Research For My Book

[browngirl]

So, what do you like about cities?

(If your answer is "nothing", that's fine, but I'll ask what people hate about cities in another entry sometime.)

Also, if you didn't grow up in a city, what was your first impression on the first time you entered one?

Thank'ee . :D

Comments

[kathrynt.livejournal.com]

The choices, the opportunities for personal expansion and growth, the ability to do a different thing ALL THE TIME. I grew up in cities, so I can't help you there.

[elynne.livejournal.com]

I like exploring, seeing new things, going new places. I also like the open-mindedness that comes with living in a city, and the variety of experiences available.

On the other hand, I also like knowing every inch of a small town, and having stories to go with every side street and shop. "I remember when a herd of goats got loose in that hotel..." But ultimately, small towns will bore me to craziness in a very short time.

[msmemory.livejournal.com]

Diversity of restaurants, shops, etc.
Ability to walk to my destination -- and also availability of public transportation.
Feeling of solitude/anonymity in a crowd (yes, that's sometimes a plus!).

[jenny_evergreen]

Seconded.
Also, the lights (although that wouldn't really apply much in the time your talking about, in the way I mean when I say that.)
But there is something appealing about feeling like merely one of a multitude, of knowing that behind all those windows, life is going on, even though you are only an observer, if that...it fires the imagination while making me feel part of something much, much greater than myself.
Hee. You'd think I loved cities, the way I'm writing, and you wouldn't be wrong...but I would never, ever live in one. And I'd never go back to the near-suburbs, either, which is where I grew up.
Thinking about going in...it was always the lights and the symmetry that caught me. It still is, actually. :)

[hfcougar.livejournal.com]

gypsyjen is so pretty!

[jenny_evergreen]

*furious blushing* Thank you! (Well, it WAS my wedding day!)

[ailbhe]

I like small cities, like Dublin, where there's a definite centre, where you can start at one side of the city centre and walk to the other and pass all sorts of things on the way - shops and markets and art galleries and museums and cafes and pubs and houses and apartment blocks and parks and street artists and beggars and people you know and people you don't know and a university or two and...

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

I love cities. I love the crowds of people and the energy they produce. I love having everything in walking/bus/subway distance - and I love walking/riding buses/riding subways. I love the way neighborhoods develope within these distances, with their own personalities and how they change so quickly. I love the endless variety of stores and things that you can see riding down a single street - from Russian bathhouses to sari stores to Halal chicken stores to wig shops, as the needs of the population change.

I love the way a city can pull together in times of emergency or to cheer on a marathon.

I don't like the violence or the noise or the traffic or the smells, but these are reasonable prices to pay for the things I do love.

[mneme]

The people -- having lots of friends in relatively close proximity. And aquaintences even closer.
The convenience of public transit.
And, of course, the food.

[cellio]

Variety -- of entertainment, of food, of things to do at a moment's notice, of people, of cultures (if it's the right kind of city). Also being right there; when I was growing up in suburbia we had to drive everywhere (except one movie theatre and three restaurants). Driving, especially when kids are involved, turns a spur-of-the-moment outing into a Project. (Oh, and especially if it's a one-car household.)

Yeah, I know this doesn't all apply to your story, but you asked. :-)

[porcinea.livejournal.com]

People-watching. Incoming trade goods. Neighborhood kaleidoscope. Entertainment panoply (acrobat school!).

[happyfunpaul.livejournal.com]

Since you mention this is "research for your book," the historical answer would be "opportunity"-- especially financial/economic opportunity, but also the opportunity to make a new identity, often escaping from family/clan ties and responsibilities. (I'm sure you could relate to that. :-) For instance, if one's older brother is the only one inheriting the farm, one may have to go seek fortune elsewhere, and cities are where it's easiest to step in and find work.

As for me personally, the economic reasons are true too. It's certainly much easier to find part-time work, and eventually to find full-time work, in the city as opposed to a town or rural area. But my reasons for preferring the city are mostly cultural. Put simply, there are more interesting things going on, on both a small scale (interesting people with different backgrounds) and a large scale (events like music performances, institutions like museums). Recently I had a wonderful time just walking around random streets in New York, which is the über-cosmopolitan city in the US. There wasn't a single block I didn't find interesting in some way.

[happyfunpaul.livejournal.com]

It occurs to me that I should add something to my comment about "escaping from family/clan ties"... it's also true, historically, that many people who came to the city had connections with relatives or at least same-ethnic enclaves, and these were critical to success. Oftentimes, someone relied on the clan-ties in order to get a starting job and place to live (and later, startup money to start a new business). Said person couldn't achieve the same ends by relying on established institutions and the ruling class, because he (usually he) would be considered a bad risk. (This wasn't necessarily unfair discrimination, even-- but someone who's a bad loan risk to a bank might not be such a bad risk when ten cousins are around to make sure you do your damndest to pay it back.)

