Marginal Revolution: Why do people live in cities?

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Why do people live in cities?

Someone I was talking to -- no I can't tell you who -- claims that the answer is to enjoy casual or anonymous sex.

Now this is not my field of expertise. The claim was that picking people up in the suburbs, and driving to one of the homes for sex, is difficult. MapQuest is not immediately handy for good directions, there are two cars in play, at least one of the persons may be drunk, and there is a trust issue of being trapped in some weird suburban cul-de-sac, surrounded only by sleeping, catatonic soccer moms with no one to hear you scream for help, etc.

In a city, on the other hand, there is walking and the metro or subway. An emergency exit is easier, and cars need not come into play at all.

I have never lived in an American city, only Freiburg, Germany and Wellington, New Zealand.

Noble readers, is this true? Do be analytical, facts are fine but I am not interested in risque comments per se.

Posted by Tyler Cowen on November 18, 2006 at 06:23 AM in Economics | Permalink

Comments

Absolutley! This is why I moved to New York. But its wrong to say just casual or anonymous sex (its also to meet prospective spouses).

Partly its that the city makes things easier (public transit, nightlife, places to crash), more importantly people with my interest (some casual sex / searching for a meaningful relationship) congolmerate in the city like tech comanies in silicon valley.

I take this so serirously that I -- in deciding which city to locate myself -- scanned personal ads as part of my criteria.

Its definitely an overstatement to say its the reason that people (meaning "all people") decide to live in a city (economists tend not to like catch-all explainations anyways), but its certainly a pull for some people.

Posted by: RosieGreg at Nov 18, 2006 7:44:11 AM

My hunch would be that cities attract people because they make interaction of all kinds easier, whether the individual is looking for economic, artistic, literary, religious, sexual, or some other kind of interaction.

Posted by: Tom at Nov 18, 2006 8:57:11 AM

Less people looking over your shoulder, too. In a subruban environment, you're more likely to know your neighbors and thus get interogated about the strange car in your driveway. Or, instead of letting your guest slip out in the morning, you might have to give them a ride to their car.

Overall, though, I suspect Tom is right, it is just one factor in a bundle of many. It was a factor for me in deciding to move from St. Louis to Chicago, but I never got to test it because I fell in love with a girl in St. Louis and brought her with me.

Posted by: ElamBend at Nov 18, 2006 9:17:51 AM

Back in 2002, I started doing internet dating in new york city. Although it had been around a few years it was only then starting to really take off. It occured to me that it had grown so popular amongst my friends because of NYs unique qualities, like subways, and the fact that public places are really public.

Your thesis is wrong, but there is a bit of truth there. Remember few cities in America are walking citites. It is also my experience that in the Northeast people have much fewer sex partners and at an older age then those in the south. (Having lived in both places)

If you wanted to have lots of anonymos sex the city is the place to live, but few people I know are doing so. People live in the city for good jobs, and good food.

Posted by: matt at Nov 18, 2006 9:25:32 AM

I've lived in small towns in the Midwest all my life, and there is plenty of casual sex going on here. Lots of it. Its not just a big city thing.

Posted by: curt at Nov 18, 2006 10:43:54 AM

My wife and I moved from rural Tennessee to New York (Queens) and I can vouch for what curt said. We moved to the city for the greater income earning potential.

Posted by: Brian at Nov 18, 2006 10:47:25 AM

First, the question is not well-posed. The transaction costs of moving are very high: one severs old relationships (not just personal, drycleaners count, too), establishes new ones, finds a new place to live, terminates the old place, plus pays the actual costs of transferring one's stuff. So most people who live in cities do so because their preference to live elsewhere is insufficient to overcome the barrier of the transaction costs of moving.

What I suspect is meant is Why do people who are committed to move to a metropolitan area (perhaps on graduation from college) choose the city over the suburbs? There are, I think, two main reasons. The first is economic (in the stricter sense) and sort of Jane Jacobsy: the sorts of employers available in the city are easier to move between. One's employability is therefore more secure and if one's employed downtown, it's better to live downtown unless there are reasons (children's education, perhaps) not to. The other is sex and prospective relationships. Single people will prefer the city since other single people prefer the city. Why live in DC rather than Fairfax? The Black Cat and the 9:30 Club are in DC. People like you go there. No doubt there's nightlife in the suburbs, but it doesn't have the cachet, and the people who go there aren't people like you (they are, rather, people whose preference not to live in the suburbs isn't strong enough to overcome the transaction costs of moving). And you want to hook up with people like you.

