I don’t know if you noticed, Sapo, in another current Thread in this Forum, “Tell me about your location - is it famous for anything? Does it hold any records?”, started by Arnold Winkelried, matt_mcl says in Post# 37:
I assumed matt_mcl had misspoken until I checked and found the statement accurate.
I’ll third the Montreal. But the main thing an ideal city has to have is less people, and all of the ones that get in, screened.
Can you handle the above public transportation changes and idiosyncracies? No? You’re out.
Litter? Three chances and you’re out.
Etc. I don’t particularly like people, they muck up the look of a city, but I guess you need a few. 
I had avoided the thread, as I am not particularly excited about my location right now. Thanks for the heads up. Some cool trivia.
I’d like a city without public transportation, just to be different for goodness sake. Instead, spread everything out a bit with wide roads, and easy access by car to every part of town. Large, open spaces all around, with low-rise buildings, and lots of parking would make it convenient to get to where you’re going quickly and on your own schedule. There would be no waiting for a bus, or train, in my ideal town.
Ah. You’ve been to Mississauga, I see.
The problem with this is that you then need to raise your average wage to the point where everyone can afford a car.
Hey, he said ideal. The people who can’t afford transportation could live in someone else’s ideal city.
Large pedestrian zones. Cars have no place in the innermost center of a city.
Welcome to the SDMB, DTMB!
I heartily second (eighth?) the public transportation system. In my mind, density is key, as well as reach (to the burb’s).
I disagree with Aanamika in that I think a proper city should have TONS of people. I just took a new job in my city’s downtown area (Chicago, the Loop), and one of my main reasons was to work downtown again. I love the energy of hundreds of thousands of people out on the streets at lunchtime trying to grab a bite, running back to the office, etc.
It wouldn’t hurt to have a huge lake as one boundary. Pretty, and useful for municipal water, recreation, and to frame the magnificent skyline.
Architecture. There has to be something interesting about that city from a visual perspective.
Museums, parks, cultural pieces (the aforementioned museums, theater (or “-re”), etc.), ethic diversity (who wants a city full of one type of food, one type of person?).
Last thing, I want my city to be the object of jealousy.
-Cem
To me an ideal city would have a large amount of public transportation, trains, subways, electric buses and taxis, plenty of fast constant shuttles betweens lines, probably monorails like many airports are adding. Sports Stadiums built on transportation hubs, lots of parks, lots of good strong neighborhoods, large walking districts for business and shopping where only subways or quiet elevated monorails exist so there is zero traffic. I would like the city to be as clean as Vancouver was in the mid-eighties. This should be kept a priority.
Every neighborhood should have its small businesses. Bars, restaurants, coffee houses, bakeries, grocers, hardware stores, etc. The school system should be a high priority. Hospitals and city services should be well distributed. The city would be rich with culture, Museums, Zoos, Aquariums, Theaters, etc. It should have several amusement parks. It should have lots of parks with ball fields.
The Business District should have towering skyscrapers and be in the center of the city. The Business District should have an elevated walkway system similar to Minneapolis. That was the best feature of Minneapolis I noticed in my brief visit.
It needs a good airport with easy rail access to the city, but outside the city. It needs suburbs that are not contiguous with the city, but more like miniature satellites of the city with there own robust town centers and excellent transit to the city and a good rail system connecting them to each other. Buffers between the large suburban towns and the City should be largely farming and parks. It needs an excellent water and electrical supply.
The city should be built for good traffic flow, where traffic is allowed. Walking, Biking, and mass transit must be the priority however.
Basically take all the features of NYC and reorganize it, clean it up, built the city largely circular around Downtown, move the stadiums near the downtown and massive increase and improve the mass transit. Push the burbs at least 10 miles away from the city. Add in some monorails, an electric bus system, and the Minneapolis walkways.
Jim
A fantastic affordable widespread easily accessible clean air-conditioned 100% handicapped-accessible public transit system. Many lines running north, south, east, west, and going in circles around the city. Something like the Paris Metro. Not like Boston’s, which is so crappy compared to New York, London, or Paris that I must assume the people who think it’s great have never experienced anything else.
