World's most unique city? Best designed?

[WZ1]

WHAT IS THE WORLDS MOST UNIQUE CITY ?? BEST DESIGNED ?? Lets fill this thread with interesting facts about cities world wide that make them unique!

Montreal, Canada is known as the "Underground City" did you know you can walk pretty much anywhere in downtown montreal without ever leaving a building!! The Subway (METRO) in Montreal has Rubber Wheels making it the quietest Subway in the world! Montreal was named after the Mountain overlooking the city - Mont Royal.

Ottawa, Canada has the Shortest METRO in the world with 6 Stations and 1 Line! (yes its still being built)

The widest point in the 401 Freeway in Toronto is 22 Lanes from side to side!!

Vancouver, Canada has the 3rd most high rise appartments in North America after San Fransisco and NY!

I dont know too many American or worldwide Facts but lets hear them!

[TLOZ Link5]

Houston has an "Underground City" system of walkways downtown, as well. It is the largest city in the U.S. that has absolutely no zoning regulations: buildings are constructed according to market demand, though this can prove to be a problem regarding context to the surrounding neighborhood and landmarks preservation. Until its inaugural light-rail line is finished, it can be considered the largest American city with no mass-transit railroad system—I believe that its bus system is larger than New York's, at least concerning proportions.

[dbhstockton]

Toronto has the "Path" underground, am I correct? We have a "Path" down here, too. I've been to both Montreal and Toronto. You can spend days underground.

[NoyokA]

I would agree that Montreal is the world's best designed city.

[DominicanoNYC]

Montreal sounds real cool. I need to visit all of these 'underground' cities. It's a nice idea.

[WZ1]

Anyone ever comes to either montreal or toronto, msg me i have lived in both and can tell you where to go! :)

[SUPREMO]

Alot of people may agree with me or not, but my choice, Paris (France, not Texas). I think Paris is well designed, planned and is a very unique city. Even in history, Paris looked so nice that alot of cities (even New York back in history) from different countries tried to copy or are influenced by city's urban planning, design and look.

Buenos Aires in Argentina is one of few cities that successfully captured the look of Paris especially the city plan except Buenos Aires is coastal while Paris is land-locked. Shanghai also nearly captured that look.

Even today, Paris looked as nice as it was in history. One of the most interesting things about this city is how most of the traditional Parisian buildings are preserved in within the city center. Most high-rise apartment buildings and even the skyscrapers of La Defense were built in the suberbs. An expressway (also acting like a boundary) goes around the city center seperating the traditional buildings and the modern high-rises. The few modern high-rise structures ever built in the city-center (besides the Eiffel Tower) were the Tour Montparnasse and some high-rise hotels near the Eiffel Tower.

I still think Paris is one of the most beautiful and best designed cities in the world! It was design so good that other cities will try to copy it!

A view of Paris. Most of the buildings in the city center are traditional Parisian buildings
http://delivery.gettyimages.com/comp/10184749.jpg?x=x&dasite=GETTYIMAGES&ef=1&ev=1&dare q=4C353A315C50434248554447494D414D

La Defense, which resembles the moden high-rises (office) of Paris. Instead in the city center, this is planned in the city's outskirts. The only thing I don't like about La Defense is how they planned it beside cemeteries. It's bad for Feng Shui! Also, some interesting things about this is how the boulevard starts from the Louvre and goes to the Arc de Triomphe and then ends up at the Grande Arch in La Defense.
http://delivery.gettyimages.com/comp/582091-001.jpg?x=x&dasite=GETTYIMAGES&ef=1&ev=1&dareq=4C3 5203A5C544B414058425E4051425F425F

The Arc de Triomphe, note the twelve different roads.
http://delivery.gettyimages.com/comp/da23618.jpg?x=x&dasite=GETTYIMAGES&ef=1&ev=1&dareq =4C2723345C0512414357424B5C534D

Paris @ night. That's why they call it "The City of Lights"
http://delivery.gettyimages.com/comp/ab08314.jpg?x=x&dasite=GETTYIMAGES&ef=1&ev=1&dareq =4C2723345C001143485242475C534D

A view of Buenos Aires (This area here kinda resembles Champs-Elysees)
http://delivery.gettyimages.com/comp/AA041920.jpg?x=x&dasite=GETTYIMAGES&ef=1&ev=1&dare q=4C31373A374D32324055424A42515F414E

[TLOZ Link5]

Nice pics, Supremo.

[Fabb]

That's true.
Except the one that shows La Défense. It makes me uncomfortable.

[dbhstockton]

Paris is without a doubt the top city for 19th-century urban planning. What about the twentieth-century? NYC was definitely the standard for the first half of the century, with Grand Central Station/Park Avenue in the 1910's and all of Robert Moses' grandest and best work in the 20's through the 40's -- Riverside Park, Jones Beach, the various Parkways, etc. He influenced that whole generation of planners and engineers and opened up the Suburbs to the automobile (for better or worse). So what city exemplifies the best of post-modern urban planning? I don't know.

[JonY]

Even though I'm a Sydney-sider, I have lived in Tokyo for 4 years, been to Hong Kong, SanFran, N.Y.C., Brisbane (Aust) and Vienna but I would have to say definitely Melbourne, Australia (lived there for just over 2 years).

It has a great urban layout, fantastic architecture ranging from classical to sleek modern scrapers to avant-garde, lots of great major new projects happening, really shines @ night, entertainment and shopping galore, a fantastic integrated transport system and beautiful public parks, plazas and street art.

Pic by Grollo:

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/photopost/data/510/135crown_skyline.jpg

@ dusk:

http://www.realestate.com.au/objects/props/7057/1117057al1018238081.jpg[/img]

Pic by tayser:

http://metropolis.tayser.net/misc/random6.jpg

...and just a portion of the very long St Kilda Road:

http://www.themarquise.com.au/images/view_road.jpg[/img]

[SUPREMO]

Melbourne is a beautiful city indeed but I kinda like Sydney better for an Australian city.

As in urban planning, the 19th century and before laid the foundation for a city. The 20th century developed it. The 21th century on the other hand is mostly developing and modernizing some sections of an established city especially the old parts. Most major Asian cities are examples of that especially Tokyo, Yokohama and Hong Kong. The port areas of Tokyo and Yokohama have been redevelop to mixed-used development whether it's residential, commercial or recreation. Hong Kong and on the other hand are known for it's New Towns. Here are some images of redevelopments.

Minato Mirai-21 in Yokohama
http://www.belgium.co.jp/vincentvds/images/br290741.JPG

Tokyo Teleport Town in Tokyo Bay
http://delivery.gettyimages.com/comp/200009737-001.jpg?x=x&dasite=GETTYIMAGES&ef=1&ev=1&dareq=4C3 53A315C53434340514A4443565E4340505F414E

The Statue of Liberty in Tokyo?
http://www.starfield.st/pgallery/200212/img/20021222193744.jpg

Hong Kong on the other hand is known for it's reclamations. This is Ma On Shan, one of the new towns in the New Territories.
http://www.geocities.com/hksuburbs/20030420/RIMG7886.JPG

Other cities that I find very unique are

Venice - The city is based on canals and boats are the means of transportation instead of cars.

Amsterdam - The city is under sea-level.

Mexico City - The city is in a high altitude and you got alot of skyscrapers being constructed there.

[Fabb]

I'm surprised that nobody mentioned Barcelona.

[Jasonik]

Or BRASÍLIA

The definitive location where the city will be constructed is picked April 15, 1955 by the New Federal Capital Locating Commission (which had been created in 1953).
Brasilia is inaugurated the capital of Brazil April 21, 1960.
UNESCO declares Brasília part of the world heritage on Dec 07, 1987.


I sought the curved and sensual line. The curve that I see in the Brazilian hills, in the body of a loved one, in the clouds in the sky and in the ocean waves.
-Brasília architect Oscar Niemeyer

Brasília is a utopian horror. It should be a symbol of power, but instead it's a museum of architectural ideas.
-Art critic Robert Hughes

The impression I have is that I'm arriving on a different planet.
-Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin


http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/3416/mapa2.jpg

:arrow:The Pilot Plan (http://www.macalester.edu/courses/geog61/jmoersch/pp.html)

http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/3416/bsb_classicview.jpg

http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/3416/aerea1.jpg

Official site :arrow:http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/3416/index.html

Contemporary critique :arrow:http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleid.17128/article_detail.asp

[matt3303]

That's what I like better about Paris versus London---the old was preserved and new development allocated in other areas. In London, new (and horribly ugly) development is exploding everywhere, causing demolition of Victorian-era buildings and the building of 'interpretive' structures that are ruining the city. Compared to Paris, London has a very similar street system---with roundabouts, boulevards and tiny side streets almost narrow enough to be alleyways. London has around 9 major rail stations and I assume Paris is well connected to the rail netowrk, as well. When you think about it, London and Paris are similar in many ways (from a planning standpoint, never mind their cultures)

[Fabb]

Compared to Paris, London has a very similar street system

Not at all.
The street system in London is a mess.
Paris has a decent plan. And boulevards.

[TLOZ Link5]

I'm surprised that nobody mentioned Barcelona.

I LOVE Barcelona. Haven't been there in three years, want to go back so badly. Not many tall buildings, though; but everything about it just screams modern. I read an article about Barcelona in TimeOut London in April that said that if Spain is the liberated convent of Europe, Barcelona is that one girl that still has stars in her eyes as to everything that is new and exciting in her world.

[LF22]

I think the world's most unique city is Jarusalem, the heart of three of the world's major religions judiasm, christianity, and islam. It is a vibrant city with over 2000 years of history. Rome is also quite nice.

[SUPREMO]

You mean, Jerusalem! Yes Jerusalem is unique indeed! It's also one of the oldest cities in the world as well. Each city is unique in many ways whether it's New York, Paris, Moscow or Katmandu.

Mexico City is another city that I find fascinating. What's fascinating is Mexico City is not just one of the largest cities in the world but back in history, it was one of the largest city in the western hemisphere. But before, the city was called Tenochtitlan. Even Cortez who later on conquered the city find it too big and too populous compared to most European cities.

Another fascinating thing is that the cities lies in a high altitude and have several skyscrapers built there, some over 700 ft. If anyone has watch the movie Romeo and Juliet starring Di Caprio and Claire Dames, most of the film was shot in Mexico City.

http://delivery.gettyimages.com/comp/AA041938.jpg?x=x&dasite=GETTYIMAGES&ef=1&ev=1&dare q=4C31373A374D32324055424A43595F414E

[Zzed]

For uniqueness my vote, without any hesitation, goes to Venice, Italy.

http://www.photomann.com/italy/venice/ven18z.jpg

[ablarc]

Unique means one of a kind. For uniqueness, Zzed, without any hesitation I must agree.

I would also add: for beauty.

I have never seen a city as beautiful as Venice.

[tmg]

Houston has an "Underground City" system of walkways downtown, as well. It is the largest city in the U.S. that has absolutely no zoning regulations: buildings are constructed according to market demand, though this can prove to be a problem regarding context to the surrounding neighborhood and landmarks preservation. Until its inaugural light-rail line is finished, it can be considered the largest American city with no mass-transit railroad system—I believe that its bus system is larger than New York's, at least concerning proportions.

In its own way, perhaps Houston is the quintessential late 20th Century U.S. city. Its lack of zoning and the unfettered growth of its freeways has allowed market forces to create a city that perfectly reflects the nation's anti-urban tendencies.

Internationally, I'd vote for Curitiba as a great example of late 20th Century planning.


P.S. Houston's bus system is large, and in some ways quite innovative.

But it does not come close to New York's in scale:

New York City Transit - Bus
2001 Annual Vehicle Revenue Miles: 101,025,661
2001 Annual Unlinked Trips: 926,017,695

Harris County METRO - Bus
2001 Annual Vehicle Revenue Miles: 43,762,353
2001 Annual Unlinked Trips: 99,182,853

--National Transit Database

[ablarc]

Paris

So Venice gets the nod for uniqueness, but I think it would be foolish to emulate; canals don't make very efficient streets. Personally, I find New York, Paris and London to be more entertaining, at least partly because they are bigger. But "best-designed"? Well, London can hardly be said to be designed at all as a whole; it is really a collection of individually-designed parts. New York features a wonderfully-conceived street grid (the Madison Plan), but aside from this New York as a whole is undesigned.

That leaves Paris. Haussmann's axis-mania confirmed centuries of unco-ordinated design fragments such as the Grand Axis from Louvre Courtyard through l'Arc de Triomphe (now continued through La Defense). The result is the poetry of sheer genius: grand boulevard vistas behind which teems the unkempt jumble of medieval Paris. Truly the best.

http://ablarchitecture.com/images/tom/paris/paris-01.jpg

http://ablarchitecture.com/images/tom/paris/paris-02.jpg

http://ablarchitecture.com/images/tom/paris/paris-03.jpg

http://ablarchitecture.com/images/tom/paris/paris-04.jpg

http://ablarchitecture.com/images/tom/paris/paris-05.jpg

http://ablarchitecture.com/images/tom/paris/paris-06.jpg

http://ablarchitecture.com/images/tom/paris/paris-07.jpg

Finally, Christian, here is the retro-sanisette (Fabb, have you seen one yet?):

http://ablarchitecture.com/images/tom/paris/paris-08.jpg

Really nice pictures of Paris architecture:

http://skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=59142

For more on two of the Big Three:

http://www.city-journal.org/html/6_1_urbanities-urban_lessons.html

[TLOZ Link5]

Saint Petersburg was planned from the ground up to be a European-style city to signify Russia's intention to be considered a part of Europe. The street grid reflects the best of Paris's boulevards.

[SUPREMO]

The only city that had a similar canal system of Venice was Bangkok. But what happened in Bangkok, is automobiles became the mode of transportation and they had to adapt to roads so traffic became bad, if not, the worst in the world.

http://www.genosplace.org/Thailand/Bangkok/floatingmkt.jpg
A floating market in a Bangkok canal

Some aspects of Paris are adapted to some US cities like in San Francisco for example.

http://ablarchitecture.com/images/tom/paris/paris-08.jpg Paris

http://www.dyevoshka.com/sfranarea/sfranstreet.JPG San Francisco

US wise, San Francisco is my choice for most unique city. It has a very different athmosphere compared to other US cities. One, San Francisco is located in the West Coast but it has an East Coast feel to it. It's a walkable city. Transportation is very convinient compared to other California cities like Los Angeles or San Diego. Alot of attractions and a nice skyline. If New York is the gateway city to United States for most Europeans and other countries, to Asians, it's San Francisco (or Los Angeles).

http://delivery.gettyimages.com/comp/brxbxp44510.jpg?x=x&dasite=GETTYIMAGES&ef=1&ev=1&d areq=4C23212B5C03010B12190347445442435C534D
San Francisco skyscrapers at night

http://delivery.gettyimages.com/comp/10147493.jpg?x=x&dasite=GETTYIMAGES&ef=1&ev=1&dare q=4C353A315C5043424456474A434D414D
Victorian architecture with the skyline in the background

http://delivery.gettyimages.com/comp/280955-001.jpg?x=x&dasite=GETTYIMAGES&ef=1&ev=1&dareq=4C3 5203A5C534B434954465E4051425F425F
Rolling hills, cable cars, fisherman's wharf and of course, Alcatraz

[dbhstockton]

Ablarc, I would definitely NOT call NYC "undesigned." Manhattan can lull you into a sense that it's always been the way it is. Very deceptive. Aside from the grid plan, as grand as it is, you have to remember such trully grand urban design projects such as Park Avenue/Grand Central/Terminal City and Riverside Park, both built over vast rail yards (The LIRR yards are next to carry on this tradition). Let's not forget that Central Park was swamps, farms, and even some settlements of free blacks before every last tree, boulder and lake was designed and meticulously engineered to be so picturesque. I think these alone can compare to Hausman's dramatic impact on Paris. I haven't even mentioned the outer boroughs and suburbs yet... Jones Beach was engineered in the 1920's-- at scandalous expense-- to be so vast and acccomodating, linked to the nation's most ambitious system of Parkways.
Undesigned? NYC lacks the architectural uniformity and civility of Paris, but it's far from undesigned.

