Places to Fall In Love With (or In): 6 Perspectives on Lovability
What images come to your mind when asked to picture a romantic city?
Paris seems to be the global consensus choice when it comes to a place that was just made for lovers, but Rome or Venice might give it a run for its money. A bit closer to home, for our North American readers, I hear Savannah invoked a lot in association with romance. Maybe New Orleans. Maybe Quebec City. These are just a few that seem to be on our culture’s short list.
What is it about these places? And why are there so many places that nobody would think for a second of putting on this list? After all, nobody shoots their engagement photos in a suburban cul-de-sac.
All of the cities on the short list of aphrodisiac places, I’d argue, that have something deeply compelling in and of themselves. They are widely considered beautiful for their architecture and historic charm, but more fundamentally they are lovable places, places worth caring about. They are old places that have endured because of the love that generation after generation has showered upon them.
And when we spend time in a place like that—a place that, right down to the stone or brick or whatever it’s made of, evokes care and protection and permanence—we can’t help but project those emotions ourselves. I believe, in other words, that being in lovable places enhances our own capacity to feel and give love.
Here are six things that help make a city lovable, and the kind of place that might inspire you to love someone as well.
1. Lovable places are harmonious and subconsciously pleasing.
Lovable cities are beautiful. And in all of them, it’s the ensemble that’s beautiful, not merely the architecture. You can find one-off examples of great buildings in many cities, but the beauty of great urban design is something else entirely. It requires a repeated harmony, a fractal elegance from the tiniest details to the overall arrangement of a place around key landmarks. There is a sense of pleasing proportion that extends into the streets and along them. The rules for this type of design are more than a little bit ingrained in our very psychology—something in us as humans yearns for places that are unconsciously pleasing.
Listen: Why We Should Build Cities for Our Unconscious Brains
Photo by Andrew Price
2. Lovable places have walk appeal.
Another obvious thing about places we consider romantic is that they're all A+ places to take a stroll. These are cities with deep walk appeal, which is not the same thing as walkability.
I'm going to go out on a limb and speculate that a long walk with a partner has been considered a romantic activity since before there even were cities. It’s a deeply calming activity—a lot of the anxiety and self-consciousness that we feel when we’re sitting still trying to figure out what to do, or worrying about what we’re conveying, with our bodies, melts away when we’re in motion. The feeling of passing through the world and being in it and of it is therapeutic and mood-lifting.
This is all the more true when the city itself offers just the right amount of stimulation and interest—recurring little dopamine hits of delight instead of stale monotony.
A great walk evokes all sorts of memories, emotions, and random associations. The sensory memory of the feel of a place under your feet, the smell of its air, the tinge of the lighting, associated with the people you've known and loved there. A walk through a lovable city brings out the love in us.
Photo by Arian Horbovetz
3. Lovable places are playful.
You’re never too old to play. The most lovable urban places are tactile and encourage serendipity and spontaneity—moods you might pick up on and then carry into your interactions with whatever special someone is strolling alongside you. “Play” can take a lot of forms, but it’s all about getting the details right to create environments that draw you in.
Read: Playful Public Art
Read: Simple Things, Great Places
4. Lovable places foster community and connection.
While there's nothing wrong with a romantic stroll on a deserted beach, there's a different kind of romance available in the deep belongingness you find when you're with an individual whose company delights you, but also immersed in a crowd. We’re social animals, and there’s a sense of protection that comes with the presence of community that, in turn, frees us to truly be and express ourselves.
In a lovable place, much of life is lived in public, not behind closed doors and security walls. Neighbors meet each other and strike up friendships, in large part because they see each other regularly while walking the streets. The best efforts to capture lovability in new development, too, involve vibrant and vital public spaces.
Photo by JoEllen Moths from Pexels
5. Lovable places are worth maintaining, and well maintained.
Lovable places tend to be well built and well maintained. Fastidious attention to maintenance is the hallmark of a place whose current caretakers want, and expect, it to endure far beyond their own time there.
Read: If We’re Not Going to Maintain What We Have, Then Why Bother Building Anything New?
6. Lovable places are loved.
Despite all of the above, you actually don’t need centuries-old urbanism or historical landmarks to have a lovable town. You don’t need fancy boutiques and sidewalk cafes. You don’t even need a place that’s conventionally beautiful in an unblemished sort of way—you can have a deep abiding love for a place that’s been through some tough times and has the scars (or the potholes and vacant lots) to show for it. (And, of course, you can find romance in any number of surprising places too!)
Read: Stop Saying That Making Our Cities Better, Safer Places To Live Isn’t “Sexy”
Read: It Is the Mystic Patriot Who Reforms
G.K. Chesterton famously wrote, “Men did not love Rome because she was great. She was great because they had loved her.”
What will you do this year to shower some love on a place that is meaningful to you, and leave it a bit more lovable than you found it?