Arkady
President
Who here has lived abroad? I don't mean living on a US military base, expat retirement community, corporate compound, or other slice of America abroad, but actually living within another country's socioeconomic milieu. I lived for several years in a couple cities in Germany, and especially when it came to Munich, what struck me is how incredibly liveable urban life can be.
If you haven't lived abroad, you may still be familiar with the concept of urban livability just by comparing the kinds of cities Americans would pay big bucks for the privilege of living in (e.g., Manhattan, Boston, Seattle, and San Francisco), with those that are a bit of a nightmare, pushing anyone who can afford it out into the suburbs and exurbs (Houston, St. Louis, and Detroit). Well, picture the aesthetic and social distance between Detroit and Boston, on a livability scale, then imagine an even bigger distance between Boston and a city like Munich.
I could go on forever about why I loved Munich. It has clean, safe streets, unmatched public transit, a huge central park (it dwarfs any urban park in the US), manicured green spaces every few blocks, dedicated bike lanes everywhere, surprisingly clean air, a pedestrian-friendly inner city, breathtaking architecture, friendly people, endless cultural offerings, fabulous beer gardens and bistros everywhere, and so on. It's like living in a postcard:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7T1P62Cmbt0/T73W9vxHEsI/AAAAAAAABfA/zuepwpXp9CY/s1600/8+munich711crop.jpg
I'm hardly alone in this impression. Mercer does an annual "quality of living" index, and Munich consistently ranks near the top:
http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/04/business/global-city-quality-life/index.html?hpt=hp_c3
The US only has two entries in the 2012 list, Honolulu and San Francisco, and neither even cracked the top 25. Germany has six cities that outrank any US city, despite roughly a quarter our population. Switzerland has three, despite closer to a fortieth our population. Our neighbor to the north has four cities with higher quality of life than any city in the US.
One can, of course, disagree with the exact methodology and thus the rankings. But I'd imagine most of those with real experience living in both the US and some of these high-quality-of-life cities abroad wouldn't quibble with the overall pattern described. Many countries seem to have unlocked the key to building cities that are amendable to happy human living (especially the Germanic countries), but the US just isn't among them. So, what can we do about it?
I start with the idea that you shouldn't try to reinvent the wheel. We know what works. We know what cities are great places to live, and so we should learn from them. We should figure out what makes a place like Vienna or Zurich so nice, and try to emulate that. How do they handle transportation? Zoning? What do they do to take advantage of their waterfronts? How do they keep poverty down? In what ways do they nurture culture and encourage a lively community life?
I'll start with an idea. One thing I loved about Munich was the public transit. It effectively ran on the honor system: you bought passes and validated them yourself, with the only enforcement done by spot-checking trains. This made it a lot quicker to get on trains (no turnstiles) and encouraged people to just buy their tickets on a monthly basis. The system was also subsidized, encouraging more ridership and allowing more frequent trains and buses, and better coverage of the city. That, in turn, made the city center far cleaner, the air better, the streets quieter, and everything much more walkable than if you had to fight with lots of cars. Even just removing the haze of car exhaust from the air made the quality of light better and all the surfaces less grungy. With fewer cars, you also didn't need much on-street parking, which freed up space for more bike lanes. I suspect it also helps to keep the crime rate down (when the streets are full of pedestrians, there's less opportunity for violent crime, especially the kind that happens in a lonely parking garage.) The dedication to pedestrians also created a lot more street activities -- street theater, beer gardens, community events, and so on, since you could count on people happily stumbling upon such events in a way they wouldn't if in their cars.
It's expensive to create a high-quality subsidized public transit system as good as Munich's, but the benefits are incalculable. It even makes people healthier (when people walk most places, they're less likely to be obese and diabetic). And we can afford it. In terms of per capita GDP, the US is wealthier than most of the countries on that list, including Germany.
If you haven't lived abroad, you may still be familiar with the concept of urban livability just by comparing the kinds of cities Americans would pay big bucks for the privilege of living in (e.g., Manhattan, Boston, Seattle, and San Francisco), with those that are a bit of a nightmare, pushing anyone who can afford it out into the suburbs and exurbs (Houston, St. Louis, and Detroit). Well, picture the aesthetic and social distance between Detroit and Boston, on a livability scale, then imagine an even bigger distance between Boston and a city like Munich.
I could go on forever about why I loved Munich. It has clean, safe streets, unmatched public transit, a huge central park (it dwarfs any urban park in the US), manicured green spaces every few blocks, dedicated bike lanes everywhere, surprisingly clean air, a pedestrian-friendly inner city, breathtaking architecture, friendly people, endless cultural offerings, fabulous beer gardens and bistros everywhere, and so on. It's like living in a postcard:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7T1P62Cmbt0/T73W9vxHEsI/AAAAAAAABfA/zuepwpXp9CY/s1600/8+munich711crop.jpg
I'm hardly alone in this impression. Mercer does an annual "quality of living" index, and Munich consistently ranks near the top:
http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/04/business/global-city-quality-life/index.html?hpt=hp_c3
The US only has two entries in the 2012 list, Honolulu and San Francisco, and neither even cracked the top 25. Germany has six cities that outrank any US city, despite roughly a quarter our population. Switzerland has three, despite closer to a fortieth our population. Our neighbor to the north has four cities with higher quality of life than any city in the US.
One can, of course, disagree with the exact methodology and thus the rankings. But I'd imagine most of those with real experience living in both the US and some of these high-quality-of-life cities abroad wouldn't quibble with the overall pattern described. Many countries seem to have unlocked the key to building cities that are amendable to happy human living (especially the Germanic countries), but the US just isn't among them. So, what can we do about it?
I start with the idea that you shouldn't try to reinvent the wheel. We know what works. We know what cities are great places to live, and so we should learn from them. We should figure out what makes a place like Vienna or Zurich so nice, and try to emulate that. How do they handle transportation? Zoning? What do they do to take advantage of their waterfronts? How do they keep poverty down? In what ways do they nurture culture and encourage a lively community life?
I'll start with an idea. One thing I loved about Munich was the public transit. It effectively ran on the honor system: you bought passes and validated them yourself, with the only enforcement done by spot-checking trains. This made it a lot quicker to get on trains (no turnstiles) and encouraged people to just buy their tickets on a monthly basis. The system was also subsidized, encouraging more ridership and allowing more frequent trains and buses, and better coverage of the city. That, in turn, made the city center far cleaner, the air better, the streets quieter, and everything much more walkable than if you had to fight with lots of cars. Even just removing the haze of car exhaust from the air made the quality of light better and all the surfaces less grungy. With fewer cars, you also didn't need much on-street parking, which freed up space for more bike lanes. I suspect it also helps to keep the crime rate down (when the streets are full of pedestrians, there's less opportunity for violent crime, especially the kind that happens in a lonely parking garage.) The dedication to pedestrians also created a lot more street activities -- street theater, beer gardens, community events, and so on, since you could count on people happily stumbling upon such events in a way they wouldn't if in their cars.
It's expensive to create a high-quality subsidized public transit system as good as Munich's, but the benefits are incalculable. It even makes people healthier (when people walk most places, they're less likely to be obese and diabetic). And we can afford it. In terms of per capita GDP, the US is wealthier than most of the countries on that list, including Germany.
