Centers of gravity 

New York, London, Paris, Rome, Tokyo. The list of world class cities is not that much longer than that. On that list are those cities, where everyone knows someone, everyone has a thought on some great place to go to, a place with a dear memory, a scene from a film that stroke a particular note, a small nostalgia in their heart. These are cities with which we have a permanent-and-hate relationship in that they swallow us while we are on premises, exhaust us till our last breath with their vastness, but constantly enthrall us with their ability to innovate, yet remain loyal to their established style.

These are the cities always worth a visit: rain or shine, cheap or expensive, downtown or in the periphery, under ring or left wing governments. And they continue to faithfully attract crowds of tourists of all kinds, from the hippie backpackers fitting the exact number of pairs of underwear for the days in town, to the mass tourists sightseeing from the comfort of their mega-sized buses equipped with multilingual travel guides, to the rich and famous with access to the trendiest spots. 

Over the years, other cities have entered into the race for the new travel destination hotspot, and may have, for a second, eclipsed our old time favorites. With eyes full of awe, we have flocked to Bali, Beijing, Dubai, Buenos Aires, Moscow for some Russian chic, some Latin American passion, some Middle Eastern luxury. And sometimes, some of us, have come back, but most have finished that book and moved on to the next genre in the anticipation of a surprise, a novelty, of that tingling sensation of awe, even if it last just a few seconds.

In search for that fleeting tingle, travel guides have tripped over each other to dig up the new jewel, lost somewhere in the middle of some unknown ocean, but eventually we've run of oceans to explore. And we've more or less ran out of up-and-coming cities likes of Istanbul or Dubai and we've gotten bored again. The travel industry went back to the drawing board and have over the years, come up, to their great credit, with scores of cities and villages with resorts, boutique hotels, temporarily unspoiled nature and rare species of animals. 

The competition in the industry has heated up to boiling temperatures. Dubai has poured cash - air-conditioning open space - to build what is now the highest building in the world, the Bourj Al Khalifa. Butan has thought of restricting the number of annual visas for tourists in order to make them feel exclusive. Others are pondering as to how they can up their game in emerging forums such as the Intelligent Cities Summit (whoever thought of that name!), where urban architects, designers, construction geniuses and others get to ponder how to make their city the best place to live. 

The truth, however, is that our choice of a city to grow old in has virtually nothing to do with our choice of a city to visit. Indeed, one could argue that they are the opposite and the fact that retirees often move from large urban centers to a countryside setting is an iron proof of that. For most of us avid travelers, the tingle does not arise from seeing roses in a remote garden, unless our grandmother was an avid gardener, but at a sight something novel. Perhaps Intelligent Cities is not what we are after in the end. 

What we are all after is novelty and novelty at all cost: at the cost of risk, at the cost of extreme temperatures, at the cost of understanding nothing in foreign languages, and of course at the cost of some serious money. While Kabul and Baghdad might indeed be a tad too far for most of us, tourists are now flocking to places as improbable as North Korea or Burma. Some even drop in places as unconventional as Reykjavik, which after the Icelandic meltdown, has become unsurprisingly cheap and surprisingly trendy.

Since the transport industry has banalized the crossing of continents, we have discovered and categorized cities into top destinations for honeymoons, water sports, spas, sex tourism, beautiful people, natural waterfalls, parties. And yet, les grandes classiques have survived the discoveries of destinations with rare animals, cheap sex, ethnic food and around-the-clock sun. They have shaken off the cheap copycat attempts such as Las Vegas or Tianduchang (a Chinese city built as a copy of Paris).

Their reputation stands, completely unfettered, in sight of these discoveries and up-and-coming competitors. They are the cities of their own class, of the same class, as the British nobility or the Hollywood superstars who no longer have to prove their credibility to anyone else. And while they are no longer the economic powerhouses of our century, that no longer matters because they have already passed that stage, created their persona, and moved on, leaving the Moscows of this world to repaint their facade, the Beijings of this world to create their persona and the Beiruts of this world to rebuild.

So, why do we always flock for more of the same while looking for novelty? The answer to this question lies perhaps as much in the uniqueness of each of these cities, as in their ability to cater to all tastes, from the most unsophisticated, to the most demanding. To their ability to pander to inequality, to appall, as much as enthrall, to surprise as much as exhaust, to be anything but remain predictable. To their obvious inequality. Only in London can one eat a mountain of quality Indian food for under 5 pounds and spot a 150,000 pound pot of face cream at Harrods. Only in New York can you access any cuisine in the world and speak every language in the world. 

These cities, to the horror of their bourgeoisie, have swallowed waves of immigration that have rendered them more colorful, more socially complex, more dangerous, but also more multifaceted than those cities who have sent their native Chinese, Mexican, or Moroccans there. These new arrivals have had to fit in the style of the house, be it Dior, Abercrombie and Fitch, or Versace, and weave in the fabric of their host their own influence, without disrupting the grand design of the tissue. 

The result have been cities that - much like the fashion houses - have been able to retain their persona, even faced with bouts of bad behavior as was the case of Dior when John Galliano went of the cuff. So, next time someone tells you that Bodrum is the next Saint Tropez or that Saint Tropez is better value for money than Paris, think again. And again. And again. For some things old are still better than a million things new. And that's precisely why we gravitate there, as Newton told us already a while back.