Why don't more people live in liveable cities?

Great piece from kottke.org a blog "about the liberal arts 2.0"..

I brought up a similar point in a piece I wrote last year.


image by Andreja Brulc

Why Don't More People Live in Livable Cities?

Those lists of most liveable cities...why don't any of the vibrant big cities of the world ever make the list? Because the lists don't take into account many important reasons why people choose to live in a certain place.

I spoke to Joel Kotkin, a professor of urban development, and asked him about these surveys. "I've been to Copenhagen," (Monocle's Number 2) he tells me "and it's cute. But frankly, on the second day, I was wondering what to do." So, if the results aren't to his liking, what does he suggest? "We need to ask, what makes a city great? If your idea of a great city is restful, orderly, clean, then that's fine. You can go live in a gated community. These kinds of cities are what is called 'productive resorts'. Descartes, writing about 17th-century Amsterdam, said that a great city should be 'an inventory of the possible'. I like that description."

Joel Garreau, the US urban academic and author, agrees. "These lists are journalistic catnip. Fun to read and look at the pictures but I find the liveable cities lists intellectually on a par with People magazine's 'sexiest people' lists."

Ricky Burdett, who founded the London School of Economics' Cities Programme, says: "These surveys always come up with a list where no one would want to live. One wants to live in places which are large and complex, where you don't know everyone and you don't always know what's going to happen next. Cities are places of opportunity but also of conflict, but where you can find safety in a crowd.

"We also have to acknowledge that these cities that come top of the polls also don't have any poor people," he adds. And that, it seems to me, touches on the big issue. Richard G Wilkinson and Kate Pickett's hugely influential book The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better (2009) seems to present an obvious truth -- that places where the differential in income between the wealthiest and the poorest is smallest tend to engender a sense of satisfaction and well-being. But while it may be socially desirable, that kind of comfort doesn't necessarily make for vibrancy or dynamism. If everybody is where they want to be, no one is going anywhere.

(via stellar and many emails)

Update: That Decartes quote above? He never said it.

The Danger of A Single Story

In response to this, but also something to keep in mind when reading this blog.

Thanks for posting this Whitney!

In Solidarity

members of Afro Plus in Moscow

When I went home the first Christmas after moving to Slovenia, a family member came up to me at a holiday party and beckoned for me to "say something in Russian", when I told him I didn't live in Russia, he just laughed. Throughout the night, many people came up to me to "ask me about Russia", and I still come across people (old friends who find me on Facebook, long lost family members) who seem to think I live in Russia or thereabouts. In many people's estimations any country ending in "ia"=Slavic=Balkan=Eastern European= somehow Russian. While I won't deny that there certainly must exist some vague Slavic similarities between Russians and Slovenians, this ain't the same place and it's nowhere near it.

And after reading this article, I couldn't be happier.

(BBC) Africans Under Siege in Moscow: Nearly 60% of black and African people living in Russia's capital Moscow have been physically assaulted in racially motivated attacks, says a new study.

While Obama is busy making buddy with Medvyedev, scores of black folks on Moscow streets are looking over their shoulder every two seconds in fear. It's horribly ironic.

All this is not to say that Slovenia is perfect on this front, it certainly isn't but I feel more than safe walking down the streets, and pray that one day soon black people in Russia will be able to say the same.

Second Chances

Hurray for second chances. After one bad experience (no one talked to me!!) at Friday Night Drinks, the expats monthly drinking party, I purposely stayed away. But my awesome new friend Maja suggested we go and so I swallowed my hurt feelings and went, and boy am I glad I did! We had an internationally super fun time. I drank, I laughed, I cracked dumb jokes, and I talked politics, culture, food, and more with beautiful people from a dizzying array of countries. It is how my life was before I came here and how it should be every day*! I will definitely be back. Hurray!















*Well, maybe subtract the copious amounts of white wine.