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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
