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  #61  
Old Posted Mar 18, 2021, 4:59 PM
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There's that, but lots of places are postcard pretty and I wouldn't think about them like I think about Porto.
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  #62  
Old Posted Mar 18, 2021, 5:00 PM
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Tirana has it. I could see Tirana becoming more of a thing (potentially at the cost of "it").
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  #63  
Old Posted Mar 18, 2021, 5:07 PM
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I don't think it's terrible either... just nothing very unique or pretty about the location of the city. The hinterlands definitely more scenic.
I'm a fan of Regular Car Reviews on Youtube, which is based in Lehigh Valley (Kutztown?). Some of the roads/hills they drive look pretty scenic.
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  #64  
Old Posted Mar 18, 2021, 5:14 PM
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There's that, but lots of places are postcard pretty and I wouldn't think about them like I think about Porto.
Sure, but you can describe what attracts you to Porto, right?

It being stacked up the sides of a river valley, traversing it by zig-zag staircases, not knowing what's a ruin, the Brazilian cultural backwash...

I guess to me, dramatic natural settings of cities tend to serve as attractants to people throughout time, leading to the mix of influences, which leads to the sensory percepotions that make our time spent there rich in one form or another.

Berlin? There's nothing great about it, but it's great nonetheless... for some reason.
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  #65  
Old Posted Mar 18, 2021, 5:20 PM
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I'm a fan of Regular Car Reviews on Youtube, which is based in Lehigh Valley (Kutztown?). Some of the roads/hills they drive look pretty scenic.
I'm not familiar with the show, but sounds good to me. Will have to check out, thanks.

Sure, Pennsylvania is a very scenic state... lush hills and ancient mountain ridgelines and valleys and rivers, etc. throughout. The Allentown/Lehigh Valley area is about an hour north of Philly... certainly not considered among the more scenic areas of the state, but you have to consider that it's Pennsylvania. If the Lehigh Valley area were in Texas, they'd act like it was fucking heaven on earth.
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  #66  
Old Posted Mar 18, 2021, 5:23 PM
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by the definition i guess los angeles more closely aligns

LA is fucking demonic on paper but a greasy breakfast burrito and café de olla in a paper cup on the side of the blvd can be sublime
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  #67  
Old Posted Mar 18, 2021, 5:39 PM
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Tirana has it. I could see Tirana becoming more of a thing (potentially at the cost of "it").
Speaking of post-communist cities that start with the letter 'T', I was supposed to go to Tbilisi last summer.
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  #68  
Old Posted Mar 18, 2021, 5:46 PM
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Acajack isn't wrong that it's changing. I have a friend who moved here in 2003 and he's told me stories about how hardcore the party scene used to be: techno and electro punk thumping out of random kellars and hinterhofs. That's mostly gone. On the other hand, the city is run by literal communists right now; they handed off that big empty building on Alexanderplatz with the STOP WARS graffiti to some kind of artists' co-op, and they're running things with the kind of shantytown aplomb you'd expect. Still, the police shut down a longstanding squat last year so someone who came by the building god knows how could make money.
.
Though like most any large city in the western world these days, they're silver spoon communists.

They're not people whose moms worked in sweatshops and who grew up in shitty tenements where their little brother stepped on nail and died because the family couldn't afford a tetanos shot. (Or something like that.)

The jury is still out on whether this new ruling class that has emerged will make reborn cities even better, or run them into the ground and kill the goose that laid the golden egg.
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  #69  
Old Posted Mar 18, 2021, 5:47 PM
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Sure, but you can describe what attracts you to Porto, right?

It being stacked up the sides of a river valley, traversing it by zig-zag staircases, not knowing what's a ruin, the Brazilian cultural backwash...

I guess to me, dramatic natural settings of cities tend to serve as attractants to people throughout time, leading to the mix of influences, which leads to the sensory percepotions that make our time spent there rich in one form or another.

Berlin? There's nothing great about it, but it's great nonetheless... for some reason.
I tend to agree. Some cities have that immediate appeal. They "hit you over the head with it" on first sight. Others are more sublime, sometimes even off-putting at first glance. You have to give it time to work its magic, to discover its hidden spaces and dark underbellies. Of course this isn't an either/or. Some cities do have it all, but those aren't the cities we're talking about here.
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  #70  
Old Posted Mar 18, 2021, 5:47 PM
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Sure, but you can describe what attracts you to Porto, right?

It being stacked up the sides of a river valley, traversing it by zig-zag staircases, not knowing what's a ruin, the Brazilian cultural backwash...

I guess to me, dramatic natural settings of cities tend to serve as attractants to people throughout time, leading to the mix of influences, which leads to the sensory percepotions that make our time spent there rich in one form or another.

