Why does it seem windier in a city?
by 
Ed the Jetpacking Headbanger
ANSWERS: 7
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It sometimes is, due to the placement of buildings and the air currents that move around them. +5
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Windier in a city??? There is no way that it could. Over here the winds are worse in the country side than in the city.
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like Mensan said, the blgds cause the wind to intenify. Chicago get it's name honestly as the wind off the lake plus the blgds makes it very windy. +5
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Windier than where? In a forest you have trees that shelter the ground level from the wind, but if it's the ocean or a wide open plain you can get very strong winds due to not having any obstructions. On the other hand at clifftops you can get very strong winds pointing straight up (but careful, they can also shift suddenly and push you off the edge instead). In cities you mainly get streets which funnel winds into a strong parallel stream.
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It doesn't just seem so. It is so. Wind can gather velocity when it is deflected and concentrated as by large buildings in a city. The same is true in the mountains or in canyons. If you have ever lived in a two story house, you know what opening all the windows can do. You can feel the draft all over the house even if it is pretty calm outside.
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I live in a town notorious for the gale force winds that sometimes whistle through the shopping precinct. It is due to the placement of various high buildings, and the channeling of the air flow.
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Ed, had to make a second post here as the site would not take this long winded answer. Please disregard the pun...loll Presumably all the air upstream air that is moving to cross the plane of the building goes somewhere. So you have the same mass of air crossing a plane (perpendicular to the original flow) that includes the building as you have crossing an upstream plane. So either some of the air must be compressed as it crosses the building plane, or it must move faster. I know of no case where there is significant average compression, therefore the air mostly moves faster - though there will doubtless be regions (even in the plane of the building) where it is slower. If the wind is sufficiently slow that viscosity is more important near the building than momentum, then I expect the wind would indeed be slower immediately by the building. But it would still be faster on average in the environs of the building than elsewhere.
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