This is, though, rather the opposite of anonymous sex. It's the prelude to assortative mating.

Posted by: jim at Nov 18, 2006 10:55:41 AM

tell your friend to read updike or cheever. the 'burbs are apparently all about hooking up with other people's spouses casually and anonymously. big cities are for getting drunk without having to drive home.

Posted by: mr nice guy at Nov 18, 2006 11:03:03 AM

In the UK only 12% of males have had more than one sexual partner in the past year. Anonymous/casual sex just doesn't happen that often. It might then be more accurate to say that people move to cities to feel libidinally frustrated, but that would be as stupid and reductive as the first proposal.

We don't have singular motives.

Posted by: chung at Nov 18, 2006 11:13:59 AM

I agree with RosieGreg -- the cities are about having a larger pool for matchmaking.

Going to college, on the other hand, ...

Posted by: DK at Nov 18, 2006 11:18:08 AM

I lived in DC for the first 18 years of my life, and I had sex ZERO times. This hypothesis is false

Posted by: Danny Cohen at Nov 18, 2006 11:53:47 AM

Tyler sez "I am not interested in risque
comments per se."

But the "risque" thing is a big part of the point of living in a big city!

Posted by: Michael Blowhard at Nov 18, 2006 11:54:43 AM

Lena Edlund has a related paper, which tries to explain the unbalanced sex ratio in cities (there are more females than males), as a function of females flocking to cities for the match possibilities. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=703310
Abstract:
Throughout the industrialized world, young women outnumber young men in urban areas. This paper proposes that such a pattern may be linked to higher male incomes in urban areas. The argument is that urban areas offer skilled workers better labor markets. Assuming that there are more skilled males than females, this alone would predict a surplus of males. However, the presence of males with high incomes may attract not only skilled females but also unskilled females. Thus, a surplus of women in urban areas may result from a combination of better labor and marriage markets. Swedish municipality data support the results.

Posted by: Taggert J. Brooks at Nov 18, 2006 12:18:07 PM

For women, sex is, in an ideal case, a growth stock with handsome dividends; in a sad case, a zero-coupon bond; in an opportunistic case, an option to get to the ideal case. Most women consider pure casual and anonymous sex as cash burnt on the spot with a large chilling after-effect. So in her sober mind, a woman would prefer investing into a new pair of yellow boots, or a purple winter coat … something that gives her an instant high with a lingering however small warming effect. Where to live is an investment decision made in a sober mind…

Posted by: Yan Li at Nov 18, 2006 12:50:33 PM

Shows such as Sex and the City undoubtedly contribute to the image of cities as chock-full of casual sex. Query: is there survey data anywhere which show the actual amount of sexual activity among city vs. suburban dwellers, or it everything just anecdotal?

Posted by: Peter at Nov 18, 2006 1:56:14 PM

Cities are great for casual sex, for all the reasons you mention, but is that THE reason people live in cities? No, there are a multitude of reasons to live in urban areas, obviously, but a handy little bonus is that people who are interested in many of those other reasons are also interested in casual sex or light relationships.

It's not that you can't do these things in the suburbs; I got into casual sex through the inspirational activities of a soccer mom friend of mine who lives in the suburbs, after all, but there's a concentration of people living full lives and looking for other fun on the side in cities that you don't get in suburbs.

On the other hand, in the suburbs, someone's much more likely to own their own house, rather than be living in an apartment, possibly with thin walls and/or roommates.

It seems to me that there are simply more opportunities for sex in cities largely because there are more people. The logistics can always be made to work, wherever you are.

Posted by: ClueChick at Nov 18, 2006 1:57:14 PM

"I have never lived in an American city, only Freiburg, Germany and Wellington, New Zealand."

There's another thing you'll never find in the suburbs: Bächle.

Posted by: Intellectual Pariah at Nov 18, 2006 1:57:48 PM

Perhaps this answer is viewing the question in microcosm.

