Where do you feel most at home?

By Caitlin Kelly

How about Washington, D.C.?

 

A friend recently posed the question on her Facebook page — and the many answers she received were fascinating.

Many said “Mexico”, and I was among them, and yet almost all of us were Caucasian.

I miss Mexico, having briefly lived in Cuernavaca as a teenager and having visited various regions there many time; I also speak Spanish.

Or Donegal, where my great-grandfather is from…

But feeling most at home?

It’s always, since I spent a year living there on a journalism fellowship when I was 25, been Paris.

Seems unlikely, for a Canadian born in Vancouver and raised in Toronto, Montreal and London.

(For one American friend, it’s London or bust! If you aren’t reading her blog about life there, you’re missing out. For another, whose blog I also adore, it was a huge leap — from Portland, Oregon to Lisbon.)

It’s a cliche, I know, but I’m fine with it. I speak French, so that’s not an issue.

One of my Paris faves…

I love all the things many people love about that city: great food and wine, style, flowers, the architecture, history, its scale, ready access to the rest of Europe.

I know the city somewhat,  and feel bien dans ma peau each time we return. It’s also a place that changed my life and work for the better, forever, so it’s marinated in memories.

And I know it’s not an easy city — as this blogger who lives there is sure to remind me!

 

 It’s not always easy to feel 100 percent at home.

 

Factors to consider include:

• long, cold snowy winters — and/or hot, humid ones
• lots of rain and cloudy days
• jobs! And well-paid ones, a huge issue in this year’s Presidential election
• quality (affordable) education — at every level
• media — is quality journalism done there, and incisive reporting?
• shopping. If this matters to you, what’s the quality, price and ready access to the things you value most?
• food. Are there farmer’s markets? Great restaurants?
• culture! Can you afford to attend ballet, theater, opera, dance, concerts?
• style/elegance. If this matters to you, (as it does to me), a place where everyone schlumps around in sweats 24/7 is a lousy fit
• landscape. I stare at the Hudson River every day, grateful for its ever-changing skies and beauty. One friend posts astounding images of his life in Arizona’s Sonoran desert.
• history — is the place shiny new or filled with ancient stories to discover?
• politics — right/left/mixed (and it the place welcoming to those who vote otherwise?)
• guns. In the U.S., a serious issue; do your neighbors own them and carry one?
• drugs. A scourge in many places now, whether meth or heroin.
• public policies — what happens when you’re ill and/or out of work?
• citizen engagement, volunteering and activism
• the diversity of your fellow residents — ethnically, economically, religion, work, education
• personal safety from crime
• personal safety from natural disasters like hurricanes, floods, wildfires, earthquakes and tornadoes
• Access to, price of and quality of housing, rental and owned
• Do people on the street smile and greet one another — or do you prefer anonymity?
• The quality (or lack of) urban planning and design
• Clean, safe parks and ready access to nature for recreation
• Clean, safe playgrounds, swimming pools, tennis courts
• Well-financed libraries
• Bike trails and lanes
• Air quality (New Delhi and Beijing are now hardship posts because the air there is so foul)
• Good medical care and safe, well-run hospitals
• Policing — how safe are you and your loved ones? These days, for many angry and frightened black Americans, it even means being safe from the police.

Terrorism is now a serious issue for many people.

 

A walk along the Palisades, on the western shore of the Hudson River

I’ve been living in a small town on the eastern edge of the Hudson River for more than 20 years, 25 miles north of Manhattan.

I love this town, (here’s my post from 2012 with 20 reasons why), and am very happy here, but it lacks, of course, the bustle and culture of a big city.

I chose Tarrytown on a recon trip for some of these reasons: it’s very diverse for a suburban New York town; its gorgeous location; its history and architecture and scale; easy access to Manhattan (40 minutes by car or train.)

It’s now become home to all the hipsters fleeing crazy-expensive Brooklyn!

I grew up and spent 25 years in Toronto, a large city that often makes lists of best places to live.

I didn’t hate Toronto, and usually return once or twice a year to see old friends there, but it has many ugly areas, a brutally expensive cost of housing, (and very poor quality below $1m), for purchase, crappy quality rentals and a long, grim winter.

More than anything, it held a limited set of professional opportunities — I know people still in the same jobs or workplace as when I left, decades ago.

As we hope to retire in a few years, deciding where to live and why becomes more and more a conscious decision, not just dominated by the proximity to enough decent jobs in our field.