[ame-chan.livejournal.com]

I love the take out and food choices in the city. Ethnic markets, a bazillion different kinds of food a phone call away. I also like the fact that there are so many different cultures in the city - in my neighborhood we have a huge Pakistani population due to the mosque a few blocks away. There is also a large Hispanic population here on our block. There are a few African Americans, a few Caucasians, some Cubans two houses down who fly the Cuban flag over their house, it's a really exciting mix. I love bookstores and interesting shops and in general all the choices available with everything.

The first time I entered a city I thought it was the most exciting thing I'd ever seen. There was an energy and an excitement to the streets and the tall buildings were mysteries to be explored.

[tikva.livejournal.com]

I love love love cities. I love the constant energy of people, the lights, the buildings, the fact that there's always something to do, the landmarks, the variety. Cities mean independence for me - public transit is my lifeline. Cities have more resources and communities. Cities are full of life, and they make me happy. Yay cities!

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

All that, and the food :) And the people, and the hundred little pockets and enclaves that can take you to a whole different world in the space of a few blocks, and the almost organic way the mood changes with the weather and the time of day.

And then there are Cities - New York, Bombay, London - where you can go out into the street and *feel* the pulse beat all around you, and feel more alive just for being immersed in it. Where the phrase "city of dreams" suddenly ceases to be a meaningless cliche, and the very air is pregnant with possibility.

Yay cities! indeed.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

I like walking to where I want to be. In six different directions, all in the same day.

I like walking down one block and smelling its scent, then turning the corner to something totally different and equally wonderful.

I like accidentally running into someone I haven't seen in twenty years, and finding they live five minutes away. (Mostly. Sometimes I loathe this.)

I like finding little oases of beauty, hidden among the sameness of the buildings.

I like the likelihood of finding even the most obscure items or cultural stuff, if I just look hard enough.

I like how I am constantly surprised.

[swisscheesed.livejournal.com]

I love cities. I think cities are like people -- they have personalities; they have dreams -- metal and steel wrapped tightly round our vulnerable fleshy shells. I love getting lost in a city, which is possibly even if you've lived there for years -- the discovery of a hole-in-a-wall shop you've never noticed before is like diving for pearls and uncovering that one perfect, luminous sphere. The anonymity when you lose yourself in a crowd of people, hurrying by in their skirts and suits, is also a delicious treat when you want to be alone with yourself or you want to pretend to be someone else for a while.

[ailsaek.livejournal.com]

My first reaction to getting out of a car and finding myself with a whole afternoon in Boston to do with as I pleased on my first trip there was "Oh, wow, pretty! And look at all there is to DO here!" and then I immediately proceeded to admire the pocket garden at Copley Square and go book shopping at Glad Day.

I love the city because there's so much to do, so much to see, so many ways to enjoy yourself with no money, and so much public transportation to get you there & back again. I think the only thing I don't like about city living is that there's so little space to grow roses unless you have tons and tons of money. Even so, I really miss the city.

[tsjafo.livejournal.com]

Having things within walking distance is good.

Cities

[mama-hogswatch.livejournal.com]

I don't tend to unilaterally like cities, but it's not hard for me to like one, either.

I hate LA. Icky, yucky. The only thing I like about Orlando is Disney World.

Parts of San Diego I like very much.

I am fond of Richmond, Boston, New York and Washington, D.C.

For me, I tend to like a city if it's somewhere where I can walk or take a subway where I want to go, but a sprawling metropolis in which I HAVE to drive is not so nice. (That criteria puts Richmond low on the list, but it is very much home to me).

I would hate Boston if I had to drive in it regularly.

I like the energy of a city. I am not sure I would enjoy living in one, but visits are a lot of fun. I have a lot of good memories tied up in visiting the cities I have named.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

Options.

Lots of different sorts of food. [ New and exciting cultures whose cuisines I can learn about, yay Montreal. ] Museums, theatres, cinemas, bookstores, variety.

Also, crowds in which I can lose myself and be safely anonymous and invisible and have nobody expect anything of me beyond default civility, which does not require focus.

[folkmew.livejournal.com]

Random thoughts and memories...
I both loved and was intimidated by the number and variety of people the first time I went to New York. I thought it very odd and uncomfortable but kind of neat to have to share a table at lunch with a total stranger, something that would simply *never* happen in a smallish midwestern town.

I love the variety of museums, stores (I remember going nuts shopping at places like "Printed Matter" a book store where everything is made by artists, or a bookstore that carries only movie and theatrical scripts...)

