Almost everyone I know lives far removed from urban life (I live 30 miles from the closest grocery store). Nothing but farms and woodland here in this area of Virginia.
Tangent: This is not philosophy.
Statistically most of us in the OECD do live inin urban areas, you know.
You know, Virginia is not in the E part of the OECD.
Urban life is pretty great. I wouldn't trade it for the alternative at all.
I could do semi-rural. Still with running water and electricity, but a large amount of open land and able to see the stars at night.
Urban life is pretty great. I wouldn't trade it for the alternative at all.
i'm not trying to bash NYC when i say this, having never been there, but every time there's some ranking or survey done about quality of life, small to mid sized cities dominate the top 30. It seems to me that everything from grocery shopping to traffic jams to pollution to lack of privacy are a major nuisance in metro areas, and the only thing a resident of city of say 100k has to go there for is some entertainment (concerts, pro sports) and air travel.
But i would still take living in every huge city except detroit over rural areas any day.
And, yikes, what kind of crazy person would drive in this? For the first time in my life, I don't need a car at all. I love not having a car. The only thing about New York specifically is that everybody is busy all the time. It makes it hard to schedule social things.
City life harms the environment less that suburban life because the human damage is concentrated and there is less long distance commuting.
Those are both fair points but they apply equally to say, a college town, which dominate the list of happiest cities. There's no need for a car and people are highly active
Then i see the rent in lower manhattan is like 7x the cost here and think, that is pure madness
In terms of pollution, possibly sure, but there is also far more plant and animal life outside huge cities
Today we see little side stories of animals moving in to residential areas (because we are invading their living spaces). Last night I watch a series called "Epic Engineering". It is a very revealing series but it shows what man is doing and that is exploding in population numbers and erecting buildings to house them. Not only does it look at the building but the things that go along with the problems of exploding populations light sewage and food and water. It gave me the feeling that man is learning how to accommodate huge numbers of populace. There is a monster project for sewage in Mexico City, an enormous pipeline in China to move much needed water from south to north and it will be completed in 2030 top give you an idea of its enormity. Hong Kong is shoulder to shoulder in population and in building living facilities and it truly reminds you of sardines in a can. The majority of the world people now live in cities and that has never before been the case. It seems to me that man is given the power to solve issues as it was pointed out these incredible projects would not have been possible ten years ago. So, rather than painting ourselves in to a corner we manage to survive. The question is, is this survival mode only our future? Take America, how much open territory is not owned by someone. Are you less free to roam about without looking for signs of KEEP OUT or PRIVATE PROPERTY? How many people do you know personally that live in the country or the mountains away from city or urban life?
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