An entirely mixed zoning: living spaces and shops are in the same neighborhoods so it’s easy to get along without a car. People can walk everywhere. And this doesn’t mean it has to be a city of people all crammed together—it can certainly be a city that is set up like an English village, only on a smaller scale, or on a multiple scale (many neighborhoods of living/working/buying in close proximity to one another).
Easy access to interstate train, bus, and airport.
Large amounts of green space. This doesn’t necessarily mean huge parks. Green space can be mixed in with the residential/commercial area. Water features would be nice too, if it’s possible to build them in an environmentally conscious manner.
The cleanliness of Disney World.
Bike paths EVERYWHERE.
I don’t think such a city will ever exist though.
And I guess you’ll send your parents to some other city when they’re too old to drive?
No, a city needs to be designed for people, not cars. This interview with Enrique Penalosa (former mayor of Bogota) says it all.
a) Affordable, decent housing / rent rates,
b) Lots of art galleries / theatres / museums / live music clubs / cafes,
c) Environments that foster and encourage small businesses,
d) Ethnically and socially diverse neighborhoods,
e) I second (third, fourth, nth) a good transit system,
f) LOTS of parks and greenery open to the public,
g) a moose crossing. Just because.
Does it actually have to have meese? Or just a crossing? Because I know of a town in NY that has a moose crossing right in downtown, it’s funny.
In a pinch, a penguin crossing will be acceptable as well.
But the penguin crossing has to be on the south side of town.
This explains why there are no penguin crossings in Toronto.
I love Montreal, but the last time I was there, I was traveling with a friend with some physical problems. We noticed that there was little accessibility for the handicapped and that if you couldn’t do stairs, you were shut out. Out of the old part of the city, and wonderful Rue St. Denis, at least. Indeed, we starting really looking at the folks around us, and didn’t see people with canes, walkers, wheelchairs, or mobility scooters.
So the ideal city will have ways for physically handicapped, including deaf and blind, to get around, and get information. A way to get in and out of historic places without messing up the architecture.
Perhaps a central area where no internal combustion engines allowed? I think of Zermatt…as I recall, in town you had to use electric golf cart thingies to get around…
Rooftop gardens to reduce the heat island effect, and to give people the sanity of green and growing things in the city.
Seconding the green space, the bike lanes away from motor vehicle lanes, the diversity of restaurants and grocery stores. And BOOKSTORES! Many, many independent bookstores, catering to a wide variety of tastes and interests. Cafes good for reading and writing. Microbreweries, too…a place to read and write where you can also have a beer…like the Rathskellar at the U of Wisconsin, perhaps. Friendly, happy people.
Boston’s public transit is better than some places. I grew up in Seattle. The busses there are decent, if you’re trying to get to and from downtown. For anything else, like the high-tech corridor on the eastside, it sucks.
But here’s the important bit. Seattle has been debating a subway/light-rail/monorail thing for years. But whenever people tried to talk up the project, it was always something that was meant for other people. “Oh, don’t worry, the subway won’t be anywhere near your house; but everyone else will ride it, the traffic will vanish, and you can still drive your car.” The Boston subway at least tries to move real people. It does it badly (I’ve taken subways in Munich, Prague, Vienna, Berlin and Paris; I’ve seen what can be achieved), but at least it knows what it’s there for.
So, to answer the OP, make sure that whatever you build serves the way people really live, work and move.
Oh, and at least one grand boulevard, partly so you have a sense of orientation in the city. Paris has this. Boston has one, and perhaps two depending on how the greenway turns out.
And a really big park.
Zoos and aquariums galore. The aquariums should also contain beluga whales, the cutest whales known to man. And a gigantic shark tank that’s super super scary. That is all.
That reminds me, I need to get back to the Brooklyn Aquarium again.
A moderate climate. It should have all four seasons. Not just spring like southern California. And not just Winter and July, like the northern midwest. It should have warm-but-not-hot summers, pleasant springs and falls, and mild winters where it snows occasionally, but not often. It should rain enough to keep everything clean and healthy, but it should clear up immediatly afterwards. Preferably, the rain would happen at night. And the autumn leaves should either fall in neat little piles, or blow away completely. At night, of course.
