yr favorite 'tier 1' world city

just as well u got it right then

the one with the most outlying suburbs, natch

suggest banlieue

that's probably nyc if you go by the definition which includes most of long island and bits of connecticut

+ an entire state

never had the slightest interest in tokyo

cant forget paris

been to 3/4, but Paris was only as a kid/teen. suspect I'd like it even more now.

also think Tokyo/japan (unvisited) holds the most appeal to me personally. voting NYC cuz I'm american and its the right thing to do

9/11 auspicious poll date imo

I want to visit Tokyo really badly but I know once I do, I'll smash the bubble of romanticism I've put around the place and it will never be the same. never consummate

This is tough, i've underrated London criminally in the past but all 4 of these rule for so many reasons it's crazy.

Scarily enough, I've been to PARIS the most (more than a dozen visits) and LONDON the fewest (four visits).

Remind me again the criteria?

yr favorite

yr favourite!

only done london and paris, both several times but paris since mid-90's and london not til a couple years ago.

new york wins for having the best rap music

what about grime

new york wins for having new york

I'm from London, what else would I vote for?

But unfair this though as London is probably the city with the most ILXORS in the world.

been to 3 of these but sorry NYC rules all

I've lived in London, voting NYC

I probably should have included a "this, but I haven't been to toyko" option

tokyo

when I visited london it seemed like the raddest place ever but people who live there seem glum about it a lot more than nyc-ers w/ nyc. the weather was fantastic during my entire trip and maybe that affected my perception a tiny bit.

anyway voted paris.

i'm super fond of tokyo and all but london is p much the love of my life (no objectum-sexualito), so

Been to all, voted Paris.

lol @ no objectum-sexualito

I spent time in London during the 80s and loved it though I haven't been there since, I'd guess it's changed as much as New York in the last 20 years. I've visited Paris once, briefly and have never been to Tokyo - voting for the city where I've lived my entire adult life (so far) the NYC.

i voted tokyo. of the four, i've had the most fun there. it's overwhelming initially, trying to figure out how to get around etc.

tokyo opens itself up slowly. i went there once a month for a few years and i wouldn't have voted for it after the first year. but the more i got to know it and the more i searched out new neighborhoods the more i liked it. it's an easy place to be quiet in; that massive of a city and my silence, good combo

born & raised in Paris, lived in London, been countless times to NYC and once to Tokyo - think I'll vote for the latter as it's the one that I'd be most excited to live in right now. a bit puzzled by people voting for their hometown on principle

anyway, pretty much love all these places except London

Been to all and could vote for any - but frankly, would feel pretty stupid not voting for the other three, they're all brilliant. I'll see if I can figure out a way of gaming this and casting four votes instead.

never been to any of these

London is very difficult to love unless you're from there, and even then it's not easy, but it's just fucking exciting. It doesn't feel like a city built with loveability in mind, which Paris certainly is, but that obsession with the city's image is to Paris's detriment I think.

New York I loved when I visited it, but I only visited the bits that tourists typically see. The worst and most deprived parts of NY are surely worse than the worst parts of London, maybe even Paris.

Tokyo I can't really comment on, but it looks fun. I suppose only New York and London have that feel of 'whatever you're interested in, you can do it here' and maybe NY has the slight edge on that one. Voting London, only because I'd be crushed if I left and was told I could never come back, whereas with NY that wouldn't bother me.

Good test. I'd have to go for London on that basis too (but then that's probably because we're talking five years' familiarity vs a few weeks or days visiting the others)

been putting off going to ny for more than a year now... have sort of built it up as more epic than london. and the more iconic bits of london don't interest me. h8/<3 it, really, but it kind of lacks romance. the unremitting greyness of the last while isn't helping.

It is more epic than London, even though London is bigger. There are drawbacks to that, those buildings don't half cut out the light. First thing I noticed when I got back to London from New York is how open and light everything seemed, and that was in December.

I want to visit Tokyo really badly but I know once I do, I'll smash the bubble of romanticism I've put around the place and it will never be the same. never consummate

^^^^yeah, this.

Obviously I chose London over NYC because I chose to live here, not there, but still. I can't shake the feeling that in many, many ways, NYC is just a more thrilling, exciting, diverse, insane, amazing city - which are all the reasons I don't want to live there any more. (But granted, most of my impressions of NYC are at least 10 to 20 years out of date. I don't know that it is what it was any more.)

Paris is just kind of a pretty pretender who got there through some kind of war-torn plastic surgery in the early 19th Century so as lovely as I've always found it, there's something always kind of "not quite there" about it in the same way as London or NYC.

Tokyo is the wild card because I've never been there.

Paris is just kind of a pretty pretender who got there through some kind of war-torn plastic surgery in the early 19th Century so as lovely as I've always found it, there's something always kind of "not quite there" about it in the same way as London or NYC.

Yeah I feel this way about Paris. Very nice and all, but it just doesn't have that pulse.

Also I was really disappointed by Parisian nightlife when I got there, you'd expect there to me more happening than there actually is.

I thought Berlin had more than Paris, but hey.

hmmm, these points are somewhat valid but I wonder whether if some of these arguments simply come from the fact that most of you were presumably just in town for a few days + language barrier, etc. I'm not criticising, as Paris is def. not the best place for clubbing/nightliving, but portraying it as some kind of quaint 19th century "museum city" is a bit reductive.

tho, yeah, I would rather live in Berlin than any of these 4 so-called "top tier" cities.

That's entirely impossible, as I've only really been to Paris twice, and once under such strange circumstances that I'm not really surprised the city had an unreal quality. The problem is really that I've lived for a number of years in two of the cities on the list, so of course I'm slanted towards my longer and deeper experiences there.

(I don't think I'd live by choice in either of them any more, though if it were at all possible, I think I'd rather like to have the chance to live in Paris for a while.)

ok I personally am not much of a Paris fan but "just kind of a pretty pretender who got there through some kind of war-torn plastic surgery in the early 19th Century" does not make any sense - much as I find its prettiness wearying, you cannot call it a 'pretender', not with its amazing history as a cultural/political centre.

History being the operative word in that sentance.

huh i just looked up the definition of 'pretender' (in monarchic terms) and... i did not realise a former occupant of a throne could be designated a 'pretender' too. EVEN SO.

Yes, that's exactly the sense I meant. (Sorry, I grew up with stories of Auld Pretenders and Young Pretenders echoing in my head.) Like this is a city living on past glories. London, as much as I hate it, still does genuinely seem to have current things, going on in the present.

Perhaps I'd have more of a sense of this happening in Paris if I lived there, but, really, I can't *afford* it.

all these tier 1 cities need to work out their affordable housing situations, stat. paris may already be too far gone. london probably the best in this regard. you got council houses in marylebone, squats in russell square.

tbh London and NY are probably way more inviting for newcomers or people visiting, as Parisians are utterly obsessed with the idea of being "in the know". Hipsters will be hipsters everywhere but it seems it would be much easier to show up in London/NY/Berlin and have an amazing time without knowing anyone/anything. Not sure that would happen in Paris.

never been to paris or tokyo. accumulated ~3 weeks in new york and it didn't click for me. obviously there's lots to do, but i felt like it's character was missing a lot of the things i like about america and seemed to have more in common with london than with the rest of the u.s. and i HATE london.

turned down and job at columbia in part because it was only a 21 month contract, and i didn't think that would be enough time for me grow to love it.

nyc feels like a city of tryhards to me

I think you would have grown to love Morningside Heights pretty quickly, TBH.

(But perhaps I'm projecting because that was my first experience of NYC)

the unremitting greyness of the last while isn't helping.

what ya gotta realise is, there are SO MANY different greys.

There are drawbacks to that, those buildings don't half cut out the light. First thing I noticed when I got back to London from New York is how open and light everything seemed, and that was in December.

yeah, i was surprised how much of an issue this was for me.

Yeah, true Londoners' eyes have adjusted to perceive as many different shades as grey as an Irishman can see shades of green.

;-)

never come to hong kong then guys

Also, jeez, WRT light in NYC - live in a Borough and you'll have all the light you need. The lack of parks and green space starts to drive you mad after a while. London, for being an incredibly dense city, also has a huge amount of foliage. Those plane trees are truly a wonder.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_fzm-cjFrH5I/SGYVOXEtgAI/AAAAAAAAAC4/N9T6xI-6b9U/s400/tower3.jpg

brooklyn was v. nice in terms of light, it reminded me a lot of philly actually

all these tier 1 cities need to work out their affordable housing situations, stat. paris may already be too far gone. london probably the best in this regard. you got council houses in marylebone, squats in russell square.

In years to come I am going to revive this thread and highlight this post with a sad shake of the head.

London's a very green city, that's a good point, you look at how many big green spaces there are in zone one alone.

yeah, that has gone pretty much undiscussed on these threads - london knocks the other cities into a cocked hat when it comes to green spaces. there are actually BUGS in london beyond roaches and houseflies

voted for nyc on the grounds that its the world citiest of these world cities, but i don't want to live in any of them.

tier 2 world cities i would like to live in: la, sydney, sheffield.

The reason that living costs are relatively low in Berlin is a population issue really? It just doesn't feel as *crowded* as everywhere else, probably because it isn't. Nearly everyone rents, but the demand isn't crazy enough to send those rents sky high.

lol xp

The reason that living costs are relatively low in Berlin is a population issue really? It just doesn't feel as *crowded* as everywhere else, probably because it isn't. Nearly everyone rents, but the demand isn't crazy enough to send those rents sky high.

the other thing that keeps rents down in berlin is that there are no jobs. unemployment is like 20%.

turned down and job at columbia in part because it was only a 21 month contract, and i didn't think that would be enough time for me grow to love it.

― caek, Wednesday, November 10, 2010 11:12 AM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark

woah

iirc the expensiveness of Parisian housing is slightly mitigated by the wide range of housing benefit available for certain jobs? fairly sure that my brother, as a teacher, has subsidised rent (and think another friend got housing benefit for being a civil servant?)

my friend who lived in berlin for a coupel of years said it's pretty easy to get by on social welfare there?

you can do it, yes, and lots of people do, but it's not a life in the long term.

also Berlin has seen its population shrink each year since '89 I think - more appartments than people it seems

i know someone who's pretty much lived on welfare there since the 1970s, just about raised a kid (who rightly wants to get the hell out)

you can do it, but it's kind of lame

xpost

i think berlin has become kind of like seattle or portland. one of those places that sounds great on paper if you're young, and is fun to visit, but very difficult to make a life there.

i feel like prague once played the role of berlin

you'd hear "[x] is currently based in prague"

London.