[ablarc]

Add to your list: Rockefeller Center, Columbia University, the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, Stuyvesant Town, Battery Park City, Co-op City, Tudor City. New York is terrific and more than the sum of its parts. But it is not this as a result of an all-encompassing master plan. Paris is.

[ddny]

Design wise...NYC has done some things right, but it has also done alot of things wrong. It's a "beautiful mess" as one architect said about New York.

I believe San Francisco and Chicago has better urban planning/design than NYC in the U.S.

[ablarc]

The following article is cobbled together from several reports available on the Internet.


BUS CITY


Curitiba


http://ablarchitecture.com/images/tom/curitiba/curitiba-05.jpg


"It's the most innovative city in the world," declared Wally N'Dow of Gambia,chairman of the Habitat II summit.

"Reports from Curitiba seem too good to be true," wrote Liana Vallicelli, a Halifax planner, "A number of the
planning community in Halifax have had the opportunity to visit the city... I spent a few days
there in December 1993 and was totally convinced. It was an attractive, modern, prosperous, comfortable and safe
city, that seemed to have been plucked out of the heart of Europe."

Curitiba is "a model city of the future," according to the director of New York City's Department of Environmental
Protection. It received the International Institute for the Conservation of Energy's annual award in 1990 for
promoting energy efficiency through planning. In the same year, the United Nations gave Curitiba two environmental
program awards for its innovative recycling and other environmental programs.



Curitiba, a city of 1.6 million in southern Brazil, has become a world-recognized model of urban planning and
environmental practices. Until recently, few people outside of Brazil had even heard of Curitiba (pronounced
"koo-ree-CHEE-bah"), but today the city attracts delegations of politicians, planners, environmentalists, and
journalists seeking to discover how, in a Third World region where cities are suffering from overpopulation and
poverty, Curitiba is known as a "city that works."

Curitiba's population started growing in the 1950's, a trend which was accentuated in the late 1960's as
industrialization took off. For many years the city had a 7 percent annual
growth rate - its population was 400,000 in 1970. Now its growth rate is 2.3%, while the surrounding cities
are growing at up to 11% annually.

Since young maverick architects and engineers took over City Hall in the 1970s, Curitiba has tried new ways
to tackle such urban ills as illiteracy, homelessness, transportation, government service shortcomings,
unemployment, pollution and poverty. Curitiba is still a Third World city, with at least 10% of its 1.6
million people living in slums of corrugated tin-and-wood shanties. And its innovations--from "trade
villages" to schoolbooks written by the mayor--were made gradually. But the city now stands as a model for
urban planners, and mayors from around the world have visited Curitiba to learn from its experiments.

Mr. Jaime Lerner (currently the Parana governor) was Curitiba's mayor in the early 1970's, and during his 12
years in that capacity, he put his skills as a city planner into practice: adopting radical urban policy and
laying the foundations for the present-day Curitiba layout. When Mr. Lerner first became mayor, he and his
staff learned from the failures of Brasilia in fashioning a city plan which anticipated
present-day problems such as motorization and pollution.

The mayor decided on a new master plan to de-congest the downtown and save the old houses there. The first
pedestrian street in Brazil was created in 1972 - overnight, to avoid any opposition by merchants.
Children's mural-drawing sessions have been a feature of Saturday morning on the mall ever since.

http://ablarchitecture.com/images/tom/curitiba/curitiba-09.jpg

http://ablarchitecture.com/images/tom/curitiba/curitiba-12.jpg

Planners decided that the Transport Network was to determine Urban Form.

http://ablarchitecture.com/images/tom/curitiba/curitiba-15.jpg

The transit system organizes the urban area. Growth is directed along linear corridors that
serve to control the spread of the city. There is no infrastructure outside them. They have
the highest density, with a transit route and a bus terminal, and higher speed streets to either side.

The bus system has a single fare. There is a feeder bus, a dedicated line bus, an express bus and a circle bus.
Improvement of the bus system is a top priority. Examples are the new "tube" disembarkation stations
at the bus entrance level and the new system of ticketing before entering the bus.

http://ablarchitecture.com/images/tom/curitiba/curitiba-19.jpg

There is a 50-second headway at peak times, and 2 to 3 minutes at other times at the central station.

Curitiba's buses are privately-owned by ten companies, and managed by a quasi-public company. With this
public-private collaboration, public sector concerns, such as safety, accessibility, and efficiency, are combined
with private sector goals, such as low maintenance and operating costs. The bus companies receive no subsidies;
instead all mass transit money collected goes to a fund and companies are paid on a distance travelled basis.

By 1989, Curitiba's bus system accounted for 70 percent of total weekday trips in the city.
Curitiba's buses carry 50 times more passengers than they did 20 years ago, but people spend only about 10
percent of their yearly income on transport. As a result, despite the second highest per capita car ownership
rate in Brazil (one car for every three people), Curitiba's gasoline use per capita is 30 percent below that
of eight comparable Brazilian cities. Other results include negligible emissions levels, little congestion,
and an extremely pleasant living environment.

A new "bi-articulated" bus, introduced in December, 1992, is a form of rapid bus operating on the outside
high-capacity lanes. Bi-articulated buses - the largest in the world - are actually three buses attached by
two articulations, and are capable of carrying 270 passengers.

http://ablarchitecture.com/images/tom/curitiba/curitiba-23.jpg

The bi-articulated bus, developed and adapted in Curitiba, utilizes five modular tube stations for boarding.
Curitiba introduced these buses as an intermediate alternative to a light rail train, which
Curitiba plans to introduce sometime in the future to run along the structural arteries,
utilizing the existing exclusive rights of way for the express buses.

http://ablarchitecture.com/images/tom/curitiba/curitiba-20.jpg

The Master Plan established the guiding principle that mobility and land use can not be disassociated with
each other if the city's future design is to succeed. Curitiba's officials created a zoning and land-use
policy that requires mixed- use high-density development along the structural arteries in order to
create the necessary population to support profitable public transport use. Thus, residential development
focuses along the arteries, with essential services such as water, sewage, light, telephones, and public
transportation provided.

Further residential development occurs in four designated zones, in which all
development must occur within close proximity of bus routes. An industrial park (called the "Industrial City")
was built in 1973 in the western part of the city and plays an important part in the local economy.

http://ablarchitecture.com/images/tom/curitiba/curitiba-31.jpg

http://ablarchitecture.com/images/tom/curitiba/curitiba-29.jpg

Public facilities have been built along arterial roads where buses run, one prime example of which is Citizen
Centers. There are a total of eight in the inner city, of the type depicted in the photograph below.

http://ablarchitecture.com/images/tom/curitiba/curitiba-71.jpg

Each center has public utilities such as water and electricity, as well as a range of public services
including police, municipal branch offices, job centers, social security offices and libraries, and also a
roofed multi-purpose sports ground, sports room and conference rooms; all of these can be utilized either free
of charge or for next to nothing. Many public buildings, including citizen centers, are made principally from
steel and transparent building materials, giving them an attractive appearance, but at the same time, keeping
construction costs down. Note that major hospitals and nursing facilities are also located along roads where
buses run, making for easy access via bus.

Due to ongoing increases in the city's population, Curitiba's bus system is expected to reach maximum capacity
in the near future. As a way of offsetting this problem, there are plans to divert a highway running north-south
through Curitiba to the suburbs, and convert the original highway route into a new monorail-based transport system.
The plan is to be co-financed by the national government (60%), Curitiba government (20%) and private sector (20%).

Land use controls target two basic parameters: the land use type and the density of development. The four basic
land usecategories are residential, commercial, industrial, and services. Allowable densities vary in relation to
available transportation. Along most structural routes, buildings can have a total floor area of up to six times the
plot size. On lower capacity roads that are well served by public transportation, the city permits floor space up to
four times plot size. The permitted ratio of floor space to plot size decreases with the distance a land site is
from public transportation.

The land use density controls encourage a shift of development activity from the central city to and around the
structural axes. This locates high density residential and commercial in the same areas and matches density to the
availability of public transport. This eases traffic and human congestion in the central city. Planners converted
wide central avenues in the central city into open air pedestrian malls and walkways. These malls and walkways
reinforce the city center as a pleasant locale where pedestrians have priori

The experiences of Curitiba have been the focus of attention from both within and outside Brazil, and have brought
about a large number of imitative local governments. There have been examples of individual systems developed in
Curitiba, such as pedestrian precincts and dedicated bus lanes, being successfully reapplied elsewhere. Curitiba
officials emphasize the importance of balance in the overall project and state that "the Curitiba city plan may not
necessarily work elsewhere unless individual sectors are fully inter-linked."

From the start the driving city vision was to be the “Ecological Capital of Brazil”. This vision included a huge
park acquisition program, protection of heritage buildings, prioritization of pedestrians over cars, the provision
of cycleways linking the parks, and a massive expansion of the public transport system. Today, parks and city squares
cover 18% of the city area, there are 170 kms of cycleways linking them, a transferrable development right incentive
is ensuring heritage building preservation so the city “does not lose its memory”, and the statistic of 25,000 public
transport trips/day in 1974 has increased to 2.1 million today – 75% of all trips. And this despite Curitiba having a
car for every 3 persons - the highest car ownership/capita in Brazil. Parking is prohibited in large parts
of the inner city, and whole streets and huge central areas are now dedicated pedestrian precincts.

In everything planned in Curitiba, the quality of life is emphasized.

It is a green city of parks, and because of its unusual structure, city residents can move around swiftly,
whether by automobile or on an extremely efficient bus system.

It is a "rechargeable" city that recycles, in the words of Mayor Jaime Lerner, and it encourages even its poorest
residents to participate in cultural and economic activities.

Recent opinion polls show that a large majority of Curitiba's citizens say there is no place they would rather live.
Working within the limits of a Third World city budget, Curitiba's administrators have succeeded in making the city a
highly livable place with a series of simple, low-cost innovations that are applicable to both Third and First World
cities.




I bet life in Curitiba is every bit as interesting as life in Singapore.

[TLOZ Link5]

Design wise...NYC has done some things right, but it has also done alot of things wrong. It's a "beautiful mess" as one architect said about New York.

I believe San Francisco and Chicago has better urban planning/design than NYC in the U.S.

Don't forget Washington.

[SUPREMO]

Curitaba's city planning is not bad for a developing country especially it's transit system.

Anyway, as a symbol of a futuristic city, I still think it's Tokyo!

[Chicagoan]

Houston has an "Underground City" system of walkways downtown, as well. It is the largest city in the U.S. that has absolutely no zoning regulations: buildings are constructed according to market demand, though this can prove to be a problem regarding context to the surrounding neighborhood and landmarks preservation. ...

This is sort of true, up until several years ago. Houston does not have an overall plan like all other large cities do. But is does have specific regulations that permit, and have been used, to designate setbacks, bulk, etc... ( some included in what they call "area plans").

It would be like saying the UK does not have a constitution.

So Houston does have zoning, just very little of it covered by various legislation etc.

[Alonzo-ny]

Im so glad that gratuitus porn brought my attention to this thread, I had no idea about Curitabas. Sounds like great planning, and we think we are so perfect in our first world city.

[zupermaus]

ok heres a spanner in the works, the best designed city versus the least - sit back, put your armchair traveling feet up, n enjoy the photo essay.

Paris versus London:

Paris - architectural harmony, and the densest city in the West SCROOOOOLLLL right (this is only one third the panorama)
check out the Eiffel Tower for scale! The only city with this similar look of density is midrise Athens (Greece that is ;)).

http://img128.imageshack.us/img128/1154/21693651fromsacrecoeur9lvnf8.jpg

sprawling density
http://www.survoldefrance.fr/photos/highdef/11563.jpg

http://www.survoldefrance.fr/photos/highdef/11050.jpg



With a backdrop of showpiece architecture accumulated over the years, Paris was notably saved from being razed by the Nazi General who
chose to disobey Hitler at the end of the war (at risk of execution too).

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/66/France_Paris_Eiffel-Alley_2006.jpg/450px-France_Paris_Eiffel-Alley_2006.jpg http://www.e-architect.co.uk/paris/jpgs/louvre_pyramid_paris_1.jpg

and some of the most enduring images of urban life. This is the City of Light

http://toimoi.unblog.fr/files/2007/01/doisneauparis.jpg http://artfiles.art.com/images/-/Robert-Doisneau/Le-Baiser-de-lHotel-de-Ville-Paris-1950-Print-C10283229.jpeg

Paris was founded in 52BC by the Roman town of Lutetia, conquered from the Parisii tribe that had occupied the land from 4200BC.
After the decline of the palatial centre and abandonemnet by Roman troops, it slowly grew from 500AD onwards to become one of Europe's greatest medieval cities.

http://historic-cities.huji.ac.il/france/paris/stroll/louvre/merian_1615_small.jpg http://historic-cities.huji.ac.il/france/paris/stroll/louvre/de_berry_october_part.jpg http://http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/%7Ebump/VSA/Roger/medieval_sorbonne.jpg


Much of medieval Paris, already recovering from the 1871 siege of the Franco-Prussian war that severely damaged the city,
was obliterated by Baron Haussmans plans for radial streets and grand boulevards, (notably Le Marais district still survives):


http://home.nordnet.fr/%7Eglanquetin/personnagescelebres/haussman.gif http://www.roland-collection.com/rolandcollection/images/stills/30-402.gif

http://ec-33-saint-bernard.scola.ac-paris.fr

http://ec-33-saint-bernard.scola.ac-paris.fr/ACCUEIL/plan%20de%20paris/voies%20XIX.JPG http://ec-33-saint-bernard.scola.ac-paris.fr/ACCUEIL/photo/haussman-travaux.JPG

Rue de Faubourg St Antoine 1884
http://ec-33-saint-bernard.scola.ac-paris.fr/ACCUEIL/photo/quartier/trousseauXIX.JPG http://ec-33-saint-bernard.scola.ac-paris.fr/ACCUEIL/photo/quartier/trousseauXX.JPG



Creating vistas like nowhere else, and a huge sense of space in the boulevards:



http://www.soulcatcherstudio.com/images/erwitt_show/Paris_Eiffel100th.jpg http://www.iup.fr/IMG/jpg/France_Paris_Eiffel_Tower_2.jpg

http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/monet/paris/capucines.jpg


as well as intimate punctuations

Thanx to kony
http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/8449/faubourgstdenis1jpg0kx.jpg

http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/4703/quartieredouardvii2jpg2jt.jpg


These dramatic streetplans retain their impact- note the modern architecture hidden within the streetwalls.
Le Courbusier's design for Paris was to annihilate the centre and rebuild it along vast centrals avenue
with vast uniform skyscrapers. It came very close to fruition, but was finally shelved due to cost.

http://66.230.220.70/images/post/par5/par5.jpg

http://www.303rdbg.com/ce-paris-arc.jpg http://www.linternaute.com/paris/magazine/diaporama/06/paris-vu-du-ciel/1950/images/2.jpg

http://www.survoldefrance.fr/photos/highdef/4108.jpg

betrand grau
http://www.survoldefrance.fr/photos/highdef/3326.jpg

http://www.survoldefrance.fr/photos/highdef/3324.jpg

http://www.survoldefrance.fr/photos/highdef/3325.jpg

http://www.survoldefrance.fr/photos/highdef/6051.jpg


Imagine, Paris as it might have been with all of the above:

http://aftercorbu.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/plan_voison_paris.jpg http://home.vicnet.net.au/%7Edchawk/theories/paris3.jpg


delineated architectural styles remain, from the medieval sections
to the postmodern.

