Cities with the "Je ne sais quoi" factor.
 

The expression "Je ne sais quoi" means a quality that cannot be described or named easily.

A handful of great cities are loved for this reason, but it is a reason that is hard to nail down. For me, two cities with this factor are Montreal, and Berlin.

What is it that is so great about Montreal and Berlin? It is really hard to nail down. Not the prettiest cities. Not the most historic. Not the most cohesive. Not the largest/tallest. But dammit there is some secret sauce that makes these cities very attractive.

Not Paris, New York, Tokyo, Shanghai, London, Los Angeles, Toronto, Chicago, Prague, Rome....these and many others are great cities but it is much easier to pin their greatness on a easily determined set of attributes.

What are your nominations for cities with the "Je ne sais quoi" factor?

Are you talking about rawness? I think of that when I visit Montreal and compare it to Toronto. Actually Montreal is a very pretty city. I would suspect that most cities have sections of "Je ne sais quoi" , perhaps old warehouse districts. Never been to Berlin.

Montreal and Berlin, certainly. They have a loose quality, or a feeling of permitting many sorts of lives. I think Belgrade has this too; Stockholm does not.

These sorts of feelings tend to be created by the people, and the buildings and physical city just kind of give them a particular skew.

As I grow older I am more and more sensitive to cities as human collectives, maybe even at the expense of some of my buildings focus.

^me too. I was blown away by Berlin, but I can't put my finger on why. Montreal, well, that's my hometown, but it has the secret sauce. Berlin reminded me greatly of Montreal.

prague and istanbul.

a wealthy version is vienna.

I agree with you about both Montreal and Berlin.

Montreal, to me, is so enigmatic. It's like a slice of Europe in North America, but it's also hip and artsy and whimsical and free spirited. It's kind of my fantasy city, and I have such romantic notions about the place.

Berlin just has a really cool youthful energy about it, and it feels like it's a place where truly anything goes. Not in an over the top obnoxious way, but in a true creative freedom sense. I've never been in a city so defined by contrast. You have Soviet style blocks next to blocks with ornate, classical architecture. You have bombed ruins of churches standing next to glassy skyscrapers and luxury hotels. Old Europe meets new Europe meets...something else. It reminded me a bit of Los Angeles in a weird way. Just a city doing its own thing and moving to its own beat.

To add cities to this list, I'd offer New Orleans. I've never been more surprised by a city, even though I thought I knew what I was gonna get when I visited. I was so taken by the city...not just by the architecture, food, and music, but also by the locals I met and chatted with. The resiliency of the city and its people, and the way they embrace their unique way of doing things.

Last time I was in Berlin, it was with an old friend from Canada who was visiting Europe, and just as we used to do in Montreal and Toronto, we took a marathon, six-hour walk around town. It was like Prenzlauer Berg-Friedrichshain-Alt Treptow-Kreuzberg and back to Mitte, and we dawdled.

It was like 35 degrees and people were everywhere, particularly from Görlitzer Park on through Kreuzberg, people were hanging out the windows. It felt like the first hot day in Montreal, but at a sort of London scale.

Same thing here, Montreal and Berlin.

https://i.imgur.com/l1rTp4b.png
https://i.imgur.com/ysgYY1P.png


Sarajevo.

I agree about Montreal being a pretty city but I never been to berlin but from what I've seen, it does have that 'face only ze mother could love' look about it but a feel rarely duplicated. It's high on places I want to visit.

I agree with Berlin. The other "it" city for me is Rio de Janeiro.

Berlin is very lively so the stark landscapes don't bum you out but make you have interesting thoughts about the 20th century and stuff like that. At least in summer. And there is usually a good chunk of pre-war blockage nearby.

That's what I heard. I think that's what it makes it so compelling. It embraces its history.

There's a "je ne sais quoi" everywhere outside Paris in France.
I won't pick any particular town, because I'm very proud of them all and I don't want to make anyone jealous.
I just love my entire country, passionately (which involves some love/hate feelings from time to time) and nobody could ever change me in that respect. I am a Frenchman. I both love and hate entire France just the way it is.

In short, you just take a look at France's location in Europe.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...France.svg.png
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:EU-France.svg

We're simply the crossroad of all great nations in Western Europe, plus some historical diplomatic ties to Africa and the East, then we're cool in this country. It is a blessing in peace time. We get pretty much anything we want.

The metropolitan territory of the Fr Republic was certainly quite harder to manage when there was wars in Europe. We're no isolated island like Britain. We're very connected by land to all neighbors, so whenever things would get tough, it would go more or less messy.
You may see about that if you're interested in the country's history, which I don't even know in details, myself, because it's been so long and huge, with different points of views by historians, depending on their political sensitiveness. But that's an old, past story anyway.

Overall, it's pretty easy to live in, with "je ne sais quoi" just about anywhere.

Berlin is bleak, ugly, isolated (geographically and metaphorically), absurdly self-conscious and pretentiously trendy. Generally loved by non-Germans, loathed or tolerated by Germans. I've never gotten the appeal. During the Cold War years, yeah, as a FU kinda place, but now...

Their parties are the best, and they stroke much more "normal", "international", than the other metropolises that are quite parochial, specially Munich and Hamburg.

Before visiting it, Berlin's hype annoyed me too, but getting there, walking around the city, knowing everything from the history books, visiting their trending neighbourhoods and nightclubs, well, they deserve their reputation.

About being ugly, there are plenty of ugly cities that provide amazing urban experiences. Tokyo and São Paulo comes to mind.

I mean, yeah. Again, Germans (generally speaking) don't like Berlin, and non-Germans (generally speaking) like/love it. And it's (relatively) cheap and English-friendly (because foreigners/expats). So, yeah it's probably the best place in the Germanic world for "international" parties and it's probably easier to get laid, I guess. Yeah, I know I sound like an old fart.

Berlin, to me, feels like the standard anodyne "global city" that has no real attachment to anything local. Its history destroyed any rootedness. And it's really fucking ugly and in possibly the ugliest natural geography in Europe (that endless bleak Prussian/Polish/Ukranian plain).

And Tokyo and SP are archetypical Japanese and Brazilian cities. Berlin isn't a German city, really, it's a Prussian city that was a Cold War island and now serves as a center for something globalish.

Yeah, and that's a good thing. Germans are a very strict society, we can adapt to that, but it's a bit boring to do so. That's why you feel you could move there tomorrow, no adaptation required.

It's not like Munich and Hamburg are normal too, not really a cultural shock there, but it seems you're an outsider and it would take time for you to become a regular burger in those places.

In a way, Berlin is like that since XIX century. They grew fast as an "international German" metropolis, when "Germany" was a region in Europe, not a country.

Brazil is too big, with several regional flavours, for São Paulo or any other city being archetypical Brazilian city. But as it's big, full of migrants from everywhere, and that's why there is this cosmopolitan quality, without any regionalism that Berlin also possesses.

Same thoughts here.

LA, Berlin, Tokyo, Paris, Amsterdam, Montreal, New Orleans.. Something about these cities for me. Its like they speak to me. I felt very comfortable in all of these cities.

A lot of people say Houston has a certain “je ne veux pas savoir” feeling to it. Especially in the summer. :haha: