31 Urbane Facts About World’s Most Famous Cities

A city of Fort Walton Beach in Florida passed a law “designed to keep vagrants and others from sleeping in the park.” Under the code, visitors to parks cannot “sleep or protractedly lounge” on seats, benches or other areas.

2. Many major cities in Europe offer ‘Sanisettes’: private, self-contained, self-cleaning, public bathrooms. After the user has exited, a wash cycle begins and the entire floor and toilet fixture are automatically sprayed, scrubbed and disinfected.

3. Cities in Greece (Thessaloniki metro) struggle to build subway systems because they keep digging up ancient ruins.

4. In Lima, Peru there is a billboard that creates drinkable water out of thin air.

5. The city with the highest crime rate in the United States is East St. Louis, Illinois. Its murder rate is 101 per 100,000 residents, which is more than double that of the city with the number 2 murder rate, Gary, Indiana, and also higher than the country of Honduras, whose murder rate is the highest in the world.

Toronto has an underground arcology, a network of underground tunnels where it possible to live without needing to venture outside.

7. The city of Medellin, Colombia reduced motorcycle assassinations by 39% when it banned male passengers from riding on the back of motorbikes.

8. Phoenix, Arizona has a similar latitude to the Ancient city of Carthage, which was a Phoenician city-state. People from Phoenix today are known as Phoenicians.

9. In San Antonio, Texas, lynchings used to be held in front of the San Fernando Cathedral until the priest cut the trees in which the hangings took place.

10. Calgary, Canada has the longest urban cycling/walking path network in the world, at over 1000 km.

Birmingham in the United Kingdom has a gay village named Birmingham Gay Village, which is full of LGBT friendly businesses, including sex shops and an adult cinema.

12. In Kawasaki, Japan, there is a 3-story tall amusement park that was modeled after the Kowloon Walled City.

13. Houston spent $2.8 billion expanding the Katy Freeway to 23 lanes only to slow traffic down by 30%.

14. There exists a mysterious Octopus House in Bandung, Bali that no one knows the origin of, but that locals have conjectured that it is the church of Satan.

15. In Delhi, if a tree falls sick, an ambulance is dispatched to treat them.

There is a place named Downtown Eastside in Vancouver that provides a safe space for intravenous drug (Insite) addicts to inject themselves. They provide clean needles, food, and drug addiction counseling.

17. Until 2005, Toronto had a St. James-Bond Church, formed by the 1928 merger of the Bond Street Congregational Church and the St. James Square Presbyterian Church.

18. During the Munich Massacre, the camera crews filmed the actions and broadcasted it live on TV, so the terrorists were able to watch the police prepare an attack.

19. Nairobi, Kenya has a thriving country music scene because Kenyans “can identify with the stories in the songs.” Country Music CDs make up 15% of all music sold.

20. Madrid has the oldest continuously running restaurant in the world named Sobrino de Botín which hasn't closed its doors even once since its opening in 1725.

In Budapest, there is an hourglass (Timewheel) that takes a full year to run out. It takes 4 people almost an hour to turn it.

22. In 2010, heavily-armed SWAT teams raided nine barbershops in Orlando, Florida and arrested 34 people for barbering without a license.

23. There is a city named Madras in Oregon which is served by an airport called Bombay Farms, named after the older names of the Indian cities - Chennai and Mumbai respectively.

24. In the Chinese city of Chongqing, cell phone addicts have their own sidewalk lane.

25. Each Sunday there is an outdoor marriage market organized in Shanghai where thousands of singles have their parents search for a potential spouse.