Add EXCLUDE_CC + KEEP_SLUGS to gen_cities.py: drop cities in countries that
criminalize LGBTQ+ people (plus China, Pakistan, Indonesia by choice), except a
hand-kept list of notable / tourist / high-English hubs — Lagos & Abuja; Nairobi &
Mombasa; Cairo, Giza, Alexandria; Dubai & Abu Dhabi; Kuala Lumpur/Malacca/Kota
Kinabalu/Kuching; Dar es Salaam/Zanzibar/Arusha; Casablanca/Fes/Rabat; Tehran;
Jeddah; Baghdad; Kabul; 7 Pakistani cities (Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Faisalabad,
Rawalpindi, Multan, Hyderabad); Jakarta + Surabaya + Bekasi; and China's 5 most
English-friendly cities (Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Chengdu). Removed
slots backfill from the next-ranked non-excluded cities, so cities.json stays 1000.
Flavor regenerated (prunes removed, fetches backfilled).
Add a third tier to gen_cities.py: the top-population cities from the remaining
English-official countries plus countries where >35% speak English (Eurobarometer/
EF), that weren't already chosen. cities.json grows to 1000 (500 global + 250
core-English + 250 extended), pulling in the biggest cities of India, Nigeria,
Pakistan, the Philippines, plus Amsterdam/Stockholm/Nairobi/Tel Aviv, etc.
gen_flavor.py is now incremental (fetches only cities missing a blurb, prunes stale
ones; --full to rebuild); cities_flavor.json refreshed to cover 942/1000.
Add unique editorial content so the programmatic pages don't read as templated:
- gen_flavor.py seeds backend/cities_flavor.json with a short descriptive blurb per
city from Wikipedia's free REST summary API (no key), validating each match by
comparing article coordinates to the city's lat/lon so the wrong 'Springfield'
never attaches. Retries + modest concurrency; ~700/750 cities get a blurb, the
rest render without one. Text is CC BY-SA, attributed with a 'via Wikipedia' link.
- City pages show the blurb under the intro and a travel callout that deep-links to
the compare page with the city pre-loaded (/compare#loc=lat,lon) — the visitor
just adds their own city. Month pages get the same seasonal 'visiting in {month}?'
compare link. Both add unique per-page text and internal links.
- cities.py gains flavor(slug); tests cover the blurb + attribution + compare CTA.
