00:00:49.800Well, I mean, a lot of my work has been collecting and curating and thinking about, like, how to get under the skin of a city, really.
00:00:58.660And like really understand like what makes it great or special or and more than just like going to a hotel and like eating a bad steak or a Cobb salad and sort of, you know, and like walking around the main center and then feeling like you saw nothing.
00:01:14.200Like also in your own city, like how to really feel like you're getting at something special that isn't.
00:01:19.660And as I have been sort of researching how people recommend or how people like organize their own cities, I started to realize that like there is just no good way.
00:01:30.380And you're on Instagram and you're scrolling and a random influencer will tell you that like the best movie theater to go to in New York is a chain.
00:01:40.200And you're like, no, that's a bad recommendation.
00:01:43.100please nobody take that recommendation and there are like hundreds of thousands of people who like
00:01:47.260it and i i'm just kind of curious i part of all of my work is this curiosity about like
00:01:53.280how we're doing it and like how we're organizing all of it and ultimately i think it also says
00:01:59.320something about like the kind of lives we want to live yeah um the way that we sort of both
00:02:04.700optimize and fight the optimization yes there is this hunger how we enjoy ourselves this hunger
00:02:09.860for like i have to have the best thing right yes like give me the best itinerary the best restaurants
00:02:16.200and oftentimes that leads to like but basically a lot of people going on very similar trips or like
00:02:25.020the overwhelm of once a smaller place is discovered like there's this incredibly vivid
00:02:30.660memory i have of being in athens this past summer and we were on a food tour which like we will talk
00:02:37.420about this when we get into like how to love a city but going on a food tour i think is actually
00:02:41.200a fantastic way to do it not only because it's a way to like go to the sorts of food locations that
00:02:47.840you wouldn't go if you were just a tourist walking around um it also you give patronage to a bunch of
00:02:54.020these smaller places that like it is a really steady source of income for them to have a you
00:02:59.140know a group of 10 people come in and have a coffee every single morning um but our guide was
00:03:05.760like pointing across the street i think it was at like a i can't even remember what this greek
00:03:12.440place was selling like what kind of food it was but it was overwhelmed it was just like0.86
00:03:18.780absolutely mobbed and it wasn't oh it's a euro place it wasn't any better or worse than any1.00
00:03:24.780other place like she's like this place down the street is just as good it's just that like yes it0.99
00:03:29.980took off on on tiktok and now in fact they are so overwhelmed that like they can they're barely
00:03:36.620holding it together um but you feel like if i don't go to the the euro place in athens that's
00:03:44.160like off the beaten path and so good like that you're somehow missing out on this experience
00:03:49.980and i think yeah there's just a lot going on i feel that way as well uh uh i live in red hook
00:03:56.420brooklyn and there is a uh restaurant that i will not name that has a burger that's very famous and
00:04:02.080there's a line for that burger uh down the corner and around the street at all hours of all days
00:04:07.860it's really and like off season when it's freezing and windy down at red hook it's right on the water
00:04:13.380and people are waiting for a burger that's like fine it's fine and i and i pass them and we want
00:04:19.620to yell at them you know like it's fine the burger's just fine and they're not that nice in
00:04:24.100there but like it's not it doesn't really matter to them I don't think I almost wonder whether the
00:04:29.240actual um the quality I mean you're either one bound to be disappointed by what you get because
00:04:36.440will it ever match your expectation or it doesn't even become about the thing anymore it's just the
00:04:41.660sort of is it as good as they all say let me add it to my list which also feels it's like magnetism
00:04:46.940almost right like it reminds me of being at the zoo and like everyone's looking at the elephants
00:04:51.320and you're like and you can't really get a good view of the elephants and they're not doing that
00:04:55.460much that's interesting and you're like guys come hang out with me and look at the sloths like
00:05:00.280or go to like the night the night exhibit right like there there are other places that you can go
00:05:06.780but then you people will be like well did you see the elephants and you're like right I walk past
00:05:11.960them right it's the Mona Lisa yeah I went to um I actually didn't go to Hagia Sophia and when I
00:05:18.680I went to Istanbul, and we were spending time with a friend of ours who's from Istanbul.
00:07:54.640And he's very he can also explain why L.A. is different from other cities and how to enjoy it and how like it moves slow and you have a lot of privacy there and you have a lot of alone time.
