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Location: The western periphery of Terra Australis
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I have a list of cities I think would be my favourite, and I haven't been to even a fraction of them. Also they vary a lot in size/nature and I love them for different reasons. It'd be easier to list a category and list my favourite city for that category. Right now I'm planning to move to Melbourne...it just always feels like home every time I go back (been there about 6 times), it's a pretty big city but the people still have a sense of community and are fairly friendly, it's pretty safe, has a vibrant arts scene, has improved a lot in the past 20 years, is very multicultural and cosmopolitan, and has a decent job market. It's also close to a lot of nature and has a lot of unique neighbourhoods.
It's impossible to compare and rank them properly. So in no specific order:
Berlin: my hometown, great city, lots to do, vibrant, unique history, great diversity of districts, mindsets and people, green city with lots of trees, great nightlife etc... Actually, I also hate plenty of things but who doesn't have a certain love/hate relationship towards the hometown?!
London: "capital of the world" possibly along with NYC, vibrant, very diverse, interesting architecture, remarkable sights and monuments, different districts with life on 'their own', unique history...
Barcelona: mild and decent weather for most of the year, "La Barceloneta"-the seaside, friendly people in contrast to the rest of Spain (IMO), beautiful old town, good nightlife etc...
Amsterdam: a "small" big-city, e.g. not as huge as London or Berlin, very "young" city, open-minded people, pretty "grachten" (canals), vibrant nightlife
Rome: the "Eternal city", the most impressive, historic monuments and sights of any European city, quite cheap (e.g. food, accomodation), atmosphere at the "piazzas" in a mild summer night etc...
Sevilla: old town, sights, atmosphere, great street life etc...
Vienna. I simply love this city. Beautiful architecture, the best opera houses, concerts, many parks, good climate and the people is quite friendly. It's also a safe, clean, walkable and world-class city. My second favourite city is Paris.
Lots of Chicago fans here. I also think Chicago is great, but it has always struck me as a rather unfriendly city, and the problem of violent crime and gangs really takes away from its livability. It's also a very racially segregated city, and there are many neighbourhoods that are like war zones - burnt out and crumbling areas with tons of vacant lots, abandoned buildings and sky-high rates of violent crime. I don't like living in or visiting a city where half the place is off-limits because of racial boundaries and/or the fear of being victimized by predatory criminals.
If Chicago could deal with its crime issues, improve the many blighted neighbourhoods that mar the urban landscape, and improve race relations so that white people would feel comfortable visiting or even living in black or Hispanic areas and vice versa, it would be a much better city. New York has managed to accomplish a lot of these goals, and is a better city as a result.
Living in Chicago...i think most people are not that familiar with it and you might be a little bit, but this post shows you still have much to learn.
First of all, the violence thing is overblown. Lot of it BUT it is in areas where, unless you have family there or you get a job as a teacher in thr public schools there, you dont have much reason to ever be there. If you live there for some reason, then sure, your sphere is dangerous.
75% of the homicides since 2007 have happened in only 25% of the neighborhoods, which are in 3 major areas far away from "downtown" and an area you would 98% be likely to move into if you had an ok job (not even...with roommates, chicago can be very cheap actually). The chances of you randomly walking into a bad neighborhood from a good one is pretty close to 0. Also a lot of the violence is gang on gang..meaning if you.aren't in a gang or in the drug trade, the chances of you being involved in this is very slim.
As far as thr racial segregation thing goes...true and not. Albany Park has 40 different languages being spoken in its public schools and apparently Uptown is even more diverse.
Living in Chicago...i think most people are not that familiar with it and you might be a little bit, but this post shows you still have much to learn.
First of all, the violence thing is overblown. Lot of it BUT it is in areas where, unless you have family there or you get a job as a teacher in thr public schools there, you dont have much reason to ever be there. If you live there for some reason, then sure, your sphere is dangerous.
75% of the homicides since 2007 have happened in only 25% of the neighborhoods, which are in 3 major areas far away from "downtown" and an area you would 98% be likely to move into if you had an ok job (not even...with roommates, chicago can be very cheap actually). The chances of you randomly walking into a bad neighborhood from a good one is pretty close to 0. Also a lot of the violence is gang on gang..meaning if you.aren't in a gang or in the drug trade, the chances of you being involved in this is very slim.
As far as thr racial segregation thing goes...true and not. Albany Park has 40 different languages being spoken in its public schools and apparently Uptown is even more diverse.
This is an important point about Chicago's geography and a major difference between Chicago and a place like Philly for example, where good and bad neighborhoods coexist within blocks. In that sense, the lack of a tight and cohesive urban fabric around downtown, like you would see in Philly or DC, actually works to Chicago's advantage and helps create a healthy buffer from dangerous neghborhoods.
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