Great Cities

Taking this out of the basketball thread so we can discuss further.

What makes a city good? What are the great cities, large and small, that you’ve visited throughout your life?

We just got finished with a trip to the UP and Marquette, MI is a cool town. Tons of access to nature, small college town vibe, a bunch of breweries, decent food, and all within a miles walk from where we stayed. Very clean streets, a mixture of old and new architecture, and not very touristy either. Lake Superior lives up to its name. Pictures Rocks, which was only an hour away, was awesome. If you rent a boat you can make your way up the coast and visit a couple beaches that were essentially private. I would definitely return!

I have a really difficult relationship with cities. On the one hand, the more densely populated and congested urban centers make me feel a little claustrophobic and hemmed in. On the other hands, the new urbanism of West Coast cities, especially Los Angeles, seems even worse because it is a transportation nightmare. Someday I'll probably find myself on the East Coast (D.C. most likely), which will hopefully be tolerable.

Maquette, MI seems to have all the qualities that I most desire in a smaller sized city. Bologna, which is where I am going to be living again very soon, has a good balance. It isn't overwhelming in size (400,000) and has a lot of nightlife activity because of the large student population. It has a ton of really great record stores and more cinema houses per capita than any other city I've ever been. It is also really well connected with the rest of Italy and Europe with both high-speed rail and its own airport. It has a lot of positives. Unfortunately though, it is landlocked. The closest beach town is Rimini, which is about a one hour car trip. The summer months are unbearably hot and the general topography isn't the nicest.

Vienna
Milwaukee
LA
Munich
Prague
NYC
Minocqua

LA ain't that great before 6 pm. Traffic is horrible and parking is ridiculous.

Yeah, I don't understand LA. I like Portland A LOT - but I moved here, so duh. NYC is great. Vienna & Prague rule and I thought Budapest was also a ton of fun. I've been to Chicago and had a great time but can't speak w/ any authority on its greatness. Going to Mexico City in February and cannot wait.

Great food in Budapest.

Just got back from Naples. I was only there for a weekend and spent most of the time in conference rooms for political meetings and talks. I've been to the city a couple of other times in the past but this was the first time that I really experienced the full effect of the central historic districts on a Friday and Saturday night. Absolutely fucking insane. I was walking around with people and there were piles of burning trash and kids who looked about 14-year-olds whipping past me on scooters and popping wheelies up these winding little streets. After the last eighteen months of relative social isolation, it was close to a sensory overload for me. The total unflinching calmness of the locals though was genuinely enamoring and hilarious.

Naples is a feral toilet.

And we were supposed to be upset that you lot wanted to leave the EU.

philadelphia is perpetually half-broken and totally psycho but it's one of my favorite cities ever. once you get past the prickly outer layer, it's a wonderful place.

i hate how much i love new york. i go there pretty often and sometimes think i should just move there.

i enjoyed my years in chicago, but i don't want to live there again. can't wait to visit, though.

i love all the big cities on the west coast, LA and portland especially.

toronto is up there and montreal is just wonderful.

I really need to visit Toronto soon. I have a stupid prejudice against that city because I have some really obnoxious extended family relatives and they have tinged my whole perception of that city a bit sour. That's dumb though.

I really love a good mid-sized European city. Bologna and Florence (both around 400,000) are ideal. I really enjoyed Brussels, which is about half the size, as a tourist. As a resident, it might be a little obnoxious. Being constantly bombarded by the technocratic experts of European officialdom is probably horrid. Although as someone who aspires to be one of them, I really can't even talk shit.

Naples (and Rome for that matter) are both incredibly chaotic and poorly planned jungles. They are both incredibly special though. Next on my list are the major Sicilian cities. I am especially interested in Palermo and Catania.

I don’t know what to think when we have Naples referred to as a feral toilet and also incredibly special.

It's a North Side/South Side thing innit?

I didn't say it was a bad place. It just has feral elements and it stinks.

I lived in Chicago for 12 years and had a great time in my youth. But, I wouldn't want to live there with a family like a lot of my friends have chosen to do.

It's really changed from the time I was there, having left in 2004.

Glad to know where you stand on the debate.

