What do you think about the city you live in?

[surly]

Lincoln, Nebraska. Fucking sucks.

Lincoln's not fantastic, but I enjoyed the 4 years I lived there...

I live in Minnesota now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nn6iU_c2cM0

[herpsky]

One of the most interesting threads I've seen on sufu in a long time.

The only acceptable places to live in are Paris, London, and Tokyo?

Djrajio says that Shanghai is where it's at.

[broneck]

After showing catchforusthefoxes around for a weekend I have a brand new appreciation for the city I live in.

There's really a lot of awesome shit to do, amazing food and pretty good parties and people.

Toronto is totally on the list of places that you actually want to live.

[xewo]

^ Victoria(ous)! Lol.

[mr fluffernutter]

victoria <3

[marfarn]

great thread!

I have grown up in Sydney

Currently studying in Queensland

Sydney is a great place, I grew up about 40mins away from the CBD, pretty far out, but nice and quiet, public transport is tolerable, and having grown up there, the people would be what I assume to be "normal" or "average". I was fortunate not to have lived in the south-west where all horror stories that asian parents tell their kids to stop them from going outside start from. The city is spread over a pretty large area and is quite disorganised, and not everybody cares about what they wear, but there is an ongoing trend that guys are starting to spend more money on their looks, but is quite limited due to overpriced crappy local brands which end up selling the exact same things as each other.

Food is soooooo good, the good thing about australia is that there is no "australian food" as such, but with so many immigrants bringing their food from overseas and setting up shop, you get a nice mix of what I am lead to believe is quite authentic food, which you can get for cheap prices too! At the same time, if you are willing to spend, there are heaps of awesome restaurants riding on the masterchef wave.

Queensland is bogan (australian redneck), that is all

[todesengel]

seattle:

pros:

* Great summers, weather's perfect

* Good food. Lots of variety in the low-mid range places. Great korean, ethiopean, thai, vietnamese, etc. New restaurants open all the time, people are generally pretty knowledgable/excited about food (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/travel/eating-in-and-around-seattle.html gives a way better picture of the mid-range than I can. As ridiculous as it sometimes is I love it)

* Fun bar scene with decent variety (cocktail bars, beer bars, dives, etc), including both pinball/circus and mexican wrestling themed bars.

* Music scene isn't bad, venues are generally small, packed, pretty fun

* Amazing seafood

* Decent air connections for a city of this size (directs to most euro/east asia hubs, mexico, lots within the states)

* Cafe scene is great. Lots of late-night cafes where people are always working on things. Plenty of coffee/atmosphere variety.

* Most of the downtown area is pretty walkable, I almost never drive.

cons:

* Very limited number of neighborhoods you'd actually want to live in

* Weather in the winter/fall/early spring: 9 months of monotone gray

* Girls aren't great looking

* Passive-aggressive people

* Not too much of a club-goer but the clubs in seattle are the worst I've ever seen. Shit's straight out of 10 years ago in terms of decor, music, crowd, etc.

* Street food scene is lacking compared to portland (though getting better quickly)

* Public transport is eh, and isn't slated to get better for like 5 years.

* All the neighborhoods with cool, older architecture are either slums or completely unconnected to the rest of the city. Newer buildings are, generally, not terribly exciting.

[beautyfake]

In Amsterdam...

I complain about:

- The shitty wet weather all year round. You don't have a consistent summer nor winter.

- Expensive housing if you're not local. The local get all this social housing benefit that cost them practically nothing.

- Good food is available but only if you want to pay good money for it. It's lacking the cheap street food options. Unless you want to eat fries and those dodgy food from FEBO.

- People not making the effort to speak Dutch to me. I took courses and I want to get better at Dutch but seems like when they hear that I am not native, they switch to English straight away.

I adore:

- The cycling culture. Being able to go from one end to the other end of the city on your bike is amazing. Also, no helmet and bullshit drunk cycling rule. It's just you and your bike.

- Being super central. You're practically one short flight away to everything! Berlin, London, Paris, Copenhagen, Antwerp are all your long weekend destination.

- Very chill and international. Maybe it's because of my work as well I get to be exposed to all the international people working here.

- 28 working days off in a year! Compare THAT to working in the US. I think it's quite European that you can have a way better work - live balance.

- Summer in the city! When the proper summer comes, being out in the city or just chilling at the park.

That's all I can think about now. Will add more soon.

[walleye]

Living north of Tokyo in Isesaki, Gunma-ken.

Cheap living, easy to save money, and friendly people. But non existent nightlife and some people are not opened minded towards foreigners ("What? You can use chopsticks?"/"I thought Denny's was only in Japan."/"I thought sushi was only in Japan.). No pretty girls here, they all live in bigger cities

At least I can go to Tokyo in an hour with ease.

