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#Post#: 16952--------------------------------------------------
Relative size
By: Alharacas Date: June 17, 2019, 7:14 am
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Nope, nothing naughty here. Instead, another learner-friendly
thread (or so I hope).
I was wondering - what do you mean when you say "a small town"?
Yesterday, I was chatting to a young Iranian, asking her about
cities and towns in Iran. She said Rasht was a small town, even
though over half a million people live there! To us, that's a
city.
A small town in Germany has between 3000 and 10000 inhabitants,
I'd say.
Side note: I asked the young lady whether the German version of
a small town would be considered a village in Iran. She replied
she'd never been to any place that small. I found that quite
surprising. And yes, I did make sure there hadn't been any
language related misunderstanding.
#Post#: 16953--------------------------------------------------
Re: Relative size
By: Susan Date: June 17, 2019, 7:46 am
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My definition of a small town is similar to yours. I also had a
puzzling experience with one of my teachers from San Cristobal,
Venezuela who said he came from a small city-- only about
600,000 people. I always think of my city of 450,000 people as
a medium-large city (it is, just barely, in the top 100 most
populace areas of the U.S.)
Then when I went to see just what the population is, apparently
either the statistics are bad or San Christobal has been
affected by the flight out of Venezuela even more than most of
their cities. The first thing I found on Google said 282,350 in
2015.
HTML https://www.google.com/search?q=poblacion+de+san+cristobal+venezuela&oq=poblacion+de+san+cristobal+venezuela&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i59j0.7672j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8<br
/> That is so much lower than what he said that I checked furthe
r.
Apparently in 2010 they did had 645,925
HTML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Crist%C3%B3bal,_T%C3%A1chira.
If you believed those statistics, the city lost half its size
in five years, even before the worst of the crisis hit in
Venezuela.
#Post#: 16954--------------------------------------------------
Re: Relative size
By: MartinSR Date: June 17, 2019, 7:53 am
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I was raised in a town which has about 100 000 inhabitants, now
I live in a town having twice more, while our regional capital
has about 300 000. Al these I would call 'middle-sized'.
Everything smaller I call small, and bigger- big. Though even
our country capital - Warsaw (about 1 800 000) I wouldn't call
'very big', because I saw bigger ones.
So it depends on the private experience of every person.
What is interesting about Polish towns:
When the town has about 100 thousand inhabitants or more its
mayor is called "prezydent" like the one of the whole country.
But if it is smaller - the person in charge is called
"burmistrz" (German: Bürgermeister).
#Post#: 16955--------------------------------------------------
Re: Relative size
By: NealC Date: June 17, 2019, 8:02 am
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In the US we really don't have 'Villages", so what to call small
towns with less than 3000 residents (your definition) escapes
me. Villages are a European thing, thatched or sod roofs are a
plus.
#Post#: 16956--------------------------------------------------
Re: Relative size
By: Truman Overby Date: June 17, 2019, 8:23 am
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[quote author=NealC link=topic=1163.msg16955#msg16955
date=1560776570]
In the US we really don't have 'Villages", so what to call small
towns with less than 3000 residents (your definition) escapes
me. Villages are a European thing, thatched or sod roofs are a
plus.
[/quote]
You have hamlets in New York state, right Neal? My town's
central business district and the old, original housing area is
known as the 'village.' This is more of a marketing term,
though, since we're really a town. People always quiz each other
whether or not they live 'in the village.'
I'm pretty sure that the US has areas that are legally villages.
It's rare, but I think that we have them.
#Post#: 16957--------------------------------------------------
Re: Relative size
By: Nikola Date: June 17, 2019, 9:05 am
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To me 500 000 people is definitely not a small town. We have
Prague (over one million) so that's a city. The two next biggest
cities are 300 000+ and I'm never too sure if I should still
refer to them as cities, small cities maybe. Then there are
quite a few around 100 000, those are towns to me. Decent size
but towns. Mind you, we don't differentiate between city and
town in Czech, everything is "město" so I have to use my
English brain to make that judgement. I noticed that places with
3000 residents are still called "město" but I see them as
villages. It may be that people from small countries tend to
downplay the size because they don't want to hear "What? You
call that a city?"
#Post#: 16958--------------------------------------------------
Re: Relative size
By: MartinSR Date: June 17, 2019, 9:28 am
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[quote author=Nikola link=topic=1163.msg16957#msg16957]
...
Mind you, we don't differentiate between city and town in Czech,
everything is "město" so I have to use my English brain to
make that judgement.
...
[/quote]
We have the same - everything is called "miasto" except for
villages which have no 'town rights'. The small one (less than
10000) can be called "miasteczko" but only unofficially. The
famous US TV series was called "Miasteczko Twin Peaks" here.
