Amazing Cities -Which Ones Do You Like?

Posted on 24. Feb, 2010 by charles in Cities, Countries, People, Places

When I first arrived in Paris, I thought this looks an interesting city, as the gardens, buildings and monuments attracted my attention. When I arrived in New York, I was surprised by the amount of traffic and it took a long time to get from one place to another. On my first visit to Tokyo, I was amazed by the large number of people and the way things were well organized. Arriving in Singapore, I was impressed with the courtesy of the people, the quality of the shopping centres and an airport built for people.

When you arrive in a city do you feel at home or want to leave again quickly? My view is that we impose our mindsets on a city. In that sense, we create our own psychology based on what we like and what we hate. What are the cities that you like and why?

I have lived in cities with 500,000 people and also ones with more that 5 million people. It took me a while to work out that I preferred the smaller cities than the larger ones. About one million people maximum is what I like.  The reason is that number relates to my psychological needs. With one million people you can have good hospitals, schools, theatres, universities and shops.

It is good to see a lot of people, but not to the point of being pushed and rushed. It is good to see large buildings, but not to the point of suffering boring square built buildings that dominate the landscape. I prefer to live in cities with character and where you can walk and talk, rather than being dominated by traffic and noise.

I am attracted by cities and the many services they provide – but not all of them. My feeling is that that most cities in the  USA have missed an opportunity to develop in their architecture and design the beauty one can see in  Paris, Rome, Madrid, Venice and Vienna. Indeed,  what will the cities of tomorrow look life?

I am writing a number of books on major cities. These include:

Amazing People of London

Amazing People of New York

Amazing People of Paris

Amazing People of Sydney

Amazing People of Rome

In each book, amazing people who contributed to the city will appear to outline their views on the place they lived via a biographical interview that I conduct. The books will also be available via audio from Itunes , starting in June 2010. Hope you enjoy them.

The photo is of the beautiful beach  at Surfers Paradise, the Gold Coast, Australia, where I live. Thanks to ladymaggic for the use of the flickr photo.

Tags: Amazing Cities, Australia, featured, Gold Coast, Paris