u/BakerKitchen4567

I keep seeing redditors from the US talk about cities being nice because they have “very walkable downtowns”. The problem is, as soon as you leave many of these downtowns, you’re back to general American suburbia. This is not good city design.

In the best design cities of the world, there isn’t a single focal point that the entire city revolves around. Think Tokyo for example. You have Shinjiku, Ginza, Shibuya, etc. there isn’t a singular “downtown Tokyo”. Yet I keep reading redditors keep comparing how well designed American cities based how their vibrant/walkable their downtowns are. The mere idea is bad city planning. That’s all. Rant over

Today, I found out that Toyota is based out of the Nagoya area and automotive is a big industry there. Nagoya is known for being much more car dependent than the other Japanese cities (Tokyo, Osaka, Fuluokah, etc). Detroit often blames its car centricness on the car industry as well. So people theorize that big auto lobbies these cities to stay car centric. Thoughts?

First, a club called Medellin HTX opens in midtown now a second called Escobar HTX. you can’t make this up

Inspired by the post a few days ago asking about Honduras, I was curious about people’s thoughts on Venezuela, and separately, Colombia. Apparently in that post there was a debate on if only the islands are exclusively Caribbean or if the continental bordering countries are also considered. The overwhelming majority said it’s the islands exclusively, but with some exceptions such as Belize, Guyana and Suriname for cultural reasons. Also mentioned was Venezuela and Colombia as examples of continental Caribbean countries.

Now, Venezuela doesn’t surprise me. Big baseball culture, like its fellow Spanish Caribbean countries (DR, Cuba, PR). Heavily Caribbean based music culture (huge merengue, bachata, salsa, reggaeton and even calypso and soca). Venezuela’s Spanish language has influence from the Catalan islands of Spain which make its accent sound similar to Cuba. The music (salsa, tambor Venezolano). And Venezuelan cuisine is VERY similar to Cuban and Dominican. And perhaps most importantly, the Caribbean was in part named by the Carib people of Venezuela. So it would be weird to exclude the country that the Caribbean was literally named after.

Also, perhaps Venezuela being geographically closer to many of the islands may play a role? Where as Central America is an entirely separate culture in its own to the west.

So similar to how Belize and Guyana get “the pass” because their culture is similar to the islands, Venezuela gets a similar pass due to its culture resembling the Spanish Caribbean. On a side note, Trinidad and the ABC islands also have some cultural connections with Venezuela for obvious reasons.

But Colombia? They don’t share these characteristics with Venezuela (besides salsa music and maybe the cuisine). But overall, they seem something entirely separate. So this one was a bit curious to me. Panama, I could see. Colombia not as much.

For these reasons, my opinion would be Venezuela yes, Colombia no. But I’m curious to hear people’s thoughts on this.

I’m live in Texas. I drive to Florida relatively often. I always pass by the NOLA-Pensacola corridor. In Nola obviously I hit up the French quarter. In Pensacola, the beaches. And in Gulfport/Boloxi I’ve done casino stays

I haven’t really explored Mobile yet but I’d love to. Any recommendations?

Love me some Shipley’s. But I want to try some quality kolaches

Obviously, Colombia, Thailand, Phillippines and Brazil. Previously, Eastern Europe was up there but the war on Ukraine has shaked things up. Where else?