medieval, Haussmanian
http://www.parismarais.com/newsletter/1-9-2007/pics/notre-dame-paris-marais.jpg http://cache.eb.com/eb/image?id=8658&rendTypeId=4

Neoclassical:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/228/492859580_0da990df96_o.jpg

postmodern
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b6/La-defense-paris-financial.jpg/800px-La-defense-paris-financial.jpg

Thanx to Minato Ku - outer Paris and its styles
http://img102.imageshack.us/img102/5329/cimg0998xu5.jpg http://img260.imageshack.us/img260/5675/cimg3757qp3.jpg

http://img518.imageshack.us/img518/2773/cimg4620al4.jpg http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/5504/cimg0672wr6.jpg

http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/7231/cimg3814xq7.jpg http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/5016/cimg4235bk7.jpg

http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/3079/cimg4160np3.jpg http://img216.imageshack.us/img216/9946/cimg3059ea4.jpg

http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/8334/cimg4953yb9.jpg http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/7382/cimg4756zs8.jpg

and contemporary twists


http://img216.imageshack.us/img216/963/cimg3064ai6.jpg http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/4007/cimg2745sr6.jpg

thanx to Kony
http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/3492/mindelaculture1jpg2cq.jpg


orchestrated juxtapositions:

http://www.cities.nu/images/europe/france/paris/paris-la-defense-01.jpg http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2406/1495151157_a411e2e8f3.jpg?v=0

http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paris/img/paris.defense.jpg

http://www.fromparis.com/modules/imagebank_display_thb_pict.php?number=000083_02


One of the worlds largest underground systems it is the most intricately connected - you are in fact never more than 500m from a metro stop within
the city boundaries (catering to 2.2 out of the 11 million inhabitants), and some of the busiest metro stations in the world.

http://www.ideamerge.com/motorhomes/france/paris_metro.gif http://www.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/02_12/paris_traffic.jpg

thanx to Minato Ku

http://img409.imageshack.us/img409/5432/cimg1174ug7.jpg http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/7793/cimg4722tr1.jpg


http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/987/cimg5013vz4.jpg

and not many people know this but the whole streetplan is duplicated underground in a vast sewer network with cathedral sized
chambers. There are 177 miles of tunnels and disused quarries below the streets:

http://magliery.com/Graphics/MoreFrance/paris-sewer.jpg http://europeforvisitors.com/paris/images/paris_sewers_museum_displays_in_main_sewer_325_p11 00577.jpg

http://city-guide.cc/paris/paris-underground-guide and www.parisdailyphoto.com (http://www.parisdailyphoto.com)

art and the infamous catacombs museum
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/172/381404823_4afec960f1.jpg http://bp3.blogger.com/_SBTuwr34yA4/RxEh97fxYbI/AAAAAAAAFRQ/s2zDSYgsNKs/s400/Catacombes.JPG


a historic centre surrounded by modern suburbs:
Paris is a living breathing city with high densities, and much new and daring architecture
alongside the old and great cultural heritage, combined with the chic, the quality and the libertarian.
It is the richest city in Europe.


thanx to MinatoKu
http://img260.imageshack.us/img260/410/tourcarpediemramsa08011jv1.jpg http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/9096/cimg0973oh5.jpg

http://irgendwo.free.fr/citemode/1.jpg http://architecture.myninjaplease.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/12/paris3.jpg

Paris is a rapidly changing city, as it always has been. Whilst the cultural greats of food, wine,
fashion and the arts remain dynamic, so does the population, now, along with Spain accepting more
asylum seekers than any other nation.

Christopher de Wolfe at wwwUrbanphoto.net www.diplomatie.gouv.fr (http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr) www.eatingoutloud.com (http://www.eatingoutloud.com)
http://www.urbanphoto.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/relationship01.jpghttp://info.eatingoutloud.com/pics/ethnic_paris.jpghttp://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/IMG/jpg/52dossier1.jpg

Christopher DeWolfe and Laine Tam last one
http://www.urbanphoto.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2006/12/paris.jpg http://www.urbanphoto.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/eel03.jpg http://www.urbanphoto.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2006/12/paris01.jpg

However the greater social problems of any city tend to be sidelined to the suburbs,
the hugely cosmopolitan and rapidly multi ethnic population ghettoised, the one city
sharply breaking the European trend toward residential mixing. This doesn't mean they are any different
from any other city's poorer areas, just that they are grouped together define them apart (crime in the
banlieues is still relatively low).

http://parisbanlieue.blog.lemonde.fr/files/2007/06/paris-banlieues-creaphis.1181308035.jpg http://blog.lib.umn.edu/arras004/lfwproductions/Pablo%20Picasso%20Cit%C3%A9.jpg

CP Fevrier
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/152/395831628_2f8c13f619_o.jpg


Paris life, the streets, the people, the intervention of the civic thinktanks:

http://www.urbanphoto.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2006/12/paris02.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/85/Paris_Cafe_Dusk.jpg/450px-Paris_Cafe_Dusk.jpg

http://www.subtraction.com/pics/0511/051106_paris_street.jpg http://www.parlerparis.com/issues/images/20-7-05parisplage.jpg

Although under duress, cafe life is still strong

Laine Tam
http://www.spirit-of-paris.com/wp-content/photos/paris/rues/_carreau_du_temple_pluie_spirit_of_paris.jpg http://www.spirit-of-paris.com/wp-content/photos/paris/lifestyle/_luxembourg_w_spirit_of_paris.jpg

http://www.pictureninja.com/pages/france/paris-street-musicians.jpg http://hrw.org/french/paris/images/Paris_Dinner_111507.jpg

...and through it all the disobedience of the Paris Underground,

the current urban tribe du jour are the Tektonics. NYC have the Guidos, Paris these guys:

Avert ur eyes!

http://www.obiwi.fr/uploads/userfiles/230/230-1191952309-178.jpg http://i12.servimg.com/u/f12/09/04/62/70/tck_av10.jpg

Don't say i didnt warn ya

http://www.tranism.com/weblog/images/stylized-dancing.jpg http://www.fashion-fox.com/wp-content/uploads/image/Tecktonik.png

[zupermaus]

Right Case 2, one of the least planned cities.

The primary function was ease of building, everything else was mapped out accordingly to accomodate that, and surprisingly well. The city is organic and libertarian.

rare vistas
http://www.visitingdc.com/images/river-thames-picture.jpg http://photos.igougo.com/images/p342171-London-St._Pauls_Cathedral.jpg


Now London following numerous catastrophes this 2000 year old city has
been renewed time and time again, having been heavily damaged or
destroyed no less than 6x, alongside countless great fires, riots, sieges,
wars, floods and even hurricanes (the last one killed 8000 and blocked the Thames with 3,000 shipwrecks).

http://abdulazeem.files.wordpress.com/2006/11/windowslivewritergreatfireoflondon-9d83great-fire-london3.jpg http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/ww2-pix/london13.jpg

The one great opportunity was following the Great Fire of 1666 when 4/5 of
the city was destroyed, however instead of the original plan to build
straight radial streets (akin to boulevard Paris), the population rebuilt along
the same medieval streetplans.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b6/Tower_of_london_from_swissre.jpg/783px-Tower_of_london_from_swissre.jpg


http://z.about.com/d/golondon/1/0/A/6/-/-/aerialnight1.jpg http://www.gapyearlibrary.co.uk/images/London-Eye-2Sept00.jpg


The result is a cacophonic mix of architectural styles, possibly the most
standardly mixed in the world, among tiny alleyways and huge 8 lane highways,
both originally drawn out by the meandering path of a cow to its watering hole,
with residential densities as low as 1400 per square mile by night rising to
400,000 by day (with the world's most expensive land values noone can afford
to live in the centre, only work and play there).

winding streets

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/151/335456535_75b07a43d7_b.jpg http://img104.imageshack.us/img104/8567/img1730az9.jpg



http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q49/zupermaus/2004_0905_180722.jpg

http://photos.vequias.com/d/2012-2/St_+Paul_s+Cathedral-+View+from+Top+10.JPG http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/RegentStreet20040807_CopyrightKaihsuTai.jpg


Paris is ghettoised, London plants the rich and poor, and every
ethnic minority side by side. Stunning beauty coexists with ugliness, vibrancy with
decay. What London lacks are the grand vistas, the sweeping views and
harmonious architecture - the epic streetlevel scales of Paris (and NYC), supplanted
by the crowded, kooky and intimate scaled.

http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/067.JPG http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/088.JPG

http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/180.JPG http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/181.JPG


The city looks far more dramatic from above, and much more normal from streetlevel, where the views are
obliterated and many landmarks hidden:

http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/7586/londonthecityaerialyp4.jpg

In the 1980s 1/8 of central London fell derelict with the opening of new container docks at Tilbury.
The old dockyards fell into severe disrepair:

http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/7426/javawharftp7.jpg


However , after much bankruptcy and riding the wave of recession new development revived the docks
seeing them converted into luxury apartments and marinas, with a new business district in Canary Wharf:

http://www.aquiva.co.uk/images/Library/Photo3837.jpg

Despite huge amount of development going on in the city ($250 billion
slated for the next few years in public projects alone - not including the
offices and skyscrapers) the city still preserves its past. It's one of the
hardest most bureaucratic places to build, and the world's most expensive,
with exorbitant cost for little value for money, but to a high standard nonetheless.

The new rash of skyscrapers will only intensify an already mixed architectura
streetscape, from Victorian to Georgian to Edwardian to art deco to modern to
postmodern to post pomo on the average street:

http://www.skyscrapernews.com/images/pics/2839TheBishopsgateTower_pic2.jpg http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/4631/lloydsbuildingyoag4.jpg


http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y239/atlan_london7/532_City.jpg


London is the greenest city of its size in the world (1/3 is open space).
Its also going Green, to get a car in the centre costs $16 a day,
high polluting vehicles such as SUVs cost $50, for high polluting
goods vehicles its a whopping $400 a day. Its claimed 1000 people a month
die from pollution in a city the size of London, worse than traffic accidents
and 3x the yearly murder rate. Its the biggest current manifesto for the mayor.

http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/6406/primrosehillcitycwqz4.jpg

http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/070.JPG http://www.bbc.co.uk/london/content/images/2005/08/25/007_430x314.jpg

Thanx to Atlan
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y249/atlan_london6/425_Terraces_Regents_Park.jpg http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y249/atlan_london6/412_Regents_Park.jpg

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y249/atlan_london6/426_Regents_Park.jpg http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y213/atlan_london4/307_Kengsinton_Gardens.jpg


The green city SCROOOOOLLLLL -Note how it pales in comparison to the Parisian panorama- the density of the centre is completely hidden in green haze and broken up by the Royal parks.

London 2012 new skyscrapers
http://www.skyscrapernews.com/images/pics/8812012skyline_pic1.jpg


a better idea, if the buildings were amalgamated into one cluster. An instant skyline in 4 years:

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b387/wjfox2005/london2012_combined.jpg



Believe it or not London does in fact have many zoning laws - 25 protected
viewing corridors (for example some of the highrises going up have to be
curved or slanting to 'get out of the way'), and the most protected
buildings in the world - well over 30,000 and counting (100 years in age
gets automatic listing status), and is a nightmare for greed driven
developers.

Viewing corridors small and large:

http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/9559/img2615tb7.jpg http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b387/wjfox2005/1-BestEverRendering.jpg

30-50 percent of all new residential developments have to be
devoted to 'affordable housing', and the lower floors to retail or public
space/entertainment venues. Many many plans are redrawn due to strict
poring over of street level integration in this way. This doesn't mean the
old buildings are beyond threat though, with many being gutted and new
interiors being inserted - dubbed 'deathmasking' by the local activists.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/25/Plantation_Place_from_Eastcheap%2C_London_-_Sept_2007.jpg/551px-Plantation_Place_from_Eastcheap%2C_London_-_Sept_2007.jpg http://i3.tinypic.com/2lwrh34.jpg

Before and after

www.dailymail.co.uk (http://www.dailymail.co.uk) and www.skyscrapernews.com (http://www.skyscrapernews.com)
http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/07_03/buildingLL0208_468x661.jpg http://www.skyscrapernews.com/images/pics/49TheLeadenhallBuilding_pic3.jpg


Highrise was once very out of fashion- 500 tower blocks were pulled down
by the 1990s and replaced with dense residential housing in traditional styles.
However since then there is a pressing need for density as the population rockets
(when for 30 years it was suburbanising). The protected ring of Green Belt means
the hundreds of thousands of new homes will be built on 'brownfield' sites - once
derelict/ industrial city land.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44207000/jpg/_44207289_olympic-demolition1_300pa.jpg http://www.chg.org.uk/news/2001/images/news0109.jpg

The Green 'Belt' under attack:

http://img248.imageshack.us/img248/4702/londonunitedkingdomsx4.jpg

Thames Gateway expansion

http://www.jafud.com/Images/THAMESGATEWAYarea.gif


Skyscrapers only go up on top of brutalist bombsites of the postwar era. Believe it or not
there are 120 churches in the square mile below, 87 of them over 350 years old:

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e6/dllb/Above%20London/PA180045-1.jpg


Buildings (in)famously vie for space and attention, the juxtapositions are often inspiring without planning to be:

http://www.skyscrapernews.com/images/pics/2839TheBishopsgateTower_pic7.jpg


All this to a backdrop of rowhousing for rich, middle class and poor, and some of the grandest
department stores, institutions and offices of the former Empire:


Thanx to Atlan
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y246/atlan_london8/612_Victoria_Enbankment.jpg

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y229/atlan_london3/200_Piccadilly_st.jpg

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y229/atlan_london3/201_Piccadilly_st.jpg

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y213/atlan_london4/219_Myfair.jpg

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y229/atlan_london5/335_Notting_Hill_Portobello_road.jpg

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y249/atlan_london6/448_Bloomsbury_Russell_Hotel.jpg

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y239/atlan_london7/502_City.jpg

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y213/atlan_london4/318_Kensington_Harrods.jpg

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y229/atlan_london5/650_Victoria_and_Albert_Museum.jpg

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y229/atlan_london5/647_Museo_Historia_Natural.jpg

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y229/atlan_london5/334_Notting_Hill_Portobello_road.jpg

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y229/atlan_london5/336_Notting_Hill_Portobello_road.jpg

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y229/atlan_london5/368_Oxford_St.jpg



Transport

passenger traffic on the tube lines alone:

Kilgore Trout
http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/001.JPG http://farm1.static.flickr.com/17/21915228_cc5dfd9d50.jpg


This giant mess is served by the worlds biggest suburban commuter network and a comprehensive and vast public
transport system. This is the city with the first major suburbs/ sprawl, though dense and reliant
on train lines, and 80 years old already. There are 1200 rail/tube stations combined with the worlds
largest bus network:

http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/4803/londonmetromapkc8.jpg

It serves the suburbs well, some of the world's first.
Every Englishman's home is his castle as the old saying goes:

http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q49/zupermaus/2004_0915_180616.jpg

http://www.ravenstoneschool.com/images/aerial_photo_large.jpg

And this outer city hides masterpieces that few know about too

http://www.unofficial-guides.com/images/guides_images/RHULfounders.jpg

Alongside more famous ones. these are the real setpieces:


http://www.windsorfestival.com/img/venues/windsor_aerial_nw.jpg http://wwp.greenwich2000.com/info/images/rncsky.jpg http://www.easier.com/myads/images/141973-29.jpg

with some soon to come:
http://www.e-architect.co.uk/london/jpgs/london_olympics_aerialparkgamestime_oda07.jpg



However London is no longer intramuros Paris, and it no longer looks like this if ya know
what I mean, not since the Great Fire, the Georgians, the Victorians, the
Edwardians, the War, the Postwar, the contemporary times:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/London_Bridge_%281616%29_by_Claes_Van_Visscher.jpg


London today is one of the worlds most modern cultural and social scenes grafted
onto one of the most historic - the worlds great modern arts, most cosmopolitan population
and largest entertainment industries and social scenes, alongside its global financial centres,
all juxtaposed with millennial old institutions and traditions.