[redX]

In Amsterdam...

I complain about:

- People not making the effort to speak Dutch to me. I took courses and I want to get better at Dutch but seems like when they hear that I am not native, they switch to English straight away.

here's the thing about the dutch - they don't want you to speak dutch. they can speak better english than your dutch will ever be. this sucks i know, but that's just something you're gonna have to deal with.

it sucks when you try to make that extra bit of effort and integrate yourself into your surrounding but sometimes it just doesn't work :\ kinda how the swiss hate the germans

[freecat]

Indeed a great thread.

Public transport is excellent in both cities, it's France after all.

Rennes, France (born there, lived in 18 years)

Pros:

- Very balanced city: Not too small, not too big (around 600k inhabitants), clearly geographically delimited areas, one town center where all the shops and bars are located.

- Culture: It used to be the rock n' roll capital city in France and still has a good music scene. Lots of museum, events, huge libraries and all.

- Student/Night life: One of the first city in France when it comes to the number of students, at around 85k. The city is also famous for people drinking quite happily if you see what I mean. Lots of bars, lots of cool restaurants, clubs are a bit sub par though.

- Safety: Criminality is not non-existent, but I have never ever been in trouble or witnessed anything shady, even in poorer neighbourhoods.

- Education: As I said, lots of students, but also lots of different universities that are quite good on a national level. Agribusiness studies are the best in France and maybe Europe.

- Job: It's a very dynamic region, lots of big companies have plants or HQ there, like Citroën, Canon, Toyota, Alsthom, Mitsubishi and probably others.

Cons:

- Weather: Although it's a region known for rainny conditions, it doesn't rain so much but the sky is grey most of the time. There's a real summer though.

- Access: There is a small airport with no real cheap companies, although there's a smaller airport 50km away where RyanAir operates. Train to Paris are cheap and quick (< 2 hours), but you'll have to be patient if you want to go South.

- Clothing: There used to be one of the most edgy clothing store i've ever seen (carrying Raf Simons, Yohji and Y3, Margiela, KVA etc...) but it closed in 2009. That one store that used to sell APC, Marc Jacobs and whatnot is now lady only. I haven't spent so much time wandering around those past couple of years but don't expect to shop much in town except from H&M, Dr Martens, Zara and a few other mainstream stores.

Toulouse, France (lived there for my 3 first years of university)

Pros:

- Weather: You can wear short sleeves from March to November basically. Winter not too harsh, but Summer is quite unbearable (sometimes 40°C+), avoid it by any mean.

- Student Life: 3rd city in France for the number of students at around 125k. World class Economy and Aeronautical Engineering studies among countless other fields.

- Town center and nightlife: Everything is in a small area, which means you might never use the great public transport network except maybe the bikes. Lots of bars, clubs, events and concerts. Good music scene although it's mostly either soft indyrock or disgusting HC and there's a lot of circle jerking going on.

- Mediterranean vibe: Known as the "Pink City" because of the colour of the buildings, it looks chill and nice. People are quite chill too, sometimes a bit too much.

- Airbus and EADS: provides jobs for everyone, but also brings a lot of foreigners. Access is good too, a huge airport and a train station that will bring you everywhere.

- Rugby: The team "Stade Toulousain" is among, if not, the world's best rugby teams, and you really feel it on a day to day basis.

- Girls: They may dress sluttier than in most cities, but since the weather's nice they're all tanned and barely hide their skin.

Cons:

- Safety: There's a lot of criminality, town center ain't safe at night, lots of police everywhere, people get mugged or bothered after bar nights. It's that bad (and it got worse in the past 2 or 3 years since I started living here).

- Looks filthy: Some would say it's because of the huge North African communities, but mostly it's the climate and way stuff are built, it's true that when you come here you don't get that neat nothern european feeling you get in a lot of other french cities at all but more like the dirty mediterranean one. Something you can easily live with though.

- Natives: People from the area (let's call them south-thrash) are self centered and think their city is the best in the world, most are born and die here. Not an adventurous people. They sing bawdy songs in crowded bars and go to ferias. Nevertheless they make good drinking buddies.

- Weather is way too hot in the Summer.

- Housing: Very expensive and while there's some very charming old buildings, most of them are just disgusting and underequipped. Modern buildings are all lifeless.

- Shopping: Rather average, there's still some hipsters wearing vans and fixed gear bikes. Some shops have like a few S2A stuff and this kind of brands but nothing to write home about.