Love it.

xxp in what way?

people would go there after college because it was cheap and had an amazing history.. it was the kind of place people would just kind of "wash up", live in squats, make art and music, and eventually leave after a year or so

actually prague still has an amazing history iirc

ok, yeah, prague used to be a bit like that in the 90's, loads of college grads coming to teach ESL and write poetry. That's all gone now tho

The Face once ran an article about stupid Americans in Prague in the '90s, which amusingly quoted one of them saying 'Dude, what's Praha?"

I really feel like I should show some home team spirit or something, but really...

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3486/3217143323_4c3c6168cd_o.jpg

not mine. Sorry, New York. you can take your astor place and your ft greene and your "clinton" and your gigantic luxury towers in greenwich village and your cultural segregation and your shitty, thin-walled apartments and your Gansevoort Hotel and shove them straight up your Gowanus

That's like telling someone their first love is, in point of fact, a dirty, nasty, mendacious whore. Yes, perhaps. But it was still my first love.

mine too but you can't let your first love hold your soul. they might drop it absent-mindedly.

Dunno. Suspect mine own soul is pretty dirty, nasty and mendacious itself. They deserve each other.

voted nyc for proximity to jersey city

paris rents are considerably cheaper than london/nyc rent! and yeah, usually subsidized.

the real problem w/ paris is that it has been incredibly slow to accept the fact that the 20 arrondissements are not 'paris' anymore than manhattan is 'nyc'. it's sorta becoming an issue lately and sarko has an epic 'grand paris' connect-the-suburbs transport plan that I think is okay, but the truth is, as long as you have the wall of freeway that surrounds 'paris', it's gonna be kinda fucked. this is the real reason it feels like an 19th century city - it still pretends to be one, even though it's not. and I've never heard anyone actually seriously suggest tearing down the périphérique.

london seems to be ahead of the rest on this particular issue.

Well London didn't really have a clearly defined border between Roman times and the construction of the M25. It's always been various habitations sprawling into one another.

i'd have to live somewhere to really make a pronouncement. loved nyc when i visited for about 2 weeks in 2008, would love to live there one day, there's just a buzz on the streets. i don't know if it's cultural conditioning but doing the simplest thing in nyc felt v exciting to me cos of years of seeing it on tv. like buying a hot dog or something, or going to a bar. also felt it was v friendly.

i love london tho...for a world city the pace of life can feel incredibly slow (not like, on your way to work) but at weekends etc cos everything feels so suburban. the sense of london being a set of little towns really adds to it, also great pubs. and obv great food everywhere.

Yes, Berlin should be on this list. I don't think it's any more difficult to get by here than Paris or Tokyo for example.

London is very difficult to love unless you're from there

I have friends from Continental Europe, Oz and South Africa who would argue with you on that point.

I have already voted, with my feet, I suppose.

obv great food everywhere.

― I see what this is (Local Garda), Wednesday, November 10, 2010 1:46 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark

this is not something people used to say about london

Pretty sure the quality of London restaurants has improved exponentially over the last 15 years or so. It's probably still not up there with New York but it's a lot better than it was.

I always get the impression that although London doesn't have the late drinking culture that New York has, its club culture knocks NY's into a cocked hat. There are probably people better qualified than me to judge that though.

'food' isn't a restaurant thing though, no? that you have to go into a restaurant to get good food in london counts against it. i have no idea what the cart scene is like in tokyo though.

i think i would award 'tier 1 world city' to anywhere with good (train) 24h transport

i hate the way london pubs close at 11, it's too fucking early. i'd like to be able to stay out till 1am if i wanted to, during the week, but not leave the first place i meet my friends. this is the only thing dublin has over london...

the real problem w/ paris is that it has been incredibly slow to accept the fact that the 20 arrondissements are not 'paris' anymore than manhattan is 'nyc'. it's sorta becoming an issue lately and sarko has an epic 'grand paris' connect-the-suburbs transport plan that I think is okay, but the truth is, as long as you have the wall of freeway that surrounds 'paris', it's gonna be kinda fucked. this is the real reason it feels like an 19th century city - it still pretends to be one, even though it's not. and I've never heard anyone actually seriously suggest tearing down the périphérique.

This was one of the reasons I discounted paris in the original thread. Lack of a coherent identity linking the arrondissements and greater Paris I'm sure is partly responsible for its decline in cultural importance.

Not quite sure how a freeway counts against central Paris in a way that being on an island doesn't count against Manhattan. Although maybe New York is becoming increasingly Paris-ised? Also I get the feeling that Paris doesn't really give a shit what happens outside its centre because that's the bit people don't see unless they're rioting?

'food' isn't a restaurant thing though, no? that you have to go into a restaurant to get good food in london counts against it. i have no idea what the cart scene is like in tokyo though.

The weather in London generally rules out a cart scene, although pub food in London is *a lot* better than it used to be. Cafes too.

i think i would award 'tier 1 world city' to anywhere with good (train) 24h transport

Guess London is out then.

I would say London club culture is much, much better and furthermore, most other cities try to copy it shamelessly and FAIL. I'm also annoyed by the NYC clubber terminology that calls a club night a 'party' (this may be an idiosyncratic annoyance, brought to you by the same part of my brain as revulsion for North American men who use the word 'panties' out loud).

London restaurants before 1995 were dire, save a handful of decent Modern British restaurants and (of course) anything South Asian. I can remember when Thai food in a pub was a novel idea and I wouldn't go to Chinatown because I was holding out for a decent Hunan instead of all the shit Cantonese on offer.

Chicago

Not quite sure how a freeway counts against central Paris in a way that being on an island doesn't count against Manhattan. Although maybe New York is becoming increasingly Paris-ised? Also I get the feeling that Paris doesn't really give a shit what happens outside its centre because that's the bit people don't see unless they're rioting?

― Matt DC, Wednesday, 10 November 2010 09:34 (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I would argue that Paris has a much more poisonous 'Island' state of mind than manhattan. You'd think of going to Brooklyn or Queens as a tourist but, (La Defence and Versailles aside) would you consider exploring the Banlieue?

Difference being I think that New York and London style themselves as global cities, Paris doesn't, its attitude is closer to "France is the best country in the world and Paris is the best city in it" and so anything that doesn't fit that image is conveniently kept out of the picture.

I can remember when Thai food in a pub was a novel idea

never understood why this became a thing

Last time I visited NYC, I was in Manhattan for about an hour over 4 days and had a great time. Can't imagine going to Paris and doing the same.

I don't get this

Paris>NYC>London>Tokyo for me but I have had truly splendid times in this cities.

I'm an American and the only one of these I haven't been to is NYC.

Don't know which to choose from the other three. I love them all so much.

(La Defence and Versailles aside) would you consider exploring the Banlieue?

no. but if i were a tourist in london i wouldn't visit canning town or kilburn

Thai food in pubs became a thing in the early '90s recession because lots of pubs weren't using their first floor. Easy to sublet it to some dude and his Thai wife who would be able to feed drinkers a new kind of CURRY for £5 or less, and then your drinkers would get stuck in for the night rather than boozing and going off for an Indian.

lots of pubs weren't using their first floor.

Read this about 5 times before I remembered they skip a floor in Everywhere But North America.

^^^yup

i just found it odd that it was only Thai - people seem to really stick to their established models and this was a rare risk being taken. that's the only reason i can think why you didn't start seeing other types of cuisine in pubs in the same way (if Thai food could work why not anything else). the boosted gastropub culture since has resulted in a lot more pubs doing good pizza now (Florist, George & Vulture and Hanbury Arms all fine examples).

(La Defence and Versailles aside) would you consider exploring the Banlieue?

La Defense is dull and Versailles isn't really banlieue, but there are lots of interesting places in the burbs.

no. but if i were a tourist in london i wouldn't visit canning town or kilburn

canning town has a great station

i have been to various pubs that had pretty dece mexican but they always abandoned it eventually

"dece" being a relative term in london; one of them was the dogstar in brixton where the chef once claimed to me that his peppers came from thierry henry's personal chili plants

don't think i would want to live in any of these cities, but i'm jealous of food and films in nyc, parks and dancing in london, and all of these functional subway systems. at any point in the 20th century it'd be nyc in a walk i think. never been to tokyo, but i would easily take berlin over the other three as a place to live right now

Also I get the feeling that Paris doesn't really give a shit what happens outside its centre because that's the bit people don't see unless they're rioting?

this is weirdly true and yet paris-proper is just 2 million people - a small fraction of ile de france. that number can grow, but not substantially. the future of paris is absolutely the banlieues, some of which are already extremely dense paris-y places. (some of which are projects, some of which are american style suburbs...) this is an issue that I think about a lot for some reason.

I still voted paris cause it has the quality of life thing figured out so, so good. in a lot of ways I think paris in 2010 is probably a better place to live than paris back when it was the coolest place on the planet.

All four of these cities are beyond awesome and I refuse to choose between them.

all of these functional subway systems

yeah, this. i think actually that's the thing i notice the most when i'm in london or nyc---how completely transformed my experience is by large-scale public transit.

no. but if i were a tourist in london i wouldn't visit canning town or kilburn

But you might go to Greenwich or Portabello Road or Brixton or Richmond or Hampstead...

The one time I was in Paris, I wasn't allowed on the subway system because my mom was convinced it was equivalent to buying a ticket to be stabbed. (I was 16 at the time.)

yeah, this. i think actually that's the thing i notice the most when i'm in london or nyc---how completely transformed my experience is by large-scale public transit.

inevitable sub-questions:
best public transit?

and (important)
best subway map?

NY, but then it only has to work linearly, pretty much.

Best map: London.

I think Tokyo's transit system would have been super amazing had I been able to read the signs.

NYC has better public transit than London? hmmmm

srsly

Obligatory "I haven't been to Toykyo, but..." best public transport was Paris. Probably because I have never relied on it to get to work. (Also because much of my last trip I spent being chauffered around in a Mercedes bigger than my whole flat.)

NYC's trains are brilliant but they lose points on the bus system.

Best map = London, original and best. Also, SPIDER MAPS. <3

london transport probably better than nyc overall ime, tho the whole night bus thing is pretty dire

Subway is better than the Tube, the Metro better than the Subway, but London buses are better than NYCs. Does Paris even have a bus system? They also have the bike rental thing, so Paris.

Never been to Tokyo though.

night buses are no more dire than waiting for an F train at 2 in the morning

haha yes Paris has a bus system. not a very good one.

Granted, my experience of NYC transit is 10 years out of date, but no one who ever had to ride the Victoria Line on a regular basis would ever think of London's underground as being superior to anywhere.

London's busses are way better than NYC, but Paris busses won points for announcing the stops, which London has only recently got on board with.

