Cities and Ambition: “Great cities attract ambitious people. You can sense it when you walk around one. In a hundred subtle ways, the city sends you a message: you could do more; you should try harder.”
Provocative article from Graham, who’s a big advocate of the influence and importance of place.
I think he’s right – cities _do_ feel different, they speak to you in many ways. Although, I think its more localised than that – different parts of cities send different messages.
I just spent a long weekend in Edinburgh, not long enough to ‘feel’ the city, but enough to be impressed by its sense of solid reliability, and strong sense of independence.
However Manchester, my home town, is a mixed bag; the ‘south’ is lovely and arty – the ‘live better’ that Graham says Berkeley exudes from the bars, restaurants and decent delis.
The north of Manchester (where I live) is just, well, basically inert. I don’t feel anything walking around the streets here (apart from Saturdays, where the local Jewish community walk everywhere – I love seeing that).
And certain parts of the city have a lovely sense of place and purpose, honed over hundreds of years, but many newly built areas, quite naturally feel temporal.
I can’t think of many newly built areas of any city that have much ‘opinion’, in the Graham sense.
Anyhow, I can solve this ‘inert’ problem by cycling (I don’t have a bike for fitness; just to see cities yup close) I get to feel a lot more of my city, more than I ever would in a car.
Anyway, still pining after London, because, for all it’s faults, its still a fantastic place to live and work.