I've also lived in Paris for a few months. It's great if you've got cash because nightlife is crazy, there's not much better cities in the world for shopping, restaurants and bars are everywhere and there's so much great ones. Hanging out in Bastille or Marais at night is awesome, people everywhere, lots of great little places.

But housing is way overpriced, using public transport gets on your nerves after a day (although it's not tooo expensive). If you want to switch between parties and places you'll spend a lot of time in the metro and it closes at 1am or something. It's one of those city where you NEED a small motorcycle or to like bicycles.

I've also spent some time in London over the past 2 or 3 years but I can't give a detailled enough summary. Nightlife and shopping is also crazy and complementary to Paris', to me England feels safer than France, Great people and places to hang out. One of the biggest con is the price of public transport (weekly tube suscription is like £35 !!!), too much french people, the weather indeed and price of housing and of most "primary needs fulfillers".

[DaBestSpoona]

Living north of Tokyo in Isesaki, Gunma-ken.

Cheap living, easy to save money, and friendly people. But non existent nightlife and some people are not opened minded towards foreigners ("What? You can use chopsticks?"/"I thought Denny's was only in Japan."/"I thought sushi was only in Japan.). No pretty girls here, they all live in bigger cities

At least I can go to Tokyo in an hour with ease.

Gunma is famous for two things: having the ugliest women in all of Japan, and Visvim dude is from there.

[EG562]

portland, OR

pro

foodscene is hard to keep up with. too much good.

drinkscene-same

outdoors- epic outdoor adventure 30-1hr out of town.

public transport is pretty dialed except u cant take last call bus

shopping starting to get better

low crime rate in most neighborhoods

lots of community based creative recourses- community printshops/blackrooms/art groups

gets some good music here and there. lots of venues.

when the sun shines the city comes out to play bigtime

TAX FREE SHOPPING

con

too many plaids

girls are kinda beat looking/pasty

the weather

knee jerk liberalism is the order. too many left wing radicals.

street kids

gang violence on the rise

attitude towards non native Oregonians

unemployment rate

homeless population

art scene is of low quality

[Gatefold]

ain't nothin pretty in my city that's shitty

[jyoni]

Twin Cities is good. Being flown over constantly keeps the place grounded and smallish.

Pros:

-cwg/kag/blackgirl galore

-The music is great of course.

-Food is everywhere, mostly with an ethos of reasonable pricing for superb quality.

-Theater is fun, fueled by massive attendance and interest. There is even a bowling alley with a healthy and well-regarded theater house annexed to it.

-Both cities are incredibly bike friendly both in laws and general attitude.

-It's very affordable, coupled with the ability to earn very good money.

-It's beautiful. You can hit some serious wide-open woods in just a few miles.

Cons:

-Deathly cold winters with hot-ass farmland summers.

-Dichotomy of Architecture. St. Paul is awesome. They preserve their buildings and build within their history. Minneapolis wants to be the big city in the bright-lights mode, tearing shit down to rebuild. A better move towards being modern would be...idk...putting more sensors on the streetlights maybe? (I don't know if this is really a con, it's more of an interesting contrast)

-Dichotomy of cops...St. Paul is cool, Minneapolis has a long history of race problems and general harassment.

-City living is cool now, and the big urban chunks here aren't big enough to comfortably buffer the suburban influx. ie, displacement by corn.

Just some broad strokes. I'm sure everyone could say more about their cities.

[noirwest]

D.C.

cons

-I'd wager we have some of the ugliest girls of any major American city

This. I've interned two semesters in D.C. and it's just as well that I've had a gf because the pickins are slim

Milwaukee

pros:

+ TONS of restaurants and bars, i read somewhere the only city with more restaurants and bars than Milwaukee is Vegas and I believe it

+ Beer is a major part of the cities identity; people love to drink beer and it is cheap and plentiful; bars are almost never expensive

+ People are generally nice, stereotypical midwestern types

+ Lake michigan is cool and gorgeous to go jogging/biking by in the summer

+ MLB is played in a retractable roof so you never get rained out and people go apeshit tailgating the games.

+ They salt the roads and sidewalks in excess in the winter so you don't have to worry too much about ice.

+ Summerfest

+ If you need to hit up a big city, Chi is an hour away.

cons:

- Someone ranked mke #1 segregated city in America and I believe it. Neighborhoods are either really nice or really awful, there isn't really a lot of in-between.

- School system. Relates back to the whole segregation thing but Milwaukee public schools are consistently rated the worst in WI. Makes people move out to the suburbs when they have kids and keeps the cycle going.

- Winter is brutal and cold and windy.