The only time I've ever wanted to live in an apartment complex was when I was single, and obviously more interested in casual socializing (not just casual sex). The close proximity of people in general gave everything a more sociable, community feel, and I suspect that this is what draws so many to the city.

Again, not just casual sex, but the casualness of community living in general, the easy sex part of it is there, but probably doesn't register consciously with most.

Posted by: Ray G at Nov 18, 2006 2:23:41 PM

That reminds me, NPR did a piece a few weeks ago on suburbia vs. urban.

Of course the piece was entirely produced by urbanites. Suburbia came across as weird, hypocritical and socially obtuse, the people held hostage by a great lie that told them living in monogamy with a family away from urban density would make them happy. Which of course didn't - supposedly - make them happy, and so suburban life turns into a surreal series of extra-marital trysts, socially maladjusted children and shattered dreams.

I am not exaggerating.

Posted by: Ray G at Nov 18, 2006 2:27:56 PM

Funny, I just moved from Arizona suburbia to San Francisco in part for that very reason; I'd agree with RosieGreg that it's just not casual sex though but just the prospect of meeting new people to date and have fun with. But other considerations do matter of course (better career opportunities, better restaurants, more dynamic lifestyle, not having to own a car).

Posted by: Kelly at Nov 18, 2006 2:29:54 PM

The closeness of urban life also, of course, tends to produce the more "dynamic" lifestyle, better restaurants, and such. But career opportunities would seem to apply only to a narrow field of careers that might only be found in certain cities.

Suburbia cannot exist without an urban center of course, and so it is that most of the suburban dwellers work in the city. So going urban for job opportunities would seem only to apply to the younger, most likely single people wanting to center their lives in that denser urban community.

As for SanFran as compared to AZ, Arizona has a markedly lower unemployment rate, and thus the only reason for going to SanFran, job wise, would have to be for a specific or narrow field of opportunities.

Posted by: Ray G at Nov 18, 2006 2:56:28 PM

Why can't public space explain the city-sex relationship? There just aren't as many places to meet potential sex partners in the suburbs. Also, a critical mass of potential sex partners is more likely to happen in a city, leading to a sufficient market for things like S&M clubs, the chance of getting the right kind of party, etc, etc.

It shouldn't be too hard to test this -- for the critical mass hypothesis, one could run, say, population density against number of reported sex partners in the last x period, controlled for things like religion. For the public space hypothesis, run, oh, cars per capita, say, against the same...

Posted by: Paul Gowder at Nov 18, 2006 4:28:58 PM

Of course it's true that to put irt in terms "casual or anionymous sex" indicates a narrow and naive mind. People mocve to city for sociual and economic contacts and opportunitioes of all types. Sex is the evolutionary spur to romance and marriage and so it too gains by the greater choices of a city.

I am astonished that someone would be even mildly surprised much less shocked.

Posted by: David Sucher at Nov 18, 2006 6:32:51 PM

The reason you move to the city is so you can have something to do besides sex.

Posted by: Matt at Nov 18, 2006 7:11:06 PM

Most humans, given a choice, prefer cities to the alternatives. The only rich societies with large suburban populations are those whose governments irrationally provide vast subsidies for roads and automobile travel, and comparatively little subsidy for other kinds of transport.

Posted by: Parke at Nov 18, 2006 7:44:02 PM

Well educated Americans use cities to find somebody to marry and suburbs to raise children.

It has a huge impact on voting patterns.

Posted by: Steve Sailer at Nov 18, 2006 7:50:36 PM

People move to cities because that's where the hookers work.

Posted by: Anonymous at Nov 18, 2006 9:55:53 PM

Did't you all watch Sex and the City? If you didn't, go rent, buy, borrow, steal the DVDs.

Posted by: Half Sigma at Nov 18, 2006 11:00:20 PM

I just don't like driving, period, for sex or anything else. Cities are just more convenient for everything.

Posted by: Jacqueline at Nov 19, 2006 2:07:54 AM

Wow, this is odd.

I did have more sex when I was living in rural areas. I knew a circle of people who didn't have hang ups, and we all experimented. We also all went off to cities. And in fact, I do still sleep with the ones in my area, and sometimes with the ones in places I visit. The relation hasn't changed, but life has.