I’ve long planned to spend some of that time living in France, some in the U.S. and some in Canada, with a lot of travel, as long as our health and finances allow.

 

I believe that beauty – wherever we find it — nurtures us deeply; this is a painting of northern Ontario, a landscape I know, love and miss

Where do you feel most at home and why?

 

Is it far from where you were born and raised?

 

Various Parises…more photos!

By Caitlin Kelly

It’s difficult to walk down a block here — for me, anyway! — without snapping a photo, or several. Whether it’s a detail or a landscape or the low, slanting winter light, it’s all there…

More Paris images:

No table here is complete without a fresh baguette, chopped into pieces and served in a basket on the table. Butter is only offered at breakfast, often spread along a split baguette, called a tartine. Delicieux!

Even grocery shopping can be elegant! Everyone here wheels their grocery cart along the narrow sidewalks, even if they bought their food at a chain store. These carts come in every possible color and style. I loved the black patent one I saw on the Metro the other day. So much more fun than schlepping 12 bags of plastic by hand…

I never tire of the sense of design here and am irrationally folle de (crazy for) this look using broken tile. This is the bar area of 65 Ruisseau, a great place for (yes, really) a cheeseburger and a beer in Montmarte. And the frites. Sigh.

This is the street in the 7th arrondissement where we stayed the first two weeks, (moving to L’Isle St. Louis later this month.) These cream-colored curving buildings, with their elegant black ironwork, are typical of the more bourgeois neighborhoods. Each building has some lovely design element to delight the eye — a cherub, some inlaid mosaics, carved roses. There are 20 arrondissements, spiralling out from the center, in a snail shape, from the 1st.  Like every city, each one has its own character, some with mini-neighborhoods within them as well. The 7th. is staid, elegant, very quiet, a mix of residential, monuments and government buildings. Few tourists, typically, head to the 13th, 14th or 15th, as they are almost exclusively residential and a bit of  distance from most of the museums and other attractions.

King Francis 1, who reigned from 1515 to 1547, used the salamander as his personal symbol, perhaps why this golden salamander encircles a stanchion on the Seine…

Love these soft leather cafe chairs — small enough to be easy to move around but so comfortable and chic! Wish we could ship a few of them home.

There is a very large Ferris wheel standing at one side of the Place de la Concorde, 10 euros to ride. It’s a bit windy/freezing when you’re at the very top, (and a little scary!), but ohhhhhh the views. Here is the Garden of the Tuileries, and at the very far end, the Louvre. One one side is the Seine river, on the other, the rue de Rivoli. I took this on Christmas Day, one of the few days here with clear skies and lots of sunshine! You can’t see them, but the pond is circled by olive-green metal chairs in two styles, so you can sit and relax and watch the crowds.

If New York City mayor Bill de Blasio has his way, this sight will soon disappear from Manhattan — horse-drawn carriages. These colors — cream, beige, black and charcoal gray, are so typical of Paris, whether in exteriors, interiors or fashion.

Paris snapshots…(mostly food!)

By Caitlin Kelly

Paris is a city I know and love. I first came here in my early 20s, returned for a year when I was 25 on a journalism fellowship, and have come back as many times since as time and budget allow. I speak fluent French, so I love having the chance to use it and hear it once more.

It’s a city known for the ferocious impatience of its inhabitants, especially to those who speak not a word of French. Maybe it’s me, or the holidays or something in the water, but everyone, this time, has been welcoming and patient, even when (quelle horreur!) I asked to take home the delicious left-overs from a restaurant dinner a few nights ago. They were offered to me in a tidy plastic box, and I was still enjoying them two days later…

The past few visits — the most recent October 2009 — we’ve stayed in a rented apartment on the Ile St. Louis, in the middle of the Seine, with easy walking to the Marais. This time, we’re in the 7th, a quiet, bourgeois, mostly-residential neighborhood. The apartment we’ve borrowed is on the ground floor, absolutely silent, facing a courtyard; the view from bed as I write this is of an ivy-covered wall through tall four-paned windows; it belongs to a photographer and photo editor we know professionally.

Like many such Paris homes, we enter through a heavy door facing the street, using a code on a keypad, then step through an outdoor entrance way guarded by Marie, the friendly concierge. Through another heavy door and we’re into a large, airy courtyard, faced by many other apartments, some with tiny balconies, some of which have a small tree on them.

Maybe everyone is away for the holidays. Or maybe they’re just French — but it’s soooooooo quiet! No traffic noise. No shouting or kids yelling.