- Sports teams are perpetually bad to mediocre

- Shopping sucks

[poly800rock]

I live in LA, silverlake particularly, away from the strip. it's ok, rent isn't bad for what I have (1920's 1 bedroom, 900sq ft) but I'm ready to leave. There is something strange about living in LA as a east coast transplant, you never really fit in, and I feel like a perpetual tourist.

Places I want to live: Saigon, NYC, Sao Paulo.

[NESK]

If Toronto has one thing going against it, it's torontonians. Were so quick to hold ourselves to other metropolis standards that we neglect what makes us unique. The architecture and liquor laws are fucked and the urban planning is a nightmare but were still in the top 5 cultural epicenters of north America. I've tried living in Vancouver and it's not worth the trade off of nature/weather for a city that actually offers the amenities of a real urban center. Van is a small city disguised as a big city but you can have it clocked in 6 months and get real bored real quick. I'm convinced it's a better city to visit for a week than Toronto because they have an international business amenity structure that Toronto has somehow overlooked and the proximity to good alternative rural/nature destinations is admirable. I'll take kewlowna and whistler over niagara and Owen sound froma vacationers standpoint, but there's only ao much use of these places you'll get as a downtown resident in van. I've also lived in montreal Nd as much as I enjoy their euro-influenced urban structure and lifestyle, it's still a pretty closed community in terms of language barriers and lack of job opportunity. I word in food&beverage and I appreciate their finer standard for food and drink but it's a way more pay to play protocol than Toronto. The disparity between high and low culture there is really off-putting. Your either a euro douche baller or a nobody. There's an invisible middle ground that really takes too much effort to crack, especially if you're Anglo.

As far as NY goes. All torontonians have an inferiority complex but I think I've recently gotten old enough to think new York is just too complicated to make a permanent residence. I've been a handful of times and I still find it intimidating. Not exactly in the sense when I feel like I can't roll hard, but when I'm there, no matter what I'm doing, I feel like I'm missing out on something epic that's probably going on a block away. I loved it in my early twenties because it was a wide open carnival of options. But now that tastes are more concrete, I prefer a more manageable city.

Which brings me to San Fran. Not a day goes by that I don't want to pack up and move to the bay. I only spent a week there as an adult but I can tottally see myself enjoying a lifetime there. They have the same appreciation for food/music/art as NY with a way more approachable and clean aesthetic. Plus the proximity to napa puts it so far over the top. I imagine it could be as close as you could get to living in France without dealing with the French. That's a whole other story though. If i move again, it'll be to sf. Until I find reason to, Toronto is home simply because everywhere else I go, I miss it.

[Spaghettini]

As far as NY goes. All torontonians have an inferiority complex but I think I've recently gotten old enough to think new York is just too complicated to make a permanent residence. I've been a handful of times and I still find it intimidating. Not exactly in the sense when I feel like I can't roll hard, but when I'm there, no matter what I'm doing, I feel like I'm missing out on something epic that's probably going on a block away. I loved it in my early twenties because it was a wide open carnival of options. But now that tastes are more concrete, I prefer a more manageable city.

This is an interesting sentiment, especially the bold part. i live in NY, and have lived here most of my life, but didn't comment because pretty much everyone has summed up NY already. But in regards to what you said, I used to go insane when I was younger and party all the time, shop all the time, eat out all the time because of that same feeling that if I didn't, I was missing out on something.

I think the secret to living here is to realize that its impossible to do it all, and that you if you try to, you will burn yourself out, and drive yourself into deep debt. There's always someone who's going to be ballin way harder than you can. Accept that shit and just do your best to do as much good shit as you can within your means and that's just got to be good enough. Build your list of favorite shit, and then add to it by trying new things as often as possible. Cultivating connections to get shit for cheap/free also helps too.

Also good to remember that most things will go on sale, haha.

[Pavlov's Bell]

Which brings me to San Fran. Not a day goes by that I don't want to pack up and move to the bay. I only spent a week there as an adult but I can tottally see myself enjoying a lifetime there. They have the same appreciation for food/music/art as NY with a way more approachable and clean aesthetic. Plus the proximity to napa puts it so far over the top. I imagine it could be as close as you could get to living in France without dealing with the French. That's a whole other story though. If i move again, it'll be to sf. Until I find reason to, Toronto is home simply because everywhere else I go, I miss it.

This is the fucking truth. I'm so sick of NYC, and SF seems to carry all of its best elements w/o the douche factor. I think the left-wing liberal nutjobs would get to me, but it's a small price to pay for a city that offers so much.