I try not to use the word 'city' at all. Being in the UK for a
few weeks, I once said to my host 'I've been in the city today'
meaning the town center. She replied 'Oh. So you managed to
travel to London and back today?'. This way I got to know there
is ONLY ONE city for the people in Britain.
#Post#: 16959--------------------------------------------------
Re: Relative size
By: NealC Date: June 17, 2019, 9:35 am
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We have 'Villages" as a legal term -- for instance I live in the
Town of "X", that Town is made up of several villages, I live in
village x. But that is all government terms, we really wouldn't
point to any small town on the map and call it a "Village". I
can't even get over it in my head. A village is where Grimm's
Fairy tales takes place.
#Post#: 16961--------------------------------------------------
Re: Relative size
By: Susan Date: June 17, 2019, 1:01 pm
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There is a movement in the U.S. called ¨the Village movement¨
which is a model of change in service delivery to promote
community services for aging seniors to stay in their community.
It is growing, and if it continues to grow at this pace
¨village¨ might take on another meaning in the U.S. Apparently
the model is to develop ¨villages¨ (networks of seniors and
assistants) at a grass roots level to promote a better support
system of older adults (what they call ¨their own aging in place
initiatives). These¨villages¨ would be networks within cities,
instead of traditional villages. Time will tell if the word
¨village¨ will start to be used more in the metaphorical sense
than the literal, traditional sense of ¨very small town.¨ In the
model, it is more like a network community within a bigger city.
This site tells about it and you can see where these ¨villages¨
have been established in the U.S.- large towns and many cities.
HTML https://www.vtvnetwork.org/content.aspx?page_id=22&club_id=691012&module_id=248579&sl=1281310776<br
/>
#Post#: 16962--------------------------------------------------
Re: Relative size
By: SHL Date: June 17, 2019, 3:51 pm
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The town I live in has around 100,000 people, but unlike Jerry
might assume, it‘s not one of those Silicon Valley cities like
Mountain View, hosting Google, Yahoo, Quora and all the other
big internet firms, which is where all the rich people live,
south of San Francisco (actually many of the rich people ruined
San Francisco by buying up the real estate there for millions
and taking buses Google supplies for its workers).
There are two other towns in my County, also with about 100,000
people each, both of which are sort of dumps (mine is the best
of the three). So together, we have the population of Iceland,
which is hard to believe. My office and the County Seat where
the courthouse is, is 20km away from where I live, and it‘s
nothing to rave about. A lot of people living out of shopping
carts or god-knows where.
Last week I was with a client, and this homeless woman wandered
into my office. Fortunately, we have a reception area and door
separating our offices from the waiting area (I rent an office
from another lawyer). I was in the middle of a meeting with a
client so I had to interrupt it to see what this, ahem, person
wanted. She came in sort of babbling and talking to herself and
I couldn’t really understand what she said. She said something
about ordering a pizza and I told her this was a law office so
we weren’t making pizzas here. Then she turned around mumbling
something and wandered out the door. After she left I quickly
locked the door. What a neighborhood. Daytime is okay, but who
knows what it‘s like after dark.
So Jerry, this is the life of your average lawyer! Consider
yourself lucky to be doing something else.
So, working in a town of ....no offense intended..... but
„undesirables“ takes some getting used to (and don’t get me
wrong. I am NOT referring to ethnicity, national origin, color
or anything like that. I am only referring to the homeless,
jobless, shopping cart types, probably mentally disturbed folks
with cardboard signs).
Anyway, the town I stay most in in Germany has 8,000 people
HTML https://www.neustadtanderorla.de/
A Kleinstadt, according to Wikipedia.de has a population of
5,000-20,000. So, I guess that’s how they’d classify Neustadt.
(Neunhofen is actually where my friends live. Neustadt has a
great slideshow of the town and surrounding area, and we aren‘t
far from the church shown in the slide of Neunhofen.)
When I worked in Braunschweig in 1980, I lived about 15km away
(going west) in this little place called Denstorf. I don’t think
it had it‘s own post office so the town postal address was
technically Denstorf/Vechelde, with the postal code they used
back in those days (they are all different now). Vechelde was a
larger town not far away. The couple I stayed with and rented a
room always referred to Denstorf as a „Puppsdorf“, and did so so
often I never thought anything of it. I never saw this word even
written until just a few minutes ago when I searched the
spelling online. A „Pups“ is a fart, so I guess you might say
Densdorf was a „fart-town.“
Denstorf is actually a nice little place. I always drive through
it every year, and it hasn’t changed much. I guess it‘s still a
Puppsdorf, but a nice one at least. It still has one gas station
I will say.
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