And the biggest CROWDS you'll see on an average day. This is becoming a problem in the West End,
in the entertainment districts and on TRANSPORT. There is a vast amount of moving about, of
being on the street and enjoying what a city can offer. Residential densities in the centre number only
1400-3000 per sq. mile, but by day it rises to the hundreds of thousands. By night some entertainment districts count
500,000 people passing through in a single night, and 1 million on weekends,
leading to the local council cracking down on licensing to little effect.

http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q49/zupermaus/2004_0810137.jpg http://www.jibble.org/f1london/images/300d_0163.jpg

Events like Christmas shopping or the Notting Hill carnival stretch infrastructure to capacity with crowds of up to 2 million

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2017/2335691931_43df6596c1_o.jpg http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/notting-hill-4-ladbroke-crowd.jpg http://i.thisislondon.co.uk/i/pix/2007/12/09a_03_shoppingne_415x275.jpg

The city has 120 theatres, 1600 theatre groups, 600 dance troupes,
600 cinema screens, 300 art galleries, 300 museums, 320 markets,
340 languages, 350 mosques, 4000 churches, 10,000 pubs n bars,
15,000 restaurants, 500,000 - 1 million clubbers any given night,
5 cathedrals, 5 international airports,6 palaces,
6 international orchestras, 7 rail termini,
85 major ethnic minorities, 87 sq. miles of parkland,
47.8 million tourists, and 140 million air passengers.

It is in short a behemoth of a creative mess, in terms of cultural output,
the worlds greatest city, including over 100 cultural events a day, and
200 festivals a year. With London's resurgence as the leading financial centre
and most globally cosmopolitan city, many Londoners (like New Yorkers)
believe themselves living in the world's capital
(tho' NYC and Tokyo may well have something to say about that).

London streetfashions vie with Tokyo as the most inventive:

http://london.youcatwalk.com/wp-content/uploads/18_eiko.jpghttp://farm1.static.flickr.com/135/381085988_a0a5a58bf7.jpg http://www.trendstop.com/product_info/i/street_style/info_07.jpg


although be warned, the Guidos of London: the Chavs aka the Burberry brigade:

http://cornerstonegroup.files.wordpress.com/2007/05/chavs.jpghttp://www.sha-crawford.co.uk/may2005/chav.jpg

going head to head with London's nu-ravers:

http://www.creativereview.co.uk/crblog/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/ugly.jpg http://images.pingmag.jp/images/title/newrave.jpg


What makes London great is the streetlife rather than the streets themselves (which aren't bad either).
The city claims to be the world's most multicultural, though depending on how you count it
Toronto, New York City and Dubai also lay claim to the title.

http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q49/zupermaus/2004_0810229-1.jpg

http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q49/zupermaus/2004_0905_184252.jpg

http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q49/zupermaus/2004_0819015.jpg

http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q49/zupermaus/2004_0810096.jpg

http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q49/zupermaus/2004_0810289.jpg

thanx to Kilgore Trout

http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/155.JPG http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/089.JPG

http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/154.JPG http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/075.JPG

http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/157.JPG http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/003.JPG

http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/068.JPG http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/094.JPG

The city is unmistakeably gritty yet vibrant

http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/007.JPG http://www.urbanphoto.net/gallerytwo/g2data/albums/London/031.JPG




"If youre tired of London you're tired of life, for there lies in London
all that life can afford" Samuel Johnson:

http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/6117/dsc00294gr7.jpg

[zupermaus]

so question is, which city is more 'unique' the more (/most) beautiful or the more (/most) interesting?

[Alonzo-ny]

Id have to go with Paris but being a Brit maybe London is just a little too familiar.

[zupermaus]

phoooey that took me a while, I hope you enjoyed the journey :)

I really can't say, Ive been to Paris and been absolutely blown away, in every way, and finding EVERYTHING better than my home stomping grounds (except of course when venturing into its suburbs, -which weren't that bad either anyhow).

-Then Ive returned to London, seen its human and dynamic face in sudden relief, and that weird *magic in the air like anything can happen (and is happening), and unexpectedly fallen in love with it all over again.

London has brilliant street fashions, entertainment, arts, and mixing of peoples, and plurality of the old and new, the juxtpositions of the historic and the futuristic at every turn. Paris has damn good feckin food and almost all its products are independent, organic and quality. Its also bloody gorgeous and dripping with detail - in history, society, culture and arts.

London has rubbish, overcrowding and exploitative capitalism, Paris has ghettoes, divisive social problems and er, rude waiters.

[MidtownGuy]

25 protected viewing corridors (for example some of the highrises going up have to be curved or slanting to 'get out of the way'), and the most protected
buildings in the world - well over 30,000 and counting (100 years in age
gets automatic listing status),

A good prescription for New York City at this point.

[zupermaus]

I love that NYC had its buildings so tall that they forced the stepped back art deco skyscrapers so light could reach the streets, a great example of design boundaries creating fizz rather than flat. You could do a whole story on the NYC design-of-the-city too, the grid streets and useful numbering, the small pockets of winding cowpaths (such as Wall St n Lower Manhattan), the growth of the canyons, CENTRAL PARK (so much to say about that one), the outer boroughs, the bridges. Also the fact the island status forcing higher and higher highrise densities helped by the fact Manhattan is on sturdy granite (the only other place of similar substance and constraint being a certain Hong Kong Island), ie London is built on vast clay and chalk deposits, great for tunneling through to create the worlds first n largest metro, harder to build high due to subsidence (skyscraper foundations have to be over 100ft deep in some cases, and other places are completely impossible to build on due to the tunneling below).

Also Manhattan has its sense of space and vista upward with the buildings, aswell as across with the dead straight streets, punctuated by the tallest skrapers and other 'islands' (eg Central Station, Liberty, Ellis, Flatiron). In this regards its more akin to Paris, whilst London is just an intoxicating chaotic jumble of styles with the only vistas from the hills or, of course, the river.

[zupermaus]

Thank the photographers :)Thanx to Olahtipota
http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh191/olaithpota/parnitha2.jpg



Athens - a lesson in organised chaos

Spot the Byzantine church (there are 3)
the luxury apartment block
the construction cranes
the Nineteenth Century villa

imageshack.us
http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/1701/00athenspannj6.jpg


Not many people know this but Athens is an awe inspiring city when it comes to density, go to the cafe at the top of Lykavitos Hill to see it for real,
a sea of 6-12 storey apartment blocks (with the Kiffissia area once the third most crowded in the world).
Some of these pics are a bit dated now, just imagine it a sea of white Olympic-cleaned midrises:

http://personal.pblogs.gr
http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/users/bzelt/CORINTH/PHOTOS/AthensDensity.jpg

www.airphotos.gr

http://www.airphotos.gr/photo2/2646.jpg

Unlike other cities the street width to building height ratio has no guidance,
its one big optimisation of space. The only limits are the height.

http://www.airphotos.gr/photo2/2645.jpg

http://www.airphotos.gr/photo2/2633.jpg

www.goddess-athena.org
http://www.goddess-athena.org/Museum/Temples/Parthenon/Parthenon_NE_from_NE1.jpg

Basically the city is hemmed in by mountains and sea on all sides.

http://www.airphotos.gr/photo/977.jpg


Lykavittos Hill and the view from the top:

www.athensguide.com
http://www.athensguide.com/photoalbum/athens/lycabettuscafe2.JPG http://www.athensguide.com/photoalbum/athens/lycabettuscafe4.JPG

suomipoika www.imageshack.us
http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/3671/leo1hg2.jpg

www.istockphoto.com
http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/7161/04jpgathenscf3.jpg http://www1.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/1800778/2/istockphoto_1800778_athens_concrete.jpg

^Athenian cats can CLIMB up to 12 storeys from balcony to balcony. Each of these apartment blocks work,
like a mini village and without the social problems associated with highrise living. The blocks are mixed use
with offices, doctors surgeries, communal spaces and residentials all shared within. What stands out with
Athens as a city is the strong community.

Lykavittos is the steep hill behind:
www.greeklandscapes.com
http://www.greeklandscapes.com/images/destinations/acropolis/other_photos/lma002030102_acropolis_aerial.jpg

the density from satellite view. The official population is 3.5 million, the unofficial 5 million:

the heart of the city: the Acropolis
the following www.intute.ac.uk
http://www.intute.ac.uk/sciences/worldguide/satellite/2060.jpg http://bp0.blogger.com/_yjQRQZq3_yE/RsiZdx2jRMI/AAAAAAAAACU/7qLZefGMVfI/s400/Acropolis.jpg


the centre - traffic is a major problem along with pollution trapped in the basin
The govt ordered people with certain number plates use their cars on certain days, and
vice versa for the rest. The catastrophic result was many drivers buying both types of
allowed car and increasing their usage, though this is less of a problem nowadays.

In the East the city has 'broken through' a gap and started to suburbanise toward the coastal strip of towns.

http://asterweb.jpl.nasa.gov
http://asterweb.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/images/athens-view.jpg

close up of the peninsular at the bottom:

www.airphotos.gr
http://www.airphotos.gr/photo/626.jpg

thanx to leafs fanatic
http://img296.imageshack.us/img296/8865/2294911574d1476d012cbre6.jpg


Even the suburbs are highrise with only lowrise zones for the villas and mansions of the rich.

leafs fanatic
http://img242.imageshack.us/img242/8840/a21xf1.jpg


The focal point (and height limit) is of course the hill to end all hills in Athens. One of the few nods to civic pride:

thanx to Giorgio
http://www.mccullagh.org/db9/1ds-12/parthenon-at-night.jpg

Giorgio
http://img157.imageshack.us/img157/7340/256435733691e0fb6aabkz6.jpg


http://static.flickr.com/6/85678517_0e8dceb020_b.jpg

Thanx to Savas and Neorion
http://img123.imageshack.us/img123/4059/acropolis2jo.jpg http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/9287/zzoopp2fa8.jpg

and as it was in Ancient times:
thanx to Girogio www.imageshack.us
http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/6121/acropoli0gs.jpg

and in the Nineteenth Century the rest of the city:
www.athensguide.com/oldcity
http://www.athensguide.com/oldcity/aeolisstreet.jpg

http://www.athensguide.com/oldcity/omonia2.jpg

http://www.athensguide.com/oldcity/syntagma.jpg

the old town still survives near the Acropolis

thanx to Southern European
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/21/38181393_9ca43cd0cb_o.jpg

Following thanx to Giorgio
http://www.mccullagh.org/db9/1ds-12/red-clay-roof-tiles.jpg

http://www.mccullagh.org/db9/1ds-12/plaka-skyline-at-night.jpg
http://www.mccullagh.org/db9/1ds-12/acropolis-night-plaka.jpg

http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/958/cimg0088ce1.jpg http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/3766/b551508825si2.jpg

thanx to Savas
http://img295.imageshack.us/img295/5821/zzfrissirasmuseumpg8.jpg

http://img247.imageshack.us/img247/5977/july06343hn4.jpg

And there has been much restoration of the old buildings all through the city for the 2004 Olympics:

Monastiraki in the 1970s
nastyathenian
http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/7127/ifestuwj8.jpg

Savas
http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/2620/july06254xs6.jpg

thanx to Christos7
http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/2063/july06135nn6.jpg

http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/8932/july06034nw5.jpg

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/762/july06193vc2.jpg

Ancient hillsides punctuate the city in a true sea of humanity

leafs fanatic
http://img456.imageshack.us/img456/9189/a13oa9.jpg

www.mcullagh.org
http://www.mccullagh.org/db9/1ds-12/athens-skyline-at-dawn.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1187/675555753_71ac2caede_o.jpg

This density demands high quality eco friendly public transport, in diverse ranges.
Much of the infamous pollution has been curbed by vast renewal in the Olympic makeover
along with an updated social and commercial centre:


new trams
http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/7452/3830126638cc20bd057bwu6.jpg

a fleet of hydrogen powered buses
Christos7
http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/8296/athens04fq0.jpg

Bikepaths
Giorgios
http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/3952/a6xe2.jpg

an extended showpiece metro that displays like a museum the cutaway walls and artefacts found below ground.

Savas
http://www.duke.edu/~adk7/Others/P1013047.jpg


http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/9297/zimage948py7.jpg

leafs fanatic
http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/5281/88776667753c207468bbqi0.jpg

and a revitalised centre:

leafs fanatic
http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/1985/1407323147a2688e441bbrv7.jpg

http://briefcase.pathfinder.gr
http://briefcase.pathfinder.gr/download/gm22634/40271/498685/0/The+Mall+Athens+7.JPG

Savas
http://img249.imageshack.us/img249/9879/109693431929b192f9eo1jr.jpg http://people.csail.mit.edu/people/manoli/gallery/greece/DSCN8286.jpg

leafs fanatic
http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/6697/203627292f3e18c4e65oij2.jpg

http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/1210/134495747913bffdb099bxo4.jpg

http://img172.imageshack.us/img172/3906/7632277817a562a9a9dbqs3.jpg

some people think these parts of Athens are ugly, I think theyre feckin beautiful

my pic
http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/2573/20070331233505lh5.jpg

Suburbs again, the authorities dictate sun blinds be green to add to a 'greenery' feel, but some get away.
The city has a very languid Mediterranean feel.

www.imageshack.us
http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/8660/zimage900vk2.jpg

http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/7519/zimage903lh9.jpg


...though fast forward to post Olympics and the buildings have been CLEANED. Has something been lost?:

http://whirledview.typepad.com
http://whirledview.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/08/11/greece_athens_kolonaki_street_cafe_.jpg


although other parts are undeniably beautiful

leafs fanatic
http://img329.imageshack.us/img329/9685/284403054a30976008byy0.jpg


and better for it:

leafs fanatic
http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/458/990413256d319b9be82bdq0.jpg

and giving way to Athenian homegrown 'decorations'
http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/1411/4200169126c5e301d90olarsn7.jpg


SouthernEuropean
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/243/520550416_1159fb7f9b_b.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/170/438972802_8735ef0b96_o.jpg





to cut a long story short, in all the chaos there is a uniformity of decision.
The density shows the intensity of unity - harmony or chaos? (or harmony through chaos?):

http://img229.imageshack.us/img229/3020/zimage1004ri4.jpg


with islands, whether they be hills, ancient ruins, churches or greenery

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/5917/zimage990gf3.jpg

Christos7
http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/342/july06268oq9.jpg


Christos7 greenery
http://static.flickr.com/43/85678518_f8bda8fa2b_b.jpg

www.airphotos.gr
http://www.airphotos.gr/photo2/2435.jpg
neorion
http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/4742/zzathensviewfromlycabetwl2.jpg

Giorgio
http://img296.imageshack.us/img296/3014/zimage1052oa8.jpg

http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/3676/zimage1060dn1.jpg

leafs fanatic
http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/5261/463141989fbd059bbafosh9.jpg

leafs fanatic
http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/2992/226885912621f2f9ed2ebnh8.jpg


Spot the church again. These places of worship are traditionally built in places picked by auspicious dreams
or circumstance, and cannot be moved or destroyed. One of the Athens myriad idiosyncracies...

www.imageshack.us
http://img264.imageshack.us/img264/2647/zimage1006cw9.jpg

from one island to the next

www.flickr.com
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/134/378734630_8e99059404_b.jpg


parting shot from savas
http://www.duke.edu/~adk7/Others/P1013075.jpg

[Fahzee]

fantastic - thank you Zupermaus!