Berlin? There's nothing great about it, but it's great nonetheless... for some reason.
I like to think the city is more than we can sum up in a couple of sentences, that there are complex cultural forces at play that we can feel out but that will always slip away from complete propositional understanding. But maybe I just don't know it well enough; if I did, I might grasp the 'quoi' and break the spell. I hope not. Regardless, Porto is great.
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  #71  
Old Posted Mar 18, 2021, 5:49 PM
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I like to think the city is more than we can sum up in a couple of sentences, that there are complex cultural forces at play that we can feel out but that will always slip away from complete propositional understanding. But maybe I just don't know it well enough; if I did, I might grasp the 'quoi' and break the spell. I hope not. Regardless, Porto is great.
Nice. I get it.
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  #72  
Old Posted Mar 18, 2021, 5:51 PM
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Though like most any large city in the western world these days, they're silver spoon communists.

They're not people whose moms worked in sweatshops and who grew up in shitty tenements where their little brother stepped on nail and died because the family couldn't afford a tetanos shot. (Or something like that.)

The jury is still out on whether this new ruling class that has emerged will make reborn cities even better, or run them into the ground and kill the goose that laid the golden egg.


They don't act very different from liberals, when put to it. Money still talks and they still evict squats. I don't know that they're exactly silver spoon communists though. Their parents actually might have worked in DDR sweatshops; most of them are old enough to have lived in platenbau at some point. Die Linke is very much an East German party. These aren't bratty poli-sci majors from the BDR, that's the federal health minister.
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  #73  
Old Posted Mar 18, 2021, 5:54 PM
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Sure, but you can describe what attracts you to Porto, right?
Berlin? There's nothing great about it, but it's great nonetheless... for some reason.
yes, that is what I am trying to get at with "Je ne sais quoi".

The whole definitely being way more than the sum of its parts, but what are the parts, and why do we love them, or maybe we might not even like the parts but when these parts are mashed together, it makes for a delectable dish.

I loved Porto too (was there in 2017) but I could easily put my finger on the reasons why. When I went to Berlin (2018) I had a really hard time describing what exactly I loved about the place (I was there alone, for a conference, and I was recounting my travels to my wife. later she looked at photos of Berlin and asked what exactly "was so great about it", and I said that it was difficult to describe, but it had this sort of Montreal-ly quality to it). My European friends rave about Montreal, but they also have a hard time explaining why ("It's not just the french culture and the old buildings--we got these in much greater quantities in Europe--something about the way people that live in Montreal interact with their city...it has a charm that is hard to pin down").
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  #74  
Old Posted Mar 18, 2021, 5:54 PM
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Originally Posted by Buckeye Native 001 View Post
I'm a fan of Regular Car Reviews on Youtube, which is based in Lehigh Valley (Kutztown?). Some of the roads/hills they drive look pretty scenic.
That used to be a great channel.
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  #75  
Old Posted Mar 18, 2021, 5:55 PM
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probably easier to suss out the weirdness in a city that doesn't also have great weather and/or other overwhelming facets
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  #76  
Old Posted Mar 18, 2021, 5:58 PM
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I tend to agree. Some cities have that immediate appeal. They "hit you over the head with it" on first sight. Others are more sublime, sometimes even off-putting at first glance. You have to give it time to work its magic, to discover its hidden spaces and dark underbellies. Of course this isn't an either/or. Some cities do have it all, but those aren't the cities we're talking about here.
I've heard quite a few people mention that Toronto has this subtle, unexpected appeal and character that grow on you.
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  #77  
Old Posted Mar 18, 2021, 5:58 PM
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Nice. I get it.
By the way, I owe you for putting New Orleans back on my radar in the 'cities you know you'd love' thread. Best story I've read about the place since A Confederacy of Dunces.

I miss travelling.
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  #78  
Old Posted Mar 18, 2021, 6:00 PM
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Tirana has it. I could see Tirana becoming more of a thing (potentially at the cost of "it").


Tirana, Ontaria?
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  #79  
Old Posted Mar 18, 2021, 6:02 PM
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LA is fucking demonic on paper but a greasy breakfast burrito and café de olla in a paper cup on the side of the blvd can be sublime

No, LA can be fantastic. LA makes an art of comfiness (as well as its opposite sometimes).

Last time I was there I remember just really having to push my way in, held up on the 10, gridlocked in Pomona, the worst. But then at like 11 the next day I'm just drinking smoothies on Fountain Avenue, huevos rancheros, everyone's chatting. It's just something that is very tangible. Wake and bake in the Marmont cottages, breezy and 78. I miss LA.
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  #80  
Old Posted Mar 18, 2021, 6:07 PM
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No, LA can be fantastic. LA makes an art of comfiness (as well as its opposite sometimes).

Last time I was there I remember just really having to push my way in, held up on the 10, gridlocked in Pomona, the worst. But then at like 11 the next day I'm just drinking smoothies on Fountain Avenue, huevos rancheros, everyone's chatting. It's just something that is very tangible. Wake and bake in the Marmont cottages, breezy and 78. I miss LA.

perhaps i think its that tension that manifests itself and then suddenly can become totally cloaked is what i can’t explain about los angeles. all suddenly is forgiven in the southern california violet hour
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