Cityscapes

Tentative thoughts on cities I've lived in or visited multiple times.

  • Cleveland, OH
    • Quintessential American suburbia. Sprawling yet cozy, uneventful without a small-town feel. Contented.

  • New York City, NY
    • Something for everyone. Brash, no-bullshit attitude in stark contrast to west-coast political-correctness. Absolute cultural mêlée, and fully worth its reputation.

  • Abu Dhabi, UAE
    • City built from sand dunes, great for children and families but lacking cultural, experiential and intellectual diversity due to its youth.

  • London, UK
    • Innovative in a distinctly British sense: suit-clad bankers flocking to pubs after work. Good banter: people take their work seriously, but don't take themselves too seriously. History and character.

  • Delhi, India
    • Slow, lazy, yet immensely hectic in an iconically Indian way. Enormous estates juxtapose mothers begging for starving children. People think in days, not years.

  • San Francisco, CA
    • On paper, utopic. In reality, not quite. Forward-thinking, open-minded people, fast moving culture. Closest to a meritocracy I've seen any city get, but with a subtle lack of intellectual vitality and a unique strain of Silicon Valley pretentiousness.

  • Tokyo, Japan
    • Gigantic, and utterly, utterly civilised. People value community and courtesy without the groupthink of Chinese cities. Sadly, very culturally homogeneous.

  • Dubai, UAE
    • A more hedonistic, artificial version of Abu Dhabi. I respect the government's effort to diversify the economy into tourism. Beautiful, but lifeless.

  • Mumbai, India
    • A more intense, dense version of Delhi; its people chase fortune rather than let it come to them. Even the crime is more extreme. Wall Street and Hollywood meet chai and auto-rickshaws.

  • Boston, MA
    • Gorgeous red brick architecture, delightful ethnic (Irish-Italian) eats, teeming with young energy: it feels dynamic yet homely since the sleepy yet intellectual town of Cambridge is basically annealed to its side.