The New York Times' recent celebration of the city's "legendary literary hangouts" is an important reminder of one of the great features of city life. Cities have a way of mixing different people together and inspiring the creation of great things. And sometimes that happens rather informally. (That's one of the reasons why there's tremendous value in the nighttime economy.) Tina Jordan writes: "You might think of them as solitary creatures, furiously scribbling or typing alone, but as long as there have been writers in New York City, they have socialized together in an assortment of bars, restaurants, apartments and clubs."

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This is an interesting chart from the New York Times showing the breakdown of (real estate) uses across the largest downtowns/CBDs in the US. It was put together using satellite data and data from CoStar, including their boundary definitions for each downtown/CBD. The point of the chart is to show that some US downtowns are heavily dominated by office square footage. But if you look a bit closer, there are other interesting takeaways. Look at retail in Honolulu, hotels in Austin, and how much residential many US cities have in their CBDs.

Last month, a giant 4K digital cat was installed on a billboard near Shinjuku station in Tokyo. See above tweet. It was created using a 26 x 62 foot LED display, and the resulting effect is very much a trompe-l'œil. The cat looks like it's sitting on a ledge that is carved into the side of a building.

The cat doesn't have a name. But the New York Times has reported that locals have started to call it "Shinjuku east exit cat" because of where it is situated relative to the station. I am going to assume that this name sounds a little more endearing in Japanese.

Having spent a fair bit of time in Asia in my twenties -- mainly Taipei, Tokyo, and Hong Kong -- I've always been impressed by how playful Asian cities are with their buildings, billboards, signage, and lighting. It can make us feel overly conservative. A trip to Tokyo can be like a trip to the future.

I appreciate that most people don't want their cities to be overrun with advertising, and that's what billboards are usually for. It can get tacky. I get it. But sometimes it just makes sense to stick a massive 3D cat on the side of your building. It's fun and it captures people's attention.