Just curious, where did you live? Honestly after living in many different parts of the city, typically before that neighborhood was gentrified, I can say I’ve never felt completely safe. You’re living in a major city that houses over a million people so the odds that you might run into a bad person are higher. Does that mean that you won’t run into a bad person in Aurora? No, but the chances are lower because Aurora has far fewer people so right from the jump your safety probability goes up. I’ve never heard of Louisville having a crime or safety problem but I’ll bet you it’s way less safe than any of the surrounding suburbs. If you live in any major city and think you don’t have to watch your back, then you’re naive.

Also, violence is up everywhere. We're going through a pretty major social upheaval, yeah things have changed since 2004.

BGwaves wrote:Glad to know where you stand on the debate.

Just curious, where did you live? Honestly after living in many different parts of the city, typically before that neighborhood was gentrified, I can say I’ve never felt completely safe. You’re living in a major city that houses over a million people so the odds that you might run into a bad person are higher. Does that mean that you won’t run into a bad person in Aurora? No, but the chances are lower because Aurora has far fewer people so right from the jump your safety probability goes up. I’ve never heard of Louisville having a crime or safety problem but I’ll bet you it’s way less safe than any of the surrounding suburbs. If you live in any major city and think you don’t have to watch your back, then you’re naive.

A smart man. You, like me, "play the percentages". Yeah, you could get car jacked in Tinley Park, but the odds are infinitely higher in Wicker Park.

- Pilsen - by far the longest
- Lakeview
- Little Italy

When I lived in the city in the 1990s it was far more dangerous than it is now. You could not walk on State Street after dark. It was like Mad Max. The 80s and 90s actually were extremely violent. I used to go to Medusa's and that area was a wasteland. Cars were regularly smashed in. There was a place called Hell House across the street full of punks and skin heads. That whole boys town area was a violent wasteland. Cabrini Green was right in the middle of the city. You would hop a bus and just drive right through ghettos. Maxwell street (my digs) was all Hispanic and African American stores, bluesman playing on street corners, people selling giant bags of socks pounding on your windows, dude selling porno DVDs all over the place. That area is like Lincoln Park now.

Like everywhere across our country the wealth disparity continues to grow.

And, is violence linked to Defund? Nope. Who controls the police? The left. What they need to do is completely revamp the school system, but Chicago has always been racist. Even Kim Foxx is racist. She lets gangs go free, where do you think they go? She doesn't care about black people.

Quebec
London

I don't get around much but I liked both of those.

John Boy Walton wrote:Who controls the police? The left.

Uh, the police control the police, and they're pretty famously reactionary.

John Boy Walton wrote:
Even Kim Foxx is racist. She lets gangs go free, where do you think they go? She doesn't care about black people.

Come on man.

I think Ottawa is underrated as a city. Amazing architecture, awesome canals with miles of ice skating during the winter, great restaurants, easy to get bike around, and access to tons of outdoor nature stuff.

Also, I've been in Chicago since 1998 and it doesn't feel like it's changed all that much. Neighborhoods shift but generally what I liked about it then I like about it now.

Went to Las Vegas for the first time this week. Only a few days but did not get “great city” vibes and was happy to leave.

Couldn't agree more about Vegas. It's a FASCINATING place, but not a place I want to spend time in.

#2!

I've been living in San Francisco for like, 5 years now and its such an interesting city to me. It has the potential to be a world class place, the topography is pretty stunning, the views and proximity to the ocean are great, the mix of parks and nature alongside residential/commercial districts, the way the microclimates of the city will cast different shades, light, and temperatures on different neighborhoods in a given period of time is so interesting. There is a meaningful history in this city too that lends some weight to it I guess.

I mostly don't like living here. Insane costs for everything, prone to natural disasters, always in a drought and/or on fire, high amounts of low-level crime like personal and commercial theft, rampant drug use in the streets, human shit still shows up in certain neighborhoods, etc that haven't been prosecuted for a while and only now might change. The innovative food scene of 10 or 20 years ago isn't here anymore (there are some good 'newer' restaurants but truthfully only one of them really impressed me), the arts scenes are hidden away or can't afford to exist in the actual city very much, many stores big and small have decided to shrink or leave or avoid the city altogether. And its a very white city too, or at least is very not-black.

What makes a city great for me is kinda the opposite of all the stuff I just said. I've always loved New York and I'll move back there when the time is right. I really enjoyed Florence too but I did visit as a tourist.