r/Documentaries • u/ElDonnintello • Sep 01 '23
Travel/Places Why British cities make no sense (2023) [00:11:13]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Whqs8v1svyo337
Sep 01 '23
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/ElDonnintello Sep 01 '23
Yea this is one of my favorite channel, I also really like "Not Just Bikes" !
And if you want to find more YouTube channels like these one, here is a list of more than 25 of the best channels about Urban Planning and Geography. You can filter by average duration if you want really in depth content!82
Sep 01 '23
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u/Iferrorgotozero Sep 02 '23
Likely the sheer amount of channels makes quality control very difficult.
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Sep 02 '23
[deleted]
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u/JackOSevens Sep 02 '23
No offense, cuz we're in a positive Map Men thread, but no there isn't a problem from beardy guy's perspective. The 'problem' is undiscerning viewers who like his delivery and don't care about accuracy are making him lots of money.
If I'm in his shoes and making more meh-quality channels means I make more money, I'm going to do it. If people want better, they can stop making him money hand over fist and watch better content.
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u/Iferrorgotozero Sep 02 '23
I do like watching him (Simon Whistler, btw). And yes, we can always vote with our wallets.
To your other point, Map Men is the greatest. Plebs.
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u/Gemmabeta Sep 02 '23
Simon Whistler is basically a professional script reader these days. There is a few channel where the main schtick is that he has no idea what he is reading and react to the text in real time.
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u/ricorgbldr Sep 02 '23
That's why I actively avoid everything he is in. He doesn't come off as interested in what he's blabbing about, just seems condescending. Total turn off.
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u/kblkbl165 Sep 02 '23
Tbf that’s basically most “slideshow informational” channels. Most viewers don’t know much about the subject and just binge through a bunch of videos of a dude with a cool/quirky accent saying a bunch of stuff they’re half paying attention to.
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u/JackOSevens Sep 02 '23
Yeah, true. I try to find academics (like Sean Munger) if I'm into the subject in any depth, but some people don't like the lack of top tier visuals that historians/academics provide.
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u/ElDonnintello Sep 01 '23
Actually I never understood this guy haha he also has a True Crime channel, that makes no sense lol
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u/stoobertb Sep 02 '23
I've never heard of, or seen Megaprojects, but I guessed correctly at who you were talking about.
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u/80081356942 Sep 02 '23
Simon is just a presenter, people/companies hire him to record stuff they’ve written. He doesn’t actually come up with the material himself.
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u/BallerGuitarer Sep 01 '23
Have you heard of About Here?
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u/civodar Sep 02 '23 edited Sep 02 '23
I love about here! Most of the videos are about Vancouver, but they talk about things that apply to other cities as well
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u/alc4pwned Sep 02 '23
That list is a mix of genuinely good educational content and political content. Like, I hope people realize that NJB is a political channel and many experts in economics, urban development, etc would disagree with the things he says.
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u/ElDonnintello Sep 02 '23
I think for this kind of topics, everything is political and depends on your ideology. It is not really possible to be "not political" in economics for instance and a lot of said "experts" will always disagree
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u/shalvar_kordi Sep 02 '23
Yea this is one of my favorite channel, I also really like "Not Just Bikes" !
Not Just Bikes is a whingeing moron. I watched his videos for years (and some of them have good information!), but there are better urbanist youtubers out there, and unlike NJB, they might not have latent contempt for the poor.
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u/ElDonnintello Sep 02 '23
Why do you think he has contempt for the poor?
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u/shalvar_kordi Sep 02 '23
He told some transit advocacy group in (some north American city I can't remember, sorry): 'If you're trying to fix the US, you're watching the wrong channel' (???), and that 'people should give up on North America'. What else can this be interpreted as? I know he understands that he is in a position of great fortune to have the capacity to move his country to follow his whims, but what kind of abrasive manner of communicating to people is this? (especially to people trying to improve the cities where they live)
Ultimately, most of NJB's channel consists of saying: 'my Canadian hometown sucks monkey butt, but look at all the nice things they have over here in the Netherlands!' I am not asking for youtubers to all be academics, but there are more learned urbanist youtubers out there who are also less b!tchy, e.g. RM Transit, Alan Fisher, City Nerd, etc.
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u/xX-GalaxSpace-Xx Sep 02 '23
Absolutely agreed. He often purposely refuses to mention real benefits of car based transportation/design that are important to keep in mind in any city, no matter if 90% of people use public transport.
Also according to him any city that isnt Amsterdam with a crusade against cars and a cycling addiction is a hell hole to live in.
Id go so far to argue some of his videos cause damage with missinformation and exaggeration
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u/EternamD Sep 02 '23
I first discovered these guys with a Map Men video years and years ago, but then was distraught to find that the channel belongs to the annoying one. I like his facts about London travel videos but his smugness makes me cringe so much. Much prefer the other dude.
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u/w1987g Sep 01 '23
♫Map men
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u/JackSummerhill Sep 01 '23
🎵 Map men
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u/mitten2787 Sep 02 '23
As someone from Reading this feels like a personal attack.
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u/Azsura Sep 02 '23
Agreed. No love for Reading - also a fellow person from Reading
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u/ratonbox Sep 02 '23
Hey, it's your fault for insisting on the wrong pronunciation for the not-city name.
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u/Badger8472 Sep 01 '23
I'm so happy they are doing content again. They are fantastic!
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u/ElDonnintello Sep 01 '23
Yea, after 8 months of starvation lol
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u/Randyaccreddit Sep 01 '23
8 months?! I only like once a month or so YouTube recommends me them
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u/howtogun Sep 01 '23
Still a bit stupid Reading is not a city.