[lil brown brother]

philly

pro:

its not new york

con:

its not new york

[Pavlov's Bell]

Isn't there a joke, like... "2nd place is a 2 week trip to Philadelphia. and 1st place is a 1 week trip to Philadelphia"

[iralex]

I love Richmond, VA.. A lot of people describe it as having the pro's of a big city without the cons. One thing that runs true in almost all the people from Richmond is that when you leave, everyone misses it and that at some point in their lives they always return

[broneck]

My friend just came back from St. John Newfoundland and now hates his life in Toronto.

[blackfuture]

Orlando, FL: aggressive/shitty native drivers, slow/shitty tourist drivers, generally awful weather, never short on things to do. tons of diversity due to the attractions, and it's nice. not planning on living here once i graduate college, but very well may get stuck into it due to work opportunities in my field. i'll cross that bridge once i come to it.

[hamham3001]

After showing catchforusthefoxes around for a weekend I have a brand new appreciation for the city I live in.

There's really a lot of awesome shit to do, amazing food and pretty good parties and people.

Toronto is totally on the list of places that you actually want to live.

I realized how nice toronto was after moving to seattle. It really is a good place to live.

seattle: .....

Big con: Everyone drives at speed limit on the highway on every single lane!

[DüM]

I've never had that problem driving around Seattle. usually the fast lane is going. though its not that often that I drive up there. and even then I stop pretty soon into the seattle exits barely ever go farther north.

WA drivers are pussies in general though.

[madstaxbro]

Pasadena

pros:

-nice for walking/biking

-public trans is pretty good

-decent shopping

-decent art scene

-crime is low

-Buncha famous people are from here(Patton, Ed Hubble etc.)

-Rose Bowl swap meet

-generally comfortable atmosphere

cons:

-parking sucks in the summer

-not much to do if you don't shop

-douchers everywhere

-cwgs EVERYWHERE

[timber]

Vancouver

Pros

Summers are perfect.

Winters are totally reasonable. Usually a week of snow a year.

SO MANY THINGS TO DO. Islands to ferry to, Seattle is close, you can drive to the mountains or the interior. There's even a desert in Osoyoos!

THE OCEAN.

Film Industry. Though it's nowhere close to LA or NY, there are tons of movies always being filmed. It's cool to be hanging out somewhere and seeing explosions and stars. It's also neat recognizing Vancouver in every second movie I see in theatres.

LOTS of buses, and the skytrain is awesome.

So many cool cultural events. The Chinatown Night Market is fantastic, and during the summer things happen every day.

North Vancouver is amazing, beautiful outdoors - only thirty minutes away from downtown.

The food is AMAZING here. From all around the world, and it's not hard to find an excellent place for under $10.

People are generally really laid back and nice here.

Hockey is so much fun. Everyone in the city gets pumped for it, and wears jerseys. No one works during the playoffs (at least this year!)

Different parts of Vancouver seem like totally different cities -- between the touristy downtown core, historic Gastown, the beautiful beaches of Kitsilano, the amazing Asian malls and restaurants in Richmond and cultural melting pot of Commercial Drive -- it's really fun and a totally different experience exploring all over the city.

It's easy to be poor here. Even though rent can be expensive, there are soo many resources for the income challenged. I can go to Chinatown and get lunch for $2 easily, or go out and get a giant bag of veggies for $4 at the market across the street.

---

Cons

Expensive to live here! Apartment prices are nuts. And unless you're paying $1600+, all you usually get is a really generic place to live.

Traffic: Driving downtown is a joke. Parking is insanely expensive. Even buses go super slow -- I can bus downtown in 30 mins, or walk in 40.

Homeless population is rampant. You get hit up constantly walking anywhere urban.

Not enough museums!

So many post-hipster yuppies who give their kids undercuts and tote around little dogs on strings. Not really a con, they just piss me off.

Usually it rains from October - March, with little let up (but the summers are worth waiting for).

GANG VIOLENCE. I used to live in the suburbs of Vancouver and you wouldn't believe the number of murdered out SUVs that slowly drove around the neighbourhood...waiting. Watching.

Lots of crazy people and cracked out folk. Everywhere, every neighbourhood. You can't get away.

[colourz]

I live in LA, silverlake particularly, away from the strip. it's ok, rent isn't bad for what I have (1920's 1 bedroom, 900sq ft) but I'm ready to leave. There is something strange about living in LA as a east coast transplant, you never really fit in, and I feel like a perpetual tourist.

I'm born and raised in LA and this is definitely true to an extent. I get the idea that it comes from the insane amount of people who are, like you, transplants from other places. There seems to be a relatively small number of people who live in LA and are actually from here (and i'm not talking suburbs, Long Beach, Orange County, IE, etc.) so those people tend to gravitate towards each other and put up slight, though potentially subconscious, resistance to transplants.