Which cities are among the best designed in the world and which are among the worst?

Tuesday 07th July, 04:00 AM JST

› Login to comment

Latest 15 of 29 Total Comments Show All

thedeath at 05:49 PM JST - 7th July

tokyo is fairly good to me. she got awesome massive train systems. i like that. with out the train systems, it would be worse than bangkok.

as for bangkok, it is hell when talk about city planing. basically they got no plan!
blvtzpk at 06:09 PM JST - 7th July

Yes, this whole 'designed' city business is a bit misleading - as noted above, they evolve. True, there are many cities that started with an initial plan, but with the general move from rural areas to urban settings in recent history, you get sprawl, and that sprawl tends to be simply managed rather than designed. And some cities do manage these changes better than others. As for public transport, I don't know if that can really be factored in given the conditions I've mentioned - with sprawl comes the needs for more extensive public transport, and most PT what we see (especially in older cities) has simply been put into place to serve the needs of the existing city - they're not really part of the design. Again, some cities manage better than others. For use of space, Singapore is pretty good, but some areas (e.g. the west) aren't as well served by public transport as one would hope.
stirfry at 06:27 PM JST - 7th July

'best designed' is a pretty wide definition...grid layouts (NYC) are obviously more convenient and much easier to navigate than, say, cities built in a circular pattern around a central landmark (tokyo, moscow)
timorborder at 06:54 PM JST - 7th July

Best designed would be Canberra, Australia, one of the few cities that was designed from scratch. Worst would be any of the mega cities whose population has outgrown the infrastructure on which the cities themselves are based.
rogerbentham at 08:18 PM JST - 7th July

best is frankfurt. any german city is precisely planned. believe me.
GenevaMan at 12:49 AM JST - 8th July

Sorry, but Geneva is the best designed; not the one in Florida, nor in New York, nor in Alabama, nor Wisconsin, nor Nebreska, the one in Switzerland of course. Every old towns in the World are amazing thoug. Unfortunately, japan doesn7t have a single one.

@DeepAir, pretty much every old city in the World was designed to protect the palace.
fairyprince at 01:43 AM JST - 8th July

A bit partial mayhaps but I gotta go NYC.

Magnificent design and central park to boot. Thank the gods they put that beauty in the center of it all.
nisegaijin at 09:47 AM JST - 8th July

What do you mean by best design? best looking or most convenient?

while Tokyo is certainly one of the most convenient, I would say that European cities like Prague, St. Petersburg, or Paris are best looking.
inakaRob at 10:10 AM JST - 8th July

tokyo-best and the worst. underground- the worst. above ground - best
koneko22 at 02:58 PM JST - 8th July

Tokyo is the best....Mexico City....hmmmm..horrible mess...in Central Illinois...fond memories of growing up with close knit families and values.
stirfry at 04:48 PM JST - 8th July

if we're talking best looking, tokyo comes in dead last
seesaw at 07:51 PM JST - 8th July

For me best is Tokyo. Organised, safe, sophisticated and many sightseeing places to go to. That's why I've lived here for many years. The worst is Amsterdam...creepy and scarry too...
Cos at 03:50 AM JST - 9th July

Worst of the worst : Paris. Living there was like hell. And historians think that was worse before. 250 yrs ago Parisians died 20 younger than other people because of stress, dirt and pollution. The advantage is I have appreciated living anywhere else after.

Nicer design : Singapore seems modern and pleasant, I love the garden atmosphere and the ethnic areas. But I have only a tourist point of view and the fact people cannot choose their house and such things must be hard to live. Also it's small, so that might be boring after a while.

Osaka is not pretty and a few areas have polluting factories, but it's quiet and convenient, we commute in 1/2 time than in Tokyo, we have everything for business, shopping, going out. For leisure in less than 30 minutes we have the beach, the onsen, mountains with wild bears, the lake, Nara for temples, Kobe for modern culture... I want to stay here ! I propose they take inspiration on Singapore to improve our urban decoration. In my street I'd like more palm trees (we have 3 small ones so far) and many orchids too outside (my neighbours collect them...but inside, in the stairs). That's not a question of money, it's just the taste of my neighbours : they like tacky things.
jeffrey at 01:25 AM JST - 14th July

Actually, until quite recently, one of the two best layout cities in Japan was Nagoya. Unlike Osaka and Tokyo, they decided to revamp street layouts after WWII giving the city a better grid. Osaka and Tokyo both pretty much went back to the same street patterns. Sapporo was designed by an Englishman and had the luxury of being in a mostly flat, wide space with no historic hang-ups.

Regardless of their surface arrangements, the Japanese still lead the world in moving people around underground.

In North American, Vancouver is probably the "nicest" city, though I don't know if it's the most "rationally" designed. Still too much auto traffic.

NYC is on a grid, but it takes about two years to get used to the nonsensical addresses, though it's no where near as bad as Japan.

I concur with another poster about Phoenix and the Valley of the Scum. It's just a mini version of LA in how it has sprawled with no regard to planning.
m6bob at 05:28 PM JST - 17th July

Honestly, even if Tokyo is voted 'the worst', I will visit as often as I can afford the time & money as, to me, it is the most interesting city in the world to me. Food, shopping, service, transportation are all 1st class.