I love the apartment’s so-French design details — from the wide, smooth, bare herringbone wood floors to the egg-shaped doorhandles in the middle of the door at waist height. The whoosh of the water-heater in the kitchen is the only sound. The toilet is in its own separate small room — freeeeeeezing! The kitchen floor is red hexagonal tile. (We promised no interior photos, so as to respect our friends’ privacy.)

Some images…

Carbs, carbs, carbs….

This is embarrassing! Butter, bread, pastry, pasta…No, we don’t eat like this at home. But a daily fresh baguette is something of a necessity here. The raisin bread at the top of the photo is from Poilane, considered one of Paris’ best bakeries. It’s sliced very thinly but is very satisfying and chewy. Yes, there is even a bar of Lindt chocolate in there as well. Sigh.

I have never seen meringues the size of a baby’s head. No, we didn’t buy them! There was a long line-up for the bakery where I saw these.

Love ’em!

Some of you may know the clothing brand Petit Bateau, whose cotton T-shirts are popular for their quality. This is their shop on rue de Grenelle, in the 7th, a few doors from where we’re staying. It also has the most gorgeous baby clothes and shoes.

One of the many things I so love about Paris is color, and often deep, rich colors I rarely see at home in New York. Here’s a doorway in the 7th.

And the exquisite carving on some buildings….this, on Ave. Bosquet in the 7th (a bourgeois neighborhood.)

Those of you who know Paris know well some of the designs that are typical — like these broken-tile floors, often found in bistros of a certain era. This is from Le Baratin, a well-known resto in Belleville.

I was in a florist shop when this woman entered — wearing a long black shawl pinned atop her head, which sported a very tall pile of hair. She walked away down the street with an enormous armload of flowers and her groceries. Note the spectacular periwinkle blue of the shop exterior (a frame store.)

I love the scale and intimacy of the streets here, so very different from New York, where I live.

A street in the 7th.

This quiche was our first food purchase, 13 euros, about $16. It’s salmon and spinach and baked within its own wooden hoop, like a culinary embroidery. One of the best quiches I’ve ever eaten! It’s been much more fun to buy and cook some of our own food at home than eating out three costly meals a day. The apartment we’ve been loaned is steps from the Rue Cler, a famous market street — with multiple wine shops, bakeries, a fish-monger and many other food vendors. Foodie heaven!

More photos soon…

Visiting Use-ta-ville

By Caitlin Kelly

Use-ta-ville…The place you go back to that’s now gone.

“It used to be…”

We’ve all got them, the places where we once lived or attended school or loved visiting or eating in or shopping at. As life changes, sometimes at a dizzying pace, it can be comforting to re-visit these spots. Many are filled with memories — great dates, a proposal, a graduation, a terrific meal — and the physical place becomes a touchstone.

One of the most-loved indie bookstores in Manhattan, Posman Books, is closing its Grand Central location on New Year’s Eve — to make room for (what else?) some costly new building. So annoying!

It’s been such a lovely respite, while awaiting a train or a friend, to browse its well-edited selection of books and cards. I’ve made some great discoveries on its front tables over the years, and was thrilled when my own book, “Malled: My Unintentional Career in Retail” briefly ended up in their front windows.

I grew up in Toronto, a sprawling city of 3 million people, and moved to New York a long time ago, but I still go back once or twice a year to see old friends and to enjoy places I’ve been visiting for decades.

Gone! One of my favorite antiques/vintage clothing shops in NYC

Like Courage My Love, one of the city’s best vintage clothing shops and The Papery, a great little stationery store I once sold my home-made envelopes to when I was in high school, and — for many years — a beloved cafe called The Coffee Mill, which served strudel and espresso and schnitzel on its lovely outdoor terrace and cosy interior.

It closed in September 2014, after 50 years in business, back in the day when those kinds of foods were exotic to white-bread WASPy Toronto.

We also lost a favorite restaurant on Queen Street, Prague Deli, who had renovated it into an even more welcoming spot, a perfect refuge on a bitterly cold winter’s afternoon. Gone.

Toronto also recently lost the 65-year nightclub, the El Mocambo, where the Rolling Stones once played.

I often go back to my high school, Leaside High School, to talk to the students about what it’s like to make a living as a writer. It’s very odd, but also oddly comforting, to walk those terrazo-ed hallways once more. It looks exactly the same!