(Total "Oh god no, I'm a real Londoner" moment earlier: Student riots at Millbank building provokes involuntary thought "if they close Pimlico station, that's the Victoria line buggered and I'm fucked if I'm getting a bus through protests..." ARGH. I hate this city.)

i totally disagree that the MTA is better than the Tube; Tube trains during the day come at like 3 minute intervals. if you're on the Victoria line maybe 6. i cannot tell you how glad i am to be rid forever of that feeling, so common in New York, of having bounded down the stairs two at a time to reach the platform just as your train is pulling away. "Shit." you know it's going to be awhile. in London it's no biggie.

NYC subway rat sub-species vs London Tube Mice Sub-species FITE

Does Paris even have a bus system?

I prefer using it to the Metro when possible.

The Tube is way better than MTA.

Tube mice loose obviously due to interbreeding between NYC rats and sewer aligators

In what, 5 years of living in NYC, I never, ever had an experience of getting onto a crowded jampacked train, only to have it mysteriously STOP for a seeming eternity, in the middle of a tunnel.

On the Victoria Line, this happens on a twice weekly basis.

But honestly, this is not gonna become another "whinge about the tube" thread, honest.

The only thing the Tube has over the Subway is those little illustrated things over the platform to tell you when the next train is coming. That's what makes it seem a shorter wait than the Subway.

i totally disagree that the MTA is better than the Tube; Tube trains during the day come at like 3 minute intervals. if you're on the Victoria line maybe 6. i cannot tell you how glad i am to be rid forever of that feeling, so common in New York, of having bounded down the stairs two at a time to reach the platform just as your train is pulling away. "Shit." you know it's going to be awhile. in London it's no biggie.

...unless you happen to jump on a train going the wrong direction during a tube strike and you already late to a client site, which was my last experience with the Tube

(I don't ride either enough to have an informed opinion but WOW was that annoying)

oh yeah we could also get into a comparison of which underground train stations LOOK nicer.... new york honestly looks like post-armageddon in this department

In what, 5 years of living in NYC, I never, ever had an experience of getting onto a crowded jampacked train, only to have it mysteriously STOP for a seeming eternity, in the middle of a tunnel

Has happened to me, normally on the L train in the east river tunnel.

.. except for the circle line at Paddington, which always seems to have 'just left' and it's 5 mins to the next.

xposts blimey these posts aren't like Circle Line trains, are they?

I dunno, I went on some architecture school tours where they went into, like the abandonned city station in lower Manhattan and there are some beautiful features in older Subway stops.

mark g, seriously 5 minutes is like the bare minimum amount of time to wait for a subway in new york. if it's just 5 minutes you're like wooo hoo i'm gonna be early to work for once!

tbh I live on the Victoria line (albeit the opposite end of it to Wheal Dream) and it isn't THAT bad. Trains are like every 1-2 mins when I leave work. OK they're usually totally rammed so often have to wait for 2 or 3 to get on one, but that's only a few minutes.

the Tube also has no air conditioning, which matters when you are stuck between stations in a packed train in July.

xpost Oh, I suppose so. I guess a 5 minute wait on the NY subway was more a "well, kids, lets soak up the atmosphere and when you get to see movies at home we'll go "that's the one we waited at, wasn't it?" as opposed to dashing to work...

tbh I live on the Victoria line (albeit the opposite end of it to Wheal Dream) and it isn't THAT bad. Trains are like every 1-2 mins when I leave work. OK they're usually totally rammed so often have to wait for 2 or 3 to get on one, but that's only a few minutes.

Well, that's because in the event of problems, they reroute the line at Victoria so you lot up North are fine, but god forbid you should try to get into a platform at Brixton.

OK, now I'm remembering the packed trains on the F, mind you, and how I used to have to take a G a couple of stops back into Queens to get an R or something. Yeesh. I guess my memory of the Subway is kinda rose tinted.

The Picadilly line was always rub until they opened the Heathrow stations, at which point it became bloody marvellous and regular as.

I want to see some Japanese ILX0rs get onthread and complain about the platform dudes who push everyone onto the trains with giant sticks, that would make this thread complete.

it depends on the line, tracer! 4/5 come frequently even at night and on weeks--but if you miss a B or V or god forbid a weekend G yeah itll be 15 minutes

man just thinking about the tube or the subway brings back memories of just how fucking woeful chicago's el is. it just seems so useless and half-assed compared to real train systems.

I want to see some Japanese ILX0rs get onthread and complain about the platform dudes who push everyone onto the trains with giant sticks, that would make this thread complete.

I remember being disappointed that we didn't actually see this when we were in Tokyo; it was like the biggest thing we were looking forward to experiencing.

Ah, the old G. G for GHOST train.

That's really only at a couple of stations at peak hours. The biggest bitch I have about Tokyo trains is that, sometimes if you're headed to out of the way places, you have to transfer to another railway company's line altogether and get a new ticket.

i have no idea what the cart scene is like in tokyo though

Tokyo and Japan in general is amazing for eating I found - masses of tiny restaurants everywhere, and even the cheapest options seemed great to me (so much so that we abandoned any thoughts of trying anything approaching fine dining other than our last night when everywhere was stuffed). Added bonus that if you're happy to do that, you can easily eat out for about a tenner or so for two.

(just to be clear, disappointment at not getting shoved onto the train was easily assuaged by the discovery of beer vending machines)

xp: I totally agree re: food in Japan; I was there as a college student on a per diem of approximately $50 and not only was I able to stuff myself silly, but I also was able to buy a bunch of exorbitantly-priced CDs impossible to find in the US, several t-shirts, tickets to a random movie (don't ask) and spend tons and tons of cash in vending machines for beer and sake and in pachinko and video game parlors.

not talking about munich as a world city, and obviously it's a simpler problem than nyc or london, but it has by far the best public transport system i have ever experienced. the u-bahns are every ten mins and on time to like +/-30 seconds. people start looking at their watches and tutting if buses are more than a minute late.

Lived in Tokyo for five years.

TOKYO

I want to see some Japanese ILX0rs get onthread and complain about the platform dudes who push everyone onto the trains with giant sticks, that would make this thread complete.

They don't push people with "giant sticks."

The annoying thing about the Paris Metro is that the people on the platform never wait for people to get off the train before barging in in their droves. I could never vote for Paris on that basis alone.

I'm sure the NYC subway is better than the Tube really but the linear thing is annoying, the Tube seems better laid out even if it doesn't work properly.

not talking about munich as a world city, and obviously it's a simpler problem than nyc or london, but it has by far the best public transport system i have ever experienced. the u-bahns are every ten mins and on time to like +/-30 seconds. people start looking at their watches and tutting if buses are more than a minute late.

That's kind of everyone in western Germany, not just Munich.

I've only been to one of these (NY), vaguely interested in London, could not give less of a shit about Tokyo or Paris tho

for real? i was under the impression that traveling to/in japan was just a $$$$ nightmare, like worse than going to London or NYC.

xp to DJP

nah, i didn't mean people in munich are dicks. i meant that if a bus is more than 60 seconds late it is noteworthy. it practically never happens. i don't know how they do it.

The annoying thing about the Paris Metro is that the people on the platform never wait for people to get off the train before barging in in their droves. I could never vote for Paris on that basis alone.

Not to make any cultural assumptions, but this is a problem here in Montreal too.

If the whole "attendants to push people into crowded Japanese subway trains" thing is an urban myth I am gonna be so disappointed. ;_;

i meant that if a bus is more than 60 seconds late it is noteworthy. it practically never happens. i don't know how they do it.

Germany has much wider streets and less traffic generally? I mean, the buses are technically fine in London, it's the traffic that ruins them.

pretty sure thats the case with all bus systems, dude

xp, yeah i guess. but they don't manage that kind of timekeeping on village routes in scotland.

also no barriers on munich public transport which makes it feel a bit nicer

for real? i was under the impression that traveling to/in japan was just a $$$$ nightmare, like worse than going to London or NYC.

It can be, don't get me wrong; there was a reason we never went clubbing. Also, this was a choir tour so we never had to pay for accommodations or most of our transportation. On the food tip, we basically would look for noodle and sushi places and ate most of our meals for around $10-$15, saving the rest of our cash for beer and Virtua Racer.

nah, i didn't mean people in munich are dicks. i meant that if a bus is more than 60 seconds late it is noteworthy. it practically never happens. i don't know how they do it.

No, I understood; I meant that buses/trains are like that all over western Germany. (Can't speak for eastern Germany as I didn't really spend time there on public transportation.)

Tokyo pretty much crushes the other three food-wise, top to bottom

The annoying thing about the Paris Metro is that the people on the platform never wait for people to get off the train before barging in in their droves. I could never vote for Paris on that basis alone.

the u-bahns are every ten mins and on time to like +/-30 seconds. people start looking at their watches and tutting if buses are more than a minute late.

lol national stereotypes

voted 4 tokyo bcuz being there felt like living in the future whereas new york is always now & paris (& to a lesser extent london) are living in the past

can't think of any japanese cultural ish that really draws me

In what, 5 years of living in NYC, I never, ever had an experience of getting onto a crowded jampacked train, only to have it mysteriously STOP for a seeming eternity, in the middle of a tunnel.

happened to me last week actually.

it depends on the line, tracer! 4/5 come frequently even at night and on weeks--but if you miss a B or V or god forbid a weekend G yeah itll be 15 minutes

rip V

actually the new M is better

the nyc subway RUNS 24 HOURS, this bold truth alone makes any further argument moot, and the fact that yall non new yorkers dont seem to care reflects poorly on yr cities tbh

also drinking establishments stay open til 4, its called freedom GET SOME

n what, 5 years of living in NYC, I never, ever had an experience of getting onto a crowded jampacked train, only to have it mysteriously STOP for a seeming eternity, in the middle of a tunnel

this has happened to me more times than i can count in boston, except i'd be sitting down and some dude would have his b'o infested armpit jammed right in my nose on a T with no A/C in the summer. Or the one time i got stuck next to the guy who had a full colostomy bag.

was just thinking abt fake ass public transpo bullshit, boston came to mind w/the eternally planned and oft promised silver line, finally they just ran a bus down its route and called it the silver line, unfucking believable people

meanwhile theyre spending 25b on the big dig smdh

i mean if ny ever does that w/the 2nd ave subway cross it off the world cities list, its over

yeah 24h public transportation is a game-changer

the tube doesnt even run on christmas!!

*scoffs*

tube has a tier 1 union though

feel like if the world were a just place every city would have ny style 24 hour subway, also 4 track express trains ffs

lmao fake ass public transpo
belongs in innocuous blah blah: any dolled up 'trolley' that's just a open air bus
if you find yourself sitting in a 'trolley' in la you are getting played. wonder what tier we on anyway

Regretting defending the Victoria line now, the entire line is closed this weekend for engineering works and I'm going to a gig in Brixton on Saturday :(

Ideal world would have all subway networks linked up making one megacity imo. There's a Ballard story with that, I think it's supposed to be dystopian for some reason.

