PaJoRa

i know its not just about communism, thats what i like about your city, and in every european country you'll find some old cityquarters with a long history... poor koelner dom, why can't he live peacefully... anyway, i'm waiting for your redesigned Ility... was i right with polish?

hahahaha!!! i was VERY,VERY confused on page 3 when i saw our koelner dom (cathedral of colone) in your communistic state because a "karneval"song says: " mer lasse de dom in koelle, denn da gehoert er hin, wat soll er denn woanders, dat haett doch kenen sinn" i cannot really translate it, but it says somtheing like: we let the cathedrel here in colone, cuz here is its place, why put it on another plance, that wouldn't make any sense THE COMMUNISM HAVE AN ANSWER FOR EVERYTHING!!! Dzjenkuje, Genosse, for your great CJ !!! So much cities, each with his own history, flag, archtecture and function.... great ideas! like the mix of boring, typicall communistic flats and squares on the one side, your beautiful, south-german looking cities and the muslim-castle on the other side!!!!! congratilation, der kommunismus siegt immer! (communsim always wins) ;-)

i got some more tips: as glenni said, they are quarters, wich inhabitants are (sometimes)proud to call ghetto... in fact every german city with more dan 50,000 inhabitant i saw have some ugly, tall building for the poor people, but remember a few things for the "ghettos" : they are always (!) situated at the outskirts and the periphery, paris is a very extreme example, so you never see a Harlem here and mostly they have much space between the buildings, eg with simple grass field and a little playground... Glenni is right about the finacial district in london and paris, they are ther, but would be very small for an american city. But London, Paris, Frankfurt: those are exeptions... i live in bonn (300,000 inhabitants, old capital of fed.germany) an we have just one real skyscraper, wich looks really lonesome between all the little buildings here... very important: the citys not just grow from one old towncenter towards a big city. often you have villages and towns wich are "eaten up" by the growing city, if you know what i mean. You see that in the structure of many citys, that they have one big centre, and then a couple of other centers, beacause they belonged to another town wich unified with other town in the latest century. you see that with almost every city in diffrent ways (in 1800, berlin and Charlottenburg were 2 towns, but after industrialisation, they grow together, and today, Charlottenburg still have one of the most important shopping streets. other villages like frohnau becamed later part of the city) for the $$ residents: they are kind of suburbs in europe, but they were never planned like h we need a suburb here! , but growed from villages, or simply growed beside a street... i give an example: you have one important street to the city, then some house were build here, then a supllemenarty street is build, more houses, another street, a small church,... then you get those villages full of commuters i hope i helped you