I returned to my home country and home town for the first time after 7 years and the place is barely recognizable.
-
It is more crowded than ever. I hardly saw a traffic jam in the past, but now the main streets are consistently clogged between 4 and 5 pm, and every single car park is full during the day.
-
There is no free parking anymore anywhere. Everywhere I used to park previously there are now parking meters.
-
Many of the shops I used to frequent are either gone or relocated far outside the city, and they are replaced by yet another Chanel boutique or some cookie cutter tourist trap.
-
The all-inclusive unlimited public transport ticket I used to have is being discontinued, and the city’s public transport monopoly now charges based on distance travelled, meaning that cost of public transport doubles for most regular commuters.
-
We also had a chocolate factory nearby that used to do public tours, to which I was looking forward to, but turns out they don’t do that anymore because of “public health concerns”.
-
There used to be exactly one homeless guy in our city, whom everybody knew by name, now there is one at every corner, and there are organized groups of beggars from a different country
I’ve been in North America, Europe and South Asia this year and I can’t shake the feeling that quality of life is gradually deteriorating everywhere.
Please tell me I am wrong. Where have you been lately where things overall are actually getting better rather than worse?
Many years ago there was a book by Kirkpatrick Sale called Human Scale that discussed the ideal size for cities. As a city grows, it becomes an economic hub and provides job opportunities. The new wealth is channeled into investment in infrastructure and education. Above a certain size the town may support the arts, maybe a college and professional sports teams.
But beyond that sweet spot you start seeing more crime and homelessness. Schools and highways are overcrowded because the town has outgrown its infrastructure. The more spread out a city is, the more costly to build enough infrastructure. Things enter a negative cycle where taxes go up, quality of life declines, young people move away or lose hope.
His analysis led him to say the maximum size for a healthy city was something like 100-200,000 if I remember correctly. I’ve lived in cities ranging from under 20,000 to a couple of million, and based on my experience, a college town of somewhere between 15,000 to 150,000 is where I found the best overall quality of life. Bonus points if it’s also the county seat and has the regional medical center, as along with the college those create good middle class jobs and a less narrow-minded population.
These towns exist everywhere but they’re not going to have the same entertainment or cultural resources of a city of a million, and the residents of larger cities will call them boring. But we’re talking about where you want to live, not where you want to go for a weekend getaway. Someplace with less crime and cleaner air.
The only risk with these smaller towns is if their major employer goes under. Then they’re going to necessarily need to find new ways to make money and will go through a bad spell until they do.
So if you’re looking at college towns that are regional medical centers and county seats, make sure they’re on the way back up after reinventing themselves and have a lively feel and optimism about them. It’s a lot of online research, but time well spent on the front end.
When I tell people in New York that I once lived in Columbus Ohio they snort and ask ‘why?’ But your analysis just supports my argument that it’s a pretty nice place to live
The lowest crime city I’ve ever lived in by far is Tokyo, a city of almost 40 million people. It’s even low crime, relative to the rest of Japan, with Tokyo proper having the lowest homicide rate of all prefectures.
The infrastructure is great since the costs can be shared by more people. In fact, even though taxes nationwide are technically roughly equal, taxes in Tokyo are effectively lower, since you can make “donations” to rural/small town areas in exchange for “gifts” and a tax deduction. The government in Tokyo effectively pays you back some of your taxes to buy food/vacations/etc. from the outlying areas.
I don’t think I could live long term in a city smaller than ~5ish million people. I enjoyed my brief time living as a digital nomad in Freiburg im Breisgau and my years as a university student in Ann Arbor (both 300k ish population metro areas), but I’d never be able to stay there for many years. The lack of culture, entertainment, food, etc. options is pretty suffocating.
I completely agree with your sentiment about Tokyo, but I also feel it’s literally the only megapolis on thr planet that’s like that
I don’t think Tokyo is unique or impossible to reproduce though. Osaka, Seoul, Singapore, Hong Kong, are all great cities. I think Tokyo is better, but Tokyo is also bigger, so that’s almost to be expected.
The only infrastructure that is a real pain point for modern rich cities as population increases is transportation, and I don’t think any modern city is actually anywhere near the limit. Trains in Tokyo in 2019 were significantly less crowded than they were in 1990 despite continued population growth, and with telework becoming more common, crowding today is barely a problem at all.
Housing is a big pain point for a lot of cities, but that’s because regulations make it too difficult to build new housing, especially when it replaces existing buildings with something taller. Despite an increase in population and stagnant economy, residential floor space per person in Tokyo is up like 50% since 1990, because people are actually allowed to build more housing to fit all the new people, and then some.
If you commit to building the homes for everyone to live in, and the railways for everyone to get around in, I think modern technology would allow for cities in the much larger than Tokyo pretty comfortably. One of the sad things about population decline in Japan is that I probably won’t get to see a Tokyo with 60 million people.
Maybe I’m pretty jaded with my experience in the SF Bay Area where both problems were very bad, but most of the problems with modern cities can be summarized as entrenched anti-transit and anti-housing interests.
I am sure those cities are great too, although I haven’t been anywhere aside from Osaka (which is basically mini-Tokyo), but they are also nowhere as big as Tokyo, varying from 6 to 10 mil, although obviously that is still a giant city (compared to say Paris, which is just about ~3 mil with suburbs).
I live in Montreal currently, that’s 10 times smaller than Tokyo, but the infrastructure is already crumbling, and it’s not just transportation and housing (which are very problematic, especially the latter), but it’s also hospitals, leisure, goods and services - everything is more expensive and either is unaffordable or unattainable - 5 hospitals in Montreal hit over 200% capacity yesterday, meaning the chance of actually getting medical help in time is close to 0. If it were the size of Tokyo I can’t imagine the mayhem that would be.
Me too! Ended up moving away for a job but I wish I could find a place like this again.
I am thoroughly uncomfortable in larger cities and the only thing I hate more than driving a car through traffic is the feeling of claustrophobia in an overcrowded bus or metro. Couldn’t care less about “entertainment and cultural resources”, what does this even mean? I value walkability/bikeability, access to nature and quiet time way higher.
Looks like smaller college towns are exactly the sweet spot I am looking for. Thanks for the pointers and the book tip!