Good Cities vs. Bad Cities

New York is a good city. Every other city is a bad city. In fact, it’s a stretch to call these other places cities.

For the first 18 years of my life, it was difficult to notice anywhere but New York. “The City”, as we called it, was the natural outlet for everything awesome. Many of my best friendships have been built on the foundation of:

“You like New York, I like New York, let’s go do cool things there.”

We stumbled on great music, world class art, and tasted the best food I’d ever eaten there. What could be better?

A lot of things, actually. Until I left New York, I judged cities by their raw capacity. But that methodology was flawed. The city doesn’t have to dictate your experience. What truly matters is the place you carve out for yourself. It took travelling to dozens of cities for me to realize that anywhere can be a great city.

Well, maybe not anywhere. I’m not moving to Cleveland any time soon (no offense, Cleveland-ers). But, I got thinking about all this yesterday, since Liz and I have been in Mexico City for about 36 hours. It’s a megalopolis beyond what I’ve experienced in Latin America. Its size (and the torrential rain) have made it less walk-able then other places we’ve been. We’ve been stuck in seas of traffic. We’ve been struggling to find street names. But these challenges don’t make Mexico City a bad city. It just makes it a city we are yet to fully understand.

Once we get a better feel for our neighborhood and our routine, I’m sure things will improve. But even if they don’t, it’s not up to D.F. to impress us with glitz and glamour. It’s up to us to find the things we like to do, the places we like to go, and the people we like to talk to. We have the responsibility to create a kick-ass experience, using the resources at our disposal. So I don’t care what index proves or disproves Mexico City’s quality. I’m determined to make it a good city.

This was originally published at DC Rejects.

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