Perhaps a city is a living thing, each city has its own personality, after all.

Los Angeles is not Vienna, London is not Moscow, Chicago is not Paris. Each city is a collection of lives and buildings and it has its own personality.

So?

So, if a city has a personality, maybe it also has a soul. Maybe it dreams.

That is where I believe we have come. We are in the dreams of the city. That’s why some places hover on the brink of recognition; why we almost know where we are.

You mean that we’re asleep?

No. We are awake, or so I believe. I mean that the city is asleep. And that we are all stumbling through the city’s dreams.

Neil Gaiman, The Sandman | World’s End