I've never seen this kind of thread before so I decided to start. We can all discuss about the cities where we live. You can mention it's good points, bad points, special attraction etc. Here's what I have to say about my home city, Kolkata.

Kolkata was the capital of India before New Delhi. It's bad points are that it is very dirty and a number of road accidents occur. It's good points are it is very amiable and women-friendly. It's main attraction are the Durga Pujas which are happening at this time.

What do you say about your city ?

A very good idea for a thread,Anji, but I for one won't let you get away with not explaining about Durga Pujas. Do they only take place in the Calcutta area? Only for Bengalis?
I found a site:
Durga Pujas
but I am sure you can tell us more.
My turn I guess.
I live in the New Territories of Hong Kong, but I go to work in the big city nearly every day. Much has been written of the wonderful vibrant city that it is,(all true). The most thrilling thing for me remains a trip on the marvellous old Star Ferry across the harbour. I always get a lump in my throat sitting there and watching all the many different sorts of craft. It still costs only 2 HK$ something (there are 8 HK$ to the US) , so it is a bargain for sure. Everyone has heard about the shopping, the food, the atmosphere of busy-ness all night and all day. I love it.Anyone who wants to ask questions, I will be happy to answer them.

Durga Pujas are the favourite times for Bengalis. The Puja covers four days. The first day is called Saptami, second day Ashtami, third day Navami and the last day is called Dashami.This year Saptami falls on 2nd October, Ashtami (today), Nabami on 4th October and Dashami on 5th October. On Dashami, the idols are immersed in water.

These four days are the days which every Kolkatan waits for. This is the time for partying, eating out etc. These pujas are performed in many "pandals". These pandals are made up of wood and pained nicely. Many people like to visit these pandals all night long. In fact, yesterday, I went out at 10:00 to visit some pandals and came back at 3:00 AM. Durga Puja is celebrated in many parts of India, but it thoroughly dominates in Kolkata. I could go on talking about it forever but I'll stop now..

I have lived in 4 major cities but will start with Boca Raton, FL. It is a very misplaced city in the state of Florida. It is very rich, affluent, and full of spolied people (I don't think I fit any of those bills). Everyone is on a cell phone and driving a BMW or a Jag and seems to have had 75 face lifts. Just two miles North, East, South, or West... you are back in Florida...billboards, mobile homes, overalls, and dirt roads. It always reminded me of a city in a bubble. ALl in all, the town is beautiful as city ordinances keep it clean and manicured, so I am not complaining by any stretch of the imagination, just pointing out what I have noticed.
I will post on Tampa next

I live in one of the most beautiful Provinces in all of Canada
Actually I live in the City of New Westminster and it use to be the Capital of British Columbia before they decided to make Victoria the Capital.
I have everything I could ever want within walking distance of my place. I have a wonderful Farmer's Market just down the hill from my home where I can go get fresh sea food of any kind or fresh flowers and other assorted produce. They have great Festivals there also and it is right on the Fraser River so there is always activity going on down there.
I only have a three block walk to a Mall and the grocery store and library.
The weather here is unlike anywhere else in Canada! It might rain a bit in the winter but it keeps everything green and smelling fresh.The Summers are warmer but the best part is we don't have Bugs like Mosquitoes or Black flies.
I could go on and on but I will quit.
Great idea to learn more about where we are all from.
PF

I live in a small town called Louisville, Ohio (pronounced like Lewis-ville). It's so odd, really, as I spent my youth plotting a way to get the heck out of this place but I ended up back again. It's not a bad town. There's a lot of farming around here and we're just minutes away from The Pro Football Hall Of Fame in Canton and just an hour away from The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in Cleveland. Were it not for halls of fame we'd probably be just a blip on the map. It's your typical "slice of Americana" around here. People are either too friendly or too nosey, but everybody knows everybody. And they are always there if you need a hand. I've lived in a number of different places but, without a doubt, this place seems the safest and friendliest of all of them. Amish country is only a few miles away (talk about nice and welcoming people---I love going there) and William McKinley's monument is here, too. It's probably not the most exciting spot in the world but I appreciate that I'm here.

I could go on for ages, but I'll sum it up in brief...

• Mumbai - earlier known as 'Bombay' before a certain Hindu-right-wing-extremist party known as the Shiv Sena decided to change its name. They didn't like the original name as it had been coined by the British. The Shiv Sena usually doesn't have anything better to do; on any given day, instead of focussing on development work, you'll see them either:
  
  1. Blocking roads/railways for some petty reason.
  2. Ransacking/damaging shops.
  3. Complaining about terrorism while their leader (Mr. Bal Thakeray) publicly admits to having an admiration for Adolf Hitler.
  4. Changing names of roads / railway stations / cities...I could go on and on...

