A city of a *billion* people. **Oh Hell No.**
Modern cities are the of their very nature dysfunctional communities. I live in a small one with only 2.3 million people and I would go back to a small town like the one I grew up in instantly if economics allowed.
This country bumkin likes places where people actually know their neighbors.
@elizabeth I regret to say that I've never made it to any of those cities. The metro areas I've lived in (SF Bay, LA, Sacramento, Bakersfield) all had this culture where people drove into their garages and never actually had anything to do with the people living around them. I can't speak from as much experience, but friends in New York, Chicago, Seattle, Denver, Washington DC. Tell the same story. Everyone is a stranger and no one is a friend you have not met yet. There are just too many people and no one take the time to connect with anyone else because why waist the emotional energy on someone when there are so so so many.
@antares it's my experience that this really is more of an American, car-oriented thing.
@antares that's what neighborhoods are
See, e.g., Barcelona, New Orleans, Paris