^^ otm always think abt that, taking the subway everywhere

the u.n. internment fema-"tube" w/ chemtrail mystery-missile equipped helipads for black helicopter justice real nice

if the map's based on London then I'm all for it

current tube map is a joke - horrible mess

how long do u think ud be willing to sit on a subway--would u take a 5 hour subway trip to boston? i probably would what the hell

was just thinking abt fake ass public transpo bullshit, boston came to mind w/the eternally planned and oft promised silver line, finally they just ran a bus down its route and called it the silver line, unfucking believable people

IIRC the silver line was always intended to be a bus

not that that makes it any less of a ridiculous bullshit line but I have never understood the "we've been robbed!" reaction to it since as far back as I can remember it's always been described as a stupid bus

Not sure I could do a five-hour journey underground, but if could look into people's gardens all the way then hell yes

people's underground gardens

some kind of Mines of Moria affair, I'd be up for that

fuckin public transport thread? guys?

Objectum-sexuals

here you go

gonna hit that a-train

all these cities are great, can't really choose

but this thread makes me wonder: which city would it be best to be poor in?

my hunch is that tokyo would be the best city to be poor in, because the weather is better and even the cheap food is pretty healthy

new york, london and paris all feel similar to me because they are hinged upon having lotsa cash or a very lucrative gig if you want to get the most out of them (i lived in new york for six months, haven't lived in london or paris but have spent plenty of time there)

Why does this always come up w/r/t NYC? You can be FINE on not THAT much money here. You're not gonna be living "the good life" as defined by the advertising industry, but then who gives a fuck about the advertising industry??

Maybe it's that consumerism is more emphasized here, and you need more dough to participate in that...but again, this is not the be-all/end-all of NY.

well, i say that as somebody who lived in louisville, KY and san francisco, CA most of his life, and all of my peer group of college and grad student kids wore trashy thrift store crap, and when I was suddenly plunged into living in Chelsea for six months while working there I would walk down the street wearing things that were sorta standard for me in the Bay Area and NYC people looked at me like I was human garbage and it *seems* as if everyone had spent about $500.00 minimum on the shoes, the bag, the coat, the phone, the belt, the accessories. Fashion and conspicuous consumption *seems* almost mandatory in Manhattan in a way that it just isn't in the Bay Area, and certainly wasn't in KY, and the implied salary that you are expected to have looked to be vastly more than in other places. I mean, duh, poor people live in New York too, but if you're not a New Yorker and just show up there you are suddenly exposed to a kind of default setting that involves a lot more money than average Americans from smaller cities earn and spend. There's a sense in which NYers work a lot harder at looking "put together" than, say, Palo Alto (to compare it to a city in which lots of people have enormous amounts of money but don't dress like they do- Silicon Valley people look like banal people who shop at REI).

Now all the NYers can jump down my throat.

I take offense to your REI comment, it's Patagonia and North Face, OKAY????

Maybe you and I have vastly different ideas of who our style/pop-cultural "peers" are and/or what yardsticks we're using, here.

It's not that everything is expensive, it's probably more that your choices of inexpensive/on-sale things become different. Your style maybe runs in a different vein. It helps if you buy at least one of everything in black to start with.

well the triumph of H&M in all of these cities levels down this effect to some extent because now everyone on the planet can wear the same super-cheap / kinda-current stuff

I just get the sense that in NY you are expected to have put some thought into what you are wearing and that in SF no one really cares, and that the presence of the fashion industry in NY and Paris means that the bandwidth of expenditure trends way higher

that said, as far as snobbery-on-the-street goes, nobody gives you a withering, "you are scum" look like an old Parisian bourgeois lady!

the real question is: which is the most perverted first tier city?

my vote is London, but I'm guessing that Tokyo might be the right answer here- though perhaps it's a question of whether London having more sexual perverts is outdistanced by Tokyo's perverts being, on a case-by-case level, into weirder/kinkier shit

Um, yes. This much is true. This is kinda the minimum baseline for everyone other than gutter punks or, like, neu-hobos everywhere, though, isn't it?

tokyo still has arcades right? that's a pretty big +

ive only been to NYC out of the list and I adore it...but i think if i ever went to london i'd never want to come home.

lol Laurel, I initially read that as a response to the pervert question

lol yeah, sorry, should have quoted and attributed there!

Why does this always come up w/r/t NYC? You can be FINE on not THAT much money here. You're not gonna be living "the good life" as defined by the advertising industry, but then who gives a fuck about the advertising industry??

so otm.

I just get the sense that in NY you are expected to have put some thought into what you are wearing and that in SF no one really cares, and that the presence of the fashion industry in NY and Paris means that the bandwidth of expenditure trends way higher

this has everything to do w/ your lifestyle and social group. nyc is big enough that snobby rich well-dressed people are really only a small % of the city itself. I've lived in all 3 and paris is the only place I've felt like it mattered how I dressed. and that's because poor people dress well there too.

but the secret w/ paris is that everyone only has like 3 super nice articles of clothing and they wear them every day

but this thread makes me wonder: which city would it be best to be poor in?

new york...as long as you remember there are 5 boroughs

it's actually remarkably easy to find cheap food here
+
living anywhere on the subway system costs the same, no 'zones'

new york, paris, london, munichTOKYO everybody poll about--

I've been dirt broke unemployed poor in both NYC and in London and trust me, London is a far nicer place to be poor. (Or at least, it was under Blair.)

You may have 24 hour transit but we've got a nationalised health service. I'll take the NHS over being unemployed and uninsured in a NYC emergency room ANY. DAY.

okay yeah that's true

paris wins again on that measure tho

how long do u think ud be willing to sit on a subway--would u take a 5 hour subway trip to boston? i probably would what the hell

― max, Wednesday, November 10, 2010 3:16 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

exactly, an amazing new culture would flourish in the world wide subway network

oh a three-day subway to los angeles you say it only costs $2.50 whats that i have to transfer in dallas, thats fine, its right across the platform, gr8 thanks

and dan re silver line iirc the reason people felt so ripped off was cause it was replacing a demolished section of the orange line, and i do believe at some point it was imagined as another T line, regardless naming a bus route like its a subway is just a phony maneuver

With maglev trains in vacuum tunnel it would only take an hour to cross the Atlantic. I read it in a novel.

I just get the sense that in NY you are expected to have put some thought into what you are wearing and that in SF no one really cares

― the tune is space, Wednesday, November 10, 2010 3:49 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

score one for ny! i luv the bay but theres a disturbing lack of rigor operating on many levels there

Speak for yourself, my good man.

certain people excepted, naturally

so basically m white is picking up all the slack, huh

when i think nyc style i still think brand new pale blue skinny jeans and white sneakers

and dan re silver line iirc the reason people felt so ripped off was cause it was replacing a demolished section of the orange line, and i do believe at some point it was imagined as another T line, regardless naming a bus route like its a subway is just a phony maneuver

All I know is that I moved here when they started talking about implementing both The Big Dig and The Silver Line and I distinctly remember being psyched about the idea of a new train right up until I read the first public infodump about it, at which point "naming a bus route like its a subway is just a phony maneuver" was a much, much nicer reaction than what I did, which was to laugh for about 20 minutes while saying "wow this city sucks"

and yet I still live here

lol

tokyo still has arcades right? that's a pretty big +

― another al3x, Thursday, November 11, 2010 5:20 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

haha video game arcades or the shopping kind

4 reference

http://www.bento.com/pix/subway5.gif
http://www.visitlondontoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/london-subway-map.gif
http://www.allparisguide.com/subway-paris-map.gif
http://speedymole.com/Tubes/NewYork/NEW-YORK-SUBWAY-MAP.gif

I should have found smaller images

japan: looks like a monster
london: elegant
paris: all time classic
nyc: eh

the metro is great, but paris is so small it's almost 'too much'

NYC's has always looked like somebody upended a bowl of spaghetti, or maybe picked up that ball of hair clogging the drain and overlaid it onto a map of new york

I would eat neon rainbow spaghetti

nyc's is incredibly non-intuitive, probably funded by taxi companies that want to keep tourists on the street

kinda strange to read the love for the MTA on this thread, granted my experience has been limited to cooking slowly in 120 degree heat while waiting 15 minutes for a delayed V train two levels down below

didn't you cart home a giant subway map you found on the sidewalk btw

japan: looks like a monster

Totally, reminds me of the end of Akira.

nys is flawed 4 sure but i have many times been thankful for its relative fealty to above ground reality

the metro card is not very confidence inspiring I always feel mine is about to spontaneously disintegrate in my hands

didn't you cart home a giant subway map you found on the sidewalk btw

ya it is gigantic...one of the big framed in-station maps. it is under our bed right now cause we don't actually have space to put it up.

xp

it is from the early 80s I think

NY is the only metro map of the four that tries to maintain some geographical nesting and i appreciate that

the metro card is not very confidence inspiring I always feel mine is about to spontaneously disintegrate in my hands

Oyster cards >>>>>> MTA cards

tokyo's is even more complicated once you add in more of the Japan Rail lines

the fact that in 2010 you still have to swipe a card in the nyc subway system is def a strike against nyc

octopus card >>>>>>> oyster because that's where they stole it from

but apparently you can use your phone to swipe in tokyo

NY is the only metro map of the four that tries to maintain some geographical nesting and i appreciate that

nah.

it's hard to even imagine how you could make a nyc map w/ no geographical nesting.

it's not really more accurate than paris' tho

http://radar.oreilly.com/2010/07/23/figure5.png

http://radar.oreilly.com/2010/07/23/figure12.png

night map

Of the four cities, I've lived in two (& the other two I've not been to at all). I found the subway system in London to be faster, cleaner & generally more efficient than NYC (esp. when you consider the areas beyond Manhattan). The deal-killer for London is that The Tube stops running at midnight, or at least it did at the time (2001), which is beyond lame if you like to go out at night ever & don't want to spend all yr $ on cabs.

NYC

tokyo map is rough as tokyo is much larger (geographically) then the other three cities so it's hard to leave a lot of geo/topo-graphical data... but otoh you can just RF scan any city block on your phone and it will tell you where you are and you can easily get directions to how you are going.

nyc subway map is confusing as hell if you dont know the system at all but i think thats intentional, theres nothing nyers like more than knowing secret shit about their city

Octopus card indeed better than Oyster. Was disappointed by Tokyo's equivalent as you have to actually take it out to top it up - how annoying! The Yamanote line rules though - overground so isn't on the map above but basically the Circle line if it went lots more you'd actually want to go and ran properly.

The deal-killer for London is that The Tube stops running at midnight, or at least it did at the time (2001), which is beyond lame if you like to go out at night ever & don't want to spend all yr $ on cabs.

yeah it's a p in the a

the night bus system is ok

the other thing/massive cliche there is that so-called 'south london' isn't really served by the tube at all, but few tourists venture very far into it

"so-called"?

uh dudes, in case you did not know this, the subway and trains in Tokyo stop at midnight or thereabouts and there are no night buses.

