Quote:
Originally Posted by bunt_q
While I agree with Ken and Cirrus, I think this statement takes it too far. Knowing a city is vibrant at the street level tells me it is a nice place to live. I think "great city" requires more, much more, unless we're narrowly focused on U.S. examples. Plenty of examples of cities, particularly in middle income countries and in the developing world, that are heavily focused on ego-boosting things like skylines, to boost their great city status. Many of these cities are garbage at the street level. But they are vibrant and undoubtedly great. By contrast, every European city you've never heard of has the street level we are still struggling to achieve in Denver, because we are countering decades of disinvestment and demolition. These things have to come first, but let's not kid ourselves, we're struggling to achieve what many cities simply enjoy automatically. What Matt is saying is not wrong - skylines and images matter, not for day to day quality of life, but certainly in terms of wider perception. The street level doesn't have the same marketing power.
Take this very thread as a perfect example. Somebody listed Canadian cities as Toronto #1, Vancouver #2, Calgary #3. That could just be American ignorance at play, but it's also telling. The best city in Canada might be Montreal. Historically, the top city in Canada was Montreal. At street level, probably nothing else in Canada compares to Montreal. But he completely forgot Montreal. I'd argue that is a function of its bland skyline and generally low-flung Paris-like look. But only Paris can be Paris - the lookalikes, while great places to live, don't even register on outsiders' lists. If those ego- things matter to you, and you want Denver to register on outsiders' lists, then let's not pretend that having a compelling skyline doesn't matter.
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True. I thought I was keeping my statement tame by using the wording, "it's probably pretty safe to assume," but "great city" may have been too strong of a statement. I should have said “great city to live in” or something like that. (And I did, perhaps narrow-mindedly, only have Western cities in mind.)
As for offering Montreal as an example of a city whose brand may be diminished by its lack of an impressive skyline, I just have a hard time seeing that. Perhaps it's true among certain circles within this forum where everyone is obsessed with shiny skyscrapers, but in my experience, outside of this forum, when people talk about Montreal they seem to regard it as a great, world-class city, and when people talk about Toronto, while they may have plenty of great things to say about it, they don't talk about skyscrapers (although they do sometimes talk about how "huge" it is, and its skyline probably contributes a lot to the formation of such an opinion).
Also, I’m not arguing that skylines don’t matter. They do matter. I was just agreeing with Ken’s opinion that the street-level experience matters much more than the skyline. I also don’t think that a city’s skyline really contributes as much to its reputation among outsiders as we skyscraper obsessors seem to think it does. The skylines of Austin and Portland had nothing to do with the formation of their positive reputations. And half the people I know ignorantly believe Chicago is a violence-plagued hellhole, and its shiny skyscrapers do nothing to sway them.
All that being said, Denver is my hometown, and I am as bedazzled by shiny skyscrapers as anyone else here, so I do root like crazy for Denver to get a better skyline.
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