Top five: things I miss about city life

1. Art galleries and museums. Right there, on your doorstep. Sometime free. And the art isn't just confined to the galleries but heads out onto the street and appears in unexpected places.
2. Public transport. You can walk places, you can take the bus, or the train or the tram. You don't need a car. So much easier in so many ways and leaves you with that afterglow of being a better person than those that drive.
   
3. The sheer volume of people. There is bustle. There are so many people rushing around with their own agenda. You can just blend in and become part of a crowd. There is anonymity here.
   
4. The choice. Where do you want to shop / eat / be? What time do you want to do it? Want to get there by public transport? The city can satisfy.
   
5. Industrialisation becomes leisure. I love the canals and the docks and the warehouses and great hulking ornate buildings which at one time were purely functional, then were unnecessary and have now been transformed into the hub of city social life.

This list was inspired by my return to Liverpool yesterday. I used to live there, I know it well and yet I hardly know it at all. I like Liverpool, I always have but yesterday I felt I needed to spend more time there to get to know it now it's been made over. I want to spend more time there. In fact, I felt I could move back in a heartbeat and be happy there.
Although, if push came to shove, if the choice was either or, sorry Liverpool - I like you, but I don't love you. Another city has my heart.

*Please note: some of the things which I have listed here as being reasons that I miss city life are also the reasons I don't miss it at all.