The Truth About the Big City^TM

The Big City^TM means high-end urban areas such as NY, SF, LA, Philly and Chicago. Places where owning a single-family detatched dwelling is not feasible for the vast majority of residents. This rules out up-and-coming cities with rational real estate such as Charlotte, Raleigh, Austin and Denver. It also rules out most of the rust belt, where property values tend to be declining and the population decreasing.

The Big City^TM has three types of residents: 1) those who were born there 2) those who come there and 3) those who stay there.

Those who are born in the Big City^TM tend to have street smarts and connections which help them make the right choices to build a life and a home which are sustainable in that environment. They can live there for their whole lives and even if their standard of living doesn't match the suburban standard, they are happy because it's what they know and they've learned how to make the most of it.

Those who come to the Big City^TM are usually trying to escape something or looking for something. Very wealthy and successful people might find whatever that is. People with very low expectations might find it as well. Most people only come for as long as it takes them to get disillusioned, or long enough to make connections and move on to something better.

Then there are those who aren't born there but come and stay. They tend to be a) very well-off or b) total losers. Very wealthy people congregate in the Big City^TM because so much of the Big City^TM is inaccessible by those unlike themselves. They run the businesses and institutions that keep the Big City^TM going, and this is their element and thus they are happy here. Total losers stay because they have the inability to see the sacrifices they're making to be there. In SF (and I'm sure this holds true in other cities as well), they tend to be fags who think that living around a bunch of other fags is an end in itself, or drug addicts who can't find good meth outside the city limits. They subsist on the charity and institutions that make many parts of the Big City^TM unlivable and dangerous. They contribute to the dark underbelly that drives the middle class out and keeps the population deeply segregated. They exist in a cloud of drugs or self-delusion which makes them incapable of desiring or believing in a better life. They'll never leave because they can't possibly imagine what could be better than being drunk and high and homeless all the time. They have no aspirations, they have no ambition.

Now here's where I stand: I have aspirations and ambition. I also grew up in a nice clean, well-kept suburban home with parents who weren't rich, but had free time and nice things. If I want free time and nice things, I either have to get a buch of money without working my ass off til I'm 50 somehow, or get out of the Big City^TM.

I think what drives a lot of people to the pretense of happiness in these places is the idea that they are making some early compromises and sacrifices and that eventually it'll pay off. My own experience is that "paying off" means when I'm 50 or 60. I'm not prepared to live that way. I believe in having goals and pursuing a better life, but I don't believe in totally writing off my today for the sake of a tomorrow that I'm not entirely sure exists.

I am happy a lot of the time. But the things that make me happy are things like writing, reading, shopping, watching movies and hanging out with friends at coffeehouses. All of these things got harder to do when I came to the Big City^TM. Writing and reading and watching movies takes free time that my demanding job does not permit (I work gobs of overtime to pay the outrageous rent on my hovel of a broken-down apartment, whose plumbing and appliances all date to the pre-war era). Believe it or not, shopping still requires a car here unless you live in a really good neighborhood, since the ghetto I live in has no retail of any sort. Because there is such a glut of people and deficit of services here, going to the nearest major retail establishment usually means a jorney of 10-15 miles through snarls of urban traffic. This turns shopping itself into an operation requiring your free time, which once again is in short supply in my life. All of the latter can be said for the retail establishments which are coffeehouses. They don't got 'em here in the ghetto. I was closer to a neighborhood non-Starbucks coffeehouse when I lived in the sprawls of Fresno than I am here in the Big City^TM.

Thus, none of the things in this life which I enjoy are fulfilled particularly well by the Big City^TM as opposed to your run-of-the-mill average American city. I've seen "my neighborhood" (the neighborhood where I hope to live) in many, many cities. It's the neighborhood where the houses were built in the 30s, 40s and 50s, where the people make a solidly middle-class wage, but can afford modern appliances and a quality reroofing every dozen years. Where they can walk a mile or less to the Starbucks or drive to the Target without it feeling like a trip to the moon. It is in a city with a college or two and thus there's lots of services for people on limited income, but also bookstores and record stores and people tend to be somewhat well-educated, even if they vote red.

"My neighborhood" still allows first-time home buyers who don't want to pay a quarter of a million dollars or more for a house. "My neighborhood" has a mixture of rich and poor and they all get along or at least they don't try to kick one another out. "My neighborhood" is where the fags and artists and immigrants tend to move into and stay. I've seen "my neighborhood" in many cities: Seattle, Portland, Fresno, Atlanta, Charlotte, Raleigh, Baltimore, Albany, Pittsburgh... They all have it. Even some of their smaller satellite towns have it. I've seen a lot of it and I haven't even travelled that much. But the Bay Area, the DC area and the NY-Plilly area don't have it. They have lots of stuff, but that stuff tends to be unhappy people with superficial and wasting lives.

"My neighborhood" does not require that I choose between the life I enjoy and the lifestyle I expect. It does not require that I adhere to some bullshit philosphy which upholds the urban slum as everything I could ever want out of life. The Big City^TM only survives in my desires by the far-away carrot it holds out in front of me. But now I see the string it's attached to, and I see the tredmill slowly accelerating. I'm getting off now.

I land in Charlotte in mid-June. Let's go from there...