Pros and Cons of your city

[Sasaki Kojiro]

(7,000th thread in tavern, woo!)

Tell me the pros and cons of your city, or any city you've lived in/know about.

Born in

Cincinnati, OH:



Pros:

• Good library, zoo, art museum
• Some good schools, my high school kicked ass
• Not a small city, big enough for a baseball team and a football team
• Decent traffic, drivers, parking
• a reasonable variety of restaurants and stores
• plenty of parks nearby. In cinci or an hour or two away.
• the suspension bridge makes a nifty noise when you drive over it
• the river is fairly cool, and there's some nice history with steamboats and the like, there are restaurants and playhouses on boats.
• best icecream
• good weather. Doesn't stay hot for too long, doesn't stay cold for to long, thunderstorms.

Cons:

• our airport isn't in Cincinnati. It's not even in Ohio. It's in Kentucky (god knows why)
• Not much to do, not much to see
• Not a big city.
• No subway, you need a car

It's a decent place to grow up or raise kids but there's no way I'd want to live there.

At college in

Worcester, MA

*as far as I can tell no one has bothered to take a picture*

Pros:

• train to Boston is easy to use
• cheap housing
• one of the best lakes in the world for rowing (was nice when I did crew)
• My college is here

Cons:

• dead boring
• lots of colleges = lots of crappy drivers
• poor
• small city

No way I'd live here


So how about you?

[Strike For The South]

SAN ANTONIO TEXAS BABY!!!!!!!!!!1



Pros
-Its in TEXAS
-Great food Mexion B-B-Q Burgers its all here
-Military city U.S.A I think it adds a nice touch
-10 min from teh hill country GODS COUNTRY
-Teh women are nice
-Many Mexions oh how they entertain me
-Driving is easy
Cons
-Ohio and people from there pushing the border of the city in to the hill country
-Ummmm none

[IrishArmenian]

Family farm:
Pros:
My wife...meow
Seclushun
Quiet
Cons:
No people
Still on and off war
Far Away from me friends and the stores.
Bed Ridden.
I cannot wait until I get back to the city.

[Kanamori]

Madison

A refreshing laid-back place of education and culture. It's a lot like other small cities with big colleges in them.

London

...If only it weren't so busy and full of tourists -- maybe I belong in this group, eh? People may curse you under their breath but you can smoke just about anywhere. The tube is usually pretty cool in the winter months and you can get around anywhere quickly; during the day, faster than you could with a car. It has a dirty river with whales in it, history, and culture. Not to mention how easy it is to go pub crawling after class 'til they close.

[Tribesman]

Galway , 300 bars in staggering distance .
River , sea and lake .

Traffic can be a bugger though .

[Ser Clegane]

Frankfurt am Main (where I am currently living)


pros:
- Perfect logistics (very centrally located in Germany with excellent train and Autobahn connections and the largest airport in Germany)
- Nice surrounding area (Taunus, lots of nice woods, castles, little towns, etc)
- City with a lot of international touch while maintaining a small-town atmosphere in a lot of places

cons:
- outrageously expensive if you want to buy real estate (at least for German standards)
- the nearby airport affects the quality of living a quite some areas (noise!)
- too many "yuppies" for my personal taste (this is the "banking city" of Germany)




Göttingen (where I lived my first 27 years)


pros:
- nice medium-sized city that is very much influenced by its university (students account for ca. 25% of the inhabitants), meaning a rather relaxed atmosphere and lots of nice little bars
- relatively low cost of living

cons:
- not a lot of jobs, except for university-related jobs
- the city-center seems to slowly die currently (a lot of the nice little shops have closed and are replaced by faceless "junk-sellers")

[Ronin]

Lisbon where I lived all my life



Pros
-nice people
-close to the sea and the river Tagus...good beaches just outside the city
-Good subway system
-Airport near the city (inside the city actually)...extremely convenient
-Lots of green areas
-Good jobs in some areas.....specially computers and information systems
- good weather
-good food and night life
-cool arquitecture
-come on ...I live here....what more can you want?

