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Why are some cities so much prettier than others?
The towns of Santorini are a glorious sight... I've spent hours over the last few days just wandering their cobblestone corridors and alleyways. I started thinking about why Santorini is so beautiful while other cities (oh, say, Knoxville TN) are quite unsightly. I came up with the following reasons:
1 This is sort of a meta-reason, but if a city is primarily known for its beauty, and much of the city's economy is based on tourism, then maintaining that beauty becomes a high priority of the people who live there. Thus...
1a The city government will apply aesthetic criteria to building permits for new construction and will pass ordinances limiting the aesthetic choices of private buildings, For example, Santa Fe has a government-approved list of some number acceptable colors for downtown buildings. Some guy with a Pantone set presumably runs around and checks compliance. While this seems draconian, the net effect is an entire hillside of buildings in colors and shapes that are complementary to one another. There's a huge benefit to universal compliance. I don't know what Santorini does in this regard, but I do know that building permits are very hard to get. I know this sort of legislation is also mis-applied by homeowners' associations to create well-maintained but dull and sterile neighborhoods.
1b The people who choose to move to the town will be drawn to it for the aesthetics (since there are large drawbacks in terms of individual freedom and convenience), so they will likely want their own buildings to look good, both on their own and in relation to nearby buildings. There will be social pressure on people who do not prioritize aesthetics.
2. Cities that are in beautiful natural surroundings wiill of course seem more beautiful. Santorini has it all – a windswept sea, dramatic cliffs, verdant fields, and a geological layer cake of sliced volcanic rock.
3. Cities that work with, rather than against, their natural surroundings are going to be in aesthetic harmony with them. Slicing off the top of a hill and plopping a gaudy plantation-style mansion on it is going to look awful, but creating a mansion that flows around the shape of the hill can look gorgeous. Santorini's towns are like extensions of the rock face, rolling with every curve and hugging the edge of the cliffs. In addition, the blue, white, and brown used on the buildings matches the sky, clouds, rocks, and sea.
4. Areas built with similar styles (generally at similar times) look better together. San Francisco has neighborhoods full of gorgeous Victorians because the city was rebuilt quickly after the 1906 earthquake. Ditto for New York's art deco skyscraper growth spurt in the 1910s-1930s. There was no calamity, but a lot of well-funded rapid growth.
5. Cities that have been around longer tend to look better because beautiful buildings are more likely to survive than ugly ones. There are of course exceptions to this (eg the old Penn Station in New York) but in general people will want to preserve beautiful buildings. I think the same effect happens when people think back to the “good old days” of movies and wonder why movies today are so shitty. It's because everyone forgets about the really bad ones from bygone days.
6. While there are some very pretty cities on flat ground, hills make any city look better. They provide a more interesting layered mix of foreground and background and let pedestrians take in the scale and grandeur of the city from the ground. Santorini is all hills.
7. Human-scale cities look prettier than car-scale cities because the presence of practical car infrastructure usually clashes with the appearance of the buildings. Santorini's towns are all human-scale... the cars and even the motorbikes park on the edge of downtown.
8. Cities done is a unique or bygone style will inevitably invoke romantic feelings in the people that visit them. Santorini invokes feelings of fallng in love, the traditional sailing lifestyle, and a dose of James Bond mixed in for good measure.
The towns of Santorini are a glorious sight... I've spent hours over the last few days just wandering their cobblestone corridors and alleyways. I started thinking about why Santorini is so beautiful while other cities (oh, say, Knoxville TN) are quite unsightly. I came up with the following reasons:
1 This is sort of a meta-reason, but if a city is primarily known for its beauty, and much of the city's economy is based on tourism, then maintaining that beauty becomes a high priority of the people who live there. Thus...
1a The city government will apply aesthetic criteria to building permits for new construction and will pass ordinances limiting the aesthetic choices of private buildings, For example, Santa Fe has a government-approved list of some number acceptable colors for downtown buildings. Some guy with a Pantone set presumably runs around and checks compliance. While this seems draconian, the net effect is an entire hillside of buildings in colors and shapes that are complementary to one another. There's a huge benefit to universal compliance. I don't know what Santorini does in this regard, but I do know that building permits are very hard to get. I know this sort of legislation is also mis-applied by homeowners' associations to create well-maintained but dull and sterile neighborhoods.
1b The people who choose to move to the town will be drawn to it for the aesthetics (since there are large drawbacks in terms of individual freedom and convenience), so they will likely want their own buildings to look good, both on their own and in relation to nearby buildings. There will be social pressure on people who do not prioritize aesthetics.
2. Cities that are in beautiful natural surroundings wiill of course seem more beautiful. Santorini has it all – a windswept sea, dramatic cliffs, verdant fields, and a geological layer cake of sliced volcanic rock.
3. Cities that work with, rather than against, their natural surroundings are going to be in aesthetic harmony with them. Slicing off the top of a hill and plopping a gaudy plantation-style mansion on it is going to look awful, but creating a mansion that flows around the shape of the hill can look gorgeous. Santorini's towns are like extensions of the rock face, rolling with every curve and hugging the edge of the cliffs. In addition, the blue, white, and brown used on the buildings matches the sky, clouds, rocks, and sea.
4. Areas built with similar styles (generally at similar times) look better together. San Francisco has neighborhoods full of gorgeous Victorians because the city was rebuilt quickly after the 1906 earthquake. Ditto for New York's art deco skyscraper growth spurt in the 1910s-1930s. There was no calamity, but a lot of well-funded rapid growth.
5. Cities that have been around longer tend to look better because beautiful buildings are more likely to survive than ugly ones. There are of course exceptions to this (eg the old Penn Station in New York) but in general people will want to preserve beautiful buildings. I think the same effect happens when people think back to the “good old days” of movies and wonder why movies today are so shitty. It's because everyone forgets about the really bad ones from bygone days.
6. While there are some very pretty cities on flat ground, hills make any city look better. They provide a more interesting layered mix of foreground and background and let pedestrians take in the scale and grandeur of the city from the ground. Santorini is all hills.
7. Human-scale cities look prettier than car-scale cities because the presence of practical car infrastructure usually clashes with the appearance of the buildings. Santorini's towns are all human-scale... the cars and even the motorbikes park on the edge of downtown.
8. Cities done is a unique or bygone style will inevitably invoke romantic feelings in the people that visit them. Santorini invokes feelings of fallng in love, the traditional sailing lifestyle, and a dose of James Bond mixed in for good measure.
