I don't think so. I'm talking about the vibe of a city. Iirc pg wrote an article long back about the vibe of a city.
Vibe is a bit amorphous but I tend to think of vibe as a condensed view of what the city is about, a function of political tendencies, culture (music, sports, tech, entrepreneurship etc) and general friendliness. Job opportunities and decent social life are usually necessary conditions. Major cities like SF and NYC usually have all of them, provided you can afford living there.
But a city like San Antonio cannot offer everything, so if you don't dig Texan/Hispanic culture and don't like basketball, the grand river walk is not going to make you want to live there.
I think we're agreeing. If all you have is a riverwalk or otherwise a nice core but nothing much else that isn't pretty much generic city, that probably isn't much of an attraction to people who don't have some other reason to live there. As a counterpoint if you want something city-lite and don't want the expensive and concentrated NYC experience, maybe a smaller and slower place will be attractive. But, personally, if I can sample most of what a city has to offer in a weekend, I'm probably not interested in making the tradeoffs of city living.
Vibe is a bit amorphous but I tend to think of vibe as a condensed view of what the city is about, a function of political tendencies, culture (music, sports, tech, entrepreneurship etc) and general friendliness. Job opportunities and decent social life are usually necessary conditions. Major cities like SF and NYC usually have all of them, provided you can afford living there.
But a city like San Antonio cannot offer everything, so if you don't dig Texan/Hispanic culture and don't like basketball, the grand river walk is not going to make you want to live there.