How do you actually define when someone says they live near?

The German cities have a relatively well-developed public transport network. All that is within this connection, I would still define it with “near”. For example, Lüneburg is still part of the local transport network of Hamburg, of course Lübeck is not. What a “Bessserwisser” wrote to me yesterday that Lübeck would also have to be counted.

In Hanover, the local transport network extends to the Steinhuder Meer in the north and to the Deister in the south. Since the closest cities were all marginalized, I would take it with a non-local person to the more detailed description, Celle and Hildesheim. Braunschweig is well known that I would call it an independent city, because who knows Hanover, who usually knows Braunschweig. Although Celle and Hildesheim are also relatively large, they are so close that they were previously even approached by the tram that had their endpoints there.