00:08:07.820And you have to sort of it's like L.A. is like a slow drive with your windows down and it gets better and better as the drive.
00:08:15.000It opens up to you as opposed to it being like a fast, you know, I'm walking here.
00:08:20.400And I don't know. So that was a hearing from those people is really the way to do it.
00:08:25.480And I find that like even when I've commissioned people, it'll be things like tell me what you're obsessed with.
00:08:30.480And they're like, oh, I mean, I'm obsessed with textiles.
00:09:00.660And I think that's kind of mostly how I feel about visiting cities is that, like, you probably will get it wrong if you believe in getting it right or getting it wrong.
00:09:19.460And I think this is true with people and their feelings about living in a place, too, which is something we're going to explore a lot in this episode.
00:09:26.920So what is your relationship to cities as a concept and to certain cities in particular?
00:10:15.580They lived in New York on the weekends.
00:10:16.300They lived in New York or they lived in, um, in Rhode Island or like some of them lived in Boston.
00:10:21.800Like it was a very, like if you're a professor, you don't live there kind of thing, which was really not what I was looking for in a place to go live.
00:10:30.340Totally. I know. But also, I mean, I believe that all cities are kind of special, but also a special city.
00:10:37.080And then I lived in London for three years and I've lived in New York City for a cumulative about 11.
00:10:43.280And I guess the way I think about cities, my like broad theory on cities is that all cities are beautiful.
00:11:01.580And all of them or most of them have some areas of density.
00:11:07.200Not all of them, I know, but that is sort of a thing about cities.
00:11:10.540So I think that, like, what a city is at its core is like a collection of people and things at different distances apart.
00:11:19.120And some distances we know are more charming than other distances, but they're made up of a lot of little bits.
00:11:25.760And sometimes, like, believing in the caricature of the city can kind of ruin the city for you.
00:11:31.920And what a city needs to be kind of taken at face value and appreciated at face value for what it is and not for what it isn't, if that makes sense.
00:11:40.840This is why I love mid-sized cities, because no one has high expectations for them.
00:14:14.960I mean, the other thing that's happening right now, right, is that, like, the Internet is, like, preloading cities for you before you get there in your head.
00:14:21.940And then, like, you've already seen it.
00:14:24.020Like, you think you've already seen it and you've already been told, like, Boston sucks or what, you know, what you should do or what you shouldn't do or what's lame or what's great.
00:14:34.700And then like you're grading that city when you get there against this imaginary version of it, like before you've even landed.
00:14:40.780And, you know, there's like this is kind of a weird one, but Boston is like very racially segregated in a lot of ways because of its history.
00:14:47.540And so a lot of people will be like, Boston's racist.
00:14:49.720And you're like, well, I mean, yes, like its layout is actually like quite racist.
00:14:55.700Yeah. And yet my experience going to school there and growing up there, it was like I had like a more racially diverse friendships than a lot of most of my other friends. So there's a kind of. Yeah, it's easy to just sort of decide like or like people always say like Washington, D.C. is dumb. Right. Like it's right. D.C. is dumb is a great one.
00:15:17.460It's all these like transients who like don't want to hang out or are obsessed with power.1.00
00:15:22.020And what I always see is that you're like, well, that's because you're only hanging out with those people.1.00
00:15:27.720Like there are lots of other people who live in D.C. who are operating outside of those spheres.
00:15:32.700Yeah. I feel that way about Miami, too, actually.
00:15:35.160I think Miami like has a reputation that like exists there.
00:15:39.060And it's like really if it's not your vibe to have a sparkling tequila bottle like come to your table, then it's not your vibe.
00:15:45.880But also, like, when you're in Miami, you can go down a kind of side street and you're, like, in another country in a way that's, like, I feel like I'm in Mediterranean in a weird way.
00:15:56.720Like, and also Cuba and also, you know, it's its own place.
00:16:01.340And you have a great Miami City guide that we'll link to in the show notes.
00:17:12.820And I don't think that Michelle is asking about travel planning as much as she's asking like maybe for permission to do less.
00:17:21.620You know, that like there's like it's like a completist urge that I definitely have to fight a lot.
00:17:29.060And, like, as we were talking about before, it makes that kind of research before you visit a city and an expectation of what you should see when you get there makes you feel like you're taking a test that you can fail.
00:17:41.580And it reminded me of this trip I took to Mexico City.
00:17:44.580And on the last day, I was waiting in line for this, like, famous pastry place that I was passing.
