Two other cities' flags

I've been reading about Cairo recently due to the news and I'm struck by that city's flag.  A nice design, well balanced and graphically strong.  I assume the blue represents the Nile, but that is only conjecture.

I'm not normally a fan of words on a flag, but since this is Arabic it doesn't bother me.  I can't read it so it is only an abstraction to me.  This isn't a good excuse, of course, but it is what it is. There is a nice use of skyline to identify the city, which I believe is called the City of Minarets.

Let's look at another skyline flag with the same layout, shall we:

Two opposite kinds of cities, the way Boston and New Orleans are opposites.  I haven't a clue what the blue and green are supposed to represent.   Salt Lake City's flag is more cluttered than Cairo's.  The colors are a little too close in value for my taste and the green mountains blend in with the green stripe.  

That said, this is a reasonable representation of Salt Lake City's skyline and there's no mistaking it.  Which, of course, leads me to say if you are going to draw an accurate depiction of the city, it probably isn't necessary to label the picture.    Lettered flags have the disadvantage of being legible from one side only.

Some may argue that this modern flag will need to be changed when the skyline changes.  Perhaps, I haven't noticed many state's flags changed over the years as their industries and values change.  There is nothing wrong with a little freshening up from time to time and I can't imagine that Salt Lake City will ever have a lot of symbolic associations tied up with this particular design.

As a reminder of a flag that has strong and meaningful symbolic design without having to resort to a label,  I give you Indianapolis:

I think it's wonderful.