Migration to bigger tier one cities is partly to blame. Many young people want to live in NY and rent a shoebox flat for life. They think that they can become Friends protagonists when in fact they become broke and blame government.
One difference with "younger" kids now is they're getting married later...but once you have kids the suburbs look completely different and it's been that way for as long as there have been suburbs.
Netherlands has the happiest kids in the world, where in Amsterdam a lot of kids would be growing up in an apartment. The flip side is, they get their freedom where they can go to places without needing their parents to drive them everywhere.
Furthermore, people also prefer the suburbs for raising a family because that’s where all the nice schools are built. For better or worse, inner city schools are avoided like the plague for parents with the means to buy a house in the suburbs.
My parents moved to the city when they had kids. Specifically to enable a better life for us. More access to friends, better schools, more independence, better extracurriculars, more family time because no commute, etc. It was pretty great.
Living in the city also made college affordable because we could just live at home and walk to school.
Unless you are talking about literal toddler, it is nit that awesome.
> soulless suburbs where there's literally nothing
This is a bit of a reductionist take on those younger people's part. You can have just as much fun at the TGI Friday's at your local strip mall as you can at the hippest restaurant no one else has ever heard of in Brooklyn. It's just a matter of who you spend that time with, and how you perceive that time, in the Stoic tradition.
There’s numerous spaces I’ve been in where English is rarely spoken and it gives me the opportunity to maintain my language skills.
Do you think I could have that in generic suburbia?
It's funny because I've always thought of LA as a conglomeration of suburbia, but perhaps you're referring to "generic suburbia" as one that's composed primarily of typical white Americans? Then naturally by definition you're not going to have the same kind of access to whichever cultural group that is missing from that town. But I disagree that those kinds of places are entirely devoid of "soul", as the GP put it. It'd be like criticizing Los Angeles (plurality Hispanic, approximately 0% Danish[0]), for not having Danish festivals and grocery stores, or Jackson, MS (roughly 80% black and less than half a percent Asian[1]) for not having enough authentic Asian restaurants.
Sure, there's an argument to be made that you can find representation of anything in a big enough city, and that holds in places like NYC or LA. But that's a truism.
[0]: https://www.statimetric.com/us-ethnicity/Danish
[1]: https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/jacksoncitymiss...
But that’s kind of beside the point. What I’m pushing back on is the notion that you can live anywhere in the US and it’s just as good as anywhere else so you might as well live wherever it’s cheapest.
It’s not about suburbs per se since Orange County is as suburban as it gets and also checks some of the boxes I mentioned (although I’d argue not as many as LA). It is also extremely expensive.
I don’t care for the “soul” argument since it’s vague. I just specified something that is personally important to me and justifies living in an very high COL city.
Have you actually eaten at a TGIFridays? The food is awful. I suppose if the actual meal is completely secondary to your enjoyment of the experience, you might be right, but for me, eating out is as much for the food as the company.
Most places in the US are either affordable and boring or the other way around.
There is something fundamentally different about the cultural life in cities. The suburbs are actually "soulless" in comparison.
https://www.iwritewordsgood.com/apl/patterns/apl010.htm
Worth pointing out that every Stoic I can think of was an upper-class city-dweller. Epicurus—Athens. Marcus Aurelius—Rome. Zeno of Citium—Athens again, but perhaps apocryphal. Seneca, Cicero, Epictetus—Rome again [0].
[0] I'm reminded now that Epictetus was not particularly wealthy, and did live an ascetic lifestyle. Perhaps the exception that makes the rule.
It's not just about restaurants. I'm not going to be able to go to concerts or events. There will be no specialized stores. Even in the example you gave, many of these chains are absolutely terrible now. Going to a local place means better food. It's not all pretense.
As the saying goes: It's hard to have fun with dogshit in your mouth.
Cities are fun, but people fail to realize that rural places are also pretty great. You just need to make your own fun, but you actually have the room (and money) to do so. I can go out in my yard and do archery, target shooting, etc. I live surrounded by woods and can go for a walk or just sit in there whenever I want...mosquitoes permitting. My house has room for any new hobby I want.
I will say that suburbs are probably the worst of both worlds, but I suppose you're closer to those concerts and better restaurants if you want.
To answer your first question: a lot. There's people that are very different from you, that really don't do well without these interactions. They expect to go out 1-3 times a week or at least monthly. Small area community events can be awkward if you aren't from town, don't know everyone, who all grew up together.
Yeah, you're buddy might come over now and then for target practice. However this is very different from social events city dwellers rely on.
Don't get me wrong - if I were still single I'd probably move to a city, if only for the dating prospects. Once you have a family though and limited free time the pros and cons change a bit.
hit the nail on the head right there.
Also you have more people and diversity. If you hate your neighbor there's plenty of others. In a smaller society, if you don't get along with ~3-5 people your fucked.
All I'm saying is that most people that act like rural areas have "nothing to do" probably don't do all that much regularly anyways - and there are simply different things to do. We live 5 minutes from a state park with great hiking and have two public beaches within 5 minutes as well.
The idea that if you live in a suburb you can no longer go to concerts or events or "specialized stores" whatever that means, is just ridiculous.
I coined the phrase, and am now not so sure myself. It doesn't really need to be that special, either. If you live in a small area you'll have eg. 1-5 stores.
There will be a big box supermarket, a local one, and maybe some other wildcard option. Then there will be a couple local stores (hardware, outdoors, etc.). However, if you want anything specific or just don't like the shop, you have to go to a different city.
I don't know if you've lived in a small town, but this would include things like electronic. With no Best Buy or Circuit City, you were stuck with Walmart, or a local shop for almost twice the price.
I'm one of those younger people. The main difference here is, "the hip" restaurant in Brooklyn will have vastly different food than a hip restaurant in SF. Can't say that about TGIFs
Nobody wants to rent a shoebox apartment in NYC for the rest of their life. But if you're not rich your only choices are to rent the shoebox or to leave NYC, and people choose which one matters more to them.
You should read about Vienna, which is a relatively large city that’s bucking the trend.
And forget wages, sticking around in small cities is often career suicide. As a young person, you can’t be blamed for wanting McKinsey in NYC on your resume instead of Acme Hardware Store in random town, Idaho.