"What makes a city great?" The title of this post asks.
"Oh no!" You cry. "He's bitten off more than he can chew!"
You are right again. What was I thinking?
I love a lot of things about a lot of different cities, but when it comes to cities that really rip the heart right out of my chest I always end up thinking about one aspect.
No, it's not about the number of cars.
Wait, maybe it is about the number of cars
(everyone holds their breath for a second because cars really do fuck with cities!)
But...
No, it's not quite the car thing.
(breathing resumes)
It's the layer thing.
Wait, what layer thing? No one said anything about layers. Is this how he's introducing the layer thing?
Yes.
Layers make my favorite cities. Because while there can be a kind of harmony and beauty in an almost entirely Medieval city, for example, it ends up copying itself a little. As much as one might love the style there will always be better and worse examples, and seeing the worse ones might be a little fatiguing. All the copies of themselves can get a little disenchanting after ahwile.
But get this: What if the city knocked down the kind of crappy Medieval buildings and put up some Renaissance ones, once that fancy new style came along? And then what if they tore down some more of the not great medieval buildings, and some too of those Renaissance buildings that didn't work out quite like we hoped, and then they added Baroque buildings, which are beautiful! Maybe they'd even create a new neighborhood full of Baroque buidings because this city is kind of getting awesome, and its growing!
Do you see where I'm going with this?
Well that's sort of Genoa, Italy.
I mean, except half of the buildings are crumbling a bit, and its dark and full of trash and a bit of dangerous mystery. But, wow. It has layers.
Layers and layers and layers.
The Cathedral Lion of Genoa
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