Best description of a town/city/other setting

gaf1983

I like it when you get a really good sense of the place where a novel is set, when it is so good that it would make you want to visit, or avoid, the place in question.

Came across this in Robert Harris' Archangel, page 265, as the protagonist and his overly chirpy American sidekick enter the city after which the book is named:

As the vista broadened, even O'Brian's spirits seemed to fall. He called it a dump. He declared it a hole. He said it was the worst goddamn place he had ever seen.

A goods train clanked along the railroad track beside them. At the end of the bridge they turned left, towards what seemed to be the main part of the city. Everything had decayed. The facades of the buildings were pitted and peeling. Parts of the road had subsided. An ancient tram, in a white and mustard livery, went rattling by, making a sound like a chain being dragged over cobbles. Pedestrians tilted drunkenly in the snow.

Brought images to mind of what Borris-in-Ossory might one day look like should they ever decide to build a by-pass around it. No offence if anyone is from Borris-in-Ossory, or for that matter, Archangel.

Other books I thought in which the town they were set in played a key part include Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes, Hubert Selby Jr's Last Exit to Brooklyn and Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment.

What other books do you think really bring a particular place to life?

Lemon

'The Salesman' by Joseph O'Connor really evoked a sense of its location - the Killiney, Dalkey Bray area and coastal areas of South Dublin...

Also 'The Night Watch' by Sarah Waters really brought World War 2 Central London alive for me....you really wanted to go to London just to catch a sense of what it was like during the Blitz..