New York metro area is much more nowhere than Tokyo metro if you want to go buy sheer population in a continuous urban conglomeration.
And to me, personally, NYC is just as nowhere as Boise, Idaho. Just a bunch of people living in groups doing things they find interesting, or can't leave due to financial/family/personal reasons. You can do lots of stuff in and around Boise that the same people can't do in NYC and visa versa, depending on individual preferences.
Many folks I know get bored quickly in NYC and SF. I do. I still love NYC and SF, though. I suffer from a bit of Stockholm Syndrome ;)
I am having difficulty thinking of any group of humans living anywhere that doesn't meet this definition. The same could be said for a mining town in Siberia, or an uncontacted tribe living in the Amazon, or prisoners in a prison.
> You can do lots of stuff in and around Boise that the same people can't do in NYC and [vice] versa, depending on individual preferences.
The list of things you can do in Boise that you can't do in NYC is effectively zero if you exclude "the outdoors" as a category. For people who don't prioritize the outdoors as highly as other things in life, this makes Boise effectively nowhere by comparison.