[Alonzo-ny]

Wonderful! Which city is next?

[zupermaus]

thanx! Now thats n idea, but for laters. :cheers: Im heading a little bit East methinks...

[Fabrizio]

Just great photos!

---

The title of this thread is odd though. Unique and best designed are 2very different things.

Unique to me is Venice. It can't be duplicated. There is only one... it does not remind you of any place else. It cannot be compared to any other city.

Best designed? I must say I think NYC is beautifully designed.

The big rivers at the sides. The big park in the middle. The grid layout (broken-up downtown).

I think it's the easiest big city to get around in ( we are talking about best designed aren't we?). Always the subway, always a taxi. You just stand at the curb and stick your hand out.

Although the idea of distinct neigborhoods and districts has eroded over time... it still exists to a degree...distinct neighborhoods with their own identity, rather compact, one right after another. Nearly the entire city is a wonderful, effortless walk.

---

BTW: Paris is certainly beautiful... and elegant and chic... and I love it, probably my second big-city choice after NYC, but does anyone else here also find it's beauty rather brittle and vapid?

[Minato ku]

http://parisbanlieue.blog.lemonde.fr/files/2007/06/paris-banlieues-creaphis.1181308035.jpg


I don 't think that the middle class high rises in the 13th arrondissement of inner Paris are the best exemple to show suburban ghettoes. ;)

[Totti10]

Paris? Have you ever seen Rome? Rome is with doubt the most beautiful city in the World! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome - Take a look...Rome is better than Paris...I live there. Take a look here too: http://images.google.it/images?hl=it&q=Rome&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi, bye!

[zupermaus]

Yep Rome is gorgeous but Venice for me really takes the cake in terms of beauty. This isnt about the beauty of the city tho' its about how a city is planned and works, or more interestingly doesnt work - historically, culturally, commercially. Some of the most interesting examples would be like Magnitogorsk in Russia, a VAST and (ugly) steelworks and Stalinist/neo-Renaissance city plonked on the side. Similarly LA, Edinburgh, Seoul etc would be fascinating studies.

[Meerkat]

Rome is with doubt the most beautiful city in the World!

Have to disagree with that i'm afraid (I know this is off the thread discussion).

There are too many beautiful cities in Europe to mention here, but in my opinion Salzburg in Austria has the edge on Rome:


http://toddand.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/salzburg1.jpg

Brugges, Belgium:

http://www.trabel.com/brugge/images/brugge-rozenhoedkaai%202.jpg

Prague, Czech republic:

http://www.reeuropeexpo.com/images/prague/Prague%20Castle.jpg

Oxford, England:

http://www.sgc.ox.ac.uk/Oxford%20Photos/Oxford_Aerial.jpg

Just a few of my favourites.

Yes Rome is beautiful, but not top of the list.

[Clarknt67]

wow, what a fascinating and gorgeous thread, thanks so much to everyone who obviously worked so hard to make their case, I'm convinced! I'm on the next plane out of JFK for

[Meerkat]

^ for.....where?

[zupermaus]

ok here goes: Istanbul, the city on two continents. Population 12 million city, metro 18 million, three thousand years in the making.


http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c145/alanson/MehmetHamurkaroglu.jpg

http://www.yannarthusbertrand.com/yann2/Sortie_HTML/img/fondecran/Faits/1024x768/TVDC/1a3f7f76d339e2dfc27545f7d1641eda.jpg


The area of Constantinople below, lost in the rapidly expanding metropolis, some say soon to rival Tokyo in size:

http://img223.exs.cx/img223/7524/istanbulov17pn.jpg


In its long history, Istanbul served as the capital city of the Roman Empire (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Empire) (330-395), the Byzantine Empire (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_Empire) (395-1204 and 1261-1453), the Latin Empire (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_Empire)
(1204-1261), the Ottoman Empire (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Empire) (1453-1922) and is now the largest city (though no longer capital) of the Republic of Turkey (1922-present).

http://www.uncp.edu/home/rwb/constantinople.jpg

Byzantion was established on the site of an ancient port settlement named Lygos, founded by Thracian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thracians) tribes between the 13th and 11th centuries BC,
along with the neighbouring Semistra, but was colonised by the Geeks in 685 BC. After numerous sackings (the Romans in 196 AD, the Crusaders in
1261, the Ottomans in 1453), the modern city arose with the Ottoman Empire's conquest of the Greek city of Constantinople.

The Greek cathedral of Hagia Sophia, the worlds largest dome and church of its time
http://www.sights-and-culture.com/Turkey/Istanbul-Hagia-Sophia.jpg

http://image.dashofer.hu/upload/epitinfo/2_hagia_sofia_belulrol.jpg


By then it had dwindled into a population of 30-40,000, but increased with its new title as capital of the Ottoman Empire. Captured POWS were freed into
the streets and 4000 families were relocated into the empty parts of the city by order of the Sultan whether they be Christian, Muslim or Jew. Thus a
unique and cosmopolitan society was created, and that lasted for the next 500 years. Construction started on a grand scale, the grand mosques, the
palaces, bazaars and official buildings, alongside a flourishing of the arts and culture.


The Islamic City:

http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/9594/istanbulorientbx7.gif

The Grand mosques were built in every major neighbourhood, huge edifices designed to impress,
unlike traditional mosque design that valued simplicity and modesty:

http://i12.tinypic.com/3345kia.jpg

http://cascolytravel.com/images/..%5C2001%5C010925-815.jpg http://www.smi-online.co.uk/_media/graphics/Istanbul_day.gif

When the Blue Mosque (2nd pic) was built with six minarets it offended the Islamic world. The Sultan, in appeasement,
funded the building of two extra minarets onto the Grand Mosque in Meccah so also it could have six.

http://www.sunexpressnews.com/haberresim/yeni_mosque_istanbul_turkey_1.jpg

the Islamic edifices

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f197/zhjakob/architecture/6-1.jpg http://www.iconofile.com/events/images/topkapi.jpg

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f197/zhjakob/architecture/10-1.jpg

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f197/zhjakob/architecture/37.jpg






With the changing fashions of the day the Ottoman Empire could not help but be influenced by the conquered peoples of its empire, and vice versa. By
the 1870s much new architecture was in the Parisian styles of the heyday:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/Constantinople_Panoramic_Normalised.png

Following the destruction of numerous Turkish towns and cities by Greek troops in the War of Independence Istanbul suffered greatly in the
revenge attacks against the millennia old Greek community, the majority of them forced into exile to Greece. The culmination in the 1955 Istanbul
Pogrom left 4,000 shops, 70 churches, and 30 schools destroyed, while those responsible for the mob violence were left unpunished.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b6/Golden_Horn_Panorama_Istanbul.jpg


The creation of the Turkish state also saw a distinct change in style - European designs were abandoned in favour of re-Turkicising the city. Numerous
Turkish built and designed public buildings were destroyed for merely looking European, and -although strictly a secular state was replaced by Islamicised
effigies.



The labyrinthine Grand Bazaar sees crowds of up to 400,000 a day

http://www.istanbulhotels.de/download/ConceptBuilding&Situation/GrandBazaar3.jpg


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8e/Grand_bazaar_interior.jpg http://www.jozan.net/2005/images/Grand-Bazaar/DSCN0747.JPG

However there are still thousands of survivors:

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/6695/haydarpashafromseamk0.jpg



http://img169.exs.cx/img169/6060/akaretler33111lq.jpg

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g154/zh_jakob/Izmir%20Istanbul%2007/Izmir_Istanbul_07_963.jpg http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g154/zh_jakob/Izmir%20Istanbul%2007/Izmir_Istanbul_07_977.jpg




the architectural mix is on a par with London's

http://aycu34.webshots.com/image/27273/2003611471301992694_rs.jpg


http://img97.exs.cx/img97/1267/rumeli049gv.jpg

http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/311880.jpghttp://bp2.blogger.com/_SzunzvqayoE/RoKhNI6mseI/AAAAAAAABhY/q76OEIYVcqo/s1600/tujrkey%2Baerial%2B1.JPG

http://aycu34.webshots.com/image/44113/2005738033162865726_rs.jpg

Even away from the central areas the buildings are still mixed and often pleasingly confused

Italianate
http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c347/stormicy4/c2b974e39b0a48529de0376ced65a213.jpg

Spanish
http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c347/stormicy4/d1c5dfbef1c5416499323b94afd04869.jpg

French
http://aycu38.webshots.com/image/29877/2003617021161971398_rs.jpg

Arabian
http://aycu32.webshots.com/image/49431/2003042165849385417_rs.jpg

The traditional clapperboard housing of Istanbul saw in its heyday. Note the
fusion of styles, from the European roof to the Islamic onion dome, the European balconies and Middle Eastern screens.


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/98/Arnavutkoy.jpg/750px-Arnavutkoy.jpg

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f197/zhjakob/SSC/Selcuk__Aral_kinaliada93.jpg http://img352.imageshack.us/img352/6677/istanbul42bl1.jpg

http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/329/husnuozkuzguncukck4.jpg


Population change followed in the 1970s as the Anatolian rural migrants flooded into the cities.
Many illegal buildings were set up, leading to 65% of the city housing being unsafe,
especially in light of the 1999 earthquakes that killed 18,000.
http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2007/04/27/istanbul_narrowweb__300x488,0.jpg http://www.iris.edu/news/events/turkey/05.ap.jpg

There are 80,000 buildings the Turkish geological survey reccommend for demolition, that could collapse in Istanbul if it suffered a direct hit.
This midrise collapsed into a crowded street as the older building next door was being demolished:




Istanbul has been rocked by terrorist bombs of late, labelled
as coming from Al Kaeda, though it is nothing new from attacks
by Kurdish rebels for decades. This is the biggest threat to the
new wave of tourism heading its way and as its newfound position
on the modern day Grand Tour:

http://www.israelnewsagency.com/islamic_terrorism_turkey2.jpg


The population is still growing rapidly, with 11.4 million officially registered (and millions more unregistered).
Estimates at the metro population is near the 20 million mark. The city is growing by 3.5% per year and
still densifying despite growing suburbs, currently at an average 2,750 registered people per sq. mile.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y46/Stormicy2/9b677df2.jpg
As the city grows highrises sprout across it, away from the historic centre


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/View_of_Istanbul_from_G%C3%BClhane_Park.jpg


the leafy expanding suburbs, including the Levant business district, a new satellite core,
and its rapidly expanding skyline. This is a city on the rise:



http://www.usak.org.uk/images/Levent_istanbul.jpg

http://img369.imageshack.us/img369/7691/istanbul0aa.jpg

the Levant cluster 2010

http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/9136/httpimg67imageshackusimg679546.jpg


OK, the result, the City Today

http://img488.imageshack.us/img488/2876/dubaitowers27bx.jpg http://www.mokumtv.nl/images/ottoaff2.jpg

http://www.amigaturk.com/aegis/istanbul.jpg

after all the feuding, destruction, building work, population exchanges and political upheavals:

As a heady mix between Paris, Damascus and San Fransisco (architecture aswell as outlook), East meets West, old meets new Newsweek in 2007 called
on Istanbul as the new 'world's coolest city' (last time it did this was London 1995) precisely for the juxtapositions found so few places elsewhere- girls
in miniskirts passing mosques, ancient teahouses next to gay bars, swimming in the sea next to the palaces. It also happens to be one of the friendliest
cities in the world.

http://www.tmhairrestoration.com/images/news/kozmetik_haber_20060101_big.JPG http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/3549/dsc0092ip9.jpg


In short Istanbul = zeitgeist. Its currently the world's best kept secret but not for long - tourism is expected to rise dramatically as the 'secret' gets out,
and foreign visitors will reach 10 million in the next 2 years alone, and rising. This is the result of decades of state and education secularism combined/
fighting with a strong religious and cultural identity. 98% of the Turkish are unified as Muslims but come from diverse backgrounds.
http://istanbul.metblogs.com/photos/cool_istanbul.JPG

1.



3.http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/429/mereksokakmuzisyenleri7nu.jpg

4.http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/6417/shipintroublels6.jpg


5.http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/5866/34qp9.jpg

6. http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f197/zhjakob/1446862827_adaaa64593_b.jpg http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f197/zhjakob/SSC/172757476_21d4b1c16f_b.jpg




7.http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/8918/27527001taksimvr0.jpg

http://dogmouth.net/photos/turkey/istanbul/mid/sapphire-club-crowd-candid-1.jpg




10.


http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f197/zhjakob/SSC/518300210_fed470165a_b.jpg

http://tinypic.com/3ywzmf4.jpg


http://img67.imageshack.us/img67/2723/davidcoulthardistanbul0wm0.jpg


14.http://img83.imageshack.us/img83/5650/aa1018001qi2.jpg




The forward thinking mayor is a trained modern architect but is busy restoring the old parts of the city. Narrow
alleyways now jostle for space, especially with the Turkish love of coffee. The pedestrianisation and restoration
of the centre continues at a breakneck pace:


Before:
http://aycu05.webshots.com/image/19724/2005467606826858204_rs.jpg

After:
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c145/alanson/CanBalcioglu.jpg

http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q49/zupermaus/ruefrancasieistanbul.jpg http://www.cooltownstudios.com/images/istanbul-frenchst.jpg


Many of the old alleys provide respite from the crowds, and seem awaiting for the pedestrianisation
and restoration, and the ubiquitous takeover of cafe life:

http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c347/stormicy4/77d43a1310dd4c22a5f25b11ce7e8ff5.jpg http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f197/zhjakob/architecture/1-2.jpg

http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c347/stormicy4/a9b99457957041138f7536ef40d79c35.jpg

http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/5106/384615248a5c4b6ebe8bfd1.jpg

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f197/zhjakob/SSC/Engin_IMG_0187.jpg

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f197/zhjakob/SSC/Engin_IMG_0190.jpg

http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q49/zupermaus/istiklalcaffs.jpg

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f197/zhjakob/922762323_77a7e79dd3_b.jpg



massive pedestrianisation

http://static.flickr.com/31/54972779_358c450ec2_b.jpg

http://uebermorgentau.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/dsc_0270_wp.jpg

http://cache.virtualtourist.com/2605628-Beyoglu-Istanbul.jpg http://cache.virtualtourist.com/2230499-Beyoglu-Istanbul.jpg



Before and After old buildings

http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/3411/7talimhaneonce4gq.jpg http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/6940/7talimhanesonra8pe.jpg


http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/7828/2mesonce7lp.jpg http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/4995/2messonra1ei.jpg


http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/4602/3mesonce9tj.jpg http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/7320/3messonra8gs.jpg


http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/2008/4mesonce8iw.jpg http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/5788/4messonra8ig.jpg

alongside strengthening the illegal buildings of the 1970s

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c145/alanson/BehcetSeber.jpg

http://img225.exs.cx/img225/7246/besiktas21906cl.jpg

and undoing the mistakes. Istanbul is the only major city doing this:

before & after
http://img374.imageshack.us/img374/6015/5ozw0.jpg http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/667/5swm3.jpg



http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/4982/6oishk4.jpg http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/1051/6shm1.jpg



http://img444.imageshack.us/img444/1199/1obd6.jpg http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/421/1snw3.jpg


http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/7548/2orf5.jpg http://img367.imageshack.us/img367/5610/2sef0.jpg


http://img252.imageshack.us/img252/9153/3owg3.jpg http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/4010/3siu1.jpg


http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/7122/4oel1.jpg http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/7742/4sfz7.jpg


