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Chicago for its arts and culture, dining, friendliness, cost of living, transit, architecture and the fact it's a global city and economic behemoth while also being manageable enough to live in. It has its problems, but the superlatives outweigh the negatives inordinantly.
Tough question for someone like myself who is not a city person.
Top of my list :
Paris - Love the culture, art scene, architecture, great restaurants
Edinburgh - One of the few places I actually feel Home- Wonderful architecture, History, cultural life, fab restaurant scene and not too far from the glorious Scottish West Coast
San Francisco - Just love the vibe there. And I adore California from Big Sur to Oregon... Great city, great food, great architecture, great culture, wonderful natural setting.... Marin County just over the bridge. What else does anyone need ?!?
Portland OR - Fell in love with it last Fall, great vibe again, amazing food and a wonderful setting. And friendliest people I have ever met in the US ( and Americans are usually pretty friendly wherever you go) - Not that pretty a city and yet it is charming , quirky and endearing. Must go back before too long. Best food in the US by far. Even the street carts were of the highest quality. I was simply bowled over by this unassuming city.
Oxford - MY city. I simply adore it, small scale with fabulous world class museums and art galleries, fabulous cultural scene, perfectly formed, wonderful architecture and an intellectual life which is simply superb.
Florence - What can I say ? How does one even describe this stunning, vibrant, exciting small Italian dream city. It looks ravishing, the food is glorious and the art is second to almost none.
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.
If someone told me London was the best city in the world, I'd be at a loss to find anything to argue with them.
London is undoubtly a great city. However, amongst the european cities I visited, London was the only one where I felt myself somewhat uncomfortable, I don't know the reason. I had some feeling of 'this is not my place'.
It seems that even the weather must have played a part in producing a city of that calibre.
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