i like all the responses so far, they have been rather varied, but let me push it more towards what i was meaning, so if you had to pick a city where you could define the world's presence eminating from it, like athens or rome were the cities to live in in those eras, what would ours be now, i would call new york city the defining city of the 20th century, because it was pretty much what decided what happened, with wall street and the depression, and the 20th century being a time of great economical expansion for the world.

but its interesting to hear of religious cities as the ones for now, i agree with jerusalem, mecca, the vatican all that, but its interesting, it seems that this century will be dominated by religious strife, or peace, but at the moment it seems that religion is turning the world on its shoulders, yet the religious cities are the place to be, i myself like jerusalem the most, i want to visit it someday, it has a very interesting history, and it is in the most interesting region in the world at the moment, no matter how unstable.