quicko: city of residence

When people say they're from "Chicago" or "New York" or "Cincinnati," they rarely mean it. What they actually mean is, "I live in a city within 60 minutes of Cincinnati, but Cincinnati's the only you've got a hope of having heard of so why bother saying 'West Chester'?"

When people say they're from Sydney, they mean it.

Maybe they live 30 or even 60 minutes away from the city center, but they really still do live in Sydney. Sure, it's a suburb, but their suburbs are really more like districts of a larger city. Sure, they get their own convenience stores and maybe a post code, but not much more. The people still work in the city and catch its buses. They still really live in Sydney.

I'm not sure if that quite makes sense until you live it, but it actually does . Perhaps it's also worth noting that relatively few people live in the heart of Sydney. It's mostly office buildings as opposed to residences, though there are some. And some exceptionally overcrowded high rises.

But everyone really lives in the "suburbs" of Sydney. It's weird. But true.