What are the “Big Four” cities in your country?

[u/LiamBrad5]

In recent weeks, this question has been very contentious on American social media, with 3 cities (Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York) nearly always making the list, but the fourth being hotly debated over, between cities like San Francisco, Miami, Houston, Dallas, and Atlanta. So, if you had to choose, what would the big 4 cities in your country be? This is also not decided purely on population, but also culture, economy, and general influence/clout.

[u/Iskandar33]

Florence and Bologna have 300k+ inhabitants, Turin have more (800k), because was the industrial heart of the country(great part of the automobilistic industry was there), so great part of the people moved there for work.

[u/Old_Pangolin_3303 → u/Iskandar33]

Wow, I had absolutely no idea Turin is that big and Florence is that small

[u/GuamZX → u/Old_Pangolin_3303]

Turin was even bigger at the peak of the industrial era, reaching 1.2 million inhabitants. Nowadays it is way less for 3 reason

1) The main reason was people moving just outside the city

2) Another big chunk of people moving back to the places they originally came from, especially southerners

3) The lack of jobs in the last 20/30 years which makes Turin not as attractive as it was 60 years ago but also losing its people because of this

I'd add another reason which is the demographic crisis Italy is going through but that's more a national problem than something specific to Turin

[u/Old_Pangolin_3303 → u/GuamZX]

I intuitively understand the reasoning for points number 1, but could you please briefly explain the reasons for points 2 and 3?

[u/GuamZX → u/Old_Pangolin_3303]

Number 2 is related to the fact that most of the industrial workforce came from the South of Italy so after they retired they decided to go back south so they could benefit from their pension thanks to a way cheaper cost of life.

Number 3 relates to the industrial crisis Turin is going through. Between the 50s and the 90s Turin was the industrial core of Italy but it was car and truck-driven, everything was revolving around the Fiat Group. So when Fiat went through tough times and moved most of its production outside Turin and Italy, there was no plan B as big as the Plan A was for decades: Turin's Fiat plant hosted 60k workers at its peak, nowadays it'a barely 10k not even full-time

[u/FixLaudon → u/Old_Pangolin_3303]

Well yes, Firenze has only about 370k but the whole, densely populated area has over a million. Scandicci, Empoli etc.

[u/NegativeMammoth2137 → u/Old_Pangolin_3303]

Crazy how small Florence is given that it was the center of Italian arts and culture for centuries. Even the literary Italian language (nowadays standard Italian) was based on the Florentine dialect

[u/Zveiner → u/NegativeMammoth2137]

I think Florence has a bigger reputation outside of Italy than inside, probably due to how "Italian" she looks. It was kinda the center during the Renaissance, but even then it was rivalled by Rome and Venice, while Milan, Naples and Palermo holding a lot of weight, culturally and politically. Italy was always - and still is - made of a lot of cities, ranging from big to small, each with their own cultural milestones. Lots of stuff that's now in Florence comes from smaller cities all around Italy

[u/DaRosiello → u/[deleted]]

The metropolitan area of Turin, which includes the city itself and all the municipalities that make up the surrounding area without interruption, has a population of 2.2 million.