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New York City, honestly. I enjoyed visiting there but could not imagine living there. I couldn't find many cheap food options, and the rent is insane compared to what you receive in return. Don't get me wrong, it's a great place, but the astronomical cost of living is ridiculous when compared to many Asian cities that are much cheaper, cleaner, and safer with the same vibrancy. NYC's architecture and diversity beats anything in Asia though, definitely.
Status:
"“If a thing loves, it is infinite.”"
(set 2 days ago)
Location: Great Britain
27,178 posts, read 13,461,836 times
Reputation: 19477
Quote:
Originally Posted by psv
To me that would be London.
For some reason London is celebrated as this mecha of art, cuisine, class, top notch infrastructure, architecture.
But I used to go there three times a year for work and sometimes I would be there for up to three months and I just never found what everyone talks about.
- ART:
I hear over and over about the London museums and the nightlife, theater, but to be honest for a city that size is nothing to write home about. The nightlife in London is in fact pretty mediocre considering how large the city is.
- CUISINE:
Having tons of take outs with cuisine from old colonies does not mean you're a culinary epicentre. I have heard British people tell me London is the gastronomical capital of the world, I always have to roll my eyes.
- FASHION:
Another claim I heard, London is the capital of fashion. I fail to see how. I have seen people with much more interesting styles in places like Mexico city, Barcelona or Istanbul that what I've seen in London.
- INFRASTRUCTURE:
Pretty bad and getting old quickly. The tube has stations in places it shouldn't need to have one, and there are stations missing in areas of the city in which you should really have a station. Paris blows london off the water on public transportation. The autoroutes around the city are congested and pretty bad. (Not as bad as in Paris though), but London has better routes than Paris.
- ARCHITECTURE: The best architecture is the traditional British one but I find more monumental and mind blowing architecture in southern Europe than in the UK.... The rest if vastly US style office buildings full of glass.
In terms of fashion, London is home to fantastic fashion and arts schools including the University of the Arts, Goldsmiths, Royal Society of the Arts (RSA), The Courtauld Institute etc etc.
Jimmy Choo and numerous other designers and fashion editors studied in London, whilst Anna Wintour, who is the inspiration for Meryl Streep's character Miranda Priestly 'In the Devil Wears Prada' also originated from London.
London is also home to a vast number of art galleries and art museums, including the already mentioned RSA and Coutaulds, however the National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, Tate Britain, Tate Modern, The Victoria and Albert (V&A), The Hayward Gallery, Dulwich Gallery, the Saatchi Gallery, Serpentine etc etc.
London has 66 Michelin starred restaurants which is fairly similar New York which has 68 of which 5 are three starred, although London has seven three star Michelin and 68 Michelin starred restaurants if you include the two three star restaurants in nearby Windsor.
As for architecture, London has an array of beautiful iconic buildings, as well as Regency terraces designed by people such as Nash, whilst the city has over 20,000 listed buildings and four UNESCO World Heritage sites.
Status:
"“If a thing loves, it is infinite.”"
(set 2 days ago)
Location: Great Britain
27,178 posts, read 13,461,836 times
Reputation: 19477
Quote:
Originally Posted by PSV
- INFRASTRUCTURE:
Pretty bad and getting old quickly. The tube has stations in places it shouldn't need to have one, and there are stations missing in areas of the city in which you should really have a station. Paris blows london off the water on public transportation. The autoroutes around the city are congested and pretty bad. (Not as bad as in Paris though), but London has better routes than Paris.
London has invested massively in it's infrastructure, with there have been major Tube upgrades, new rolling stock etc, and an extension to the Northern Line.
London has invested heavily in Thameslink, Crossrail, London Overground etc.
In case toy don't understand Thameslink is a North South train line through the centre London, and it starts in Cambridge, goes through London and down to Brighton, with a number of spurs and connections, at peak times it has a nominal peak-period frequency of 24 trains per hour (equivalent to 1 train every 2 minutes and 30 seconds) through the central London.
That's better frequency than most systems in the world including subway metro systems.
Then you have the £20 billion Crossrail project which is about to own and which which runs from West to East, going from Reading and Heathrow Airport underground on heavy rail trains to Shenfield in Essex and Abbey Wood. The frequency will be similar to that of Thameslink, and Crossrail 2 is in the planning stages.
As for the underground, it has seen billions spent on modernising lines and on new state of the art signalling, as well as S7 and S8 Stock trains, with further new stock being delivered in 2025. The Northern Line extension is also now nearly complete.
The Docklands Light Railway and South London Tramlink also have expansion plans, whilst the city has good bus network and dedicated bus and cycle lanes, there are also River Buses and even a Cable Car Link across the Thames near the 02 Arena.
London also forms part of HS2, the £100 Billion high speed train system currently under construction, with vast new stations at St Pancras and Old Oak which will act as a giant transport hub interchange.
Among major improvements to the road network is the £8 Billion Lower Thames Crossing, which will see another tunnel, which will ease the pressure on the Dartford tunnel and bridge.
London being own to the likes of the Royal Opera House Royal Ballet, English National Ballet, English National Opera, Royal Shakespeare Company, National Theatre, Old Vic, Young Vic, Royal Court, Sadlers Well's etc.
Whilst London is home to five professional symphony orchestras - London Symphony Orchestra (LSO), London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO), Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO), the Philharmonia and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, whilst the BBC Proms is the largest classical music festival in the world.