• Kinda like Singapore (or so I've heard), there are skyscrapers next to slums, most of the rich seem to be totally oblivious to the poor around them. The rich/poor divide is vast, as it is throughout the country...
  
• Like in Boca Raton (as SuperFerd said), people love displaying their cell-phones in as snotty a manner as possible. Sending SMS messages (text messages) for no rhyme or reason is the favourite method of wasting time for most college goers. You can get cell-phones for throw-away rates, thanks to the booming cell-phone-robbery industry.
  
• Garbage scattered everywhere. Ideas such as recycling and separation of wet and dry garbage are totally unheard of (even though the Municipal Corporation has made a law on this). "If you've got junk, throw it outside your house!" Sad but true...
  
• Buildings are several times more common than trees.

And that's not all...

Positive Aspects: There are a few people who actually care, and who are doing there best to improve the place...

Harish, I thought that all this existed only in Kolkata. I guess I was wrong though. However, I have visited Mumbai twice and I haven't found it that bad.

I am currently attending college in a small town in Iowa, but I consider myself first and foremost a Minnesotan. I live in Cottage Grove, a suburb of St. Paul (formerly known as Pig's Eye Landing). CG has been around since 1850. CG is really a sleeper town, since most people that live here work in the Twin Cities during the day. We have a lot of pizza places, movie rental shops, churches and schools. The suburb is too big for everyone to know everyone else's business (30,000 residents), but not big enough to have its own movie theater (which it should). Our archenemy is Woodbury, the newer, richer suburb next to us. Does anyone else have a specific rival town that they try to beat in sports?

Not a city but an island (can't be many of you who didn't know that!). Nine miles wide, five miles deep and situated about fourteen miles off the coast of France, you can see it from the east coast. British but not part of the UK nor part of the EU. We have our own laws and government, the official languages are French and English with English being the main one, however, legal contracts such as house and land purchase are all in a form of French.

The main industries are tourism, agriculture and finance with the latter being the main source of income for the island, we have so many banks here, it is amazing. It is also a tax haven and we have many millionaires - property prices are high if you are permitted to puchase one, there are strict laws and if you were to move here it would normally be sixteen years before you could purchase a house. The cost of living is higher than in the UK by about twenty percent.

It is a very pretty island and I would hate to live anywhere else, I arrived thirty-one years ago and said that I would stay six months. We have many sites of interest from neolithic tombs to a medieval castle.

New Jersey in America was named after this island, the land there was given to a Jerseyman for his loyalty during the Civil War. There is still a link, there is certainly somewhere there in New Jersey named after the man concerned, Carteret - we still have Carterets here in Jersey today.

I wasn't born here, I was actually born in the north of England then lived in the south of England from the age of one until I was twenty-five.

I live in Norwich, Norfolk, England - not to be confused with the 18 other places in the English-speaking lands also called 'Norwich'. It's in the part of England that juts out towards Holland. In fact, it's only a very short flight from here to Amsterdam ...

In this part of England we are well to the east of the main road and rail routes radiating out from London, so the place is a bit out on a limb. However, that all makes it a significant regional centre in its own right, with plenty of activity.

From about 1450-1700 Norwich was the second biggest city in England (after London and just ahead of Bristol, which was in third place during that period). As Norwich is far from the coalfields it largely missed out on the Industrial Revolution and went through a spell of relative poverty, especially from about 1850-1910. As a result, there wasn't the money for extensive rebuilding at the time, and Norwich City Centre has - in addition to the Cathedral, 32 (!) medieval churches, It also has an (over-restored) castle ...

Nevertheless, as said, it is an important regional centre, and anyone expecting a small, 'Olde Worlde', picture book cathedral city, like Ely, Canterbury or Salisbury may be suprised at the hustle and bustle. Anyway, the place is well worth a visit.

I live in a small town in the southeastern part of Wyoming, right at 42 degrees north latitude. Denver, Colorado is 180 miles due south with no other prominent city name you would recognize within 500 miles.
The area is noted for raising cattle and sheep, for raising crops like wheat, alfalfa, hay and sugar beets. Some town businesses close during deer hunting season...the owners, and customers, having headed out to the mountains 30 miles west. Besides deer, we have antelope (which are not really antelope, but a variety of goat), elk, an occasional moose, coyotes, prarie dogs, golden eagles, red tailed hawks, some fishing experiences in streams and reservoirs.
Winter lasts six months, but the other seasons, although short, are very pleasant.
I secretly believe that people settled here to farm in the 1850's because that's where the wagon broke down on the way to California.
Cattle ranching and the railroads really built this state with mineral, coal and oil exploration following closely behind.
Where I live, most high school graduates move on to opportunities in other states because post-graduation employment is limited.
I moved here ten years ago, when I retired from corporate work. If I had been seeking employment, I would have had to move elsewhere.
The town is quiet, friendly and reminiscent of 1960 America. The quiet and friendly part is why I'm still here.

