What makes a city work, what makes it livable, what makes a city inspired, what makes a city stand out from other cities?

At the heart of any city is its community. Community is the intangible factor that a destination has at its core. Parisians cherish their Paris, New Yorkers write and sing songs about their New York, Amstel’s are enormously proud of their Amsterdam. People of these cities use it to parade it as their life back drop, so to speak, they assign landmarks to important moments, they mature in its parks, cafés and meeting points. The individual’s city is a reference point for a career, existence, and or life choice.

Holland’s land mass is mostly of a river delta fan that serves the Rhine and Maas Rivers. Half of Holland is just above sea level and one extreme, Amsterdam, is nearly four meters below sea level. Being below sea level is a strange vail that hangs over the city; its people and community are constantly at odds with nature. It is not difficult to travel around the city and imagine it shrouded in water – oddly one feels that this experience is fabled; as if Amsterdam is a modern day Atlantis (the ancient city taken by the sea).

The prominent aspect of Amsterdam is that the city has a place/space for all its citizens – living and material. Pedestrians, canals, bridges, buildings, boats, trees, cars, water, and cyclists in an organised maze – slot in, duck and weave, sway, flow by, stop and give way.

The city has more bikes than citizens. Girls in high heal shoes and ladies in business suits cycle, old men in jeans cycle too, couples dink (one peddles while the other rides aside or astride on the luggage rack as well), or there are bikes with boxes up the front with kids in them or groceries. A bicycle is bicycle, rather than a status symbol, (unless you expensive ride road bikes with lawyers or doctors that drink latte coffees at groovy post ride cafes). Countless people cycle by and one can not possibly tell if one owns the whole street or rents; they could be unemployed or an city employed lawyer, if they are environmentalist or late for an appointment. Cycling democratises its people.

Amsterdam is a city where the car is not the prime occupant. The trees are allowed to be wayward, bridges are tight, and streets are narrow. Amsterdam lacks the din of a city over run with traffic jams, the air is clear, people spill everywhere, eyes meet, the pace seems right, natural.

What makes Amsterdam work is that it is a mature city. It has been built up and torn down, it has been under siege, it has been planned and altered, improved and reconfigured. The city shapes itself with history, it doesn’t need to modernise, it simply shifts and evolves as time dictates.
Do cities need to grow in population to be desirable? Or are desirable cities a place where it citizens feel like they can grow? Amsterdam has it’s fair share of negative points, never-the-less it is a place where the car has been put in its place. People travel and commune in Amsterdam with a sense of freedom that has been overlooked by progress which leaves strangers no choice to connect in one form or another again.