I do not find that odd. I'm in a stable relationship (we've lasted 13 years so far), and we both don't hold ourselves from having fun with others. If there's an economic aspect, maybe it is because we run a business together, and hold assets. In general, I think incorporating together is more binding than marriage.

Posted by: fishbane at Nov 19, 2006 4:20:37 AM

The hypothesis, though overstated, is probably correct: it's another application of thick markets vs. thin markets.

Posted by: EclectEcon at Nov 19, 2006 7:54:42 AM

Oh, dear, here I am in one of the major cities of the world and no one told me! While anonymous or casual sex might be easier in the big city I doubt very many people think of that as their major reason for moving. And if I go over my life it was when I lived in more rural or smaller towns that I found such things easier. Certainly college was a rather easy time even though the town was extremely tiny.

There are many economic advantages to concentrated populations and sex is really just one of many. Higher population density means more trading opportunities which leads to greater wealth. For me it is much easier to travel from the major cities. I have lived in a rural village in Europe and a major city. The village was nice but boring in general and difficult for me to travel anywhere. Now I hop on a bus and I'm at the airport in 15 minutes and can go anywhere. I can find more of what I want to purchase.

The anonymous commentator sounds like a conservative. They really are rather obsessed with sex for some reason. I doubt the rest of us are nearly so involved.

Posted by: CLS at Nov 19, 2006 12:34:26 PM

Seyz Parke: "The only rich societies with large suburban populations are those whose governments irrationally provide vast subsidies for roads and automobile travel, and comparatively little subsidy for other kinds of transport."

http://www.slate.com/id/2129636/?nav=tap3

Whoever knew public transportation was getting the short shrift since the Ming Dynasty?

Posted by: garysixpack at Nov 19, 2006 1:07:29 PM

My parents have some social work experiences; from their stories, yeah, cities are where there's stuff to do *besides* sex and drugs, though they were comparing more to rural areas than to suburban.

Why do people move to the cities? A better question is why people live anywhere else, since I think there are rather fewer reasons, though sometimes. "Jobs" when most of the economy was agrarian, and for (mostly males) jobs today like logging, fishing, mining. Cheaper land and isolation in the suburbs if that's what you want. Being closer to the wilds, farther out (increasing farther out as other people come out for the cheap land). And... I'm out. Jobs, shopping, restaurants, people to meet, people to watch, museums, performances -- those are city things.

Posted by: Damien at Nov 19, 2006 2:18:35 PM

Though that Slate article is interesting.

Posted by: Damien at Nov 19, 2006 2:21:17 PM

Well...a multiplicity of human interactions are easier in a city. That is a fact. Life in a city is about N possibilities of meeting people, doing business, knowing new places, and so on. Cheers!

Posted by: Luis Figueroa at Nov 19, 2006 6:01:30 PM

Rural is boring.
City is alive

Posted by: duh at Nov 19, 2006 8:09:12 PM

A city maximises your chance of finding a partner. There are more people that you interact with every day.

Is that the same thing as having more s-x? I doubt it.

A side effect is presumably that the internet contributes to urban sprawl. I could meet someone on MR, say, and hook up with them-- I don't need to be in the same office or cafe. No offence, but somehow that thought slighly depresses me ;-).

Posted by: Valuethinker at Nov 20, 2006 4:14:46 AM

Man. In that case, I must have *fantastic* natural talent for avoiding casual sex, if my past two single years in London are anything to go by.

Posted by: pauldwaite at Nov 20, 2006 8:11:49 AM

face it--those of you who live in small places or suburbs are missing out!

Posted by: mike at Nov 20, 2006 9:58:31 AM

I think it's more a matter of why people move *away* from cities - a big, spacey 3-bedroom colonial isn't too interesting to anyone who isn't interested in raising a family. The 'burbs are attractive in America for things like school districts (which rely on local taxes and can drastically vary in quality, unlike in Europe.) Cities tend to draw recent university graduates that want to live close to work and have the opportunity to stumble away from the neighborhood bar, rather than cabbing it home from TGIF or Ruby Tuesday's. Most people from suburbs use the urban center for hard-core socializing (See 'Edge Cities' by Joel Garreau), and it's much more difficult to draw a city-dweller back to the suburbs... seriously, though - how common are one night stands? I'm happy when I get a number.