I love finding little out of the way treasures whether they are tiny resteraunts that aren't yet "hot" or gorgeous spots of refuge in a park in the otherwise busy crowded city. I love the personalities that different cities have. I'd have to think harder to put it into words but for example I like Chicago and Toronto and NYC and Boston but all three feel very different to me.

Mostly I don't love LA either but I went to a beach in the city during a recording gig. I tend to like rocky beaches and this was miles of flat sand, but what was charming and fun and delightful and even a bit magical about it was that all these people were having bonfire parties on the beach and playing music and talking and laughing and all the fires were lighting up the night and it just felt so congenial and friendly. It made me think how especially in a city you can really see humanity at its best and worst.

I love visiting big cities but I think I'd much rather live in the country around a lot of cool people I like (cohousing) and be able to drive to a big city.

[rosefox]

Um. Ack. That's like asking "Why do you love your husband?". Can you be more specific? *)

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

I actually debated specificity, then decided to leave the question wide open, to see what people told me. I mean, I could ask, "what do you like about cities vs suburbs" or "cities vs country" or "cities vs towns" or "New York" or "San Francisco" or "East Coast" or "West Coast" or "European' or "American [both continents]" or "American [US}" or "large" or "small" or....

Or I can see what subset of the question people decide to ask themselves. ;)

[rosefox]

Actually, to flip it around on myself, I don't think I could really extrapolate from "loving New York" to "loving cities". I don't love San Francisco, for example. So that would be like extrapolating from "loving my husband" to "loving men" or "loving people".

[maedbh7.livejournal.com]

I had a whole poem on this topic (not great, but there) and now I can't find it. So,
- I like the presence of people, the social networks and groups
- I like the presence of amenities: restaurants, hospitals, stores, water, sewage, trash removal
- I like the architecture, the height of the buildings, the materials used, the landscaping
- I like the way humans triumph over disaster, and how cities show that in 3D.
- I like the way nature asserts itself, despite our attempts to make it over into our own

"Jack, do you never sleep ---
does the green still run deep in your heart?
Or will these changing times,
motorways, powerlines,
keep us apart?
Well, I don't think so ---
I saw some grass growing through the pavements today." - Jethro Tull "Jack in the Green"


-H...

[papersky.livejournal.com]

The first thing I thought when I went to a big city -- Cardiff, a whole million people -- was how many people there were. The pavement (aka sidewalk) was full of people. Full. It was like being in a queue, but everyone was moving like Brownian motion, dodging and going with or against the current and going into shops but so close as to be almost touching. That was St. Mary St. in Cardiff, by Howells and Lears Bookshop, when I was six years old and taken down on a Saturday morning to go to Santa's grotto. For years the image of that pavement packed with people Christmas shopping was my short-hand icon for "city", even though I've been there at 1am when there was nobody there except me, a drunk and a policeman.

What I like about cities -- the variety of things going on. The variety of food possibilities. The possibility of fusion on all levels. Culture at all levels. A tendency to acceptance and open-mindedness. Friendliness to strangers without pushiness. Public transport.

What I don't like -- cities so big they don't have souls. Dirt/violence. The fear of violence. Communities forced to live next to each other that hate and fear each other. People taking advantage of anonymity to behave badly.

Beautiful city image -- Montreal, Halloween, a huge black guy dressed as Josephine Baker, on the metro, showing his blown-up toy tiger to a tiny Indian-ancestry girl-child dressed as superman, whose smiling mother is dressed, (dressed up?) in traditional Indian sari with caste mark.

Awful city image -- London, Waterloo Bridge, a zillion commuters in steady streams in both directions avoiding each others eyes. I am with two colleagues. "A hundred years ago," I say, looking down at the mud, "Cockney children would dive into the mud or water for pennies thrown by people up here. They were called mudlarks." "Oh," says one, in a who-cares tone. "Pity they don't still do that," says the other. The eyes of the people coming towards me are so blank and so evasive that it is as if they don't have eyes. I have to carry on walking. The wind blows everyone's ties. I finally understand totally with my entire body as well as my mind, what Eliot meant by "I had not known death had undone so many" and cannot -- it is part of the understanding -- possibly say so to either of the people with me, nor can I stop and recite "The Waste Land", nor write a phrase of it on the foreheads of all the golems passing.

[tibicina.livejournal.com]

I like the variety of cities. I like being able to get food from all over the world. I like being able to go to lots of different museums even if I don't get to them enough. I like thriving theater scenes and my choice of coffee houses. I like large numbers of book stores. I like choices. I like niche stores, especially those that fit niches I like. I like conventions. I like... a lot of the stuff that needs a broad support base in order to be able to function, basically.

