People in big cities are different from the others. And they seem less happy.

Cultures die out slowly because of their inertia. (Pinxten, 1999) Countries, organisations, cities, villages or small groups that face an important influx of 'otherness' whether otherpeople, other ideas or other objects will need an important amount of time to incorporate this otherness. In a symposium that wants to analyse the dynamics and the inertia created by the increasing urbanisation, we must ask ourselves the fundamental and basic question whether this difference exists and if so, what this difference is like. In this text, we will give quantitative, statistical results of differences between cities and villages in Belgium. Although description of quantitative studies is often rather dull, the results of this study are remarkable and we therefore encourage readers not acquainted with statistics to go through the data. Even if you do not grasp the statistical language in all its details, we are sure you can still understand the argumentation and its conclusions that people in big cities are different from the others and that they seem less happy…