Cons
-the Proximity to the Airport causes noise problems in a couple of neighbourhoods
-Traffic
-The Bus System is a joke
-buying a house is expensive
-the center of town is becoming kinda abandoned....just businesses...no homes


- we have a bridge that is a copy of the san francisco bay bridge.......i´m not sure if that´s a pro or a con..lool

[Uesugi Kenshin]

Frankfurt am Main (where I am currently living)


pros:
- Perfect logistics (very centrally located in Germany with excellent train and Autobahn connections and the largest airport in Germany)
- Nice surrounding area (Taunus, lots of nice woods, castles, little towns, etc)
- City with a lot of international touch while maintaining a small-town atmosphere in a lot of places

cons:
- outrageously expensive if you want to buy real estate (at least for German standards)
- the nearby airport affects the quality of living a quite some areas (noise!)
- too many "yuppies" for my personal taste (this is the "banking city" of Germany)

Huh, that was where I flew in. The airport was pretty nice, and connected to a very large train station somewhere nearby iirc. I didn't really get to see the city though, we mostly just waited around in the airport for 4.5 hours. I wouldn't trust anything I said about the city too much anyway because I knew even less German then and had been up for over 24 hours.

[Silver Rusher]

LONDON BABYYYY!!!!



Pros:
Lots of very high quality museums
Very pretty riverside (see above picture)
Extremely multicultural (could be a con depending on your opinion but in mine it's a pro)
Very old city, despite not being very big at all until the early modern era
Capital of the UK and also of the British Commonwealth
Lots of nice historical sites such as the Tower of London
Fairly good underground system (although nothing compared to Paris or Moscow, don't know about any other cities)
Bus service is absolutely top knotch, which brings me onto my next point...
Has a lot of cool stereotypes associated with it, such as red double decker buses, red phone boxes, red post boxes, black cabs etc.
Home of Wimbledon Tennis Championships and the 2012 Olympics

Cons:
Huge portions of the city are quite dirty
High crime rate
Some areas contain dangerous ghettos, gangs, etc.
Chavs, as ever

[Duke Malcolm]

Has a lot of cool stereotypes associated with it, such as red double decker buses, red phone boxes, red post boxes, black cabs etc.

I might point out that red pillar boxes and telephone boxes are found the length and breadth of the United Kingdom...

But nonetheless:
Dundee

This is most of the city. I live somewhere underneath the hill on the far left of the image, in the West End of the City.

Pros:
Most bus services are punctual, cheap and friendly (the ones owned by Stagecoach).
Not too big, only around 140,000+ people live here.
Certain parts of the city are nice, friendly, with nice buildings and tourist attractions and beaches and suchlike.
One of the city's universities is at the forefront of biochemical and cancer research
Many notable achievements and people:
the adhesive postage stamp
RRS Discovery (yes, it failed...)
Aspirin
The first British Ring-road.
There are more, under "Local Information" at the top, then "Dundee Fact File" from the list
Many many public parks donated by rich people, including Camperdown Country park from the Viscount Camperdown, Admiral Adam Duncan, who defeated the Dutch fleet at the Battle of Camperdown.

Cons:
It is full of delinquents and neds.
It is home to RRS Discovery.
The Other University is baaaaaad.
A plethora of bad architecture everywhere.
A terrible City Council.
And far too many others to mention.

[Silver Rusher]

I might point out that red pillar boxes and telephone boxes are found the length and breadth of the United Kingdom...

However, it is stereotypically associated with London, wouldn't you agree?

[Duke Malcolm]

I would say more with the UK...

[Vladimir]

I don't like DC

[InsaneApache]

Why? What has Don Corleone done to you?

[Furunculus]

Pro's
Buried deep inside rural wales
University Town
By the sea
Zero Crime

Cons
Welsh nationalist idiocy
Welsh language idiocy
Chippy left-wing politics
Never be a Tory local Gov't here

[Jolt]

Espinho



Pros:
- Small town (circa 30,000 people), you get everywhere fast (20-30 min tops) on foot
- Nice beaches (That's what tourists say, I hate our beaches, icy water and strong winds)
- Casino, for those who like to throw their money away
- Nice night activity, with many bars seaside.
- Friendly people (Most of us anyway)
- Clean, compared to other Portuguese cities (Fortunatly, the grafiti problem here isn't that great. I hate random grafitis they ruin a city. I'd put the death penalty for any youth who grafited a national monument, as I've seen to often)
- One of the best voleyball teams in teh world (Sporting de Espinho)
- Largest sports pavillion of the Iberian Peninsula
- Largest fair in Portugal (Or is it the Iberian Peninsula as well? Don't recall)
- Really organized city (e.g. Parallel and perpendicular streets and street numbers instead of street names)
- A nice city park

Cons:

- Casino is very powerful in interfering with the politics of the city. Thus we don't have much to do (Compared to where I am studying, which is Lisbon)
- A lot of gypsies (They are quite a problem here)
- Changed some of the streets from the typical "Calçada Portuguesa" to ugly orange bricks.