Worthwhile 20th Century buildings are also renewed without discrimination:

http://img234.imageshack.us/img234/662/2oxk4.jpg http://img389.imageshack.us/img389/1305/2sia9.jpg


http://img355.imageshack.us/img355/4781/3owo6.jpg http://img234.imageshack.us/img234/8140/3sew2.jpg

at the end of the day all it takes is a coat of paint:
http://img240.imageshack.us/img240/1479/12obe9.jpg http://img378.imageshack.us/img378/3954/12sbi7.jpg

what a difference the removal of shop signs make:
http://img388.imageshack.us/img388/2744/10obz0.jpg http://img514.imageshack.us/img514/8849/10sqe1.jpg


The logical progression in pictures,
the main streets:

At the beginning of the 20th century.
http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/9190/istcad0hd4.jpg


50's: Street opened to cars
http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/4033/istcadaq9.jpg


Some years later the nostalgic tram line doesn't exist anymore, the area getting more unattractive. Buildings full of signs.
http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/6902/istcad05se5.jpg

After 90's until today:
Several renovations and restorations. The tram line is back and buildings are rented to high prices again.
http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/4156/istcadnowae4.jpg http://www.gaxxi.com/fotoritim/fotoritim/gorsel/dosya/1184186474birbeyogluaksami.jpg

http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/3406/27hy.jpg

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f197/zhjakob/architecture/22.jpg

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f197/zhjakob/SSC/15-1.jpg

http://www.utkuts.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/istanbul-tunel-18.jpg


This is what's best about the city, despite 18 million people there are so many respites of peace


http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/1310/cumhurpic0025up6.jpg

http://aycu20.webshots.com/image/25219/2004423461456961567_rs.jpg

The rich and upper middle classes live all along the gorgeous coastline

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c145/alanson/MorrisAlkalay2.jpg



http://img352.imageshack.us/img352/7376/housesalongthebosphoruses9.jpg

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c145/alanson/MorrisAlkalay.jpg

the urban coast is studded with vistas and inlets

http://img104.exs.cx/img104/4218/galatasarayadasi5yc.jpg

http://www.propertyturkeyforsale.com/images/view_from_istanbul_bridge.jpg


http://aycu32.webshots.com/image/29471/2003671475294192823_rs.jpg


http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f197/zhjakob/SSC/560584911_bf11ccaa23_b.jpg http://nucleus.istanbul.edu.tr/kale.jpg

http://img48.imageshack.us/img48/4913/solar1wa8.jpg http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f197/zhjakob/2-2.jpg




whilst the middle classes and poor live in midrise districts both old and new:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/archive/3/37/20070211214316%21DSC04811_Istanbul_-_Vista_del_fondo_del_Corno_d%27Oro_dal_caf%C3%A9_L oti_di_Ey%C3%BCp_-_Foto_G._Dall%27Orto_30-5-2006.jpg

http://www.affordablehousinginstitute.org/blogs/us/istanbul_gecekondu_small1.jpg http://www.berkshirefinearts.com/images/upload/images/227_ZerenHouses.jpghttp://cache.viewimages.com/xc/2768820.jpg?v=1&c=ViewImages&k=2&d=17A4AD9FDB9CF19390335F8FA9CA92A65FCE63450481B0F4 9930FDCFC4C15FBB.jpg

http://www.spraguephoto.com/stock/images/Turkey/tr04-37%20Cities%20Turkey%20Street%20scene%20in%20the%2 0Fanar%20district%20of%20Istanbul%20Once%20occupie d%20by%20the%20wealthy%20Greek%20community%20most% 20of%20whom%20left%20Istanbul%20in%20the%2060s%20t he%20area%20is%20now%20inhabited%20by%20Turks%20wh o%20have%20come%20to%20the%20city%20from%20rural%2 0areas.jpg http://www.spraguephoto.com/stock/images/Turkey/tr04-35%20Cities%20Turkey%20Street%20scene%20in%20the%2 0Fanar%20district%20of%20Istanbul%20Once%20occupie d%20by%20the%20wealthy%20Greek%20community%20most% 20of%20whom%20left%20Istanbul%20in%20the%2060s%20t he%20area%20is%20now%20inhabited%20by%20Turks%20wh o%20have%20come%20to%20the%20city%20from%20rural%2 0areas.jpg

http://www.cmestudio.com/travel/world/Turkey/Istanbul%20aerial%20view.jpg

http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/5958/picture240ri1.jpg

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f197/zhjakob/SSC/442241257_573bbc4b0c_o.jpg

but in areas much more vibrant:

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f197/zhjakob/SSC/265973156_b5afd32c15_b.jpg


http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f197/zhjakob/SSC/525963566_6ad9f814cb_b.jpg



Public transport is well run and extensive enough, but crowded and still giving way to the car. It is outdated
in both a good as well as bad way:

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b148/stormicy3/kis.jpg

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f197/zhjakob/SSC/477214626_2d7a665149_b.jpg



http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f197/zhjakob/SSC/455601984_df85056614_o.jpg

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c145/alanson/tranvay.jpg http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2285/1494821459_c23f078d22.jpg

There is a burgeoning art scene, and much tradition of political protest. Istanbul is currently a place
fighting between a left wing city and a right wing economy and countryside. This makes for great
frisson, and part of the reason why only now is it so 'cool':



http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f197/zhjakob/SSC/Burc_yaya6.jpg

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f197/zhjakob/SSC/Burc_yaya8-1.jpg http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f197/zhjakob/SSC/Burc_yaya7.jpg







http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f197/zhjakob/SSC/Burc_yaya4.jpg

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f197/zhjakob/SSC/Burc_yaya3.jpg

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f197/zhjakob/SSC/Burc_yaya2.jpg

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f197/zhjakob/SSC/Burc_yaya0.jpg

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f197/zhjakob/SSC/Burc_yaya1.jpg

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f197/zhjakob/SSC/Burc_yaya9.jpg


http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f197/zhjakob/SSC/g.jpg

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f197/zhjakob/SSC/k.jpg

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f197/zhjakob/SSC/e-1.jpg



http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f197/zhjakob/SSC/b.jpg


http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g154/zh_jakob/Izmir%20Istanbul%2007/Izmir_Istanbul_07_1008.jpg




http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f197/zhjakob/1751708700_157d3930f2_o.jpg http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f197/zhjakob/SSC/2-12.jpg

[Clarknt67]

^ for.....where?

Obviously; the destination endorsed by the poster that presented the most compelling case.

[zupermaus]

ok next stop coming soon on the armchair tour
: Barcelona

http://www.geocities.com/ultraflorist/grid.jpg

or Tokyo

http://www.3deearts.com/tokyo/tokyo/tokyo/tokyo_panorama.jpg

[Meerkat]

^ Tokyo Zupermaus- please!

Always wanted to go but it's very expensive, maybe a couple of years.

[zupermaus]

Welcome to Tokyo

http://img453.imageshack.us/img453/5570/bfea778bfz7.jpg

http://knowledge.allianz.com/nopi_downloads/images/tokyo_zoom.jpg http://www.citynoise.org/upload/7512.jpg


the worlds biggest city by far, 34 million strong in the contiguous area, 50 million by American CSA counts. SCROLL RIIIIGHT

http://image.blog.livedoor.jp/bluestylecom/imgs/0/d/0dfc3579.jpg


yep, keeeep scrooolllinng

http://chiri.xrea.jp/cgi-bin/img-box/img20060702190812.jpg


Tokyo has grown so large the govt is now levelling hills and mountains to accomodate it
(65% of Japan is forested, one of the highest percentages in the world) alongside huge
land reclamation from the sea. It is hemmed in on all sides and connected by strips of
urbanity to the other metropolises of Honshu.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/Images/terra_japan_16sep04.jpg http://www.mapwatch.com/news-blog/images/japan-satellite-image.jpg


reclaimed land:

http://tokyoyakei.jp/airship/airship-25.jpg



Tokyo is a relatively young city by East Asian standards. As a small village the Shogun built Edo-Jo in 1453,
what would become the worlds largest castle. The city that sprang up would time and time again become
the worlds largest city, in different periods during the 18th, 19th and 20th Centuries. Time and time
again this metropolis would be destroyed by fire and catastrophe, what would be dubbed the flowers of Edo.

In the 16th Century the rapidly growing city was split between the high town and low town, high for the court and rich
merchant classes, low for everyone else. The low town, Shitamachi crammed an incredible 182,000 people per square mile,
a city dwellers life there was bawdy and good natured though poor, but the vast pleasure districts came with the crime too,
from murder, drunkenness to common child prostitution, in contrast to the echelons of the higher town. The life span of a
building in Shitamachi averaged 20 years.




http://images.google.co.uk/url?q=http://www.loc.gov/rr/asian/guide/images/0035a.jpg&usg=AFQjCNHfZHEF6Ld3VW9fADmCdKH_Y892vw.jpg


Edo-Jo, the largest defensive structure ever built

http://www.rekihaku.ac.jp/kikaku/index56/images/edo.jpg

to appreciate the massive scale of the castle, made up of 5 concentric rings of defences,
designed to confuse and trap attackers, below is the modern day site of the
Imperial Palace. The castle once occupied the entire Imperial Park:

http://image.blog.livedoor.jp/bluestylecom/imgs/d/3/d3df585a.JPG


Tokyo the city shaped by disaster


http://www.si.umich.edu/Art_History/UMMA/1948/1948_1.149.jpg

http://aog.2y.net/uploads/Lyrt/Images/Kanto%20Earthquake%2001.jpg


Ok our study begins with a haunting story:

In 1654 a long sleeved kimono was made by a royal courtesan named Kiku Ueno, who had noticed a
young Samurai of remarkable beauty at a temple ceremony and been immediately enamoured.
Although she never saw him again she made a murasaki kimono for herself, echoing
the purple cloth and design he had been wearing. However she grew sick and died shortly after on
16th January 1655, and the kimono was uncharacteristically inherited by another courtesan,
the cloth being too good to be buried. She too died almost a year later, having spoken shortly
before of being haunted by a 'beautiful shadow'. She was cremated on 16th January 1656, and the
unlucky robe was sold to a pawnbrokers. However the teenage girl who worked there, seeing the
value of the cloth appropriated the piece herself,shortly after becoming a third 'victim' to die of sudden circumstance.

At the time the city was recovering from a drought but had been lashed by typhoon winds - fire bells rang almost
without pause. On 18th January 1657 the kimono was returned to Honmyōji temple, whereby the priest recognising
it a third time, burned it in exorcism. However a 'sudden wind' sprang up and started a fire that spread through the temple,
and overcoming the Hikeshi fire services.

This would forever be known as the Long Sleeves or Furisode Fire. The city burned for three days,
from the centre out to the outskirts, then back again. 300 palaces, 600 temples, 3000 shops
and businesses were destroyed, and over 100,000 killed. 44 sq km of the city was destroyed.
Only nine years later London would follow a similar fate.

The new city

Funds were distributed from the empire to both Samurai classes aswell as commoners, and the great mercantile
centre was restored. Roads were widened alongside the space between buildings, with a firewall of empty space
that seperated the court areas. Temples and palaces were rebuilt by the river, along with numerous crossings - the single bridge
before had proved catastrophic in the fire, a bottleneck where thousands died. The last building to be restored was the
empirical residence itself, Edo-Jo. By the early 18th Century it was the worlds largest city with well over a million
residents. However, one notable exception in the rebuild, in contrast to London, the city was still largely wooden.


http://www.edo-tokyo-museum.or.jp/english/img/exhibition/window_open/ryogokubashi.jpg http://www.syndetics.com/index.aspx?type=xw12&isbn=9784770027573/LC.GIF&client=pasap

In self imposed exile Japan had seen in a flowering of its arts and culture,
this was the period of the 'Floating World', a city of courtesans, labourers,
merchants, Samurai classes and geishas, the city divided between vast
court, mercantile, and entertainment districts.

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n13/n68266.jpg http://www.floating-world.org/images/eizenweb.jpg


http://www.hno.harvard.edu/multimedia/2006/humanities/images/3-world2-450.jpg






Meiji Era Tokyo

In 1854 ominous 'black ships' appeared on the horizon in Tokyo harbour. This was the
fleet of American Commodore Perry, breaking hundreds of years of Japanese isolationism.
This was a seminal event in modern Japanese history.
The new Meiji Restoration, having wrestled back control from the Samurai classes, decided
to set up trade with these new peoples, rapidly adopting much Western technology and
fashions alongside a continuation of its traditional culture, that traded woodprints and
arts (the initially inferior 'Japonisme' that would influence the 19th Century art and impressionist
movements back in Europe) in return for an industrial revolution, the worlds fastest yet achieved.

http://www.mlit.go.jp/road/road_e/hist/fig4.JPG http://www2.city.tomioka.lg.jp/worldheritage/outline/images/out_01.jpg

https://apps.ngv.vic.gov.au/shop/static/productImages/p_card_floatingworld_2.jpg http://www.geocities.com/ninodamachi/tokyo_rokumeikan_meiji.jpg

http://www.dressaday.com/singingbytheplumgarden.jpg


"Nothing cheers a builder like a natural disaster"
On 11:58 am, September 1st 1923, American visitors on a swaying jetty in Yokohama
noticed a strange cloud on the horizon, moving from east to west along the waterfront,
and soon enveloping the whole view in silence. What they were seeing was the dust cloud
sprung up by the collapse of thousands of buildings.

As lunch had been prepared by families across the
city, toppled stoves ignited hundreds of fires in the debris. Meanwhile the great bay swept away
leaving fish stranded to the horizon. It would come roaring back later in the form of a massive tsunami.

The Great Kwanto Quake destroyed old Edo by fire and water and killed
140,000. To this day it is the worlds most destructive and costliest disaster.
Most notable were the deadly firestorms that raged across the city, whirlwinds of fire sucking in buildings and people into a vortex, a
phenomenon seen in earlier conflagrations.


http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/images2/sep1_kanto_quake_po.jpg

The National Museum and castle was annihilated, taking with them thousands of years worth
of priceless artefacts and works of art. This was the greatest loss of heritage outside China.


http://research.kahaku.go.jp/rikou/namazu/03kanto/meziro/a/064-03.JPG http://dev.nsta.org/evwebs/1223/kanto_quake.jpg

A new slate

The city was rebuilt on vast and impressive scale. If it had survived it would have been the worlds greatest
collection of art deco. In a matter of years it was set to overtake London to be the worlds largest city, but
was in turn usurped by NYC in its heyday:

http://images.artelino.com/images/images/kanto_earthquake4.jpg http://www.memyi.us/images/tokyo69190.jpg



The art deco city destroyed 1945, the worst of the flowers of Edo:



http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/90/Firebombing_of_Tokyo.jpg/300px-Firebombing_of_Tokyo.jpg http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/pacific/maps/images/maps_04_01.jpg

http://www.ehistorybuff.com/military/hiroshima_tok_photo.jpg

Not many people know this but Tokyo suffered twice the damage of Hiroshima. This was the main reason
why it wasn't picked as an atom bomb site - it had already been destroyed in the worlds largest and deadliest bombing raids.
In one night alone 80,000 people died in dense firebombing, with 200,000 civilians killed in total for the war.

The clean up was grisly, thousands of immolated bodies and charred skeletons littered
the streets, thousands more lining the Sumida river as those who sought shelter were
drowned or boiled. Military documentation to this day is too macabre to publish -
in one park the remains of an estimated 8000 people created a gruesome pyramid, the
result of a firestorm striking a crowd.
http://image.blog.livedoor.jp/takekan/imgs/4/8/48a7eadf.jpg

http://aboutjapan.japansociety.org/resources/category/1/3/0/2/images/tokyo_bombing1.jpg





The modern city rises once more.

