The city is where all the fun things are. There's nothing more enjoyable than going for a five minute walk and picking which of the 10 restaurants and bars I pass I'd like to stop at.
This "problem" pretty much solves itself with the current trend.
Those who want to be in cities because of what you listed will pay the premium and stay and deal with the crowding constraints and workarounds such as open offices and high rent. People are sensitive to prices differently and crowding is not too big of a deal since they like people generally.
Those who want space and privacy will move out and work remotely and somewhat ease the crowding.
Personally I can only "enjoy" a city for a couple days before being drained, then it's back to life as a hermit.
But it doesn't look good for those who like in-office w/ private offices. I see no trend to bring that back.
Sad because that's the only way I would work in-office.
You might consider developing an interest in more sustainable hobbies, like running, the gym or an instrument. They offer less immediate gratification, but you can get out of living paycheck to paycheck as people with bar/restaurant habits do.
A good way to ease into it is moving somewhere where it’s a 5 minute bike ride instead of a 5 minute walk to bars and restaurants. You’ll save money, get more fit, and get a dopamine detox.
I didn't read their comment as a problem to be solved in the slightest. The great thing about living in the city is that one can also walk 5 min to their gym, then see people they might know from the gym on their way to the grocery store, and occasionally invite them to a drink within walking distance to their home if they want.
Or alternatively you can get on your bike and go wherever you want too, like many city people also do.
Living near options doesn't mean you're constantly engaging in those options, but if you are engaging in those too much, ya maybe move a bit further away.
Problem with many suburbs is that they're basically only a place to live in isolation, with a few exceptions. You see maybe a few scant people who walk their dog, everyone else is either at work, inside, in their backyard, or they've driven somewhere else.
I'd argue that North American style suburbs have no legitimate place in the urban landscape at all, regardless of the nature of residents' jobs, as in they're an insufficient, half-hearted, and often ugly solution that people just get used to living in. I find them unsettling places to be most of the time.
The difference between a small town and a neighborhood though that favors my disposition, is that there's generally more variety and specialization available in the local economy and community, as well as less of a dependence on a vehicle for visiting anywhere outside the neighborhood. There's not just 1 gym, there's 4, there's not just one physical therapy office, there's 5, there's not just one dentist or coffee shop, there's 13. Of course, I'm not visiting even 2 of these places at any given time, but others are, and it's nice to know that there are alternatives.
And it's not just meeting people for the sake of socializing, it's also a platform for a broader exposure to diverse cultures and a hypothetically larger dating pool, more education opportunities, access to an international airport, more telecom providers (in theory) that can provide better services if that's important to you.
Small towns however seem great if you've already done all that and just want a quiet place to putter around and maybe have access to the mountains or enjoy farming. There's a certain serenity you might not get near/in a city, and there's absolutely a lack of space that small town wouldn't have. People in that small town might be welcoming and friendly as opposed to cold and hard to pin down in the nearby city, but the reverse could also be true depending on where you've chosen. It's a perfectly valid choice, it just depends what you're into I suppose, and if there's train access that would be even better.
I think you have a somewhat generalizing idea of small towns
In a town w/ a pop. of 6,500 I have:
- 1 gig internet (+ starlink, but I only use when traveling now)
- 2 dentist offices
- 4 local coffee shops + 1 starbucks
- 2 grocery stores + 1 walmart supercenter
- 3 gyms (but one is a curves so essentially 2) but none are crowded ever.
As far as international airports, I can either drive to the nearest city, about 45mins - 1hr but I have flown to a big airport from the town's airfield in a small aircraft.
You can find many small towns with many amenities and most of the times you have at least 2 options.
There's no denying there's more variety in the city, but often it's really not the drastic limitations you're imagining.
I will say, with what we do have there's no crowding, everything is very friendly, there's a lot of local options and people will go out of their way to help you.
But God forbid you live in the town 15 minutes from me, it barely has cell service.
You really can't lump small towns together, there's such a wide range.
Ya that's fair, I'm definitely thinking about them from the Canadian perspective (in terms of connectivity) at the very least, and tend to think of what you're describing as sort of a big town or tiny city rather than a "small" town. Here, we don't really even get fiber in anything but relatively known mid to large cities, and any small cities that grew after the 50s are mostly beleaguered by huge parking lots and bland franchises. Small to midsize towns that have some kind of older area with small streets and small commercial spaces tend to seem pretty livable though.
Having traveled across the U.S a bit by road, there are plenty of great places like Olympia, WA that sort of sound like what you're describing, and seem pretty livable.
The airport thing is just a matter of reducing the overhead and increasing the accessibility of me travelling elsewhere and others visiting me without a car. When my Mom visited last time, she asked me to pick her up somehow so she could avoid an Uber or taxi, to which I just said "Just swipe your credit card and get on the train, then swap to bus". Back in my home city though, each relative lives in some suburban corner that's only served by a rickety bus system, and people are pretty used to just paying for a taxi or long-term parking during the entire time they're away. If I had the car, it would only take 45 min to get to them from the airport, but without one it takes almost as long as the flight did across half the damn country. Clearly, even among cities, things vary quite a bit, but I'm glad that there do exist viable and desirable options for both of us, and hope more open up in the future.
Lots of suburbs - especially the so-called exurbs - are places that used to be a small town and still maintain a main street, but with a lot of living areas close to the main street. These suburbs are also "semi-suburbs" of the town, if that makes sense, and maintain many of the small town amenities.
If sustainability is your metric, you should prefer cities. The general environmental impact and resource usage of rural living is much worse per capita than city living. (And yes, that can be true while cities generally use much more resources and pollute more: they also have many more people living there)
Dilution is only a solution if the total amount isn't harmful once diluted. That's not the case for greenhouse gases, at the very least. To say nothing of the other end of the equation: limited supplies of the raw ingreadients. The earth could likely only support a fraction of the current human population if they all lived rural lifestyles.
That long debate aside, today we can see the palpable smog in big cities vs the clean air in rural areas, small towns, and small cities.
You also risk ozone depletion in areas with concentrated aerosol emissions, these are short lived and would disperse, but they cause the most damage of all pollutants in concentration.
> The earth could likely only support a fraction of the current human population if they all lived rural lifestyles.
I'm not suggesting that, I'm suggesting people live where they want to and don't fall for that inaccurate guilt-trip talking point.