NY is the only metro map of the four that tries to maintain some geographical nesting and i appreciate that

nah.

― BIG MUFFIN (gbx), Thursday, 11 November 2010 01:19 (8 hours ago) Bookmark

can't speak to the accuracy of this, but nyc totally gets props for this & grid system. both are pretty significant if assessing what a city's like to visit, as well as live in. i would raze most of beautiful historic europe if it meant getting a grid system.

o_O

i guess that maybe happened a bit in those large sections of europe that were actually flattened

and i think it was... oh god, edward i? a super old english king who did do grid layouts in some places here, like bury st edmunds

but it's kind of an aspie way to lay out a city

Milton Keynes has a grid system, just sayin'

Grid system is all well and good but it's not actually that hard to, y'know, look places up on a map as well. Amazing how many Londoners fail at this though.

Also you don't need geographical accuracy on an underground map, you just need it to be clearly readable.

Which is the major city that just changes the colours of the underground lines depending on which station you're in? That drove me fucking mad but I've forgotten where it was.

Has anyone ever had a go at designing the least-comprehensible map/system possible on purpose? Would be interested in seeing the results.

Which is the major city that just changes the colours of the underground lines depending on which station you're in? That drove me fucking mad but I've forgotten where it was.

goddamn town planner italo calvino

that's crazy!

Grid system is all well and good but it's not actually that hard to, y'know, look places up on a map as well. Amazing how many Londoners fail at this though.

― Matt DC, Thursday, 11 November 2010 10:04 (58 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

christ this makes me so angry, getting phone calls from lost friends asking how to get there. GET A FUCKING MAP.

these days, when bus shelters have maps, there's no excuse

iirc that's a relatively new development tho? last ten years ish

These days, considering even *phones* come with maps, that's super ridiculous.

many bush shelters will only have a spider map, or an advertisement, etc - i have been burned many times

BUS shelters even

Maps on bus shelters are amazing, possibly the best thing about London imo - but there was a phase about five years back where they'd mostly been hoiked out and replaced with useless adverts for tfl products (hotlines for directions and suchlike, no doubt) and it drove me spare that they'd so little regard for their best innovation ever.

Maps on bus shelters are amazing

Yes, no need to buy an iphone at all!

Wish I could buy a spider map application for my iPhone.

Ooooooooh yeah. Or how about an app that mimics the mini-spider maps that are above the bus timetables, showing you where you are on various routes and how long it'll take to reach the other destinations on those routes? Except on your phone it would be "live"

Yes, yes, yes, linked live to GPS so it knew where you were, and cross checking it against any known traffic jams or route diversions... ::starts to salivate::

Getting rights to "Crosstown Traffic" for the telly ad as we speak

ny's lack of maps at its bus stations is very frustrating

too few maps at subway stations too

Grid system is all well and good but it's not actually that hard to, y'know, look places up on a map as well. Amazing how many Londoners fail at this though.

― Matt DC, Thursday, November 11, 2010 4:04 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

see, though, live in a place like Chicago, where the Grid is even more dominant than NYC and you'll realize how empowering it is to NEVER EVER have to look at a map. if someone tells you the numbers at the cross streets, "getting directions" isn't necessary, even to places you have never been before.

still get momentarily lost/confused in central London now and then, even in Soho or Shoreditch

Also you don't need geographical accuracy on an underground map, you just need it to be clearly readable.

Sure, if your final destination is underground. I mean, that's mad. Of course you need it to correlate to above-ground places, otherwise how the fuck are you going to find which stop is closest to the place you're going??

call it a 'derive', win snob points

xpost

Best subway map ever: http://www.onnyturf.com/subway/

or this
http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/8/view/4930/heart-shaped-nyc-subway-map-by-zero-per-zero.html

still get momentarily lost/confused in central London now and then, even in Soho or Shoreditch

― Noel 1 Silence 0 (blueski), Thursday, November 11, 2010 2:30 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark

Yeah, I still haven't fully got the hang of Soho. It's a maze.

D: "Right, we're off to London Zoo, so we'll get the tube to Regent's Park station..."
M: "No, you need St johns Wood, or Camden and walk along the canal"
D: "But the Zoo is in Regent's Park!"
M: "Yeah, but you don't want to get off there"

So, they ended up getting off there, and had a 20 min walk through the park to get to the far end...

(of course, now they have a shuttle bus)

Okay, London, pre-iphone (or imagine you are a poor, down-trodden tourist who doesn't happen to have one, or have reception on another continent, or w/e). Someone gives you an address. Using maps alone, how do you find it?

surprise, you can't!

like there is a reason you have to take an exam to drive a cab there

I need to learn the names of the lines, cos nobody else appears to call them "the blue line" and the "other blue line" and the "one that might be dark blue but is probably black".

xp laurel, look it up in the A to Z of course.

Using maps alone, how do you find it?

buy a little London A-Z book or use nearby bus stop/tube station maps to locate the road. if that fails ask a kindly passing crow.

got some funny looks when I asked for walking directions from the Natural History Museum to Kings Cross. People genuinely didn't believe it was possible to travel that far on foot.

Eh? I only got an iPhone in January of this year. I somehow managed to survive living in London with just an A to Z for over ten years before I had one. I don't understand why it's so hard to use a map. (I found that often Londoners on roads which had twins elsewhere in London would give the nearest Tube or bus stop as well.)

If you can't work out how to use an A to Z, no offense or anything, but I don't think you have much business being a tourist in London. Well, one that's not on a package bus tour or something.

I don't think I've ever visited an unfamiliar city without some kind of a map. This is just astonishingly poor forethought to me.

Sure, if your final destination is underground. I mean, that's mad. Of course you need it to correlate to above-ground places, otherwise how the fuck are you going to find which stop is closest to the place you're going??

You look at a map. This isn't difficult.

I mean, you work out your destination and then work out which is the closest station. Surely this is what everyone sensible in the world does? Rather than going "oh I fancy going to the National Theatre" when already underground and standing looking at the Tube map in confusion.

I don't get this discussion at all.

something about London that can be hard to wrap your head around if you're used to a grid is that you can perfectly well know where something is, and you can set off that direction, and still wind up totally lost. in London (as in, i suspect, Tokyo) you have to actually know the way somewhere, not just where it is objectively speaking. i.e. take the second left after the pub or whatever. no other way will do! (sometimes). and there are a small % of times that the A-Z can be misleading in this regard, i.e. a fence where you don't expect one

Tokyo is bafflingly hard to get around if you haven't already been to your destination.

You have to remember that most Americans haven't actually visited the UK since WWII so they think we're still eating shortages era rations (aka the food is terrible!) and all the street signs have been removed and the maps redrawn to confuse the nazis.

Or at least that's the impression I'm getting from this thread. ;-)

So...you need a book called the A to Z which you'll have to buy at your own expense in order to...get anywhere? How does a place this disorganized end up as any kind of metropolis at all?

i'd reckon that most US city-dwellers do not have portable maps of their cities, and generally rely on intuition and varying degrees of rational city planning to find their way around. (xpost to TH)

oddly enough, the "boring" grid of the modern american city has given way to the cul de sacs and needlessly winding, sidewalkless streets of the suburbs, which probably rival London's more obscure neighborhoods in their difficulty to navigate w/o maps or local knowledge.

The other point is that the London Underground map would be COMPLETELY UNREADABLE if it followed actual geography. The reason it's so easy to follow the NY subway map geographically because the city's so rectangular, built on that grid system that evidently infantilises people.

"Wait, oh no, you might actually have to obtain A MAP before you decided to visit a foreign city?!?!?"

^^^^^^this is kind of why American tourists have such a bad reputation overseas, you know...

And for people who are saying, "Look on the map at bus/tube stations" one of you was JUST SAYING how it's not important for the tube map to actually MATCH ANYTHING ABOVEGROUND. Does not compute!

I can't believe anyone accused New Yorkers of liking to know secret things when apparently all of London is accessible only to the initiated.

I meant the actual map of the streets, not the Tube map.

u guys are really piling on the condescension here, u kno

You know what? Just stay home, in your nice rectangular cities, and drive your nice air conditioned cars to your nice suburban shopping malls with your nice grid-like parking lots, so you don't ever have to actually use a brain cell or, you know, actual navigational skills to get anywhere. You'll have a much nicer life, clearly.

Some of us don't HAVE any navigational skills, this is perhaps the root of my (almost entirely manufactured) outrage. I keep a card-sized map of everything below 14th street in my wallet in case anyone mentions the West Village.

Also, Kate, aren't you actually American?

Fuck no.

argh @ "west village"

Geographical London tube map

kate i just told you that the suburbs are a navigational hell

I've lived in London my whole life and I still get a bit lost fairly regularly, but no biggie I kind of enjoy piecing out my way as I go along.

yeah Laurel, London is very confusing and pretty much the only reason any resident won't have an A-Z is if they've lost it. there's no level you reach where you "graduate" from the A-Z.

like for real this isn't even a challop, woodbury MN has developments as tangled as anywhere in london, except all the houses look exactly alike, it's like being in a hall of mirrors

This explains a large plot point of Doctor Who the other day. I was like, if there's one book that everyone is going to have, it's going to be...wtf??

I lived in NY for what, 15 years, and still managed to own a pocket Hagstrom atlas.

I certainly couldn't have lived in Queens with its Avenues, Roads, Streets, Drives, Crescents etc. if I'd allowed my mapreading skills to atrophy.

Still just SMH at the idea of going to an unfamiliar, let alone foreign, city without a map. This is just crazytalk!

And for people who are saying, "Look on the map at bus/tube stations" one of you was JUST SAYING how it's not important for the tube map to actually MATCH ANYTHING ABOVEGROUND. Does not compute!

i didn't mean look at the tube map. stations usually have maps of the local area just inside the entrance before the ticket gates so anyone can use them to find nearby streets quite easily - many bus stops have local maps too but not many. you don't need an A-Z as such but it's hardly a big deal for a tourist to buy one.

The publisher of that guide must be sitting pretty, I can tell you THAT. I imagine that whoever owns the rights can pretty much write their own contract.

i think most new yorkers (with kate perhaps excepted) cringe at the idea of using a map - it's such a NOOB MOVE - whereas this mentality just doesn't exist in london at all because life would be impossible without one

TH otm (tho speaking here as an american who has lived in cities, not a new yorker)

I know *plenty* of Londoners who don't carry a map, which is kind of how this whole discussion started.

i bought an NYC streetmap book when i was there because like maps i'm awesome

also:

till just SMH at the idea of going to an unfamiliar, let alone foreign, city without a map. This is just crazytalk!