The 1964 Olympics marked the entrance of Japan back onto the world stage
after the trauma of war and rebuilding:

http://www.aldaver.com/Images/Os/lg1964sm.gif http://www.aia.org/aiarchitect/thisweek05/tw0401/0401tange_4_b.jpg

The modern international style fitted perfectly in with Japanese mentality,
especially having been sourced from the 16th Century Katsura Palace by early modernist
studies and theorists such as Le Courbousier. Instead of a royal residence of lavishness
and ostentation, the queen chose one designed on sartori and zen principles.
Modernism was functional, clean, simplistic and perfect for rebuilding a nation.
The International style in the West looked modern, in Japan it looked ascetic
with traditional undertones.

http://library.osu.edu/sites/rarebooks/japan/images/full/06/37.jpg

http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/arts/Architec/ArchitecturalStructure/StructuralElements/BeautyJapanese%20Architecture/tea11.jpg http://farm1.static.flickr.com/191/491404726_f23871c898.jpg http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/arts/Architec/ArchitecturalStructure/StructuralElements/BeautyJapanese%20Architecture/tea31.jpg






The metropolis had become the worlds largest by 1968. During the 1980s Tokyo also became
the worlds richest and most expensive city, a title it still holds today with an estimated $1300 billion economy.


http://img505.imageshack.us/img505/8103/aerialbu4.jpg



Tokyo has twice the amount of people in NYC in the same area, despite the shorter buildings.

http://www.stat.go.jp/English/info/guide/2006ver/img/chap4_05.jpg


The building codes of course protect against earthquake damage, with strict height restrictions.
Thus the limits of skyscrapers are often 600-850ft, with only a handful taller. However as the huge
business sector demands, the multinationals (the highest number of HQ in the world) need to fit in
larger floorplates than that allows. The result are huge squat looking skyscrapers, sometimes breaking
up their mass by twin or multiple towers. In NYC or Hong Kong the buildings would be half the width
and double the height. Tokyo has the worlds largest buildings by average floorspace, no 1 in the world,
but is only 5th in terms of skyscraper heights.

http://building-pc.cocolog-nifty.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/10/03/tokyosiodome4.jpg


http://img453.imageshack.us/img453/157/b35dc3c3pa2.jpg


Believe it or not the Ropponggi Hills tower and arts complex has the same floorspace
as the Sears Tower,and may be the worlds biggest tourist attraction, accommodating
a million visitors on a weekend day.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/14/Roppongi_Hills_Mori_Tower_from_Tokyo_Tower_Day.jpg/450px-Roppongi_Hills_Mori_Tower_from_Tokyo_Tower_Day.jpg


The vast city is broken up into a chequerboard of different massings of buildings:

numerous skyscraper clusters:

http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/581/airship46oq6.jpg

http://tokyoyakei.jp/airship/airship-32.jpg

midrise districts:

http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/5821/tokyonihonbashi1ma7.jpg


and myriad lower, denser neighbourhoods, often without street names or numbers.
These areas are the bane of taxi drivers and postal workers.

http://www.jefflawson.net/blog/photo/020406_large.jpg

these in turn hold the most surprising thing about Tokyo,
thousands of traditional wooden houses, marking also
a trend from the 1990s to rebuild in this style:

http://www.airoots.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/cabana_matias_echanove.jpg

these districts also hide thousands of self designed, detached homes

http://www.inhabitat.com/images/billboardbuilding2_copy.jpg

this is the start of a city finally constructing lasting buildings, not the temporary
haberdash of centuries of destruction:

http://www.sadocles.nl/singapore-0.10.1/galleries/Asia/Japan/Tokyo%202007/Odaiba/DSCF2902.JPGhttp://www.sadocles.nl/singapore-0.10.1/galleries/Asia/Japan/Tokyo%202007/Odaiba/DSCF2898.JPG

Omotesando stores:
http://galleries.ipcignite.com/croppedimages/testuser5_oct2007_01_airspace_lzaaLw_JQaW8w.jpg



http://markb-photo.que.jp/images/070113-3-1.jpg http://image.blog.livedoor.jp/ttakai/imgs/7/7/778f18e2.jpg http://archrecord.construction.com/projects/portfolio/archives/images/0506tods.jpg

http://kenplatz.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/building/photo/20070219/504805/600-ice1-main.jpg http://english.chosun.com/media/photo/news/200701/200701250009_04.jpg

http://manoloshoeblog.com/images/PradaTokyo.jpg http://creativeclass.typepad.com/thecreativityexchange/images/2007/12/17/tokyo.jpg


reemergence of civic pride

http://photoimg.enjoyjapan.naver.com/view/enjoybbs/viewphoto/ptravel/62000/20080417120842519536064100.jpg




How does a city of 35 million transport its people? With the worlds largest
metropolitan mass transit system. The subway lines carry 7.8 million passengers
daily, yet only account for 282 out of 1558 rail stations.

Shinjuku station averages 3.22 million people a day, Ikebukuro 2.7 million,
Shibuya 2.4 million

http://www.jreast.co.jp/e/stations/img/map_e/e866.gif

http://www.3deearts.com/tokyo/tokyo/shinjuku/shinjuku_map.jpg

And in all the vastness of the city lie numerous parks and oases of calm.
There are two things one must do in Tokyo, pick a direction and get lost,
and secondly if you see a park, visit it:


http://www.twoweekstillfriday.com/archives/Panaram%20Skyline%20from%20Tower%203.jpg

http://www.ee.usyd.edu.au/%7Eehssan/images/photos/japan2.jpg http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/cmprince/images/India_2004/Tokyo_ImperialPalace03-Small.jpg

http://www.carto.net/neumann/travelling/japan_2004_09/09_tokyo_2004_09_24-25/34_imperial_palace_east_garden.jpg


The worlds greatest city?

Culturally Tokyo is a behemoth, a truly global city. It has more businesses, shops, bars,
restaurants, clubs and museums than anywhere on the planet. And by far, for example:
NYC 5 boroughs counts 1000 bars, Tokyo counts 27,00 karaoke bars alone (and nearly
100,000 drinking establishments in total). London counts 15,000 restaurants, Tokyo
200,000. Paris counts 94 Michelin stars for its food, the world leader by far. When Michelin
finally rated Tokyo in 2007 they counted 191 stars, whilst receiving criticism so many places were left out.



http://www.travel-earth.com/japan/shinjuku-night.jpg

The legacy of the vast entertainment districts of old Edo, lives strong

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/25/46059347_25d986c843.jpg http://farm1.static.flickr.com/110/309451832_5c7b91d189.jpg

The business districts count the largest numbers of Global HQs, trade the most money
and retain the largest business economy in the world, despite a ten year slump (ending in 2005).

http://www.tokyoarchitecture.info/Images/Buildings/Shinjuku/SompoJapanBuilding-002.jpg http://horsesthink.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/manga_two_176.jpg http://homepage.mac.com/sonicboy/blog/mori-viewdeck.jpg

However what Tokyo distinctly lacks, through no fault of its own, is the physical history.
Even the Imperial Palace, built on the ruins of Edo-Jo after the war, has concrete walls:

http://www.monasette.com/blog/gallery/tokyo/imperial%20palace.jpg http://cache.eb.com/eb/image?id=20311&rendTypeId=4

However intimate scaled streets and wooden buildings survive in the backstreets,
alongside a strong continuation of traditional arts and culture, from Kabuki theatre
to Sumo and traditional arts taught at schools, from kendo to ikebana flower arranging:

http://greggman.com/japan/jpics/pic00019/psn00037.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c8/Tokyo_Kabuki-za-Theatre_1831.jpg/800px-Tokyo_Kabuki-za-Theatre_1831.jpg

shinto wedding,

http://www.valpo.edu/cjsp/photogallery/05springjapan/wedding.jpg

sumo, kabuki

http://www.karate.org.pl/kyokushin/galimg/134_sumo/tlum1puzlzd_d.jpg http://www.asiagrace.com/photos/h/kabuki.jpg

The other thing Tokyo lacks is diversity, in contrast with other Asian cities. As of 2005, the five most common foreign nationalities found in Tokyo were
the Chinese (123,661), Korean (106,697), Filipino (31,077), American (18,848) and British (7,696). The only other major cities on the continent with so
few minorities are Seoul and Pyongyang.

Yokohama Chinatown

http://www.raubacapeu.net/people/yves/pictures/2000/04/ii-15-yokohama-chinatown-med.jpg http://farm1.static.flickr.com/205/479205287_27257c406c.jpg

Of course old traditions continue alongside a flowering of contemporary Japan.
The teenage fashions are the most bizarre and daring in the world, this is
the place of inspiration for the bigshot designers, the cos-play streetwear
of troubled teenagers coming out before the catwalks of Milan and Paris.
In the 1980s the style was rockabilly Americana, the 1990s was Victoriana
and uber-California, the 2000s sees traditional Japanese with cyber
twists, and serious 80s retro.



http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1110/1349056353_e993c8b902.jpg http://jeansnow.net/tokyoboy/070919-tokyolookbook.jpg



The 1990s freakshow,

bear in mind these styles are seriously dated on the Tokyo 'scene'

Kalifornia vs Gothic Lolita. IN a city of 35 million with strict social traditions,
the obvious nature of teen life away from the cookie cutter sacrifices for low
crime rates coupled with a strong economy, was the urban tribes. There were hundreds,
more so than any other city, from cybergoths to punks to suntan girls, to die hard hippies
and manga wannabes to urban samurai to surfers to skaters to rockabillies to glam rockers.


Its back to the Nineties!

http://static.flickr.com/57/224916585_8397e55aa5.jpg http://www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2007/04/16/thumbtribe_narrowweb__300x471,0.jpg http://lemonodor.com/images/troubled-harajuku-teen.jpg

http://bp2.blogger.com/_qYa1pmpMDCc/RqFUUvcp--I/AAAAAAAAAO4/1ncPxgo496A/s400/japan9.jpg http://www.dare.to/wander/Asia0203/people/jpn/IMG_0101.JPGhttp://bp3.blogger.com/_qYa1pmpMDCc/RqFS1_cp-6I/AAAAAAAAAOY/W2dAn4aqx_8/s1600-h/japan5.jpg

and verging on art -people wrapped up in tubes/carboard boxes/sheets, slasher victims, dolls, robots.
As far as the traditionally bullied teenagers of the world go, Tokyo definitely leads over the next great
pretender here, London.


http://bp3.blogger.com/_qYa1pmpMDCc/RqFUR_cp-9I/AAAAAAAAAOw/Pa0_jWWF9Dc/s400/japan8.jpg http://travel.3yen.com/wp-content/images/800px-cimg7453.JPG http://www.aucklandcity.govt.nz/news/council/200708/26/images/a16.jpg

although the 2000s have seen in much more wearable and toned down styles,
heaven forbid, even understated...

http://web-jpn.org/trends/fashion/images/l_fasa060616.jpg http://www.tokyomade.com/blog/train-in-shinjuku.jpg

http://www.style-arena.jp/harajuku/2007/08/week1/h003.jpg http://www.style-arena.jp/daikanyama/2007/08/week1/d003.jpg


...despite the 80s retro

http://www.trendstop.com/product_info/i/street_style/info_01.jpg http://www.tokyomade.com/blog/men2.jpg http://www.fashionmission.nl/nieuws/pictures_news/japan-street-fashion.jpg

of the myriad urban tribes of the 90s, punk has survived longest, it is huge

http://www.just-photography.com/japan/pic008.jpg


Like San Fransisco, Tokyo is currently overdue by 8 years for its Big One
earthquake, a once in 80 year cycle. The next flower of Edo would probably kill more than 5,600 people and injure almost
160,000 according to the Tokyo Metropolitan Govt. Official estimates of economic damage have topped more than $1 trillion.


http://japundit.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/kobe_earthquake_courier.jpg http://hisaharu-motoda.petit.cc/1img/muscat1_img/img20061111234358.jpg

[zupermaus]

ok Tokyo done! Ive updated London, Paris, Istanbul too - do check em out again. :)

[zupermaus]

Hong Kong next?

http://img89.exs.cx/img89/4600/hongkongbig.jpg

or Shanghai

http://your-austin-dwi.com/Shanghai.jpg

[MidtownGuy]

zupermaus...you are fantastic. What an incredible tour, thank you for your consistently outstanding presentations!!

[Meerkat]

Tokyo is fascinating - it's on my list of places to go. The picture of Mt Fuji in the background is amazing.

Hong Kong next!

And how about somewhere very unusual, like Nuuk in Greenland, or Tórshavn in the Faroe Islands.

[brianac]

The World's Most Stylish Cities

Nicola Ruiz 04.24.08, 6:00 PM ET

http://images.forbes.com/media/2008/04/24/style_clk.jpg (http://www.forbes.com/2008/04/24/worlds-style-capital-forbeslife-cx_nr_0424style_slide_2.html?thisspeed=25000)In Pictures: The World's Most Stylish Cities (http://www.forbes.com/2008/04/24/worlds-style-capital-forbeslife-cx_nr_0424style_slide_2.html?thisspeed=25000&boxes=custom)

http://images.forbes.com/media/assets/spacer_white.gifhttp://images.forbes.com/media/assets/spacer_white.gif
Paris (http://www.forbes.com/2008/04/24/worlds-style-capital-forbeslife-cx_nr_0424style_slide_10.html?thisspeed=25000) has La Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. New York (http://www.forbes.com/2008/04/24/worlds-style-capital-forbeslife-cx_nr_0424style_slide_8.html?thisspeed=25000) is home to Fifth and Madison avenues. And shoppers need look no further than Via Monte Napoleone in Milan, Italy, for the latest prêt-a-porter.

But none can match London (http://www.forbes.com/2008/04/24/worlds-style-capital-forbeslife-cx_nr_0424style_slide_11.html?thisspeed=)'s cosmopolitan vibe. One third of the city's population was born outside Britain; that's 2.3 million Londoners sharing their cultural style, fashion and cuisine. This mix gives tremendous vibrancy to the city, the world's most stylish according to a recent survey.

"The only downside to London is its safety and expense," says Simon Anholt, editor of the journal Place Branding and Public Diplomacy and author of the 2008 City Brands Index survey on which the rankings, released last month, are based. Anholt also consults with city and national governments on policies, investments and strategies for improving their national reputations. "But these two factors also help its image: If it was too safe people wouldn't find it as exciting, and if it was cheaper it would get less respect."

In Pictures: The World's 10 Most Stylish Cities (http://www.forbes.com/2008/04/24/worlds-style-capital-forbeslife-cx_nr_0424style_slide_2.html)

Sydney, Australia (http://www.forbes.com/2008/04/24/worlds-style-capital-forbeslife-cx_nr_0424style_slide_9.html?thisspeed=25000); Rome (http://www.forbes.com/2008/04/24/worlds-style-capital-forbeslife-cx_nr_0424style_slide_7.html?thisspeed=25000); Barcelona, Spain (http://www.forbes.com/2008/04/24/worlds-style-capital-forbeslife-cx_nr_0424style_slide_6.html?thisspeed=25000); Melbourne, Australia (http://www.forbes.com/2008/04/24/worlds-style-capital-forbeslife-cx_nr_0424style_slide_5.html?thisspeed=25000); Berlin (http://www.forbes.com/2008/04/24/worlds-style-capital-forbeslife-cx_nr_0424style_slide_4.html?thisspeed=25000); Amsterdam, Netherlands (http://www.forbes.com/2008/04/24/worlds-style-capital-forbeslife-cx_nr_0424style_slide_3.html?thisspeed=25000); and Madrid, Spain (http://www.forbes.com/2008/04/24/worlds-style-capital-forbeslife-cx_nr_0424style_slide_2.html?thisspeed=25000), round out the top 10.

