Why do people live in cities?

I do it because I’d kill myself if all my neighbors were like you.

Who's more autistic, me or this kid?

MonacoMonkey:

Why Do People Live In Cities?

Because cities have jobs, by design.

"I'm talking about an estate/villa in a nice suburb within 20 minutes from city center."

Where exactly is this possible?

MonacoMonkey:

Then they invented the telephone, internet, and smartphone/apps that are more powerful than NASA from 30 years ago. They also invented cars, built superb infrastructure, and generally made getting around really, really frictionless.

Yes, but teleportation is not fully operational yet.

Depends on the city. I've lived in a few European cities and compared to the alternative (European towns and suburbs) I love them. Sure, the price you pay is that rent is more expensive and they are more crowded/polluted but they also tend to be centres of culture and language, culinary hubs, have countless job opportunities and much more to do than smaller towns. As for things like parks and green spaces, the issue isn't that big in European cities. Paris, Madrid, London, Rome, Milan, Copenhagen and countless more have numerous parks and large communal gardens.

Also, for most large cities villas/estates won't be 20 minutes away from the centre; more like 40-50 minutes.

Some of my clients allow telecommuting for their staff, up to 30% currently. These are employees who live beyond the regular suburbs and it is a good concept for the environment, productivity and efficiency. With more automation there is the possibility to decrease staff within the city.

Because they get many facilities in cities whether they don't get in villages.

The real answer is simple. Some people work, others own.

I haven't seen too many of your posts MonacoMonkey, but in between the social-Asperger's style rants I have noticed a few comments about you pursuing independent sources of income. You're entrepreneurial.

The overwhelming majority of people aren't. They don't have the risk tolerance. They are workers. People in general trade time for money. 2-3,000 hours per year, depending on profession, for anything ranging from $60,000-X,000,000 in salary. Accounting, consulting, marketing, tech, banking ... it doesn't matter. Employees are workers.

People live in the place convenient to their opportunity set and their requirement set.

If you're someone whose life revolves around a calendar set by another person, your place of living needs to be conducive to meeting that calendar while allowing you to fulfill all your personal obligations or preferences: errands, seeing friends, and the like.

Cities offer the highest concentration of jobs, service amenities (launderers, doctors, salons and spas, etc.), and entertainment amenities (theater, museums, dance, dining, etc.). Where else can you find a way to get everything done that you need to while navigating around a non-negotiable block of 70 primetime working hours?

If you're someone whose life revolves around a calendar set solely by your own whims, your place of living can be whatsoever you want it to be. It must be conducive only to your preferences.

This is why hedge fund and private equity titans live in Connecticut, North Jersey, or well out on Long Island. This is why guys who run their own businesses live wherever they do.

Commuting isn't a problem because the 60 minutes each way doesn't consume 30% of your non-working waking hours like it does for the employee. If you get in at 11, who cares, everyone who works for you is going to snap to. Besides, you used the first couple hours of your day to read, handle emails, and do calls from the car or your back deck or wherever.

A suburban estate makes a ton of sense now. It offers the chance for a sprawling physical footprint, garage, pool, sizable house with numerous purpose-specific rooms, clean air, space for the kids and dogs to run around ... where else can you find a way to optimize for lifestyle while still accommodating the few things that require you to head somewhere location-specific?

It's all about the locus of control. If external, you're probably a city-dweller. If internal, you can choose whether the city suits your needs (it probably does if you're young, liquid, and single) or the country does.

I'm an entrepreneur and prefer big cities for the networking. Cant really meet amazing people if you're in bumfuck nowhere...

In the US, public transit can be pretty awesome, especially since some businesses see the efficiency benefits and are concentrated there.

And when you live in middle America, all they have is Olive Garden. What if I want authentic-style pizza or real handmade pasta? Should I fly from middletown all the way to Italy? What about for Mexican or sushi (even though I haven't found good sushi outside of NYC in America).

Also, if you live in middletown, you would mostly need to buy a house. Cities offer more options if you don't have a lot of equity or are unwilling to take care of all the things around homeownership.

There's a ton of reasons cities are great. They're even more energy efficient based on clusters.

On what APAE said above, I believe this is very true. Funny thing is, in cities like DC, it used to be all black because white people wanted to live in suburbia--the Great American white pikett fence dream. Hence, gentrification is a big topic and a problem in places like SF. The units are built in a way to offer workers easier access to get to work. I believe millennials pushed the trend towards cities because it is more efficient in dollars and cents, as well in other ways, after all of the economic crises we've had (housing, tech, financial, etc.).