― Wheal Dream, Thursday, November 11, 2010 9:09 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

this isn't so crazy if you have lived your entire life someplace where maps are wholly unnecessary!!! what IS crazy/"ugly american" is then ~complaining~ about how European cities are so ~complicated~ and hard to get around, etc. once you realize that you are not in kansas, get a map and stfu

The maps in the A to Z are beautiful too, it's a real pleasure to flick through. This is important somehow I feel.

anyway i love maps and wish i had a sweet huge map of all of this tier 1 cities on my walls

and they don't use a map on their phone either, Matt? it sounds hard to believe! maybe i have just not reached that level of grinding routine total spatial awareness yet in my life

like for real, how do i shot a large detailed map of tokyo??? i could put pins in it and stuff

Heh, I was a n00b in NYC, tho. I mean, maybe hence the "OMG, WTF why does that crazy limey have a nap?" but it was worth it for not getting lost. Especially when dealing with Boroughs.

Also, I just like maps. I own loads of maps, some of cities I've never even been to. Maps are one of the greatest inventions of the history of humanity! Better, even maybe than the alphabet, I think.

I would buy a map in another city, of course. And then I would consult it in a locked room, memorize the directions, perhaps writing them down on a piece of paper that would look like not-a-map, and then fold up the map and put it away and never look at it again until it was time to go somewhere else. Tracer otm here.

i would use the A-Z no prob (it's a book right?), but yeah i have a real aversion to pulling out maps in basically any situation. so floppy, so "HI DERE I'M A RUBE".

i'd buy a map if i went to new york

don't carry an a-z when i go to london now because im old and seem to go to the exact same 15 places in rotation

or i looked it up on the googles and make a mental note

ny is really the only city in the top ~10 of world cities you don't need a map for

Um, only if you never go below 14th St or go to a Borough.

ok, but it gets the closest to never needing a map. you need a map qualitatively more often in every other world city except, uh, chicago?

WHAT DO YOU CRAZY PEOPLE HAVE AGAINST MAPS?!?!?!?!?

me? i love them. i am making an observation. yeesh.

yeah for real i love maps, u just dont need em in america

I like how DC lulls you in with "oh it's a big grid, you don't need a map" and then springs the "oh btw there are a series of streets draped over the grid like spaghetti and every single street is 1-way in the wrong direction, so don't make a wrong turn" trap on you.

i got lost in Williamsburg

needing a map is not in the top 100 criteria a sane person would apply to determining their favourite city

Man, given the choice between America and maps, I'd much rather have maps.

Take that, Amerigo Vespucci!

funnily enough, it might be useful to have a map if you're touristing in chicago, as all those bits are closer to the lake, where the grid is less reliable.

not needing a map is not in the top 100 criteria a sane person would apply to determining their favourite city

fixed.

learned the hard way not to expect cab drivers to know where anything is outside Manhattan ha

Maps: hard to re-fold and always tear along the folding lines right where you need to see which trains stop there; big and floppy and when expanded for visibility; take up more than your fair share of space on the train, the sidewalk, or anywhere else, which annoys EVERYONE and will probably cause me to accidentally elbow someone in the nose while trying to read the small print; god help you if there's more than a slight breeze; and most villainously, the chief cause of tourists everywhere coming to a DEAD STOP right in front of you in a crowded bottleneck.

Maps are for leaving at home to observe geographical anomalies from the comfort of your kitchen table.

I think the "you don't need a map in American cities" thing is grossly overstated. I mean, I grew up outside of Minneapolis/St Paul and spent most of my formative years running around both of their downtown areas, yet these days I need a map to find my way around anywhere when I go back to visit.

I mean, especially in the age of GPS/smartphones, saying that Americans don't use maps is kind of crazypants.

the chief cause of tourists everywhere coming to a DEAD STOP right in front of you in a crowded bottleneck.

this never happens

The A-Z is a neat little book.

xposts

like it happens in warnings about how not to get mugged in barcelona. it doesn't happen in the real world ime. xp

You are aware that the majority of maps come in a hand bound (and often ring bound!) atlas form, right?

Maps: hard to re-fold and always tear along the folding lines right where you need to see which trains stop there; big and floppy and when expanded for visibility; take up more than your fair share of space on the train, the sidewalk, or anywhere else, which annoys EVERYONE and will probably cause me to accidentally elbow someone in the nose while trying to read the small print; god help you if there's more than a slight breeze; and most villainously, the chief cause of tourists everywhere coming to a DEAD STOP right in front of you in a crowded bottleneck.

Maps are for leaving at home to observe geographical anomalies from the comfort of your kitchen table.

― I've got ten bucks. SURPRISE ME. (Laurel), Thursday, November 11, 2010 3:26 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

the london a-z is in a handy 'book' format

The only differentiation I can see between "OMG tourist/N00B" and "enlightened city dwelling map user" is the ability to step OUT OF THE WAY when consulting their map. I do get cross at people that take up an entire street corner/tube platform consulting their map, but hey, that's just common manners and/or perhaps people who have never actually used a map before because they come from a town with only two streets.

I love maps so much.

One of the things I adored about Milan was how you could stroll down a street and its name would change over and over again.

Speaking as someone who was raised in the woods and has lived in many foreign cities, I generally have a pretty good idea at least of compass points (pro tip: what time is it and where is the sun?) and I can usually find my way around pretty well. That said, I steadfastly refuse to be so self-conscious as to not consult a map when needed. That would be as stupid as not stopping to ask for directions.

(Actually the A-Z sounds pretty awesome, but I am genuinely flabbergasted at natives/long-time residents of a city not being able to count on finding their way around without a routine aid.)

caek: I like you plus I've been mostly bullshitting on this thread, but European tourists with maps are like the chief hazard of negotiating most of Manhattan.

I come from a town with only two streets where everyone knows how to get pretty much anywhere in a several-hour radius, or at least, you know, they could get within shouting distance, ie get to the highway exit and partway across town without looking anything up. So that may be part of it.

I love the A to Z but this is seriously one of my favorite books ever:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51naW5309NL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

Obviously I don't need a map to navigate the parts of Boston/Cambridge/Somerville that I spend like 90% of my time in, but if you drop me in the middle of Jamaica Plain or Hyde Park (or hell, MEDFORD) I am going to be completely fucking lost without GPS.

just so we can move on:

how do these cities compare when it comes to asking for directions? I wouldn't hesitate to ask for them in London. I might in Paris but only cuz of potential language difficulties. I'd choose wisely in NYC if I even bothered at all---kind of NAGL. Tokyo lol w/e I'm in fucking Tokyo who cares

Obviously I don't need a map to navigate the parts of Boston/Cambridge/Somerville that I spend like 90% of my time in, but if you drop me in the middle of Jamaica Plain or Hyde Park (or hell, MEDFORD) I am going to be completely fucking lost without GPS.

Boston really doesn't apply to the grid discussion dude, u challopin

One of my prized possessions:

http://www.leseditionsdeminuit.eu/images/3/v_2707310549.jpg

Alas, unlike the Indispensable, it doesn't fit in one's back pocket.

like that is one of the first things I think of when I think Boston: impossible to navigate.

I always ask for directions at the first opportunity, usually in a shop or something. I fucking hate wandering around lost because I'm with someone who won't ask for help.

how do these cities compare when it comes to asking for directions?

In all of these cities, there are plenty of polite people who will help you. The biggest trick is not to take up too much of their time. Know what your asking for, be polite, quick and terse about it and let them get on their way. Also, don't fucking stand in the middle of the sidewalk and block pedestrian traffic.

No, that's what weird about asking for directions in NYC -- you should always do it! New Yorkers love to give directions. I swear. Okay, a random MTA booth worker might not love it. But generally the older and crankier someone looks, the more they will totally stop and tell you to turn right at that deli, maybe get a sandwich, they have the best pickles, then make a left by the old whatsit...at its best, it's like a way of handing down oral history; at it's average, people are just happy to help.

Similarly, I have a well-worn copy of this http://img.amazon.ca/images/I/51jnuhPKhbL._SL500_AA300_.jpg that pre smart phone was indispensable. It's extremely helpful for finding things far off the tourist grid. Also, because Japanese addressing is extremely complex and seemingly random.

I fucking hate wandering around lost because I'm with someone who won't ask for help.

My only caveat to this is that, sometimes, when I'm on vacation and without any particular time restraint or destination, wandering aimlessly in an unknown city can be one of my greatest pleasures.

Tokyo, and in fact Japan in general, was the most intimidating country I'd ever been in re: directions/getting lost, because we couldn't understand the accents of most of the random people we encountered who knew English and they couldn't understand us, plus the written languages have absolutely nothing in common so we couldn't use the maps to orient ourselves.

(Actually the A-Z sounds pretty awesome, but I am genuinely flabbergasted at natives/long-time residents of a city not being able to count on finding their way around without a routine aid.)

It's not like I carry one around with me all the time, but I'll always check before I leave if I'm going to a road I don't know, even it's in an area I know fairly well.

really? huh.

guess the only time I bothered was late late at night trying to get across Brooklyn by bike. I asked a cop and a) he didn't know (I was asking generically how to get to park slope) and b) seemed annoyed with me.

then again someone told me that they intentionally assign cops to neighborhoods they did NOT grow up in to discourage cronyism.

Someone once asked *me* directions in NY. I was able to give them chapter and verse, and a good pickle place too. This was on our third day there.

laurel otm xxxp. getting directions in nyc super easy, often a treat

(We were just as likely to get lost in Seoul but since it seemed like every other woman who walked by was a supermodel, we didn't care as much.)

I've heard that about Japan, that practically speaking there are no addresses, you have to know what landmarks/family homes to turn at, and which way, because you can't "figure" anything out. It always seemed like part of the blank face that the culture turns to intrusions/the outside world.

Classic Overheard in New York moment:
Man giving directions to tourist: "So take the orange line to Bryant Park, okay?"
Lady eavesdropper: "'Orange line', that's not very NEW YORK."
Man: "Fuck you, lady -- is that New York enough for ya?"

Bah, I paraphrased, and just found the real thing:

Conductor: Ladies and gentlemen, due to an earlier incident, all Sixth Avenue line trains are running over the Eighth Avenue line. Please be patient.
Confused tourist lady: What does that even mean? I don't understand.
Suit: It means that if you want to take any of the trains on the orange line you transfer at the next station like normal, but instead of going downstairs you just wait on that platform for the train you want.
Middle-aged woman across aisle: They're not orange line trains. It's the B, the D, the F and the V. Real New Yorkers don't call it the orange line.
Suit: Hey, lady, fuck you. There, is that New York enough for ya?

Also, because Japanese addressing is extremely complex and seemingly random.

When I was modeling in Tokyo as a young man, all the agencies had employees called 'managers' (?) to guide all of us gaijin to our castings. If you haven't been to a location in Tokyo (and don't speak Japanese), getting around a neighborhood when the address numbers are based on the date of construction rather than linearly can be very difficult.