I also live in a small town, in Western Canada, getting close to the northern edge of the prairies, or Great Plains as Americans would say. Our town has a three prong economy - agriculture (wheat, canola and some cattle ranching), the oil patch, and the military (just outside town is a gigantic military training area, troops come from all over - Canada, the US, Brits, Gurkas, everybody). The population is only about 4500, and there will be as many as 2500 foreign troops training here at a time in the summer.
Our main claim to fame is that the last remnants of the northern buffalo herd were saved here, in about the 1910's. Without our buffalo park, the wood buffalo might very well have become extinct. We still have a good sized herd, in a paddock just outside town.
This is the land of pickup trucks, deer hunting, and right-wing politics. Life is lived to a country music soundtrack.

LONDON:

In my experience, London contains both some of the best and some of the worst areas in the whole country. To look at the positive side, I have yet to see areas of UK housing beat Hampstead Garden Suburb, one of the only planned suburbs in England (apart from the hideous 'new towns' ) and where I happened to grow up. Wimbledon Village, Stanmore Hill, Chislehurst, Blackheath, Ravensbourne, Highgate and Pinner contain some of the best semi-rural areas you will find, and I would recommend any visitors to get on a train and spend some time looking around one or more of these areas as well as the usual central spots.

East London is our 'dark side of the moon' in my opinion only. Especially as I try and avoid it just as that side of the moon avoids Earth. It is the old part of London, with few redeeming features. It grew up as a poor area mainly to house the dock workers, and as the Thames narrows at Tower Bridge, the housing grew on that side of London for the riverside industry in general.

West London, which, being 10 miles or so wide, encompasses some old towns like Ealing, but these were only incorporated into the London urban area by 1930's housing filling what was then a separate county of Middlesex.

South London is a bit of everything, the mirror side for us from the North, and often felt to be more like going abroad than crossing a river. The stagecoach standard of roads in central London means it takes as long to get from one side to the other than it does to Birmingham on the motorway. I have driven there (100 miles) in 1 1/12 hours, as I have Bromley (20 miles) and this is normal rather than a one off problem.

I will end just by saying in my experience London is too big to be a community, as we rarely see people we know when we go out, and move around far too much to meet the same people in the shops, parks or other public areas to feel like you belong. This is the worst aspect of living in an urban area approximately 30 miles in diameter, of continuous buildings with green areas mixed in. I'd prefer a town of about 100,000 in the South of England so I did meet the same people regularly, but unless you grow up there, it's too late to go there when older as everyone already knows each other and you won't fit in as a latecomer.

I have lived in Erlangen, Germany for a little over three years. It´s a town with about 100 000 people and it is located in Northern Bavaria (near Nuremberg) I really liked the city a lot, because it has some beautiful old buildings and it is surrounded by forrests and lots of open space. Erlangen is mainly known for its university and the Siemens headquarters (German company that produces all kinds of electronic equipment). In May there is a festival similar to the Oktoberfest only that it is smaller (it was about five minutes walk from where I lived )
All in all I can say that Erlangen is a quiet but beautiful town, and I had an awesome time there. from Erlangen it also is only a fairly short drive to some of Franconia´s most beautiful places.
At the moment I live in Melbourne, which isn´t too bad either
Chris

Just to add to that, I also live in Melbourne, and have all my life...and I quite like it too .

Hear Hear Harish!

Quote:

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Changing names of roads / railway stations / cities...I could go on and on...

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And everything on earth is changed to Chhatrapati Shivaji something-or-the-other.

Though I must say, their 'bandhs' help students - we get a day off ! After all, which school / college wishes to go against the almighty Sainiks?

Recycling etc are catching on, at least in the better localities (not that they need them as much as others). But I think it'll be a long time before we can have an eco-friendly city...

Yet I must add, it's better than most. The people are very helpful and safety is not a major issue, as is seen in Delhi. I jst went to Karnataka recently, and came back craving for a whiff of Mumbai-polluted air and friendly people...Aamchi Mumbai!

I live in Kosice, the second city of Slovakia. It's in the east of the country. Approx 20 minutes drive south and you find Hungary, 2.5 hours drive North and you find Poland, 1.5 hrs drive east and there's the Ukraine.
Kosice is very old city, with a rich history. The main building of architectural interest is the cathedral, which (I think) is one of the few pure Gothic cathedrals in existence today, and is one of the largest. The Main Street of Kosice is very beautiful, with the buildings restored to their original style after the ravages of communism. In the summer, there's a musical fountain and the restaurants and bars all have tables outside. In winter, there's a wonderful Christmas market.
Outside of the centre of the town, there are loads of tower blocks, were we all live. Kosice has a population of 250,000 people and most of us live in blocks, although more houses are now starting to appear. The blocks are very ugly, but they are an efficient way of housing a lot of people. They are well maintained by everybody, with a sense of pride.

