Quote Originally Posted by jimmy8778
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.
This is an interesting point you make about what will be the defining cities of the next century, of NOW. If I had to choose 10 years ago, I would probably have said New York too, for all the reasons Metaphor said...

Quote Originally Posted by Metaphor
New York City. Its the most diverse city on this planet. Theres so many different races of people living together. Theres wall street and theres ghettos. Zoos, aquariums, ball parks, bodegas, subways, drugs, parks, ice skating, big christmas trees, statues of liberties, stadiums, ground zero, grafitti, clubs, bars, 24 hour delis, industrial areas, junkyards, the new years ball, nypd, like 8 bridges, all different types of food on the same block, beautiful women, museums, public transportation, one dollar ke-babs, bong shops, all kinds of shops, art, music, china town, junkies and fiends, blue collar, white collar, black, white, asian, spanish, middle eastern, latino, indian, jewish. Theres a bit of everything, Its the place where people come to make something with their lives. there is just no place like it. and if you deny that then you've never been here.
... and part of the reason would have been that the 20th century was definitely the American Century, and our greatest and most diverse cities might have been considered defining for that era. Now I think the rest of the world is rising very rapidly. It's not that America is necessarily declining, but the rest are rising. The next century will not be an American Century. For most of the last half of this century America has told other countries to be more like us, at least in how you are governed and run --- be democratic, be free-market, be responsible governments, be fiscally responsible, invest in your education, invest in your infrastructure. Many have done so, and are on a fast rise economically. America should be proud that it is the triumph of our best values that have led to a lot of prosperity around the world, but it might actually be hard for us to accept as other countries rise to our level. America will have to deal with the fact that it soon will not be the center of the world. I don't know where the next iconic "Atlantis" will be, but porbably in Asia or Central America or South America. Or maybe the world will have no "center," and it will be impossible to pick just one.