[thespian.livejournal.com]

this is from *my* book:

Sometimes, when I’m really morose, I go out to the Bloor Viaduct, and sit on the edge of it and watch the cars pass by underneath me on the Don Valley Parkway. I heard on the radio once that before they installed the suicide barrier, the viaduct was North America’s second most frequent spot for suicidal jumpers, after the Golden Gate Bridge. Oddly, it had never occurred to me to splatter myself into the traffic, hundreds of metres below me. I go out there to sit and look at the city skyline, and contemplate Toronto, and just admire the place that I live.

I come from a small town (in my opinion; it is, to be honest, a fairly big one for Canada, which is part of why I wound up in the United States, which is not part of the story). It’s a typical bedroom community; tiny little downtown that closes at six p.m., suburbs anchored by malls anchored by Canadian department stores, or American ones who have somehow managed to convince themselves that adding a maple leaf to their logo makes them blend in. Part of what I loved about the viaduct, when I first moved here, was that there could not possibly have been anything like that in my hometown. We had no need for dozens of lanes of commuting traffic, crossed over by beautifully engineered bridges that carried major streets with names known across the country from one side to the other. Moving to Toronto was like coming home to me; from television and books I knew so many names, and as each one clicked into place, I felt more content. Yonge with its tawdry stores. Queen West with its alternative stores. Front Street with Harbourfront, and all the newspapers and the CBC. Neighbourhood names; Rosedale, known for being fancy and terribly blue blooded. Parkdale, rampant with crime. Chinatown. Little Italy. Cabbagetown. Finding everything was like finding part of myself.

[cyan-blue.livejournal.com]

What I love about cities...

- Diversity
- Public transit (which leads to travel independence at an earlier age)
- Lots of fun things to do
- Often more tolerance for different cultural practices
- The vibrant hum of so many people

[redbird]

My immediate reaction to this question was "Everything."

By which I think I mean, not that there is nothing about cities I don't love, but that I love the variety, the comprehensiveness, the sense of possibility, the complexity and the energy and the potential.

I also love that there are things to do at any hour of the day or night. I love bookstores and museums and theatre and endlessly varied foodstuffs, in restaurants and groceries.

Also, what rysmiel said about some of the appeal of crowds.

[badgerthorazine.livejournal.com]

People-watching. Even more than that, people-FEELING. I can run into more emotional states and interesting psychological schtuff in a few feet than I can walking through the entire of the small town that I ended up spending most of my growing-up-years in. (I was born in Worcester, MA, and will always have an affinity for it that goes beyond coherent explanation.)

The food, the music, the noise, even sometimes and some-places, the smells. Being able to walk to the bakery to get bread if I feel like it (and can afford it!). Walking in the opposite direction and finding various interesting restaurants. Being within walking distance of the center of city government so I know I have the option to go bitch if I need to.

[dandelion-diva.livejournal.com]

I like the buildings that have been there seemingly forever. The "surprises" in architecture...like cement flowers in window frames and scrollwork at edges.

I love the parks that are pieces of calm...especially the ones with streets on every side.

Little hole in the wall restaurants that have been there forever.

Little museums and exhibits. Big museums and exhibits. Regular sized museums and exhibits. *grin*

That big city feeling.

I grew up about forty minutes from DC (Well, we moved a lot, but my home base, which was my grandparents' house, was in Burke, which is forty or so minutes from DC.:) We moved to California when I was thirteen and lived in the extreme suburbs (the nearest K'mart was half an hour away)...then moved to San Diego three years later, *Then* up to San Francisco three months after that...back to San Diego the year after and then Connecticut eight years later. Loved the cities, loved exploring them and being part of it all. Which was probably part of my culture shock in Norwich. I went from being able to go wherever I wanted practically whenever I wanted to a bus system that ran about once an hour during the "regular" work day.

I don't remember what my reaction was when I went to DC for the first time, but I know I felt completely at home the first time I went into SF by myself...same way with SD.:)

Gessi

Entirely too many things to name

[to-eat-flowers.livejournal.com]

And many of them are mentioned above. I remember big-city lust as a small child living in a the kind of rural small city that still acts like a village: it was all about lack of judgement. Nobody in Lisbon was going to look down on me for having a divorced mother, for having had political prisioners in the family, for not liking schoolyard games, for wearing the wrong kind of socks, for liking adults more than children. It was part anonimity, not having everyone on the street remember every detail, every social faux-pas or social obligation that weighed on me from generations and bonds too far spread to remember. And it was partly the liberal quality of city as opposed to country.
Having spent time in the suburbs before coming to live in that same big city, the things I most cherish are its village-like qualities: friendly recognition of neighbors, small favors exchanged daily, having a merchant remind me what I came in for when I forget.