You know why you need a map in NYC, for when people don't give you a cross street with an address. Chicago doesn't have this problem, although a map is still useful.

lolololol to laurel

You can tell roughly for the grid section based on knowing that addresses zero out at 5th ave for a big stretch...if it's West 23rd or East 23rd, you can estimate the block by size of the house number.

the address numbers are based on the date of construction rather than linearly

whaaaaa

Real New Yorkers

One of the great things about my gf being a fifth generation San Franciscan is that she's completely immune to this kind of cultural snobbery. You could call the City 'Frisco' to her face and she wouldn't cringe.

yeah, plus i think addresses are based more on the physical block than on the street

there's a whole system in NYC for calculating cross streets based on an avenue address but it's always been beyond me

but if someone says 2331 5th avenue then there is no way of knowing.

xposts

whaaaaa

Okay, that's a bit of a simplification:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_addressing_system

I used to know that cross street system, but I have forgotten it. (That said, it might just have been "look it up in the Hagstrom, which has street numbers printed on the blocks)

There definitely was on in Queens with all those hyphenated house numbers. Like, if you're going to 21-17 43rd Avenue, that means it's the 17th building past 21st Street (or were the streets and avenues the other way around? can't quite remember. It was really quite sensical once I cracked it. Still really missed streets with names, though. Which is why I lived on Jackson Avenue.)

See also Venice

xpost

See also Venice

Oh God, you're right!

new yorkers love to give directions because like i was saying above nothing is more new york than knowing shit about new york that other people dont

queens is the worst because it has streets, right next to each other, parallel, called like "7th avenue" and then "7th street" and then "7th drive" and then "7th circle" maddening

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/410xCgB0eML._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg

my point w/r/t new york not having enough maps is that midtown is like 50% tourists and should at least attempt to be accommodating to that fact. plaster maps everywhere imo. I mean, it's paper. but yeah, I guess asking for directions in new york is part of the tourist experience.

Midtown is ridiculously easy to navigate, though.

I've never been to a city that was harder to navigate on foot than Venice, even with a map. Having canals in the middle of everything doesn't help obviously.

Also, because Japanese addressing is extremely complex and seemingly random.

mind you, most boroughs (for want of a better word) in Tokyo have a very good system of public maps, so you can find the block you're looking for/check which subdivision you're in. the only problem is that they're usually rotated to fit more important stuff in, so first you have to check where north is supposed to be on this one.

and yeah queens is ridiculous

sometimes I wish they stuck w/ the original street names instead of pretending it was a grid system. this would make it literally impossible for anyone to find anything ever, but I'd get to live on 'woodside and rikers'

One of the things I adored about Milan was how you could stroll down a street and its name would change over and over again

Ow - Milan, lovely and all, but I really did find it a nightmare to get around because the overall grid was like a hexagonal rather than rectangular format, and I could never, ever work out where to turn, whether I had turned, and which way I might be facing now.

To locate the nearest cross street for avenue addresses in Manhattan, drop the last digit of the street number, divide by 2 and add these key numbers:
Avenue A....+3
Avenue B....+3
Avenue C....+3
Avenue D....+3
1st Ave.... +3
2nd Ave.... +3
3rd Ave... +10
4th Ave.... +8
6th Ave... -12
8th Ave.... +9 (Douglass)
9th Ave... +13
10th Ave.. +14
11th Ave.. +15
12th Ave.. +16

Midtown is ridiculously easy to navigate, though.

yeah but big maps w/ MoMA, Rockefeller Center etc. clearly marked would probably save millions of tourist hours every year

aren't there signs on the streetcorners directing ppl to these things or am I making that up

5th ave is ugly -

5th Avenue:
1-108............. +11
109-200............ +13
201-400............ +16
401-600............ +18
601-775............ +20
For 776-1286, divide by 10
(instead of 20) and
then subtract 18

i'm not sure Ed's hypothetical street address exists

well, when you put it like that, why would anyone carry a map?

ha

re. tokyo addresses:
I quickly gave up in Tokyo on the idea of looking for a place recommended in a guidebook or w/e since no-one seemed to actually use the official addresses. It seemed to me people simply referred to "that building two blocks down from [some kind of other landmark building]", plus even when close to the place we were looking for, since a lot of shops or restaurants are on the 14th floor, there was no way to figure out from street level where exactly they were.

It's quite likely that a map won't indicate house numbers either, unless it's a truly official atlas-y one. But a tourist or subway-oriented map probably won't. This is why you always make sure to specify a cross-street when you get directions.

for years I had a little card in my wallet w/a mathematical formula for deriving cross-streets from Avenue addresses in Manhattan

Having to carry a little map vs having to do mathematical formulae to find out where anyone lives.

since a lot of shops or restaurants are on the 14th floor, there was no way to figure out from street level where exactly they were.

whaaaaaaaaaaaaa

I've noticed that in Korea-town and Chinatown, Manhattan -- for a while I was really into certain video game arcades, karaoke places, CD stores, etc and you never know which floor they're on when you finally google the address.

Having to carry a little map vs having to do mathematical formulae to find out where anyone lives.

no map is gonna help you with this! this is about finding out where something is from the street address, when you don't have the cross-streets. it's something you can't do very many places to begin with.

xxp
sorry I forgot to write "on the 14th floor ... or whatever". I just meant that a lot of places I'd be used to find only at street level in Europe or the US would often be on higher floors of high rises in Tokyo.

Oh come on, nobody does the math. You just don't consider yourself ready to leave the house for anything until you know more or less where you're going. You get a cross street or the nearest train station, and that tells you.

I just meant that a lot of places I'd be used to find only at street level in Europe or the US would often be on higher floors of high rises in Tokyo.

no that is what i was "whaaaaa"-ing about. restaurants?? on the 14th floor???

people probably did it back in the day. but yeah in the iphone age especially, it's absolutely not worth memorizing these things.

Yeah, there are whole buildings in certain districts that contain nothing but night clubs or nothing but restaurants and cafes and bars.

xpost

like, the phone I have right now was like $20 and it still has enough internet access that I can look addresses up. xp

Swear to god the smallest elevator I have EVER been in was in K-town, on my way to a Pump! arcade -- the lobby was just a hallway into the building, it didn't actually lead anywhere except the world's smallest elevator, and there was nothing to tell you where you were going. If you were doing karaoke with more than two people, you'd have to a) have been there before and b) go up three people at a time, and that's assuming no one has luggage, shopping bags, or puffy jackets.

Venice isn't so bad to nav, it's the smallest of the 'cities' here, and you are unlikely to get run over.

Amsterdam, blimey. It's a concentric circle city.

I've been in apartment buildings in Europe where the elevator was so small I had to send up my luggage and then go up the stairs to get it.

xxxp yeah so weird to take some non-descript elevator and then suddenly you're in a bookstore or a karaoke bar.

new q: what's the 'world city' w/ the most confusing geography?

gonna hazard it's someplace like shanghai

ie - old, asian

This thread has made me realize that basically no one gives an address without a cross-street, in New York. Or at least, you might not if it's for a business, because presumably the seeker can see it at street level from half a block away. But even then you might well include both cross streets, and for an apartment or something inconspicuous, you definitely would.

All my address notes from, like, EVER, are in this format: "XXX X St, btw X and X."

You sure as hell can't get food delivered without a cross-street, I've never called a restaurant YET that hasn't required it.

It's basically the same here in SF.

that's just a technology thing tho - prob not gonna matter in a few years

new q: what's the 'world city' w/ the most confusing geography?

― iatee, Thursday, November 11, 2010 5:05 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

kowloon walled city!

uh, if it still existed

Any Middle Eastern or North African city with a medina is going to be pretty confusing.

I will not make a bad Tone Loc joke
I will not make a bad Tone Loc joke
I will not make a bad Tone Loc joke
I will not make a bad Tone Loc joke
I will not make a bad Tone Loc joke
...

Had never been in a major city before my trip to Greece in '97. Found Athens a complete dream-scape where maybe you got to a place you had seen before, if you were lucky, but you were basically navigating by intuition and hoping your subconscious knew more than you did.

personally i have mixed feelings abt the nyc grid, its kinda just generic and shuttles energy through it, not really feeling the vibe tbh, i have no doubt its key to nycs fabulous success but mostly the places i go are off the grid, i grew up in boston which is pretty londonesque as far as its layout and imo the level of variety character and intrige contained w/in strage tangled streets has a lot to argue for itself - when i lived in boston i knew how to get everywhere - i was v proud of myself - obvs its a lot smaller than london

but srsly lol at londoners and their just do ABCD its no big deal look at the subway map then look at the map in the station then carry yr own map around - plz never design anything u r short on empathy and understanding of human behavior - and a little map book my god dont get me started w/the desperate fractured flipping around

of course smart hones are gonna make all this irrelevant w/their ever more sophisticated maps eg augmented reality turn by turn shit combining walking and public transpo - best physical maps as far as usability are easily those laminated jobbies that only have like four folds

jeez. it's no bigs rly. the first time you have to go somewhere, you look it up on a map. if you have to improvise, there are maps in bus shelters and tube stations. or if you tend to need to be in new places without much notice, you can carry a lil map.

im not saying its a big deal, just that it could easily be better and yall are like some sort of comic case study for status quo bias

u r short on empathy and understanding of human behavior

I bet much if not most of the old world is not arranged on rational grids. The lack of empathy or understanding may actually be yours.

dude i grew up in BOSTON, im just saying their mapping system sounds horribly designed is all, and that theyre in denial of this obv fact

i mean i dont even like grids SO THERE

i heard you love grids actually

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PX5t9VJweQ

the internet is OUT TO SLANDER ME i blame london and its stupid inhabitants

sorry I came off as snarky, ice cream. Maybe becuase I'm used to worse cities than London, London doesn't faze me a bit. I try to adapt pretty quickly to wherever I'm at and as Dr Johnson pointed out, "comparisons are odious." There's little I loathe more than being stuck abroad with the kind of American who marvels at the different kinds of electric sockets and different store hours and kinds of cars and whatnot all the time.

London's not 'designed' though, dude. It just is what it is and it doesn't have a grid.

(some xp's the site didn't warn me about)

Every time I drive through Harvard Square I feel a little ball of hatred at the juxtaposition of the incredible intelligence at the university against the incredible stupidity of the roads that surround it.

Interesting point about adaptation, MW. Was just reading something in which a British general was quoted as saying, "If the Americans had conquered India, they would have been indistinguishable from the natives within 50 years." To me, that's nothing more than wry commentary -- to another reader, it seemed like a grave insult, saying that Americans have no regard for our own heritage and would be too ...weak? easily distracted? to hew to our traditions over time and leave our own cultural legacy.