Every city, especially when there are millions or billions to be made flipping and developing commercial real estate, loses bits of its past, and we stand by helplessly mourning all those lost memories.

One of my favorite Manhattan cafes, Cafe Angelique on Grove Street in the West Village, disappeared overnight in the fall of 2014 when the landlord demanded $45,000/month in rent — for 1,000 square feet. My lasting memory of it now was a lunch I had there with a fellow journalist I’d long admired and listened to on American Public Media’s business show, Marketplace.

Now its gutted space is one more about-to-be-gentrified spot filled with a mega-brand.

Soul?

Fuhgeddaboudit!

One of the most poignant of these moments happened for me early in my courtship by Jose, my husband, who grew up in Sante Fe, New Mexico. His father was the pastor of a small Baptist church and they lived in church housing — all of which was torn down and replaced by the Georgia O’Keefe Museum.

So we stood admiring one of her legendary paintings as Jose said, wistfully, “This used to be my bedroom.”

All that’s left of his childhood home is a small courtyard with an apricot tree, whose fruit his mother used to make into jam.

Is there a place like this from your past you (still) miss?

Still there, since 1927, the Monte Vista Hotel in Flagstaff, Arizona

20 lessons New Yorkers learn

By Caitlin Kelly

Have you visited or lived in New York City?

It’s a great place, but — oy!

The city resembles a small child, at best bursting with charm, all winning smiles and irresistible, 24/7 energy. At worst? Projectile vomit, much throwing of small, sharp objects and/or prolonged shrieking at high volume.

You never know which city you’ll get.

After 25+ years of living and working around New York City, here’s a random list of 20 things I’ve learned:

— After an exhausting day at a conference or trade show at the Javits Center, a hulking structure on the western edge of town, your poor feet are raw, since there’s almost nowhere there to sit down. Food is crazy expensive and not very good. When it’s time to go home, you head for the taxi rank, naively expecting, (hello, it’s a taxi rank), to find…you know, taxis! Lined up, lots of them, eager for business. Wrong! You will give up and trek long blocks in the pouring rain in search of one, praying you don’t miss your flight home.

— If you actually need a NYC taxi between 4 and 5:00 pm. — also known in most cities as rush hour — fuhgeddaboudit. There are 20 percent fewer cabs on the street then, as that’s the drivers’ shift change. But, if you beg, really nicely, sometimes a driver will in fact take you. Will you get a safe and experienced taxi driver? I once got into a cab, barked “Laguardia” and got a quizzical glance. (It’s one of NYC’s two major airports.) I directed him to the right tollbooth where the collector said “Take the BQE”, (Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, a major artery). That didn’t register either.

— NYC — huh? — has shockingly lousy radio. We have WNYC, and the fab Brian Lehrer, (talk, call-in, 10-12 each weekday morning),  and Leonard Lopate, (talk, culture, noon to 2pm, weekdays), and Jonathan Schwartz (American songbook, Saturdays and Sundays.). We have WFUV and WKCR, Columbia University’s station,  (love their eclectic schedule — from troubadours to 60s reggae and ska),  and WQXR. Then…WBGO, a jazz station from Newark, NJ.

— Be very, very careful if you choose to cycle or even cross the street here; a shocking number of people, including children, are killed here every year by careless drivers. Don’t be stupid and focus on your device while trying to navigate the crosswalk, if there even is a crosswalk — that text you’re reading or sending could well be your last.

Here’s a heartbreaking story about a family whose 12-year-old son died this way.  And a bicycle deliveryman. Four people were recently killed by vehicles in just one weekend.

— Getting a traffic or parking ticket of any kind in New York City is really expensive; I recently got my first-ever ticket, for going through a stop sign — $138. (If I’d run a red light in Manhattan, it would have been $270.)

— But the cop who slapped me with my $138 fine also confided, since it was my first offense, how to get out of paying it. (I paid anyway.)

— If you see a taut line of fishing wire atop lamp posts along certain streets, an eruv, it was placed there, at a cost of $100,000 by several Jewish congregations, for religious reasons.

— To enjoy the terrific skating rink erected for a few winter months in Bryant Park without being knocked down by people who can’t skate, get there as soon as it opens for the day. It has great music and an easy-to-reach midtown location. It’s also gorgeous at dusk as the city lights up all around it. I like it much better than the costly, tiny rink at Rockefeller Center or crowded Wollman Rink in Central Park.

