What does it take to truly feel like a Londoner, New Yorker, Melburnian, Mumbaikar, or Lagosian? According to the International Organisation for Migration, more than 3 million people move to cities every week. That’s a lot of people settling in to a new urban home. Adapting to a new city can be tricky: learning the routines, the peculiarities, and the customs – whether that’s finding the quickest transport links, greeting people on the street or finding the cafe that serves perfect coffee.
Making a new city your home means finding out and experiencing all the best and the worst things about life there. Sometimes, it’s the small things that really make you feel like you belong. It could be the habit of sliding the sole of your shoe over the same manhole cover on the same street in Toronto, as Shawn Micallef writes.
What are the particular urban experiences that make you feel at home in your city? Can you remember the moment you knew that a place once so alien had become entirely familiar? Wherever you are in the world, share your story using the form below and a selection will be published on Guardian Cities.