Yeah, that's it. It's a beautiful city, overall.

[TinCow]

Washington, DC



Pros:
Great museums
Great food of all kinds (restaurants and groceries)
Convenient for travel anywhere domestically or internationally
Suffers far less than most other cities from the economic crisis
Very clean

Cons:
Horrendous traffic and inadequate public transportation system
High house prices, even after the housing collapse
Tourists who don't know that you stand on the right of the escalator and WALK on the the left
Stupid weather - 1 month each of Spring and Autumn, not enough snow in winter, way too hot in summer

[Major Robert Dump]

Washington, DC



Pros:
Great museums
Great food of all kinds (restaurants and groceries)
Convenient for travel anywhere domestically or internationally
Suffers far less than most other cities from the economic crisis
Very clean

Cons:
Horrendous traffic and inadequate public transportation system
High house prices, even after the housing collapse
Tourists who don't know that you stand on the right of the escalator and WALK on the the left
Stupid weather - 1 month each of Spring and Autumn, not enough snow in winter, way too hot in summer

Cons: "representatives" who won't listen to their own constituents, accuse them from being from another district, and know whats best for the public despite overwhelming evidence that they are wrong. Takes the Supreme Court, Republicans and @ 25 blue dogs to set them straight (last weeks vote)

[Meneldil]

Where I was born, and where I've lived for most of my life :

Montpellier (France):

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Pros:
- Many universities, lots of students, nationals or foreigners
- A really living town culture-wise: art exhibitions, theaters, concerts, lectures, street artists, etc. There's always something to do, see and learn in Montpellier.
- An overall beautiful city. Part of it kept its 19th century look (cf picture #1 & 2), while the most modern parts of it have a classical-greece feeling, accordingly to our -megalomaniac- mayor's wish.
- Awesome public transports, thanks to the 2 tramway lines. I think these are the only ones that actually make some benefits in France.
- You can pretty much find everything you want.

Cons:
- Overall, the city knows high unemployement and criminality rates. It's not the Bronx, but last time I checked, the unemployement rate was around 12%, and you can quickly feel unsecure in some places.
- Lot of homeless people, which probably doesn't help with the criminality issue.
- There's no real 'Montpellierains'. People study or get a job there, then they move on to another place. You won't find many people claiming with pride that they're from Montpellier, because well, we don't really care, we live/study/work here, and that's about it. Not really sure it's a con though. I'm not really fan of chauvinistic 'My town is so awesome' discussions.

Where I live and study now, up till April:

Sudbury (Ontario):

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Pros:
- People are really friendly there. Much more than in France. And the fact I'm French grants me instant popularity among Franco-Ontarians.
- The Campus is really nice. My students residence is ten times better than anything you could find in France.
- Landscape (might be) awesome, especially in summer.
- The whole English/French billingualism is awesome. You can speak french with some dude and then switch to (broken) english with another guy.

Cons:
- Actually, the city itself is fugly. The whole downtown looks like a French highway stop. It gets worse with snow (from late september to late march), because the snow turns black wsith the pollution.
-Don't be fooled by the two first pictures. The area is not some preserved landscape: lakes are polluted, and so is the soil, thanks to the mining companies. From what I've been told, the whole area looked like a lunar landscape in the 70's, and all the forests and what not have been created since then. And wherever you go, you can see the huge chimney (sp?) seen in pic #3, endlessly releasing smoke in the sky (note that the chimney is that high so the smoke doesn't end up polluting Canada but the US).
- Kind of a redneckish area. Anti-abortion (or 'pro-life') advertising are common. Culture on the other hand, is not.
- The city is huge. Only 150K inhabitants, but its so spread out that doing anything takes hours. It's made even worse by the poor public transport system.
- People are so antiamerican, they make us french look like beginners in that department. And the pointless nationalism is sometimes annoying ('Oh yeah, we in Canada have the best healthcare system EVER!' 'You mean, like, outside of Western Europe right?', or 'Our beer is the best ******* beer in the world' and other 'Tim Horton's is teh awesome')