotten into a car accident, either (knock on wood?). Maybe that goes back to the fact that I love to look at things. I take in a lot of information around me, so that probably has an advantage.

As for exhaust vs. freshly cut grass, does exhaust from a lawn mower in the process of cutting grass count? :-P

Ellmyruh