CitiesBeautiful.org promotes the appreciation of cities around the world. Visitors to Cities Beautiful.org learn a 15 term vocabulary describing beautiful urban places, collectively known as Beautiful Facets. The 15 Beautiful Facets derive from “common threads” in the theories on beauty put forth by famous commentators from Ancient Greek times to the present.
Since “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, everyone will have their favorites among the 15 Beautiful Facets. Website visitors can determine their favorite Facets by answering a series of multiple-choice psychometric questions, somewhat like an occupational aptitude test. Their answers are automatically analyzed and their preferences ranked.
CitiesBeautiful.org has categorized and mapped hundreds of sites in cities around the world according to the 15 Beautiful Facets. Once users establish their preferences from among the 15 Beautiful Facets, CitiesBeautiful.org delivers a tailored selection of the most beautiful experiences in cities worldwide. Visitors can travel virtually at the Cities tab of CitiesBeautiful.org, or put together a list of must-see places for future travels.
Here are comments from recent website visitors:
“I took the test and then clicked on Cape Town since I was most recently there and the things suggested under “Nature” were indeed the things I was most interested in seeing while there (Nature was my off the charts winner when I took the test). I’m going to check out your website before heading off to a new destination and I’m going to forward the link to some of my traveling companions as I think they may find it fascinating as well!”
“What a tremendous amount of information, all put together very uniquely -- a nice mix of academic and ‘common man’ language, content, and presentation. I took the test, and then looked over the results for San Francisco. The San Francisco map was easy to use and quite enlightening for me to be able to pick places to go based on the results of my ‘beauty test’."
“The site is very impressive. From an educator's point of view, I think the site offers an excellent way to teach aesthetics to secondary and college-age students.”
“Wow, this is amazing. You can almost travel from your home!”
The CitiesBeautiful.org website contains a considerable amount of additional content. For example, see the website’s Details tab for a free e-book containing brief biographies on 40 of the most important aesthetic philosophers, architects, city planners, and behavioral psychologists over the last 2,600 years; a thorough explanation of each the 15 Beautiful Facets; a detailed explanation of the method used for calculating the Cities Beautiful Index (CBI) of each city and much more.
Ideally you will find the website to be enjoyable and even enlightening. Check back often for newly added cities – and please tell your family and friends about CitiesBeautiful.org!
