In The Art of Travel, De Botton suggested there are no more places left to discover. With the overwhelming amount of information available on each and every major destination around the world it is likely that I could discover the major landmarks just as well from my computer than walking through them. Of course travellers will argue that first-hand experience is what matters, even if millions of people have had the same opportunity. While exploring the best reasons to travel I had emphasized the quest for the “experience”:
The tourist that never leaves the beaten path is likely only exposed to an esterile experience that has been washed out of all its original power.
One could argue that the splendour of any famous landmark is constantly diluted by the ongoing attack of mass tourism, misguided by a market saturated of travel guides that most of the times reference the same top 10 or 20 landmarks not to be missed, while telling us every snippet of knowledge that travellers must know about these places, cancelling every attempt to make that experience unique.
The age of discovery is over. Every corner of our planet has been documented ad nauseam… [...]
Continuing with the exploration of cities with a population actively engaged in global communications, here is a snapshot of the top 30 cities with most tweets (twitter messages) as calculated by TwitterLocal. The link presents the top 30 in the last 24 hours, here is a snapshot at the time of publishing:
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Tokyo – 13.5%
New York – 9.2%
San Francisco – 6.1%
Los Angeles – 5.9%
London – 4.9%
Washington – 4.1%
Chicago – 3.9%
Boston – 3.0%
Seattle – 3.0%
Sao Paulo – 2.7%
Other cities outside of North America included in the list: Osaka, Madrid, Sydney, Amsterdam, Paris, Melbourne, Berlin, Bangkok, Barcelona, Taipei, Santiago, Dublin and Caracas.
In January of 2007 I posted the globalization index, a partnership between Foreign Policy magazine and A.T. Kearney. At the time the report listed the most globalized countries, led by Singapore, Switzerland and the United States. A few weeks ago I decided to once again fine tune the editorial line of this blog by dedicating more time to cover urban issues and the role of cities in the shaping of our global culture. So finding the Foreign Policy’s 2008 Global Cities Index serves to reinforce the recent spirit of this blog.
The methodology to rank the cities includes 24 metrics in five dimensions:
The first is business activity: including the value of its capital markets, the number of Fortune Global 500 firms headquartered there, and the volume of the goods that pass through the city. The second dimension measures human capital, or how well the city acts as a magnet for diverse groups of people and talent. This includes the size of a city’s immigrant population, the number of international schools, and the percentage of residents with university degrees. The third dimension is information exchange—how well news and information is dispersed about and to the rest of [...]
I owe a big apology to all my loyal readers for keeping you in the dark over the last 3 months. Since my last post I travelled to Mexico twice, shared the stage in San Francisco with some of the authorities on the “geoweb”, travelled to Corsica, the French Riviera, Lake Como, St. Moritz; and managed to launch PlanetEye.com where I lead the Technology team. Intense to say the least. But the most recent issue of Monocle has me burning the proverbial midnight oil and finding energy to start posting regularly again. Thanks for your comments while I was away.
The Monocle Global Quality of Life Index may one day graduate to adopt a scientific methodology that considers a larger spectrum of cities around the world, but I’m happy to settle for their current coverage and play the my-city-is-better-than-yours game, using the tidbits of quick facts they’ve compiled. For those who don’t buy the magazine here are the top 10 cities:
Copenhagen, Denmark
Good looks, brains, perfect proportions, a sunny disposition and a sense of humour are always a winning combination…
Munich, Germany
It combines a strong economy with rich cultural offerings. The city’s workforce is highly [...]
Every year Stan Stalnaker and his team of global citizens gather their experiences around the world and summarize in this, their now famous Hub Culture’s Zeitgeist Ranking, the cities that for a variety of reasons seem to be at the center of the Universe. An elusive classification that doesn’t get impressed with economic power, flawless life-styles or centuries-old traditions, is mostly based on heuristics that related to the needs and desires of global citizens hoping from hub to hub networking their way into urban authorities. This is their veredict:
Los Angeles, United States
In some ways, the doom and gloom LA has experienced recently has presaged the general red alerts now being felt elsewhere – from environmental crisis to economic lapse, LA seems to have arrived in the shits just before everyone else.
Berlin, Germany
As the cutting edge vibe in London wanes, Berlin continues to draw the young and the restless, and its ties to a resurgent East (i.e. Moscow, Warsaw) are really showing dividends.
Mumbai, India
Even as Mumbai gridlock threatens to become a 24/7 state of affairs, India in general and Mumbai in particular continue their assault on the global consciousness. It’s hard to argue against Mumbai, especially with so many [...]
Half-drunk with a bottle of Casillero del Diablo, sitting on the floor in the middle of Plaza Mayor, Madrid, having had a great lunch at Museo Del Jamon, and enjoying a spontaneus “Concierto de Aranjuez” interpreted by an anonymous street musician, it felt very close to the most perfect vacation moment I’d ever had. It was 4 years ago and I still remember the realization at the time of how that moment would not fade away. No fancy hotels, no tours booked that day, no galleries to visit in the area and no intention of standing up any time soon.
As I try to deconstruct that moment, I now know that should one of the elements of such experience had been missing, it wouldn’t had transcended. So I’ll take a risk and generalize that a memorable experience has to appeal your senses in many ways. The dry yet tickling sensation on your palate, the stone floor warmed up by the sun rays, a belly full with exquisite cured hams and a well-known melody enhanced by flawless up-tempo execution, they all contributed to such memorability.
Monocle has an article called Good Hood, in which Tyler Brûlé & [...]
Hyper-connected to the rest of the world through an ample offering of long-haul flights, low crime rates, great education and health system, fair balance of sunny and warm days, plenty of ways to stay informed, availability of drinks after hours, good public transit, lots of green areas and a will to keep them green. This is the method behind the first Monocle Quality of Life Index.
For international flight connections it would be Paris but for an airport it would have to be Munich. On crime it would be a Japanese city – either Tokyo or Kyoto would do. Zürich and Helsinki would be our key contributors for hospitals and schools while Sydney and Honolulu offer the best weather. [...] For a good night out we’d want to be resident in Madrid, Tokyo or Barcelona and for getting home we’d opt for Munich’s public transport and Copenhagen’s bike network if we were sober enough to pedal home ourselves.
With a well documented rating behind each one of the cities in the list, it is going to be hard to argue that they’ve done their homework, but it still feels very subjective. In any case, [...]
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