Posted by: Travis at Nov 20, 2006 10:19:13 AM

I moved to New York City for casaul sex. But unfortunately in 3 months time I met my now wife and proceeded to move to the suburbs to raise kids.

The fact is that people live in the suburbs to raise kids. You move to the suburbs because of kids and the desire to give them a more "natural" childhood. It sucks to be single in the suburbs because the majority of the population is married with kids where as the opposite is true in the city.

I remember a documentary a few years ago. I think it was on MTV. They interviewed kids from both rural and urban areas about their views on sex and drugs. The take away was that rural kids were more sexually active and did more drugs. I guess resulting from the fact that the rural kids didn't have much else to do to keep them occupied.

Posted by: asiequana at Nov 20, 2006 10:40:33 AM

People generally won't move places with the stated purpose of "causal sex". The closest you get is the people who move to cities because of the atmosphere (The atmosphere coming before the job). I'm in the city to work, if I wanted random hook ups I would have stayed in college.

Posted by: agent00yak at Nov 20, 2006 11:30:42 AM

It is a interesting concept to think that moving to a big city will boost your sex life. Which
I do think in some ways it can cause you can go out and meet a lot more people than in the country. However, I do not think that is the main reason for people moving to the city.

Posted by: Jessica at Nov 20, 2006 11:51:18 AM

everyone seems to be forgetting that living in a more rural environment means less crowding, less traffic (if you enjoy driving like I do), less pollution, and less hassles in general. the lower cost of living is also nice.

Posted by: binarystatic at Nov 20, 2006 11:59:48 AM

cities have more opportunities for everything: jobs, culture, people. I love people-watching. In smaller towns people get to know you so you can't do crazy things so much. Non-car transport is great for going out and drinking of course and your chances of dying or killing a family of five on the way home are much reduced, so for the alcaholic in all of us, yeah thats a good reason.

Posted by: economistatwork at Nov 20, 2006 12:38:21 PM

It seems like many of the commenters have never even been to a suburb, much less lived in one. My husband and I have no kids, and we purposely live in the burbs. I can't stand city congestion, whether it's pedestrian or automotive. I love to garden, and I love to be outside. Suburbs are not less social, it's just a different kind of socialization: I read somewhere that suburbanites tend to belong to more clubs and church groups and such. I live close enough to a city to get all the benefits (great restaurants, museums, etc.) without the hassles (noise, traffic, etc.).

Oh, and jobs? If you're in engineering or IT you'll find that many large employers are in the burbs, not in the city itself. I'm not sure if that's the case on either coast, but that's what I've seen in the Midwest.

Posted by: suburbangirl at Nov 20, 2006 3:30:21 PM

it's not just a sex thing, it's the casualty+excitement of everything

Posted by: sonnigurl at Nov 20, 2006 3:37:11 PM

I might suggest that people go to urban areas for greater opportunity. I bet it's usually for greater pay. One can have just as much casual sex in a city of 500,000 vs a city of 3,000,000.. But they can make much more money in a city of 3,000,000. (I am just stating that.. It could be wrong. I. Am. A. Risk. Taker.)

One can take advantage of the concentration of money or power in a large urban area.. But there is a certain point where, for lack of a more tactful way to put it, having more people to fuck just doesn't matter.

There's only so many people one can sleep with.. But what's to stop you from making more money? Or from meeting some hotshot who gives you "the hookup". Large urban areas are probably best used as social networking sites..

If one can live it up on "Fuck Mountain" (in the immortal words of GOB from Arrested Development) without all the stresses of a New York City, then why pick a NYC for casual sex?

Posted by: eli at Nov 20, 2006 9:20:41 PM

I agree with Eli posted above: the city is about density of opportunity, whether that opportunity is sexual, commercial, social, cultural. There are plenty of opportunities in small towns and suburbs, but not the same density. The same goes for different cities: LA has a different density than NYC than Atlanta than Boston. But I definitely believe that sex is an important component of urban life: as it is an important part of so many decisions people make.

