I've lived my entire life in urban cities of different countries, and I don't think I can agree. My quality of life would be dropped significantly if I had to move to a suburban or less dense city. It's a game of priorities and balance:
- Space wise, I definitely don't need more than 2 bedroom apartment to myself. I don't think I would get a bigger place unless I partnered up or something.
- Especially white collar jobs are within the city, so living in a city decreases your commute time. My longest commute in the past was 20 minutes from door-to-door back in 2016. After that, it was about 15 minute walk, or under-10 minute bike ride
- Energy and pollution per capita decreases just because of economies of scale to my understanding
- Babies per-capita, I guess kinda decreases. But that's mostly North American thing, I would say. I've known a lot of people who grew up in very urbanized European cities. It's just times are different and people are having less babies, rather than "apartments not letting people have babies"
- Crime per-capita, I guess increases. But alas, I don't care, really not a big problem where I live (relatively speaking)
- I will add one big con though to your list - we have forgotten in North America how to build functional cities. And unfortunately, it shows. There's a resurgence in the past 10 years in urban planning and etc., but we'll see how it goes. In some cities, urban cleanliness, public infrastructure, and city culture is lacking.
Now if you start adding actual pros that can't be replicated in less dense areas because of not having enough people:
- Never have to drive anywhere, unless I'm going outside of the city like camping or something
- Get to mingle with other people easily. I have a few friends living in the same neighbourhood, so a simple "wanna grab ramen in an hour?" message in a group chat ends up with a meet up
- 3 proper grocery stores within 5 minute distance from me. And a downtown Costco 15 minute walk away
That being said, I really wish we were able to design our cities to be full of 5-10 story buildings, rather than towers that we're building in specific pockets of lands. I understand that's the only way we can do it from zoning perspective in my city, but it just sucks, cause we could do so much better by just copying what other countries are doing.
Ironically enough the Costco in San Francisco has more free parking than any other parking lot in the City, and is bigger than most all of the paid public garages also.
- Space wise, I definitely don't need more than 2 bedroom apartment to myself. I don't think I would get a bigger place unless I partnered up or something.
- Especially white collar jobs are within the city, so living in a city decreases your commute time. My longest commute in the past was 20 minutes from door-to-door back in 2016. After that, it was about 15 minute walk, or under-10 minute bike ride
- Energy and pollution per capita decreases just because of economies of scale to my understanding
- Babies per-capita, I guess kinda decreases. But that's mostly North American thing, I would say. I've known a lot of people who grew up in very urbanized European cities. It's just times are different and people are having less babies, rather than "apartments not letting people have babies"
- Crime per-capita, I guess increases. But alas, I don't care, really not a big problem where I live (relatively speaking)
- I will add one big con though to your list - we have forgotten in North America how to build functional cities. And unfortunately, it shows. There's a resurgence in the past 10 years in urban planning and etc., but we'll see how it goes. In some cities, urban cleanliness, public infrastructure, and city culture is lacking.
Now if you start adding actual pros that can't be replicated in less dense areas because of not having enough people:
- Never have to drive anywhere, unless I'm going outside of the city like camping or something
- Get to mingle with other people easily. I have a few friends living in the same neighbourhood, so a simple "wanna grab ramen in an hour?" message in a group chat ends up with a meet up
- 3 proper grocery stores within 5 minute distance from me. And a downtown Costco 15 minute walk away
That being said, I really wish we were able to design our cities to be full of 5-10 story buildings, rather than towers that we're building in specific pockets of lands. I understand that's the only way we can do it from zoning perspective in my city, but it just sucks, cause we could do so much better by just copying what other countries are doing.