the metropolitan type of man

For studio at the beginning of this semester, we were asked to conceptualize the city as it's smallest, most basic entity - one person proposed an idea that a city is a place where a person can be a stranger, anonymous. Are things in the city as Simmel says? Is the city a place where 'intellect' reigns over 'depths of personality', where quality and individuality is reduced to the question 'how much'?