Behind The Numbers
The Anholt City Brands Index surveyed 18,000 people from 18 countries. Cities were judged on lifestyle, buzz, multiculturalism, cultural life and attractiveness. Respondents, for example, were asked to rank 40 cities on climate and weather, pollution and the physical attractiveness of buildings and parks. They were asked how warm and welcome they expect the people of each city to be, and how important each city's contribution to the world has been over the last 30 years in the areas of science, culture and government.

"The smarter governments have always looked at their city as a brand that needs to be marketed," says Anholt. "But one of the effects of globalization is that competition has become incredibly intense between cities for tourists, investors, business [and] major events, so proper attention to reputation is now mandatory in a way it never was before."

Capitals Of Cool
London landed atop the list in part because almost one-third of the world's population (including those in Australia, India and Canada) has ties to the British Commonwealth and consider London the financial, fashion and music capital of the world. The announced 2012 Olympics also gives it a stylish stamp of approval.
Its ability to produce charismatic leaders doesn't hurt either. When he came to power in 1997, Prime Minister Tony Blair launched the "Cool Britannia" campaign positioning London as cool, hip and happening to a world audience. The advertising slogan was an attempt to rebrand Britain as progressive, forward-looking and diverse, while promoting "Brit pop" bands such as Oasis, the Spice Girls and Blur.

It seems to have worked. "It has history [and] a multi-cultural population," says Philip Kotler, professor of international marketing at Northwestern University and author of over 40 books on place marketing. "It's the world financial center, art center and antique center, and has a dynamic quality of energy."

While Paris came in second, Anholt says it's done less to deserve this elite spot than other cities. With no notable new buildings going up since the Arche de La Defense 20 years ago, and few new crowd-pleasing events of late, Anholt says that Paris, like Rome and Milan, is riding on its reputation.

"It's almost cliché that Paris is one of the most stylish cities," he says. "It's burned into the global, popular culture. Particularly in developing countries, people expect that in Paris they'll get the best food and fashion as well as a chic lifestyle. It could turn into an awful place for many years and it still wouldn't lose that reputation."

If you want to surround yourself with beauty, however, Paris is still the place to go. When asked to rate a city's beauty, 50% of survey respondents said that Paris was very attractive, 46% felt that way about Rome, 29% about New York and only 5% found Beijing attractive.

Milan, which scored 15th on the most stylish list, was selected as the city that made the most important contribution to the world--with fashion--followed by Washington with politics, Madrid with culture and Tokyo with technology.

Of course each city has its own unique reputation to maintain. While some governments aim for their city to be perceived as safe and clean, others work to crank up their cool factor.

"Holland is viewed as solid, reliable, efficient, wealthy and boring, but Amsterdam is considered much more stylish ... it's all about sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, and the city governments want it to keep that edgy, cool appeal," says Anholt, who adds that Amsterdam, ninth on the style list, is one of the few cities that passes the "cool T-shirt test." "If you put ‘I heart Amsterdam' on a plain, white T-shirt, it will sell for more than if it were just a plain, white T-shirt."

Sydney also passes Anholt's cool T-shirt test and surprisingly to all but those who enjoy living in this vibrant city, it ranks third in the most stylish list ahead of New York, Rome and Barcelona.

"Everyone loves Australia," says Anholt. "It's a fantastic brand, and it basically all comes down to Crocodile Dundee. That film did wonders for the image of Australian cities. It's had so much airtime all over the world and Australia is now perceived as the perfect country: warm, rich, welcoming and civilized."

In Pictures: The World's 10 Most Stylish Cities (http://www.forbes.com/2008/04/24/worlds-style-capital-forbeslife-cx_nr_0424style_slide_2.html)


http://www.forbes.com/lifestyle/2008/04/24/worlds-style-capital-forbeslife-cx_nr_0424style.html

© 2008 Forbes.com LLC™

[ablarc]

Athens - a lesson in organised chaos...

Unlike other cities the street width to building height ratio has no guidance,
its one big optimisation of space. The only limits are the height.

The blocks are mixed use with offices, doctors surgeries, communal spaces and residentials all shared within.

The density shows the intensity of unity - harmony or chaos? (or harmony through chaos?)
Interesting and provocative thoughts. The harmony of chaos. If the chaos is consistent enough it becomes a form of order.

Certainly it's a sendup of zoning: the idea that environmental virtue can be prescribed by numerical formulas.

[Fabrizio]

That stylish cities list: stylish for me would mean a stylish lifestyle. Where style is in everything you come into contact with.
And style MUST be reflected in the masses as well.

Sorry, but Italy and France win.

"Everyone loves Australia," says Anholt. "It's a fantastic brand"

Perhaps, but is it a fantastic style brand?

---

[MidtownGuy]

re: athensThe blocks are mixed use with offices, doctors surgeries, communal spaces and residentials all shared within.

Maybe this is why Athens is so nutty but loveable. Visitors who whisk in and out for two days on their way to the islands miss so much. It has more layers than an onion.

[ablarc]

^ This is also true of Rome and other Italian cities.

[zupermaus]

On the worlds most stylish cities Im gobsmacked Tokyo isn't on that list. If there's one place that leads in streetstyle, entertainment, and food, it would be Tokyo.

I suppose that's just the global image making those votes, not the reality.

[Luca]

That stylish cities list: stylish for me would mean a stylish lifestyle. Where style is in everything you come into contact with.
And style MUST be reflected in the masses as well.

Sorry, but Italy and France win.

"Everyone loves Australia," says Anholt. "It's a fantastic brand"

Perhaps, but is it a fantastic style brand?

---
Fabrizio, you really need to get yourself to London more often :rolleyes:. I know I'm a booster, it's my town, what can I say. :o

Even my mom, who's a life-long Milanese (but very, very widely travelled) said the other day that the shops/restaurants in London are just unparalleled.

[MidtownGuy]

At those prices they ought to be.:rolleyes:

[londonlawyer]

.....Even my mom, who's a life-long Milanese (but very, very widely travelled) said the other day that the shops/restaurants in London are just unparalleled.

I love London, but its shops and restaurants have nothing on NY. In fact, NY has a greater variety of cuisine, and for typical prices, its food is of much better quality.

[Fabrizio]

Luca: go to a dumb middle-class resort in Italy such as Riccione. A place where there is little int. tourism, a place with no pretensions. Stay at a cheap pensione. Walk among the masses. Go to any old bar and have a coffee, an ice cream. Hang out. Soak in everything around you. And then report back.

It is the every-day people and places that are the real barometer of a country's style quotient. Not the expensive restaurants, shops, hotels etc.

[pianoman11686]

I've never been to London but I've heard the same thing from numerous friends: expensive restaurants offer the best food you'll find anywhere, but "cheaper" food is terrible.

For most unique city, I think you have to give it to Venice, though zupermaus makes a great case for Tokyo. Most stylish? I don't know, but I think it's probably a toss-up between Paris, Milan, and Barcelona.

[londonlawyer]

I've never been to London but I've heard the same thing from numerous friends: expensive restaurants offer the best food you'll find anywhere, but "cheaper" food is terrible....

The best restaurants [i.e., several hundred dollars for a dinner for 2] are on par with the best in NY and Paris.

[Luca]

MidtownGuy writes: “At those prices they ought to be.”

Indeed! On the whole cost issue, though, bear in mind that when coming from abroad there’s also the effect of the big foreign exchange swings (which are a whole ‘nother big topic, of course). So, if London looks expensive (and it surely is) also consider that London salaries look huge, by international standards, when viewed from the same perspective.

londonlawyer writes: “I love London, but its shops and restaurants have nothing on NY. In fact, NY has a greater variety of cuisine, and for typical prices, its food is of much better quality.”

I’m not sure I agree on the food front but I honestly don’t have enough NYC experience to be authoritative.

Fabrizio writes: Luca: go to a dumb middle-class resort in Italy such as Riccione. A place where there is little int. tourism, a place with no pretensions. Stay at a cheap pensione. Walk among the masses. Go to any old bar and have a coffee, an ice cream. Hang out. Soak in everything around you. And then report back.

It is the every-day people and places that are the real barometer of a country's style quotient. Not the expensive restaurants, shops, hotels etc.”

I have, my friend, I have. :)

I agree with what you say on a ‘whole country’ basis. But if we are talking about single cities, the miles of incredibly top-notch shops in London are simply not reachable by anything in Milan, Rome or even Paris, IMO.

Also, while I would give total primacy of Italy or France over Britain in food, I don’t think I would do the same in other respects.

Some of the things you write about London/Britain sound to me (I could be wrong) like you are referring to the past. They’ve come a looong way (been living here since 1993…). That’s what I was referring to.

pianoman11686 writes: “…London…expensive restaurants offer the best food you'll find anywhere, but "cheaper" food is terrible”

There’s some truth to that. Indeed there are plenty of mediocre yet very expensive restaurants. However, there is a growing middle tier of chains and gastro-pubs where the food is increasingly good and less expensive than the top places (though still eye-popping to, say, a Spaniard).

A consideration: everyone can use a guide to find a few exceptional restaurants. But the average tourist looking for nosh near, say, a tourist site will get screwed, while a local might know a nearby, hidden away place that is good yet cheap. That may shape a lot of people’s vision of London ‘everyday’ food. Similarly, as an outsider, I found that “non-researched” eating experiences in NYC were abysmal. I’m sure that had I been accompanied by one of you folks, it might have been different. In the end, I just ate at ‘known’ places the entire time I was there. Not cheap (Breakfast at BAlthazaar every morning anyone?), but satisfying.

pianoman11686 writes: “Most stylish? I don't know, but I think it's probably a toss-up between Paris, Milan, and Barcelona.”

In terms of what? Not challenging you, just curious? Do you mean how people dress? Urban setting? Interior design? Shops? A mix of those?

Londonlawyer”wrote: “The best [London] restaurants [i.e., several hundred dollars for a dinner for 2]”

The typical spend for my wife and I at London’s very top restaurants for dinner (lunch is much cheaper) would be 100-125 GVBP which is 200-250 USD, ‘several hundred dollars’ is a slight exaggeration.

Caveat: there is a growing number of restaurants that are far from the best culinarily but actually boast of the expensiveness. Only trashy Russians and Arabs and B&T “special occasioners” go there.

[londonlawyer]

...Londonlawyer”wrote: “The best [London] restaurants [i.e., several hundred dollars for a dinner for 2]”

The typical spend for my wife and I at London’s very top restaurants for dinner (lunch is much cheaper) would be 100-125 GVBP which is 200-250 USD, ‘several hundred dollars’ is a slight exaggeration.



I lived in London for years and return regularly. My statement assumes getting a bottle of wine.

[kliq6]

For me its Rome, the amazing way that the old and the new come together and works so well. One minute you stand where the Caesers stood the next your buying the latest fashions from the worlds top designers near the Spanish Steps!

[pianoman11686]

pianoman11686 writes: “…London…expensive restaurants offer the best food you'll find anywhere, but "cheaper" food is terrible”

There’s some truth to that. Indeed there are plenty of mediocre yet very expensive restaurants. However, there is a growing middle tier of chains and gastro-pubs where the food is increasingly good and less expensive than the top places (though still eye-popping to, say, a Spaniard).

A consideration: everyone can use a guide to find a few exceptional restaurants. But the average tourist looking for nosh near, say, a tourist site will get screwed, while a local might know a nearby, hidden away place that is good yet cheap. That may shape a lot of people’s vision of London ‘everyday’ food. Similarly, as an outsider, I found that “non-researched” eating experiences in NYC were abysmal. I’m sure that had I been accompanied by one of you folks, it might have been different. In the end, I just ate at ‘known’ places the entire time I was there. Not cheap (Breakfast at BAlthazaar every morning anyone?), but satisfying.

My comments are solely based on the experiences of fellow students who have studied abroad for a semester in London, most of whom have also spent some time in New York. The general theme was the same: overpriced, low quality pub food or Indian fast food is plentiful, but unsatisfying. New York seemed to have not only cheaper food at a higher quality, but also a greater selection.

pianoman11686 writes: “Most stylish? I don't know, but I think it's probably a toss-up between Paris, Milan, and Barcelona.”

In terms of what? Not challenging you, just curious? Do you mean how people dress? Urban setting? Interior design? Shops? A mix of those?

Stylish as far as the people and how much of an emphasis is placed on fashion, relative to all other things. Like I said, I can't offer a definitive answer because I haven't been to these places. But I get the sense that because London is so much more of a business/financial center than either Paris, Milan, or Barcelona, all of which are major cultural and design centers, I'd guess any of the latter would better deserve the title of "most stylish city."

[Alonzo-ny]

Cheap pizza is of the same standard as a doner kebab, thing is most americans arent used to that so they see it as worse.

[MidtownGuy]

In the end, I just ate at ‘known’ places the entire time I was there. Not cheap (Breakfast at BAlthazaar every morning anyone?), but satisfying.

Now this is just nuts. You actually felt that you needed to get breakfast from Balthazar each day, what, for fear of substandard eggs or toast? I never heard anything so pretentious or just plain goofy. NYC has great breakfasts just about everywhere, for so cheap and very satisfying. I had a breakfast plate and orange juice this morning from the deli below my building for less than 4 dollars and it was very very good. You find the same on every block.
I also don't buy the bit about Similarly, as an outsider, I found that “non-researched” eating experiences in NYC were abysmal.
The food in NYC is great, for variety, quality, price and portion it has London clobbered. There is a much better chance here of ending up pleasantly surprised by your meal in NY, even in the ubiquitous Greek owned diners you get better food than in so many restaurants in London or even the rest of Europe. European restaurants in general are great if you are wealthy,they just don't have good medium priced food.When they do, it's portioned for someone with a stapled stomach.
When I'm in Europe I often end up self-catering my meals; I must admit they have decent prices/quality in supermarkets. Except maybe the tuna fish. What is that disgusting cat food Europeans call tuna? It's practically brown.

[Luca]

Now this is just nuts. You actually felt that you needed to get breakfast from Balthazar each day, what, for fear of substandard eggs or toast? I never heard anything so pretentious or just plain goofy. NYC has great breakfasts just about everywhere, for so cheap and very satisfying. I had a breakfast plate and orange juice this morning from the deli below my building for less than 4 dollars and it was very very good. You find the same on every block.
I also don't buy the bit about
The food in NYC is great, for variety, quality, price and portion it has London clobbered. There is a much better chance here of ending up pleasantly surprised by your meal in NY, even in the ubiquitous Greek owned diners you get better food than in so many restaurants in London or even the rest of Europe. European restaurants in general are great if you are wealthy,they just don't have good medium priced food.When they do, it's portioned for someone with a stapled stomach.
When I'm in Europe I often end up self-catering my meals; I must admit they have decent prices/quality in supermarkets. Except maybe the tuna fish. What is that disgusting cat food Europeans call tuna? It's practically brown.

I don't know why you have to get all hot and bothered about it. :confused:

I've tried throughout to be as 'neutral' and even-handed as possible. There is obviously an element of subjectivity, too. The first two breakfasts I had in local non-descript places in thw Village were poor. Balthazaar was a bracing morning stroll away and their breakfast was good. Why is that 'pretentious?
I'm Italian: I'd rather buy less 'stuff' and spend all my holiday money on food. I mostly come to New York for the streetscape (that's free) and some fo the arts events (usually quite cheap). I don't stay at the Pierre and I don't pay 200 US$ for 'bottle service'...

I'm sure that with better local knowledge I could get good breakfasts at a more approachable price. Later on I found a place in the West Village that did good sort-of-middle-American food. had something like "Cowgirl" in the name.

Instead of gettin' all riled up, MTG, whyen't you tell me some good places to get breakfast downtown? :cool:

[MidtownGuy]

Fair enough, I must have taken it the wrong way. My apologies.