Sounds

There is a lot more to cities than buildings, transport, open spaces, people and sounds. We don't often just stand in a city a listen to the sounds but you should try it and see what you can hear. There are some great websites where you can explore the world from sounds people have recorded Freesound and Radio Aporee are two examples. Musician and artist David Byrne used some sounds recorded in London for a short piece of music you can watch the video here.
I have only lived in Wellington for a couple of months but already I have heard more bird song than 10 years were I last lived, so in the city there is not only noise from cars, coffee machines buses etc. there are also natural sounds such as bird song, waves and wind.
The video below is a short bit about a project by artist Nina Katchadourian, who uses bird sounds in an interesting way.

Colour

Many buildings and public spaces in town and cities across the world don't use colour, well not from what I can see from the little bit of research I did looking at images on the internet and at the library. I found some interesting projects where people have used colour and they literally stand out from the crowd of dull and uniform cityscapes. The last image is from a project by Nina Katchadourian where she organised parking by the color of the cars,  there are many more interesting projects at her website.

Image via Urban Design Week

Image and more details via Superflex

Nina Katchadourian