For those who are interested in some theoretical musings on how sex and social networking and the city come together, check out Samuel R. Delaney's essay "Three, Two, One, Contact: Times Square Red" in his book Times Squre Red, Times Square Blue. He makes some great arguments for the the ways in which density regularly produces unexpected possibilities, with a strong emphasis on the sexual...

- J.

Posted by: jallan71 at Nov 21, 2006 6:58:29 AM

Well, Tyler, at the risk of exposing yourself, is this decidedly NOT
the case in Wellington or Freiburg?

Posted by: glenn at Nov 21, 2006 8:17:22 AM

While probably true, the overall focus isn't on getting laid more easily or anonymously. However, anonymity does play a part in the equation.

People gravitate to large urban centers not just for economic or sexual opportunities, but also to escape the crushing burden of labels that accumulate in smaller communities. One can re-invent oneself in a city far more easily than in a small town or the 'burbs. Once a small community has you labelled, there is little you can do to change that fixed idea of yourself, besides standing naked in the streets with your butt painted blue and your hair on fire - but this sort of behaviour just gets you labelled as "nuts" and you'll never get out from under that.

Big cities are layered communities that we can more easily traverse and try on different cloaks and masks in order to arrive at a more true and personal expression of ourselves without the overbearing influence of a small(minded) community insisting on the application of their own definitions.

So there.

Posted by: robbo at Nov 21, 2006 10:02:51 AM

My sense is, if your sexual tastes are in any way non-normative, at least by the standards of small towns, you'd better live in a big city.

I first became aware of this two decades ago, as I was graduating from a big name MBA program. A gay friend (who was not yet publicly out) was being heavily recruited by Deere or Caterpillar (I can't remember which). Taking a job in small town Illinois, my friend told me, would mean he wouldn't be able to cruise gay bars. Which mattered to him. He ended up in Chicago.

I remembered his reasons and years later, when I was still single, when small investment firms would try to lure me away from NYC and Chicago for pricey locales like Naples, Florida, or Aspen, Colorado, I always turn them down on the grounds that I'd never meet Ms. Right in a town full of elderly rich folks or tourists getting drunk in bars.

Posted by: Auto at Nov 21, 2006 12:09:13 PM

Wow, I wouldn't have thought that the stereotype of urbanites being elitist to the point of absurdity would have proven to be so resoundingly true, small sample size notwithstanding. Apparently people who live in the suburbs (or God forbid-rural areas) are the unenlightened hordes who are all too busy trying to live in the 1950s to notice that there exist in our country a fair amount of large cities, full of the enlightened, from whom we get our regional broadcasts of NPR, and (for those of us who can read) subscriptions to the New York Times. I live and work in a small town in the midwest, ten miles from a medium-sized town, and forty miles from a major city. I like cities, with their art museums and concerts, and the occasional sporting event. I tend to think that people live in the city because there are plenty of things to do and people to meet (perhaps even people to do), but I hasten to say that suburban life isn't the wasteland of white picket fences and poolside barbecues that certain city dwellers apparently believe it to be. I too have a neighborhood bar. I too can go out for coffee, plays, movies, and orchestra concerts. I get to live close to family members. I would actually be surprised to learn that your average city dweller has more friends than I do. More anonymous sex? Almost certainly, but I have a hard time believing that this is anyone's main motivation for moving anywhere. If it is, I would actually go so far as to say that they lead a very sad and boring life, even if they do live in a big city. I'm pretty sure that you can have casual sex and relationships almost anywhere.

Posted by: d.cous. at Nov 21, 2006 1:02:05 PM

"I too have a neighborhood bar. I too can go out for coffee, plays, movies, and orchestra concerts."

Well your "major city" is probably Chicago and I would say that you live suburbanly not anything like rural. My experience with rural living is that you don't get to have plays or orchestra, at least not any worth attending. Yes you have coffee and bars, but the crowd won't change much week to week and your options for new venues disappears fast. Comparing rural southwest with NYC, I would say that if you like options, if you like meeting new people and dating and so forth, you need to move to a city. Being within a shirt drive from a major city, that might do too.

Posted by: economistatwork at Nov 21, 2006 1:32:08 PM

Once again: Sex in the City versus Desperate Housewives...