— Tourists. Gah! We hate freaking tourists, especially when they walk three or four abreast, slowly, entirely blocking the sidewalk for the rest of us. It’s totally awesome you have all bloody day to stroll, chat and stare. We don’t. Speedupalready!

— Yes, we can tell just by looking that you’re tourists. It’s not just your maps and foreign-language guidebooks. It’s your hair color/cut, choice of pastel clothing and/or white sneakers and/or lots of purple and pink and/or the volume of your conversations. Also, that glazed look.

— Please, do not whine about what things cost here. Yes, the prices are insane — $50 to park for four hours in a garage or $20 for a midtown cocktail, $8 to cross the George Washington Bridge, $10 for dessert or $15 for an appetizer. We know how expensive it is. We also pay a shitload of taxes to a state and city government forever sending its elected officials to court or prison for fraud, sexual harassment or corruption. I once simply drove my mother to the airport — $13 for tolls and 20 minutes parking. Puhleeze.

— The suggested donation at the Metropolitan Museum really is only a suggestion, no matter how intimidating its full fare of $25. If you can muster the chutzpah, offer 25 cents or a dollar.

— Even the most mundane blocks offer fascinating bits of history. This midtown firehouse, on its upper stories, has deeply incised salamanders — which have a deep and historic link to fire. Isn’t it glorious?

— The city has a few early cemeteries where you’d least expect to find them, like these three ancient Jewish graveyards, all within walking distance of downtown shops, homes and modern day offices. Bronx students recently found a possible slave burial ground.

— Two places you can always find a bit of peace? The many pocket parks and plazas dotting the city and the pews of any church.

— You’ll see an entirely new city with each season, and softer or sharper, less or more angled sunlight it brings. I was walking south on Park Avenue the other day — at 2:30 on a sunny January afternoon — and passed a 1960s building I’ve seen hundreds of times. But I saw it wholly anew, as the light’s angle created pockets of shadow clearly intended by the architect, in metal indentations below each window. It was lovely.

Do you know about Manhattanhenge? Very cool!

— Museums charge a fortune, like $14 or $18 admission, but they all have a night of free admission.

— Here’s a terrific daily update of free/cheap/fun stuff to do in the city, The Skint, created by my friend Elizabeth who, natch, is also the lead singer in this amazing band playing 1920s tunes, The Hot Sardines, who often play at the Standard Hotel and Joe’s Pub.

You can even, for a week in late January every year, watch world-class champions playing squash in a glass-walled court inside Grand Central Station. Crazy!

— There  is beauty in almost every single block, if you look carefully. It might be a hanging lamp, a brass marker inlaid in the concrete, a gargoyle, a church spire, leaded windows, exquisite ironwork, a tiny snowman with pretzel hair. Despite its insane rushrushrush, New York City is actually a place that rewards a slower pace, (off the busiest streets!)

— New Yorkers may look mean, tough, unfriendly. We’re really not. We are usually in a hurry, (knowing the taxi, if we can even find one, will take forever to get there or the subway will break down). We’re probably rushing somewhere to get more something: money, opportunities, friends, whatever. But so many of us have come here from somewhere else that we get what it feels like to be scared, overwhelmed, lonely — and thrilled to finally master this place, even for a while.

Or…am I completely meshugannah?

Feel free to argue loudly. Hey, it’s what we do!

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The prettiest place is…

Image via Wikipedia

Where?

Venice? Florence? Rome?

Big Sur?

Paris? The Cinque Terre? Yosemite? Alaska?

I just spent four days in New Orleans, my first visit back there since 2004.

It instantly reminded me of all the things I most enjoy about the places I most love. These include Corsica, Thailand and Ireland (I actually wept leaving all three. I never cry in public!), Paris, the Eastern Townships of Quebec, Venice, Vermont, Savannah, Ronda, Bath, London, Mdina.

The prettiest places, for me, include a mix of these, with the best having all of them:

History

I  love to wander streets worn smooth for milennia. Even Manhattan, a very young place in global terms, has entire blocks that feel as though you’ve disappeared into an earlier century.

Light

It makes all the difference, whether the brilliant, scouring light of Mexico or the low, soft, slanting shafts of winter sunshine I saw in Stockholm in November. The odd reflected watery light of Venice.

Color

This is my favorite element of all, from the rich, glossy reds and blues of European doors to the coppery-green patina of church steeples and weathervanes to the intense emerald green of backlit leaves and fields. When I tried to replicate the gentle weathered greens of Swedish walls in New York light, it looked awful. In New Orleans, I saw enormous houses painted the icy yellow and rich orange of lemon and mango sorbet, colors that would also look foolish and odd elsewhere.

