Your city STILL isn't unique



More stuff all cities have

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41 thoughts on “Your city STILL isn't unique”

  1. I've got an interesting one for you- wacky local car dealership commercials. Turns out most of them just buy scripts from the same Orlando, FL marketing agency, so you've got a pretty high chance of seeing the same basic weird commercial from car dealerships all across the US and Canada.

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  2. I currently live in Lodz, Poland, and that city is very interesting in that it actually does not have any river at all. That's a wholly man-made situation though. It used to be there were at least 7 streams in the area (the name of the city even means "boat" in Polish and it still is on the city's coat of arms), but they all got built over and rerouted during industrialization in 19th ct. Which is also when most of the city was built. People sometimes even forget that there was an earlier town here that existed since the middle ages.

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  3. I live in Sydney, Australia and we definitely have a thing about the Harbour Bridge built there is another bridge called the "Anzac Bridge" that I personally think looks more impressive.

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  4. One ironically common thing I noticed is the "world's largest X", usually found in towns and smaller cities. It's easy to come up with something that no one's ever built a giant version of, then build a giant version of it, even get it certified by Guinness as the "world's largest X", in an attempt to generate tourist draw and local pride for a small community.

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  5. I disagree about the Irish pubs and boba, I’m from the southwest US and the majority of the population here is Hispanic/Latino and all other minorities especially in my generation (born in late 80s) have been really small so I never saw an Irish pub or a boba shop, not until I was in college. We just don’t have big communities of those populations here so it is more unique to visit a city somewhere else and see them than any of the cities here.

    Also what you’re missing about the waterfront/river part of cities is that 1) every city uses it differently like Austin has kayakers and paddle boarding and tubing whereas San Antonio only 1 hour away doesn’t, they have a long walking trail instead and restaurants and bars that’s it and 2) lots of travel is done between surrounding small cities and towns to the closest big city so no, it’s not like JUST people visiting from other cities, lots of places that are not big cities don’t have access to waterfronts or rivers.

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  6. Re: cleanest water myth. Every city in Canada and America should be meeting predfined regulations for potable water. In fact it's very simple to make sure water won't kill the drinker. What is not as easy is sorting out different minerals and organic material that may be present (in the parts per million) from any given water source. This means each city will have unique characteristics to their water and some of these could be detectable as taste. I grew up on Vancouver island and when I moved to Kelowna I couldn't drink the tap water because it tasted like the lake to me. Low and behold the main water intake for the Okanagan valley is straight from the lake with minimal filtration. It is as safe as any other tap water from any other city but i couldn't bring myself to drink it. Apparently people are more or less sensitive to detecting the different flavors of water.

    Anyways hope that adds some nuance. I am in school for water engineering

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  7. 4:55
    JJ: We were told that bubble tea and pizza symbolized Vancouver… the bubble tea represented the influence of the Asian immigrant community… while the cheap pizza symbolized…
    Me: The Italian immigrant community?
    JJ: the fact that hungry party goers would eat whatever crap they could find late at night.
    Me: Oh.

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  8. 4:55
    JJ: We were told that bubble tea and pizza symbolized Vancouver… the bubble tea represented the influence of the Asian immigrant community… while the cheap pizza symbolized…
    Me: The Italian immigrant community?
    JJ: the fact that drunk people would eat any piece of crap they could find late at night.
    Me: Oh.

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  9. But how true is it exactly that every city has the same water quality. like for example what does the water have LED or no LED or even have bad substance or it doesn't have bad substance in the list goes on.

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  10. the waterfront thing was new to me. i move to a new bigger city and yeah everyone bitches theres nothing on the like 5 miles of water front we have lol. back in my hometown, the waterfront was always left alone bc the river below is very dangerously fast rocky stinky and polluted to hell lol.

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  11. I didn’t see this one mentioned. A vaguely German themed Christmas market with quaint little wooden buildings and shops selling German food, candy and mulled wine

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  12. The best water in North America is just north of Elmvale, Ontario (second best in the world), it has 5 times less lead in it than ancient glacial ice. One city that can't claim to have the best water is Kitchener, Ontario. That water is nasty, It always has a sulphur smell to it and I never can drink it when I travel there.

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  13. Trampoline parks. Idk why. Whenever I went to Austin TX to see family, they instantly insisted we go to the trampoline park. To be fair, they did have like 10 year old kids, but still. This was Austin TX, supposedly one of the most unique cities in America.

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  14. "Keep [city] wierd" is a slogan of Austin, TX, Portland OR, and I think Madison, WI. I bet there are more. Cities that pride themselves on being weird if they have a big university and a liberal bent.

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  15. – Related to the "local weirdos": Guys in full body mascot costumes busking and the well known the local scam artist locals like to warn tourists about (spare $4 for a can of fix-a-flat?).
    – Some kind of well known or world renown manufactory that may or may not still be in operation in their "historic" plot of land.
    – Extraordinary pride for their unique "Little Asia" or "Little Italy" flavored neighborhood.
    – Sports rivalries with other cities or even across town.
    – Pride and/or complaints about their local airport being some superlative in a category that other well known airports are looking to them for advice.
    – Bragging about how confusing the street grid or layout is for tourists BUT US LOCALS WE HAVE IT DOWN PAT.
    – Duck Boats. Boston seriously uses them in the championship parades for their sports teams. They're presented with a mystique and unspoken air as if no other city in the US or Canada on a river has a company that bought a bunch of war surplus amphibious vehicles for "unique" land-sea tours.

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  16. What is the point of these videos? I’ve watched both and they point out things that are common, but, like, it removes from the point that living in a city is objectively better for humanity over living in the suburbs (rural is different).

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  17. Especially this time of year, it is light shows. Every city has multiple light shows, along with touring light shows usually set up at the zoo. They all seem to be basically the same, but we are told they are special unique etc. etc,

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  18. There are cool things that make certain cities unique. For example, New York may not be unique for having the cleanest water per se, but it has one of the most interesting public water transportation systems in the world. It's not as catchy, but there are some hidden gems that keep the world interesting. Love the video JJ, keep it up!

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