Oh, and at least in the Washington metro area, Tyler has
shown that the better restaurants are in the burbs.

Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Nov 21, 2006 4:18:57 PM

Judging from the comments above, perhaps people live in cities because it makes them feel superior to those who don't?

Occasionally these people take road trips out to my rural area, and upon seeing no traffic or tall buildings, assume a lack of culture, nightlife, or anything else worthwhile. After spending a day or two at this (and reassuring themselves by being as arrogant as possible to the locals), they then go back to their superior city lives: spending an hour in traffic each day, paying a fortune to own a tiny dwelling with no view, standing in line for 3 hours for a crappy over-comercialized concert or sporting event with 20,000 other people in toe. Whoopie.

My own view is that the benefits of urban density don't scale much beyond about 60,000. I live in a community of this size, way out in Montana. Believe it or not, I can find most everything here that I could living in San Francisco, minus the pretension and continous hunt for a parking space. The bar scene is less bustling, but more friendly. There are plays, productions, and orchestras which are worth (okay, usually worth) attending.

I agree it is more difficult to try on different "masks," if you're in the process of discovering yourself. Many young people move to the city for a few years, then come back, but it isn't always related to economics or having found a spouse.

Posted by: Bonkers at Nov 21, 2006 4:21:14 PM

What is the difference between the city and the country. Better health care. Closer proximity to a whole range of services. Better job opportunities. Able to be anonymous. Away from the direct application of pesticides, the big ugly holes in the ground and the devastated forests. An opportunity to escape from uneducated rednecks with simplistic bigotted views.

The cities, on the other hand, poison your lungs. Provide vulnerability to all types of predator people. Lull you into a false sense of security about the availability and nature of the food you eat and the water you drink. You don't have to be confronted with the visuals and sound of an environment being destroyed.

Posted by: Harold W at Nov 21, 2006 5:43:52 PM

I think that there is a timeline for partaking in city life. When you are young and ambitious, you move to a city to get the fast track job along with the other global smarties. You make your "f**k you money" and establish business connections and flee the city to launch your own shop at the elite enclave of your choice (ski area/boat). You can meet your mate in the city or in your enclave. If casual/anonomous sex is what you are after, you can find that anywhere. It should actually be easier outside of the city due to less competition.

Posted by: Patinator at Nov 21, 2006 5:56:55 PM

Patinator: Well put

Posted by: Greg at Nov 21, 2006 8:42:24 PM

Tyler, that person you talked to is out of his mind, or speaking without any evidence. It must be a tiny minority who actively persue a strategy of random hook-ups, considering the health risks. In DC, it is estimated that 1 in 20 have AIDS. People move to cities for social reasons for sure, ala the strength of weak ties argument, but not for random hook-ups.

Posted by: will mcbride at Nov 23, 2006 4:10:27 PM

Well I think your all wrong!!! I think the country life is the best way to go. Sleep ins, no traffic noise, no getting stuck in traffic, friendly laid back people (not stressed out over worked people). But I suppose it would be hard to get used to the country life, like how everybody knows every little detail about your life and all that greeness and fresh air (as in not polluted!). And about this sex thing, who said you don't get any in the country! People move in and move out all the time, so if it doesn't work out you can count on them shipping out! But that is just my opinion, and some of you sure do have some interesting opinions, (in a good way)!!! Bye bye

Posted by: Sarah at Nov 24, 2006 11:32:37 PM

Posted by: Sarah at Nov 24, 2006 11:34:52 PM

Posted by: Sarah at Nov 24, 2006 11:35:48 PM

Opps I posted it twice

Posted by: Sarah at Nov 24, 2006 11:50:34 PM

it's a matter of association preference--whether it's urban, suburban, exurban, or rural: some folks are more inclined to be invigorated by one setting and enervated by another, and at different phases of life. some people feel fulfilled by placing themselves in a high density, socially fluid setting; others feel drained by it. if you're an extravert, you'll tend to be invigorated by the city, if you're an introvert, you'll be invigorated by the country. one single setting does not have the ability to make everyone happy

Posted by: Dan L at Nov 30, 2006 5:13:42 PM

wata

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