The Generic City

His TED talk is literally how I in my early twenties realized that I hated life in my native, post-WWII Helsinki modernist, mid-rise suburbs.

Without being able to put my finger on it, I'd always despised the whole ideology of your home being a generic place to put your crap and sleep in, separated from the rest of society on the condescending premise that being surrounded by generic "nature" is good for you. I never wanted a car, and I loathe hanging out in spaces where every adult supposed to drive one.

I totally get why the Le Corbusier crowd saw 19th and 20th century inner cities as cramped, dark and unhealthy. Poor sanitation and fumes from lead mixed gasoline alone are good reasons to escape the urban core.

But technology has improved to the point where suburban sprawl is nothing but a tragedy in how it formed whole societies and middle classes around compulsory car ownership. I love how Kunstler angrily summarises thinkers like Jane Jacobs: The quality of culture and civic life is limited by the quality of the built spaces around us.

I've moved downtown to the Kallio district in Helsinki. I'm certainly building my adult life around the assumption that a significant chunk of my income will go to paying high rents. I'm not the only one who has realized that life is better in the small number of dense neighborhoods of pre-war Helsinki that were built like a real European city with services and life in mind.