I'm lucky, in that I've never lived in a big city or one like this one.
When I grew up, even though Kansas City was considered "the big city" to people who lived in say Wichita, St. Joseph, Topeka, KS, or other smaller towns but we never felt that it was a "big city" as we were located in neighborhoods where we all walked to school and rode the bus to "Downtown" to shop and always had a "small neighborhood" feel.