Soul inspiring?

A video sent to me by my friend Guillaume who lives in Seattle Washington, USA. He is a soulful man from the region of Normandy in France. We met in Lyon.

The international vibrations and voices move me. The power of each voice singing one song in different cities.  Is this what makes for an inspiring city?

The inspiring cities website suggests it it’s a matter of culture, but not just the arts.

Culture: everything that makes us human, everything that is passed from one generation to the other, everything that makes life in cities a positive experience.

I have three things that inspire me in Lyon France where I live and three that are not inspirational.

  1. The VeloVs inspire and the métro does not. There are not enough trains.  I’m a human being not a sardine.
  2. Les Berges du Rhône green inspiration. (Check out Mayor Collomb’s blog) The increasing areas of obscene ugly graffiti and trash depressing.
  3. Play areas for children bring joyful inspiration. Not enough crèches and the economic disincentives to create them irrational. How can you have such a high demand for a service that goes unfulfilled because of the disincentives to run them as a business?

The inspiring cities’ website is based in Amsterdam.  It’s no surprise.  What do the Dutch know in Amsterdam? They suggest searching for the soul of a city to find its inspiration.

What is the soul of Lyon and the city where you live? Is it a positive experience? Are there incentives to be entrepreneurs no matter your nationality, gender or ethnicity? Can you move about and navigate the city safely with enough breathing space. Is there beauty or trash and tags?

Let’s be soul inspiring and always expat-friendly!