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Anybody that claims either London or New York as boring are obviously either trolls or French!! I mean c'mon they are probably the two most exciting cities (due to extensive amenities) on the planet.
NYC can be quite annoying and boring after a while, it's prohibitively expensive, everyone works all the time to be able to afford living there, most of the stuff you see it's there for tourists because new yorkers hardly have time or can afford to go there and it's become so gentrified, safe, pretentious, and cliche, the city is starting to be tacky!
I mean when I lived there the new attraction was a little pretentious and mediocre bakery store where you'd have to wait in line for two hours to be able to buy a cupcake. (What was the hassle?) well Carrie Bradshaw from sex and the city buys cupcakes there everytime she feels down so suddenly EVERYONE has to go there. (yes that level of pretentiousness, self-absorption, tackiness and arrogance makes new york a really irritating place to be). Let's not even get started with the "New york is NewYork, everywhere else is backwater" type of mentality coming from idiots who have never been outside NYC in their lives and know virtually nothing of the world.
How do I know all this you ask? I lived there!
If you seriously think london and NYC are the two most exciting places on the planet, YOU REALLY NEED TO DO SOME TRAVELING and get out of the dreadful anglosphere!
Brussels is also bureaucrat, bureaucrat, bureaucrat. Filled with busy foreigners in their grey suits. And with terrible traffic despite partly raped by Le Corbusier's ideas.
I'm not saying that Brussels is boring or ugly, but neither is it in any way a particularly interesting or lively city.
Where do you go in America if you want to escape shopping mall, highway, same chain stores everywhere, no culture, no public transportation, cookie cutter suburbias, arrogant entitled ignorant idiots in SUV's??? NO WHERE, most of the US is like that!
Where do you live that is like that?
Maybe this is why I hesitate to move outside the East Coast.
There are pretty parts of Brussels (the south/southeast of the city, obviously the main square, and lots of 19th century rowhouse neighborhoods), but I would agree the city feels rather boring and anodyne.
you just described the tacky stuff tourists that do not know how to travel visit.
Brussels is a city of locals and of neighborhoods. It's a sophisticated place you explore.
If you're looking for cities ridden with tourists, loud, colorful, tacky to feel like you're doing something fun then skip brussels go to Amsterdam.
Brussels is like a fine woman, you have to get to know her to find her many amazing charms!
BTW no one mentioned Milan as boring. (a huge city with several millions of people and nothing to do other than take pictures of the Duomo)
Maybe this is why I hesitate to move outside the East Coast.
North Carolina for example feels like that
Masive suburban sprawls with starbucks and walmarts and targets and bed bath and beyonds as far as the eye can see.... then highways, no public transportation, no proper cities but just endless suburbias with no one walking around, everyone drives their massive gas guzzling cars, there is a church on every corner and a shopping mall conveniently located on every couple of miles with the same stores over and over and over....
if you're looking for culture, it's suddenly a white thing (Since culture is so rare in America) so if you're not some white guy who speaks broken french and who will constantly talk about his last trip to paris and how he smoked weed there in Le Cafe Des Artists then you're suddenly not cool, hence not worthy of the time of all those pretentious peasants!
I also visited Georgia, DC outside of the capitol area, most of southern california and that pretty much describes America. As a person of color you're often stigmatized and seen as someone you smile at and you tolerate because one is supposed to be open minded, but don't really talk to because oh my God it's NOT WHITE! And then if you're looking for art/culture then be prepared to try to break into this very pretentious european wannabe, vegan, yoga practicing, white american snots who will let you be their token color friend because sarah jessica parker in sex in the city had a black friend so they need black friend too.
Sorry I got America figured out.
Americans need to get out of there to truly expand their minds!
NYC can be quite annoying and boring after a while, it's prohibitively expensive, everyone works all the time to be able to afford living there, most of the stuff you see it's there for tourists because new yorkers hardly have time or can afford to go there and it's become so gentrified, safe, pretentious, and cliche, the city is starting to be tacky!
Based on your description, I highly doubt you lived in NYC.
90% of the city has no tourists, prices are the same as everywhere else in the U.S. (except real estate) and no one complains about a city being "safe", as if the ideal city is Baghdad or Kabul.
At least in Germany you can escape from suburban boredom into some place civilized with a short train ride.
Where do you go in America if you want to escape shopping mall, highway, same chain stores everywhere, no culture, no public transportation, cookie cutter suburbias, arrogant entitled ignorant idiots in SUV's??? NO WHERE, most of the US is like that!
Germany has the exact same stuff, except with public transportation. Tons of chain stores, highways, cookie-cutter developments everywhere in Germany.
you can avoid boring eurocrats by not going to Schuman (where the European headquarters are)
there are tons of things to see and do with actual locals in other neighborhoods.
Corbusier hardly had any influence in brussels, brussels is a horta city
I think I'm gonna tease you a bit.
You cannot avoid eurocrats and natocrats, because they are everywhere. There's hardly any locals around, which is amazing for a city of 1 million inhabitants. Sure, Brussels is cosmopolitan, but is it cosmopolitan and fun like "let's party on the street until 7am"? No. It's work and go home (to another country) for the weekend.
Does it has especially attractive architecture? No. Brussels might be one capital of Art Nouveau, but you don't see it on the streets. Smaller cities like Helsinki and Riga have a lot more architecture of that style than Brussels.
Is there much to see in Brussels, and does it have a particularly beautiful environment? No.
Corbusier didn't have influence, but his ideas did have. The side streets are narrow, but the city is filled with congested 60's motorways.
If you want to have fun, go back and praise Budapest.
You cannot avoid eurocrats and natocrats, because they are everywhere. There's hardly any locals around, which is amazing for a city of 1 million inhabitants. Sure, Brussels is cosmopolitan, but is it cosmopolitan and fun like "let's party on the street until 7am"? No. It's work and go home (to another country) for the weekend.
Does it has especially attractive architecture? No. Brussels might be one capital of Art Nouveau, but you don't see it on the streets. Smaller cities like Helsinki and Riga have a lot more architecture of that style than Brussels.
Is there much to see in Brussels, and does it have a particularly beautiful environment? No.
Corbusier didn't have influence, but his ideas did have. The side streets are narrow, but the city is filled with congested 60's motorways.
If you want to have fun, go back and praise Budapest.
You can't find art nouveau in Brussels? you obviously never been there then.
Brussels not only have overpaid bureaucrats, it also has tons of migrants from all over Europe, Africa, The Arab world. It is much more multicultural then Helsinki and most Eurocrats don't really go to the places you'd go to have fun. I have yet to find a eurocrat in Matonge (The congolese neighborhood for example)
What I just said, it's confirmed.... Brussels is boring if you go like a tourist with a camera and just walk around la grand place and the museum quarters taking pictures.
Go to Ixelles, Woluwe, Schaarbeek, MAtonge. That is where Bruxellois live!!! The colorful belgian characters, the good beers are found in bars where only locals visit!!! Who wants to go to tourist traps around la grand place?
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