Also, with regards to extra curriculars, in a big city there should be a variety of flavours of dance or music theatre available to choose from. We actually found it easier to find options with different "feels" in a bigger city. Sure you might be more likely to find the dance school full of pushy parents, but there should equally be a whole school of parents who don't want to touch that other school with a barge pole...
Are there more museums (with classes), think about the things that are easier parenting a child in a city. Moving from a highly urban area to a very suburban area was really hard for me to adjust to as a parent - for starters there was literally not ONE decent playground in walking distance, let along the 3-4 I was used to, with a handfull of AWESOME parks within a few minutes drive. When no one has yards and everyone needs to entertain their kids it can actually be easier to find ways to keep a child busy. Well that was my experience anyway.