1. London (Boring... expensive, I found it to be dull and the food was not that great. And no, I am not going to a Michelin star restaurant or upscale dining for good food. I did not enjoy London on all 4 visits. I go out of my way to avoid it now. Im sure it has some redeeming qualities like its great architecture and plays/threatres, but its underwhelming.)
2. Shanghai (I found it sterile and westernized with all the bad qualities of Western culture. Much prefered Beijing... food was atrocious here and extremely dirty. I did like Nanjing. HOWEVER leaving downtown Shanghai, it gets pretty cool.)
3. Brussels (Probably 1 of 3 cities I genuinely do not like. Its lower on the list because there is less clout and fame over London or Shanghai. But this is one of my worst experiences travelling from getting screamed at in a McDonalds by homeless people for not giving them money to a random kid also yelling at passerbys for money to being so filthy.. its Europe's Philadelphia to me.)
4. San Francisco (It id decline... every time I visit it seems to decrease it rank for me. 5 years ago I would have given it a 9, now its a solid 5.)
5. New York City (Overrated, I live in/around it now ... nothing special. Its the definition of quantity over quality. Its dirty, large swaths of land have no access to transit which is frequently delayed, the airports are atrocious and are only accessible by airtrain, the city needs work. Its also sterilizing and becoming less unique over time. I do like it, but its just overhyped by groupthink)
Honorable Mention: Zurich
Ive enjoyed about 90% of where I have visited now that ive been to about ~40 countries and 200+ cities...but the top 3 on the list I genuinely do not like.
1. London (Boring... expensive, I found it to be dull and the food was not that great. And no, I am not going to a Michelin star restaurant or upscale dining for good food. I did not enjoy London on all 4 visits. I go out of my way to avoid it now. Im sure it has some redeeming qualities like its great architecture and plays/threatres, but its underwhelming.)
2. Shanghai (I found it sterile and westernized with all the bad qualities of Western culture. Much prefered Beijing... food was atrocious here and extremely dirty. I did like Nanjing. HOWEVER leaving downtown Shanghai, it gets pretty cool.)
3. Brussels (Probably 1 of 3 cities I genuinely do not like. Its lower on the list because there is less clout and fame over London or Shanghai. But this is one of my worst experiences travelling from getting screamed at in a McDonalds by homeless people for not giving them money to a random kid also yelling at passerbys for money to being so filthy.. its Europe's Philadelphia to me.)
4. San Francisco (It id decline... every time I visit it seems to decrease it rank for me. 5 years ago I would have given it a 9, now its a solid 5.)
5. New York City (Overrated, I live in/around it now ... nothing special. Its the definition of quantity over quality. Its dirty, large swaths of land have no access to transit which is frequently delayed, the airports are atrocious and are only accessible by airtrain, the city needs work. Its also sterilizing and becoming less unique over time. I do like it, but its just overhyped by groupthink)
Honorable Mention: Zurich
Ive enjoyed about 90% of where I have visited now that ive been to about ~40 countries and 200+ cities...but the top 3 on the list I genuinely do not like.
If those are the underwhelming cities of the world, then what cities have you been overwhelmed by?
Tokyo by a mile. We always read how Tokyo is a Mega-AlphadogAAA+++ city and it is super awesome in so many ways and yet utterly fails in one important area. For reasons that I can't comprehend our Tokyo brothers and sisters during heavy rains (3 or 4x per year) allow storm water run off to mix with sanitary sewage and with practically no other effort allow that junk to flow into Tokyo bay.
Yes it stinks. Yes it smells like a long clogged toilet. Apparently some 2021 Olympic swimming will take place on that cesspool.
'
US's most overrated cities IMO
1. LA
2. Sante FE
3. Miami and much of South Florida
4. Seattle
Most underrated US cities IMO
1. Pittsburg
2. Nashville - although the cat is significantly out of the bag at this point.
3. Steamboat Springs - push with Jackson Hole
4. And with a little geographical cheating there's nothing quite like Vancouver BC + Whistler/Blackcomb being about 90 minutes away.
If those are the underwhelming cities of the world, then what cities have you been overwhelmed by?
Exceeded Expectations:
Madrid (absolutely stunning, comfortable, vibrant city with cheap prices. I even found a local restaurant and became obsessed with Madrid culture not even 4 days into trip… now in Day 15 i dont want to leave… )
Lisbon
Barcelona
Oporto
Munich
Dublin
Vienna
Innsbruck
Salzburg
Öbersalzburg
Bilbao
Brisbane
Savannah GA
San Diego
Buffalo (i thought it was a dead city like SYR. Nope.)
Met expectations: (range from Amsterdam where i thought very highly of it and was equally as impressed to Dallas where I wasn’t expecting much and left feeling the same way)
Amsterdam
Prague
Berlin
Köln
Düsseldorf
Frankfurt
Rome
Seville
Valencia
Sydney
Beijing
Los Angeles
Chicago
Philadelphia
Boston
Miami
Atlanta
Charlotte
Dallas
To name a few… but im more skewed to Iberian cities since im Iberian American and bilingual in Spanish and learning Portuguese and German (hopefully by 2025 i will be fluent. Its a goal..) i prefer non anglo countries and cities to anglo ones. But again, personal preference. I also have a weird kink for anything German
But if you want my top 5 cities in the world id move to tomorrow if i could, they would be:
1. Lisbon
2. Munich
3. Madrid
4. Chicago
5. Berlin, Dublin, Düsseldorf, Köln, or Oporto (oportos airport is a holdback though…)
In the next 12 months I plan on visiting Athens, Hamburg and maybe Scotland depending on how things work. So we shall see.
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