Wide context

Complete PICLE corpus of essays by Polish advanced EFL students (330,000)

Town dwellers do not see all those bad sides of any world megalopolis: people queueing outside post offices and benefit offices, beggars, plastic bags full of rubbish everywhere, tatty goods in the shops. In a city with tens of thousands of homeless people, and as many brand new cars, the contrast between private wealth and public poverty is much greater than in a town. Furthermore, one feels much safer in a county town, where you know all your neighbours for a number of years, than in a big anonymous city full of drunkards, drug addicts, criminals and all sorts of disreputable places.