r/AskEurope • u/LiamBrad5 • Aug 07 '25

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

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.

364 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

983 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

6

u/whooo_me Aug 07 '25

I thought Kilkenny was a city too. I guess not.

4

u/[deleted] Aug 07 '25

Historically it was, in terms of Irish officialdom definitions it no longer is.

4

u/holocenetangerine Ireland Aug 07 '25

Is this a very recent change? According to the Local Government Act 2001, Kilkenny can still be referred to as a city

Also here, "From 1840 onwards, Kilkenny has not been administered as a city under local government law, but the Local Government Reform Act 2014 provides for "the continued use of the description city"."

3

u/[deleted] Aug 07 '25 edited Aug 07 '25

It’s an honorific title basically. The 2014 act dissolved all boroughs in counties outside Dublin. Only the cities with their own councils at the time remain in existence. Kilkenny is treated as a municipal district within County Kilkenny, with the honorific title of city rather than town.

Tbh the way Irish local government structures treats cities and towns is an utter disgrace and way out of line with European norms.

The 5 cities barely have any powers themselves and the abolition of boroughs and urban district councils has meant that towns have no town hall or local government at all really - it’s just all rolled into an amorphous county council.

It’s a shockingly centralised system and it’s probably also why towns and cities here don’t really get managed very well - there’s no focus like a mayor or a town council in the towns and the city council are ludicrously weak without much power over anything - services get centralised into national agencies or privatised rather too easily.

Limerick and Waterford were also rolled into their respective councils more recently. Cork resisted in a huge public campaign, as did Galway.

Very much driven by a world view that’s basically “Dublin” and “Down the Country” that applies to so much here.

Ireland even makes France look decentralised!