It would be nice if things changed in the sense that they became more cosmopolitan, more inclusive, wider rather than narrower, with a kind of a view towards the future and a view towards many different kinds of people and people from different cultures living together. Because that's what a city really is about...That's the beauty of a great city. And the sad thing is, there was a time when you thought Bombay had it.

A big city is always partially a Babylon, sometimes an eclectic mixture, juxtaposing contrasts, dialogue and conflict all at once. It is a Unity achieved thanks to our differences. It contains both old and new things. A city without development is dull. A city deprived of its historical context is uninteresting. Moreover, a city without clear urban planning ideas is a toneless backwater.

Perched on the southern tip of Africa, far from the centre of anything, many writers have lamented the cultural backwardness, the oppression of living in a divided city. Even as Cape Town evolves, grows more cosmopolitan, holds its first Picasso exhibition, becomes an international convention hub, acquires its very own fashion week ... I still can’t help feeling the old unease. Is it the parochialism and cliquishness that outsiders comment on, joking that only third-generation Capetonians are really accepted? Is it the self-satisfied airheads basking at Camps Bay cafés, flicking golden curls and agonising over which cocktail to order? Is it the smug self-sufficiency that comes with having so much beauty on your doorstep that you don’t need to connect with your neighbour? Is it something to do with the schizophrenia of the city not being quite African, of holding onto Europe’s apron strings, of not knowing who or what it really is? Or is it the crime, that ubiquitous topic of so much conversation and so little action, which makes this one of the most violent cities on earth?

The pleasant surprise that awaits the visitor to Calcutta is this: it is poor and crowded and dirty, in ways which are hard to exaggerate, but it is anything but abject. Its people are neither inert nor cringing. They work and they struggle, and as a general rule (especially as compared with ostensibly richer cities such as Bombay) they do not beg. This is the city of Tagore, of Ray and Bose and Mrinal Sen, and of a great flowering of culture and nationalism. There are films, theaters, university departments and magazines, all of a high quality. The photographs of Raghubir Singh are a testament to the vitality of the people, as well as to the beauty and variety of the architecture. Secular-leftist politics predominate, with a very strong internationalist temper: hardly unwelcome in a region so poisoned by brute religion. When I paid my own visit to the city some years ago, I immediately felt rather cheated by the anti-Calcutta propaganda put out by the Muggeridges of the world.

We realize that we are all brothers and sisters and that together we must build a cleaner, more beautiful city

I work in Washington and I know that money corrupts. And I and a lot of other people were trying to stop that corruption. Obviously, from what we've been seeing lately, we didn't complete the job. But I would rather have a clean government than one where 'First Amendment rights' are being respected that has become corrupt. If I had my choice, I'd rather have the clean government.

The gracefulness of the slender fishing boats that glided into the harbor in Dakar was equaled only by the elegance of the Senegalese women who sailed through the city in flowing robes and turbaned heads. I wandered through the nearby marketplace, intoxicated by the exotic spices and perfumes. The Senegalese are a handsome people and I enjoyed the brief time that Oliver and I spent in their country. The society showed how disparate elements — French, Islamic, and African — can mingle to create a unique and distinctive culture.

We will cleanse every area of public discourse that has been westernised and where Indian culture and civilisation need to be restored - be it the history we read or our cultural heritage or our institutes that have been polluted over years.

Lusaka is dirty, and the litter is pervasive. Many of us desire to live in a clean city, free from uncollected garbage and indiscriminate waste disposal. Let's come together to make this a reality. On August 11, vote for us as your mayor, and we promise to restore cleanliness to Lusaka.

A clean setting leads people to do good things: Not engage in crime, not litter, and show more generosity," Vohs explains for the Association for Psychological Science . "We found, however, that you can get really valuable outcomes from being in a messy setting.

As far as women are concerned, they seem always to have been more clean than the men, except when men painted them in colors which men liked best. Perhaps society was actually cleaner in the thirteenth century than in the sixteenth, as Saint Louis was more decent than Francis I, and as the bath was habitual in the twelfth century and exceptional in the renaissance.

He stared at the city, half slum, half paradise. How could a place be so ugly and violent yet beautiful at the same time? he wondered. He hadn’t known about the poverty and violence of Lagos until he arrived. It was as if people conspired with the city to weave a web of silence around its unsavoury parts.

All around Lusaka, there's garbage everywhere, and this needs to change as soon as we take office this week. Our beautiful city cannot continue to be overwhelmed by litter.

A church house, gin house,
A school house, outhouse
On highway number nineteen,
The people keep the city clean.