Hacker News Reader

The comment about “open air museum” really resonates. Increasing numbers of European cities with well preserved districts are so overrun and catered to tourists that any sense of a living city is gone

View on HN

Only the big cities (eg Paris or London) preserve a sense of a city both maintaining a connection with their past but also still lived in

Not sure that's true. I was born and brought up in York, which is heavy on tourism (important from Roman Britain to the late mediaeval, with buildings and archaeology to match). But it's also an ordinary, livable, small city. It's a railway centre, makes chocolate, and has two universities. Definitely still 'lived in'.

Of course, if you spend time around York Minster (the cathedral), or Stonegate, or the Yorvik Viking Centre, you're going to be surrounded by tourists. And the place is more expensive than it would be without the history.

True, the problem can be confined to many overtouristed districts, not the entire city, but small places seem to suffer much more

Reply on news.ycombinator.com