Cities

Cities make for rich classroom discussions because students usually have strong opinions about urban life. These questions cover practical topics like transportation and housing alongside bigger issues like urban planning and what makes a city livable.

Questions are organized by level from beginner to advanced. A printable PDF of all the questions is available at the bottom of the page.

Beginner (A1-A2)

1. What city would you like to visit? What would you want to see or do there?
2. What city is best known for fashion? Why do you think so?
3. What city is best known for technology? Why do you think so?
4. What city is the most popular tourist destination? What makes it so popular?
5. What is your favorite neighborhood in your city? What makes it special?
6. Where is the biggest city you have ever been to? Tell me about it.
7. Where do you go when you want to relax in your city? (A park, a cafe, a river, etc.) How often do you go there?
8. What kind of food can you find in your city? What’s your favorite place to eat?
9. Where do people in your city like to meet friends? (Cafes, parks, malls, etc.)
10. What do people in your city do on weekends? What about you?

Elementary (A2)

1. What are some of the most famous cities in the world? What makes them famous?
2. What can you do in a big city that you can’t do in a small town?
3. What’s the noisiest part of your city? Do you avoid it or do you like the energy?
4. What is the most beautiful city you know? What makes it so beautiful?
5. Have you ever gotten lost in a city? What happened?
6. Have you ever been to a city where you didn’t speak the language? How did you communicate?
7. What city has the best food in your opinion? What did you eat there?
8. Have you ever visited a city during a big festival or event? What was it like?
9. Have you ever visited a city that surprised you? What was different about it?
10. What’s the best market or shopping area in your city? Why do people like it?

Intermediate (B1)

1. Do you like cities or the countryside? Which is better and why?
2. You can make one change to your country’s capital city, what will you change?
3. Do you think that we will still live in cities 100 years from now? Why or why not?
4. What makes a city great to live in?
5. Do you like walking around cities or do you prefer to use buses and trains? What’s good about each?
6. Do you prefer cities near the ocean or cities in the mountains? Why?
7. Is your city a good place for young people? Why?
8. Do you think your city is safe? Why?
9. What types of buildings do you see most often in your city? Why do you think that is?
10. Should cities ban cars from the city center? Why or why not?
11. Do you think modern cities are becoming too similar to each other? How so?
12. Do you like cities with tall buildings or cities with older, historic buildings? What’s good about each?
13. If you could design your own perfect city, what three things would you include? Why?
14. Do you think living in a big city changes people’s personalities? How so?
15. Are expensive apartments in city centers worth the money? When are they worth it?
16. If you could live in any city in the world, which one would you choose? What’s so appealing about it?
17. How has your city changed in the last ten years? Is it changing for the better?
18. If a friend from another country was visiting your city, what would you tell them to avoid? Why?

Upper-Intermediate (B2)

1. Why do you think that humans started living in cities?
2. How do you think cities will change in the future?
3. Are cities good for the environment or bad for the environment? What makes you think so?
4. What makes a city feel safe or unsafe? Is it common in your culture or country to worry about safety in cities?
5. How does the design of a city affect the way people interact with each other? Think about parks, sidewalks, and public spaces.
6. What are the advantages and disadvantages of cities becoming more international and multicultural?
7. Compare how cities in different parts of the world are designed. What factors influence those differences?
8. How do high housing costs in cities affect young people’s life choices? How often have you or your friends faced this issue?
9. How has remote work changed what people want from cities? Is it different in your city or country?
10. How do social media and online reviews change the way people experience and choose cities to visit?
11. Compare how people find housing in big cities today versus a generation ago. What has changed and why?
12. Why do some cities attract creative people, such as artists, musicians, and writers, while others don’t? What makes the difference?
13. How do major international events, like the Olympics or a World Cup, change a city in the long run? Are those changes mostly positive?
14. In many countries, young people are leaving small towns and moving to big cities. What’s driving this trend, and what happens to the places they leave behind?
15. Car-free zones, bike lanes, and pedestrian streets are becoming more common, but they often face fierce opposition from drivers and business owners. Why is redesigning city streets so politically difficult?

Advanced (C1)

1. When a city builds new luxury apartments in a poorer neighborhood, it often raises prices and pushes out the people who already live there. Is this an unavoidable side effect of progress, or is it something cities should actively prevent?
2. Cities spend millions on iconic buildings and skylines, but many residents struggle with basic housing. How should a city balance its image with the everyday needs of its people?
3. How do cities simultaneously create anonymity and community? What drives people toward each?
4. Many cities are installing cameras and using data to make streets safer and traffic smoother. At what point does a ‘smart city’ start feeling more like a surveillance state?
5. How does the concentration of wealth and poverty in the same city shape political tensions and social movements?
6. When cities tear down old buildings to make way for modern ones, they gain efficiency but lose history. How do you decide what’s worth saving and what should go?
7. Big cities often claim to celebrate diversity, but neighborhoods tend to be divided along lines of income, ethnicity, or religion. What keeps cities segregated even when no one is officially enforcing it?
8. Tourism brings money into cities but can also change them beyond recognition. At what point does a city stop being a real place where people live and become more of a theme park for visitors?
9. What happens to local culture and language when a city becomes a global hub? Is that change inevitable or preventable?
10. Street vendors, food trucks, and informal markets are part of what makes a city feel alive, but cities keep trying to regulate or remove them. Why do cities struggle to make room for the things that give them character?
11. When a city’s main industry collapses, a factory closes, a mine shuts down, or tourism dries up, the city doesn’t just lose jobs. It loses its identity. How does a city reinvent itself when the thing it was known for disappears?

PDF: Download a PDF of all the questions