Cities are odd things, take home for instance, both Lisburn and Newry were awarded city status yet their populations (Newry 30k and Lisburn 111k though I think that is all of the district which would be c.f. 89k for Newry) differ massively. The town centres are almost certainly of a similar size and Lisburn’s closeness to Belfast probably accounts for the much higher population. Yet when you compare either of the two new cities to Crawley in England.. well you see that the population of Crawley is 100k it’s got way more facilities than either Newry or Lisburn, doesn’t list McDonalds arriving in the town as something of note and has an international airport! Yet Crawley is a town.
I’ve done nothing to answer the question of what makes a city, Crawley is a town and having lived there I’d consider it a town. People often associate cities with hussle and bussle, an active night life, a large number of jobs perhaps.. theatre, cinema, gigs, a younger population on average? Who knows, but personally I wouldn’t deem either Newry or Lisburn as cities and looking around it seems to be an aspiration of town councils every were.Â
Is Brighton and Hove a city (population 250k ish)? Probably though Sunday was the first full day I spent here and I’ve still not found a large supermarket to go and shop in. There is one a couple of miles from here according to Ian and the Tesco website which I should really go and find… time for some dinner.