Scale

Hugely important. How tall are the buildings? How embraced (or rejected) do you feel by the proximity of the houses and commercial spaces? Can you see the sky? How much of it? For how many hours each day? Do the buildings relate well to one another — or are there (as in New Orleans) huge hideous highways slicing right through downtown neighborhoods, utterly out of scale to, and dwarfing, their previous surroundings?

Smells

Might be the delicate perfume of orange blossoms in Seville in springtime or the salty air of the sea. The acrid smell of dusty ancient stone or woodsmoke from a distant fire or diesel fumes from Bangkok traffic or frying meat in a street market. The minute I stepped into Caracas airport, I caught a whiff of mold and rot, the specific smell of a developing nation.

Sounds

Temple bells. Sirens. The clatter of clogs on pavement. That distinctive sound the Paris metro makes before the doors close. The whirr of bicycles flashing by in Amsterdam.

Geography

Some places are ridiculously blessed in this respect — Rio, Hong Kong, Vancouver — ringed by mountains and/or ocean. Venice’s canals. Ronda’s astonishing cliffs.

Timelessness

This is the biggest one for me, that when you sit still at dawn with no one around, or under the stars, it might be 1634 or 1421 or 800 B.C. You expect a Mayan or Roman or Cathar to step out and say hello. No signs, no ads, no telephones or noise or electric lights in your eyes.

I’ve (thankfully) experienced this most strongly (so far!) in The Grand Canyon, Corsica, the Arctic, Machu Picchu and Kenya/Tanzania.

Materials

I love to see how different places use materials — glass, brick, wood, stone, straw, mud, mirror, mosaic, ceramic, gilt, silver, cobblestones, cement, tile, terra cotta, adobe. Montreal has gorgeous three-story apartment houses in white limestone — which in New York, Boston and Washington are rendered in red sandstone. I loved New Orleans’ wooden homes (although I overheard a distraught woman on the bus who had to move out of her rental apartment while the entire building was fumigated for termites.)

Proportions

I’m crazy for tall, mullioned sash windows, preferably with original bubbly glass — 8 panes over 8 or even 12 over 12. Tall shutters. Deep balconies and verandahs. I see this most powerfully in Paris, and other French cities. The relationships between buildings also makes a difference — think of the streetscapes of Paris and Amsterdam where a (relative) uniformity of style makes for a harmonious whole, not a nasty jumble.

Detail

Stained glass, wrought-iron fencing, balloon shades, contrasting brickwork, gingerbread, clerestory windows. Enclosed balconies in Portugal, Malta, Istanbul. The lace ironwork of New Orleans. The hand-shaped doorknockers of Malta. The curved, smoothed edges of an adobe house. One of the most astonishing sights anywhere was the chased silver altar in Arequipa, Peru that I saw in 1980 but never forgot.

Patina

My second favorite, the weathering and wearing of wood and stone by generations, centuries or millennia of use. The stone stairs in Grand Central Station. The smooth shine of an ancient brass doorhandle.

What are your picks?

What Makes The Perfect City or Town? David Byrne Gives The WSJ His Wish List

Image by t3rmin4t0r via Flickr

For musician David Bryne, the perfect city would combine Osaka’s robot-run parking lots with the Minneapolis lakefront, detailed in this Wall Street Journal story.

The photo here is of Sydney, a city of terrific physical beauty but not a city I liked very much, preferring — loving — Melbourne, divided by the Yarra River, a slower-moving city of neighborhoods. What does it for you — history, scale, great public transit, lots of parking, low rents?

Here’s some of my perfect-place mash-up: quick, easy access to countryside within 20 minutes, (Montreal); an enormous, covered farmer’s market open year-round (Toronto); narrow, twisting cobblestone streets (Manhattan’s West Village, and many others); safe, plentiful city cycling (Amsterdam); the scent of orange blossoms in spring (Seville); duck confit (Paris), blue corn enchiladas (Santa Fe, NM) fab BBQ (San Angelo, TX — my sweetie’s three votes); funky 1930s-era hammams (Paris); snow-capped mountains on one side of town, ocean the other (Vancouver); freshly-made chocolate-filled churros (Mexico City); galloping through the hills of Griffith Park at sunset, dancing to blues at 9:00 p.m. (Los Angeles).

What combination would make up your perfect city or town? Or are you already living in it….details?