Santiago

Santiago: yes, with smog but also a great public transportation
system, parks, museums, the tallest building in South America,
the Andes towering over all.  From the top of San Cristobal park.

Lots of songs list cities;  immediately (before my wi-fi disappears!) I'm thinking of  "Dancing in the Streets" (I grew up with Van Halen's version) and Melissa Ferrick's "Welcome to my Life,"  but the song I'm thinking of in terms of Santiago is Steve Earle's "Fort Worth Blues," because it has the line "Houston ain't that bad a town."  Well, I don't think Santiago is either.  Ok, I'm not an authority on the capital of six million souls, but I've been back and forth enough to know that it has as many redeeming factors about it as Atlanta or Detroit do (which presupposes that I don't think they are that bad either).

I guess growing up in Detroit then traveling to other cities, and reading about New Urbanism has lead me to experiencing cities and thinking how they function.  I've always liked thinking about the "syntax" of streets--how the different properties and the building/landscaping on them work together or not.  I have come to understand that mixed-used development was the organic pattern of cities until the proliferation of the private automobile.  I have no delusions about cities:  I know they are magnets for the economically disenfranchised as well as the entrepreneurs, and I know that those two groups aren't mutually exclusive, but that great poverty prevails in huge cities.

Santiago has a few major factors working against it besides it being the hub of this ridiculously elongated country.  The first is that it is in a bowl, like L.A.  Sitting in the bottom of a valley between the coastal mountains and the Andes, pollution is generated in Santiago and stays there. And then there are the earthquakes that periodically erase things.  Still, it has the bones of an exceptional place.  The Mapocho River runs through the city and provides for various bridges that cross the admittedly unappealing channel.  The river also has provided for ample boulevards lined with continuous parks.  San Cristobal is an impressive urban park that gives panoramic views of the city and offers the super ascensor/funicular as well as a running and cycling haven.  Santa Lucia is also an incredible park wedged into the most interesting part of the city.

Skirting Santa Lucia is my favorite street in Santiago--Calle Lastarria.  It is short and meandering.  From La Alameda (properly called O'Higgins), it is easy to miss Lastarria as a minor side street across from Pontificia Universidad Católica, but turn the corner and you are in a European-flavored Latin America neighborhood street of shops, restaurants, pedestrians, calm traffic, bikes, and funky buildings.

The cousin-It building on Calle Lastarria

Co-workers speak of Santiago as I speak of Atlanta (I know I contradict myself), but I think that my repeated trips to it have provided me for a case to appreciate a real city that functions in a difficult location and for a country that has very different circumstances than those that are home to the world's great capitals.