1. What is your favorite US city? Portland! I lived there for six years and loved every minute. I found the culture interesting and reasonably unique, and the people exceptionally friendly and engaging; the fine grain of the cityscape was lovely, and the access to the spectacular nature was wonderful. Easily my favourite amongst the places I've lived.
2. What is a US city that you've not yet visited but would love to visit? Philadelphia. A city of that age and cultural richness must have so many happy surprises to discover, in spite of the terrible problems the city has had over the past few decades.
3. What is a US city you've visited that receives a lot of hype but that you were underwhelmed by? In a way, Chicago. But only because I went there sometimes as a kid and built up an image of it as a city beyond compare. On subsequent visits, I still loved it, but was more exposed to its negatives, such as urban decay and sprawl.
4. What's your favorite international city? Tough one! I am fascinated by Hong Kong: it's one of only a few cities on earth that feel truly unique - that when I'm there, I couldn't possibly be anywhere else. And while I generally don't love very large cities simply for their largeness, the intense crush of humanity in HK is captivating to me.
5. What international city have you not yet visited but would love to visit? Mexico City comes to mind. I lived in Tucson for years and hardly gave Mexico a thought. Since moving away, I have felt that I missed such an opportunity to learn about a frequently beautiful, charming culture, and hope to rectify that.
6. What's an international city you've visited that receives a lot of hype but that you were underwhelmed by? Toronto. I find Canadian cities in general to be underwhelming, but a lot of urban enthusiasts and Torontonians talk about Toronto as a sort of Voltron of Berlin, London and New York. It's an OK city, but I found it generic, a bit ugly, and fairly dull; like an Anglo-Canadian pastiche of a "world-class" city. I lived there for a decade, but felt like I had seen everything of interest to me within a month or two, and found the local culture (or lack thereof) to have little to capture or hold my attention.
7. What do you like most about living in your current home city? Amsterdam: the city is small, compact and comprehensible, but has everything I could want in a city. Whereas a rarer amenity might require a car and a 1.5 hour drive in a North American city, I can bike across the entirety of Amsterdam in 45 minutes. In the worst case, I can hop on a train and be in Rotterdam or The Hague within an hour.
8. What do you dislike most about living in your current home city? The tourists. Being amidst hordes of lost, semi-aware vacationers is the bane of most European cities, but the stag and hen parties, along with the people who go to the Red Light District to get high and harass the women working are a special breed. I'm sad that they are having a negative effect on the intelligent laws and attitudes that Amsterdammers and the Dutch have preserved.
9. Which continent, on average, has what you consider to be the best cities? Europe, I suppose. More living space would be nice, but outside of the giant cities such as Paris or Barcelona, you can live a very pleasant life in a very nice city quite easily over here.
10. What population size do you consider ideal for the city you would like to live in? 1-3,000,000 people. I find that the rate at which a city gets "better" from my perspective falls off sharply after reaching a critical mass of a couple million. Tucson had far more of interest than my small hometown in the mountains of Canada; Portland had more than Tucson, but the difference was smaller; Seattle has some advantages over Portland, but its size negates many of them for me; in Toronto, I found the negatives of such a large city to outweigh the positives gained by the increase in size.
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No matter that we may mount on stilts, we still must walk on our own legs. And on the highest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own bottom. -- Montaigne
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