I'm British, so can view the Slovak people from the outside. The younger generation are embracing imports from the west with open arms - mobiles, foreign TV, brand clothing, etc - all things previously unavailable. The older generation are finding all this capitalism a bit much and some are hoping for a return to central planning, where income was more equal (ha ha! How soon they forget!).

Sorry, waffling on. Hope some of you found this interesting.

Jo

Hmmm....let's see. I live in Long Beach, CA, which is in Los Angeles County. Long Beach is the 38th largest city in the US and 5th in California with over 450,000 people. I attend California State University - Long Beach, which has an enrollment of over 33,000 students, making it the 2nd largest school in California behind UCLA. Long Beach is also home to Earl Burns Miller Japanese Gardens, Aquarium of the Pacific, Queen Mary (a cruise liner built in the early 20th century, it was used for WWII and is larger than the Titanic...it is now permanently docked here), Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach every April, Belmont Olympic Plaza (home of the aquatic sports in 1984 Olympics), and also home to many famous people including Snoop Dogg and numerous other hip hop and rap artists and Cameron Diaz. Long Beach is also extremely close to many other attractions and famous places. These include Disneyland, Knotts Berry Farm, Huntington Beach (Surf City USA and home to the International Surfing Museum), US Olympic Water Polo Training Center, Home Depot Center (home to the US Soccer Federations National Teams and the LA Galaxy), Edison Field (home to Anaheim Angels pro baseball team), Arrowhead Pond (home to Mighty Ducks of Anaheim pro hockey team), downtown Los Angeles with all its offerings, Santa Monica, Venice Beach, Santa Anita Racetrack (horse racing), Universal Studios Hollywood, Hollywood, Six Flags Magic Mountain and Hurricane Harbor, Malibu, and every other thing southern California has to offer. And of course, we have the famous freeways which make a 15-20 mile drive to downtown LA take 35-40 minutes. Oh, and I love the smog!

I live in Brisbane which is the capital city of the Australian state of Queensland. Brisbane has a couple of colloquial nicknames here in Australia: Brisneyland and Bris Vegas. These both relate (as far as I understand it) to Southerners from Sydney and Melbourne (much bigger cities) thinking that Brisbane has an overinflated opinion of itself and tries too hard to be something it's not. This is not true.

Brisbane's population is approximately 1.5 million. It is the second largest city (by area) in the world as it is entirely controlled by one local government rather than numerous smaller municipal governments. It is 45 mins drive from the Gold Coast (ie Surfers Paradise) and is right on Moreton Bay.

It is sometimes more like a big country town than a city. The people are very friendly and outgoing. Sometimes it seems like it's only about 1 1/2 degrees of separation here: everybody knows everybody or knows somebody who knows somebody else. It gets quite freaky sometimes.

It is hot in summer with incredible thunderstorms getting to about 35 C (95F). In winter it gets down to about 15 C (59F) during the day and 5C (41F) at night. That might not seem cold, but bear in mind that no houses in Brisbane have central heating.

The Brisbane River runs right through the middle of the city and makes quite a beautiful sight on a nice day. I recommend a visit to anyone coming to Australia. If you're looking for a small city with a vibrant and increasingly cosmopolitan feel, without the pretensiousness of other larger cities, Brisbane is the place for you.

(Proudly supported by the Brisbane Tourism Commission )

What is this, "Njorl's Saga"? I fully expect the North Brisbane Icelandic Saga society to cut in here with a lot of rubbish about the attractive business climate, tax incentives and the like.

Seriously, as of THIS DAY, Brisbane can finally lay claim to being the world capital of FT.

Jim and Coolup,
The population is now 1.5 million and 1.

I wish I lived in the big city, but alas, I live in a small town about 35 minutes from Atlantic City, NJ.

It's not too bad of a town, quiet and picturesque in some ways, but it is rather boring. Here is our town website:

www.townofhammonton.org

All the information you'd care to know about Hammonton is there.

Edited for: I made the banner on the homepage.

Well it looks lovely and peaceful to me. The banner is beautiful!

Beautiful banner. Really nice. Thumbs up for you. Cheers...
Just the 'w' in 'town' looks like 'm'.

Well, my town is Ambala, situated in northern Indian state of Haryana. My town is one of the fastest growing cities of the state. No places worth seeing. But, afterall, it's pollution-free. No one knows how long will it remain as 'sweet li'l town', for some big shopping complexes and multiplexes are under construction.