I think that same flexibility is a point of pride to Americans -- we value taking advantage of new situations, turning them to our advantage and showing that we're paying attention...adaptability is a virtue in our eyes. At the very least, it certainly seems like the more gracious course when compared to psychically carrying your old surroundings with you everywhere you go.

I think that same flexibility is a point of pride to Americans -- we value taking advantage of new situations, turning them to our advantage and showing that we're paying attention...adaptability is a virtue in our eyes.

I don't think we live in/experience the same America, because I feel like the vast majority of Americans believe in taking advantage of new situations by bending them into shapes that fit into their already established worldview.

M White i was just playin, u r much too much of a gentleman for these crude environs - i have to say tho store hours in other countries tend to suck pretty bad, otherwise i agree wholeheartedly re jumping in wherever you are

although it def gets harder to have a curious engaged attitude the longer youre in a place, at first youre all oh look at this fascinating food, three months later its THAT IS NOT THE WAY TO COOK A HAMBURGER FFS *leaps over counter*

Sure, Dan, but that worldview isn't very resistant to outside influences once they're presented in beneficial ways. We like comfort, and to be happy in this life...not nec to be unbending and leave our children some idea of American-ness afloat

sorry, "afloat in a sea of something bigger, brighter, better tasting, and more colorful."

poorly planned 2000 year old cities have a better excuse than poorly planned 50 year old cities

plus if manhattan weren't such a grid, taxis couldn't treat it like a highway. sorta-grid places are better.

the fact that afaict this thread devolved into a discussion of the merits of maps & where the easiest place to catch the bus is makes me feel like none of u deserve to live in a tier 1 city

HOWEVER i wld like to ride the world wide subway to near arctic station at the end of the line and watch the caribou moss grow and the ice melt. great concept

HOWEVER i wld like to ride the world wide subway to near arctic station at the end of the line and watch the caribou moss grow and the ice melt. great concept

It's called High Barnet.

haaaaaaa

prob. shouldn't vote since I've never been to London or Tokyo, & have spent a little more than 48 hours in NYC about 10 years ago, but fuck it, it's ILX & I'm jetlagging from my arrival from Paris last night & of course I am voting for it. I lived in a banlieue on the east side of Paris last year & it was incredibly great. I don't care about "clubbing" or fashion (in this sense ILX feels very foreign to me), I care about intellectual life & food & things to do with my family, & even on my paltry academic salary I could do all of those things to the hilt in Paris. It's very much a closed society, but it's open to me & so that part doesn't impact my judging---I think if I were just a tourist there I might feel differently.

Been to all four, voting NYC.

Speaking of awesome transit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV3V3IIahXE

always surprised that doesn't happen more often, even w/ good systems. apparently used to in nyc.

the fact that afaict this thread devolved into a discussion of the merits of maps & where the easiest place to catch the bus is makes me feel like none of u deserve to live in a tier 1 city

― a dad on all ships, son (Lamp), Thursday, November 11, 2010 10:59 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yr favorite 'tier 1' world city to post to internet forums from

haha

From amongst this 'top tier', I have only posted here from Paris iIrc,

I have done all 4 sadly.

/ilx guilt

I daresay I'll have posted from London, though I can't specifically remember doing so. But I just checked and I definitely wrote one post from Tokyo - it was about Hull City and Robbie Earle, and I don't know what tier 1 conclusions you can draw from that.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

lol ilx

kinda lol but mostly sad

wonder if this was cause all the brits voted london or all the americans voted london

man, tokyo got ROBBED

friend of a friend got murdered in tokyo

weird place imp

ilx h8s freedom

h8 u

i am freedom

wow, didn't think paris/ny would be so close

suck it up yanks

paris to me feels very much trapped in the past, I don't see it as a place where something new will emerge culturally, I just get such a feeling of deadlock- but it's also so beautiful / delicious / sexy that maybe that's not a problem for people who voted paris?

it's Paris, it's fucking awesome, I don't really give a hoot what a city is supposed to be "for"

Paris is a very traditional, even conservative, city. As a rootless American I find that incredibly appealing, but I can see how it could be received as stifling.

in lots of ways paris feels less stuck in the past than nyc - amazingly successful shared-bicycle system that has turned businesspeople and grandmothers into urban bike riders, a high-speed train system that's already better than anything america is even attempting to build, the 35 billion euro 'grand paris' project. lots of contemporary skyscrapers being built in la defense. nyc's new pride and joy, the high line, is just a rip-off of something that was done first and (imo) better in paris.

admittedly I'm basing this on urban quality of life and infrastructure, which might not be everyone's criteria, but imo in lots of ways paris is ahead of nyc as far as operating and acting like a 21st century city. it might not look like it - the city center isn't going to ever project '21st century city' and that's part of why it's the #1 tourist draw in the world. it might not be as important as it once was w/r/t contemporary culture, it's considerably less diverse and as others have mentioned I think the night-life is surprisingly lame. but it's still a city that is constantly experimenting w/ large projects and changing itself at a rate that puts to shame every major american city.

my earlier criticism about the wall of freeway still stands.

voted for paris on strength of walking around it being constantly stunned by beauty. Like NV, I'm not sure what a city is 'for', but nitelife and being on the new-wave cultural frontline isnt high on my priorities

feel like the main things cities should have: exciting vibes, sexy people, good food, cool events, varied neighborhoods, street vendors, 24/hr subways

also ponies

yes

things i dont give a shit abt that seem to be ranked by this thread: the banking sector, this is some sign of the times type shit, check yrselves

lol wait u meant public transport subway i guess

he meant both

is there a term for underground light rail or what

there are def some subway sandwich stores in subway stations in ny btw, not sure abt their hours, dont really weigarten that shit tbh

trolleys

what's the diff between a light rail and a subway neway

naw trolley = street car - subway is a type of light rail iirc

how often do you see the beetroots in the underground subway

i think light rail is slower and has a lower capacity that subways, but faster then trolleys which share the streets with cars, etc.

it's kind of weird to me that sao paolo & buenos aires & beijing & seoul & mexico city & cairo & moscow don't count as "tier 1"

yeah wikipedia say they diff but doesnt offer a catchall for subways, although it somewhat halfheartedly endorses 'metro'

they probably just don't care about the concept

like it would not surprise me to learn that people who are most vested in what a world city is also happen to live in these four cities

not enough non-commie whites. Sorry.

tokyo more like tokeno in this poll am I right

subways can be light or heavy rail, but usually when you say subway you mean underground heavy rail. but elevated heavy rail in nyc is still 'the subway' even though it's not sub the way. the muni system is sf goes underground and so it is a subway in those parts. but it's light rail. which means it goes slow and isn't very good.

bangkok, siagon, sydney etc where do you stop, there was another thread iirc

kinda wanna poll berlin vs lisbon as the last two major european cities i've visited (both awesome) but barely anyone's been to lisbon

maybe berlin vs barcelona but that's so obviously berlin tho

feel like lisbon is sort of hot these days

caracas vs auckland

I would vote for Sibley, Iowa over Berlin even if the poll was "in which city would you prefer to die, nb if you pick Sibley you have to die next week"

your feelings on our teutonic brethren are well-documented

iirc next week is sibley's annual 'celebrate berlin' festival

good thing that berlin is nothing in any way like the rest of germany or even the world

although i've been told cologne goes pretty insane during carnival - they get 6 days of almost-literal orgy to indulge their sins before the next 359 days are spent expiating

listening to some German music on classical radio right now unless I miss my guess...feel bad for the guy who wrote this gorgeous music, he never got to crap on a normal toilet :(

munich > berlin, barca > either tho

before 1900 the germans actually crapped directly onto planks of wood which were then taken away on carts to be dipped in brine and then converted into housing

death by firing squad > munich

never been tbh

but munich's nice, right?

cork > paris fwiw

btw re: cologne

German carnival singers and bands

* Alt-Schuss
* Bernd Stelter
* Bläck Fööss [3]
* Brings [4]
* Colör
* Dä Radschläger
* De Fätzer
* Höhner [5]
* Die 3 Colonias
* De Kläävbotze
* De Klüngelköpp
* Kolibris
* Marie Luise Nikuta
* Paveier
* Paraplüs
* Rabaue
* De Räuber [6]
* Die Rheinländer
* Schmackes Royal (Schmackes Royal, Official Home Page [5])
* Schmitti (Schmitti, Official Home Page [6])
* De Vajabunde
* Köbes Underground

name poll

cork has like 40 people in it

and yeah 40 irish people is way better than 2 million french people but still not a fair comparison

39 of them are there just to make sure ur enjoyin urself

cork is pretty swell tho I prefer dublin, which will probably earn me darraghmac's enmity for life but man dublin for a visitor can be the most fun city around.

almost made it to belfast last year was bummed it didn't work out, haven't ever been to the north

dublin's better than it used be, i must say. Lots of dubs emigrating helped. Belfast's happenin

I don't get the whole spire thing in dublin

have been told that belfast is the next great british city of culture

love the north whenever i'm there tbh. Havent sampled nightlife tho.

tho fo with 'great british' juxtaposition u troll

otm, dublin is the true next great british city

suggest ban this dude with the full fury of 1916

unless he also holds that NYC is a lovely suburb of York I guess

america is a suburb of england

iirc new york is the next great dutch capital of culture

explains all the tulips in Pella I guess

architecture and wanker-quotient wise, dublin's very british, 's'true

Founded by the Vikings, colonised by the English, Dublin is, like, the least Irish Irish city ever.

Anyway, ha ha, I've been feeling that ILX was too American centric recently, so it's nice to see that its centre of gravity still remains in London even if its population doesn't.

I mean, in the Dublin episode of Coast, Neil Oliver walked around in an outraged Celtic froth, complaining about WTF Britannia was doing on the top of all the buildings!

(WTF Coast was doing in Dublin is besides the point now they're continually all over Brittany and Norway and places that are just. not. British. even remotely historically back during the glory days of the Empire or whatevs. Unless you wanna count, like, Calais.)

oh yeah, dublin's gorgeous but hardly irish at all. Get thee to galway i'd say. Or kiltimagh.

Mind you i didnt half kick up a stink when ismael included dublin in his british cities poll.

most irish city- clonmacnoise, mebbe

Teh coos agree

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/Clonmacnoise_castle_and_cattle.jpg

Dublin feels like a mediocre British city that happens to be full of Irish people. It's kind of dull.

Does ILX not have an ancient ruins thread? I am almost CERTAIN I have started one before (but I probably called it something silly and unsearchable)

when ur tired of dublin, ur tired of dubs

when ur tired of dublin, ur tired of dubs culchies clogging up the place

jaysus typical shirty dub d'ye respond to the social welfare office as quick d'ye

Quicker than the downward progress of Pee Flynn's flies when he spots a quiet corner....

well honesht ta chrisht thats scandalous