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u/C_Hawk14 Sep 02 '23
Den Haag, the Dutch seat of power is a village of 560k people, about 3% of the population. It never bought city rights and merely has an honorary title of city granted by Lodewijk Napoleon
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u/YoastK Sep 02 '23
and on the other side of the coin, Staverden has city rights and a population of 30
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u/neon_trotsky_ Sep 02 '23
Just like Sloten! The size of a village but with city rights. Fun fact, in the Dutch Nothern province of Friesland we have a concept between a city and a village called "Flecke". It had all the rights of a city except for the garrison. Joure is a flecke and if I'm not mistaken Drachten is also a flecke.
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u/amanset Sep 02 '23
Wouldn’t that be better translated as a town?
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u/C_Hawk14 Sep 11 '23
It translates to "dorp" but reversing that translates to village, township or thorpe according to Google
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u/amanset Sep 11 '23
Villages are basically a handful of houses, a few hundred residents at most. If you are in the thousands then it is a town.
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u/drlongtrl Sep 02 '23
Just as stupid as it's pronunciation.
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u/sitonmyfacejosephg-l Sep 02 '23
Have you read about Reading?
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u/Acid_Monster Sep 02 '23
I turned red after reading about Reading.
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u/imapassenger1 Sep 02 '23
We have a cinema chain by that name in Australia. I think pronunciation is about 50/50.
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u/ElDonnintello Sep 02 '23
I actually thought it was even bigger because I knew the Football Club lol
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u/ovenface2000 Sep 02 '23
City status generally means it has a Cathedral. St David’s does, Reading doesn’t.
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u/Xerphiel Sep 02 '23
Not true, as explained in the map men video!
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u/ovenface2000 Sep 02 '23
It’s the case for St David’s though. So not not true. Agree larger towns can get city status, but the sole reason St David’s is a city is due to the Cathedral.
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u/SS20x3 Sep 01 '23
I found out about this channel yesterday, and I've just been binging their vids. Hounslow means Hounslow! Death to Ealing! Death to Hillingdon!
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u/loimprevisto Sep 02 '23
Item #70 on the list at 10:20 was worth a little giggle. Really the whole list was fun.
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u/happy_life15 Sep 02 '23
Jay Foreman’s whole catalogue is amazing! And I, for one, am very proud to be a Map Men Merch Purchaser. Men men men men. …men
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u/phuck-you-reddit Sep 02 '23
Entertaining and enjoyable but I'm not sure a 10 minute YouTube video (actually a bit less after you subtract the ~90 second sponsorship in the middle) counts as a documentary.
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u/EnthusiasticHamster Sep 02 '23
But the University of Suffolk is in Ipswich :(
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u/mariegriffiths Sep 02 '23
Ipswich is in East Anglia but The University of East Anglia is in Norwich.
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u/EnthusiasticHamster Sep 02 '23 edited Sep 02 '23
This is completely true, UEA is on the outskirts of Norwich. It is still true that the University of Suffolk is in Ipswich and since 2016 the University of Suffolk has been an independent university. Cambridgeshire is also part of East Anglia but this does not mean the University of Cambridge is part of UEA.
So my initial comment highlighting a little fact check of this video still stands, Ipswich is a town which also has a university.
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u/kumanosuke Sep 02 '23
Comparable to Germany. Calling yourself a "City" was tied to legal independence in the middle ages. Calling yourself a "Markt" was tied to have a market and is rather what a village might be. There are "markets" though which are bigger than some cities today, but don't call themselves city.
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u/crochetmaster09 Sep 02 '23
Love this channel and will now have the song stuck in my head again all day 😂 highly recommend their Unfinished London series too!
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u/Adoiron07 Sep 02 '23
Sure wish the YouTube button would work so I could get redirected to the YouTube app… 😒
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u/bomboclawt75 Sep 02 '23 edited Sep 02 '23
A Hamlet is a small group of Houses.
A Village is a Hamlet plus a Church.
A Town is a Village plus a Market.
A City is a Town plus a Cathedral.
Edit: (Historically, the qualifying factor was the presence of a cathedral, resulting in some very small cities such as Wells, with a population of 12,000 as of 2018, and St Davids, with a population of 1,841 as of 2011.) According to the "functional definition", a city is not distinguished by size alone, but also by the role it plays within a larger political context. Cities serve as administrative, commercial, religious, and cultural hubs for their larger surrounding areas.
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u/barbarkbarkov Sep 02 '23
Why did their YouTube channel change to just Jay foreman?
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u/sa_sagan Sep 02 '23
It was always Jay Foreman's channel. He didn't start doing map men on there until a few years in.
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u/GrizzlyBear74 Sep 03 '23
Wtf do they pronounce the town "Reading" as "redding"?
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u/hisokafan88 Sep 03 '23
Because that's the pronunciation
Out of curiosity how would you pronounce Leicester?
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u/Now_Wait-4-Last_Year Sep 02 '23
I thought British cities made no sense because they're full of Brits?
Leaving Sri Lanka tomorrow to go to London, will investigate further!
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Sep 02 '23
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u/TheRoboticChimp Sep 02 '23
I can’t think of any other countries that define a city by decree of the monarch today.
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u/scyber Sep 02 '23
I live in NJ, we have our own quirkiness when it comes to municipalities:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_government_in_New_Jersey
We have more municipalities than California, which is 20x the size and has 4x the population of NJ.
We also have quirky municipalities like South Hackensack which is made up of 3 disconnected parcels of land.
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u/MobiusNaked Sep 02 '23
Croydon is over 390k now, has Palaces, Universities and used to have Archbishop’s. Just a town.
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u/spaceyjase Sep 02 '23
Moved from Wolves in 2000 and then they get city status, now in Reading without… coincidence? (maybe)
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u/Joebranflakes Sep 01 '23
This is a geography/sociology YouTube channel. It is also funny as hell, and that is both charming and absurd.