well, i dunno how it is to live in a small city
but then i think when you live on a big city you kinda limit yourself to some areas. i can't go to the east or north without getting lost (which equals to 70% of the city). anyways they're pretty much residential areas and my friends live in the south or near downtown. the bad part is that it's nearly impossible to ride a bike anywhere because of the nasty hills and big distances between stuff, so we gotta rely on cars or the bad public transport system. my girlfriend lives in the same neighborhood as me and it's a 20 minute walk to get there.
in cities like mine there isn't much natural beauty to look at, only at the parks
but then we have a interesting mix of architecture styles
sometimes i go to são paulo, biggest city in brazil and like 4th or 5th biggest in the whole world, 20 million people in the metropolitan area. and it's overwhelming and uber fun, there's too much to see there.