00:17:50.780I saw the line and I was like, well, of course I have to try it.
00:18:28.960We went to like a hotel and had a great dinner and like the first real shower that we had had and, you know, like eight days or whatever.
00:18:37.520And then I took a train the next day to Milan and I had a night in Milan and I was like, oh, I got to go downtown.
00:18:42.800Like, I got to see like I got to do this.
00:18:45.060And I was so hot and so tired and like really like taken aback by suddenly being around all of these crowds after being in the middle of effectively nowhere in Italy.
00:18:54.980And I was like, again, I just sat there for a second.
00:18:57.440It was just like all the hot sun reflecting off the marble.
00:19:00.740And I was like, I'm just going to go get a bunch of stuff from the grocery store and just go eat in my room.
00:19:38.960And sometimes it'll be true and sometimes it won't be true, but I don't think that you're ever going to be like, I didn't eat every like pastry that is.
00:19:47.460I didn't eat every hot dog or every type of pizza or I don't know, I have every type of like coffee, whatever the stereotypical thing is.
00:20:18.480Well, the way my kind of system is a sort of, like, informed spontaneity kind of where, like, I'm mostly collecting.
00:20:27.780if I if someone tells me about a place that they went that they loved or that they're good or that
00:20:33.160they really recommend I'll put it in my google maps and I'll put a note in the map of like want
00:20:38.120to go and why yeah um and just like kind of let that collect over time um as I've sort of edited
00:20:44.440pieces also like you kind of get a you just see so many um recommendations and you start to remember
00:20:50.240them and put them in. And so usually, I'm a very, I'm a sort of chaotic last minute traveler.
00:20:58.700Everybody's different. I'm a pretty chaotic last minute traveler. And so is my husband. And so
00:21:04.180we'll like book flights late and we'll plan on the way and we'll be too late to get a reservation,
00:21:11.500you know, some of the most important reservations. So we just kind of accepted that and given up on
00:21:16.600it but asking friends who've been there or who know it well it's a mix asking friends who've
00:21:21.120been there and who know it well looking at what I've already saved going through I mean I do go
00:21:26.140through FT Globetrotter if they have on the cities I'll like open a bunch of tabs and look through
00:21:30.240them there are some like newsletter like even your newsletter and if you you'll sometimes like
00:21:35.280say I went to Greece and when I was there these are the places I went that I liked if things
00:21:38.960really stand out to me I just throw them in at the time that I see them oh um and then later
00:21:44.080kind of see where the kind of clusters are and just be like okay let's just go to that neighborhood
00:21:48.520today and we'll stop by some of those places and see um so i kind of do it that way and then i we
00:21:54.920leave a lot of room to just yeah see what happens and what we feel like and to like ask the person
00:22:00.640you know you're staying at someone's airbnb and they're like okay you have to go here yeah yeah
00:22:05.340why not yeah you know i feel like this is so much more possible in european cities or like big
00:22:12.000cities globally just generally and less possible in a lot of american cities um it's definitely
00:22:20.560possible in a place like toronto or vancouver or montreal but maybe not so much in calgary
00:22:26.840yeah um and like i i or santa fe is a great example of like oh you can find all these great
00:22:34.240places like just walking around but right like harder in houston to walk around and find all
00:22:40.680of the places or even in Austin. Everything is scattered so much in Austin that it's like very
00:22:46.320hard without relying on like a ton of Ubers. And it's also so hot all the time. What do you think
00:22:53.120of like the reliance on Google Maps in terms of like doing all the pins and like sometimes when
00:22:59.840people share those maps with me, they make me feel very overwhelmed. You know, that's really
00:23:06.520funny i um i actually before this i went on instagram and i asked sort of the people who
00:23:11.800my friends and people who follow me just to tell me how they organize all of their recommendations
00:23:16.480for cities and so many of them used google maps and one of them said basically like this is the
00:23:22.620only tool that hasn't been ruined and it's like the only like it's like intuitive in a way that
00:23:27.840makes sense i know of course i'm like i don't even i can't even believe we're giving google
00:23:32.020compliment but there's like it does kind of just like uh do the thing you need it to do in a place
00:23:38.220which is just like save it but if it's not for you i mean if it's not for you then what do you
00:23:43.440what do you do do you have lists do you kind of i'll have like a couple of places yeah like
00:23:50.820i i often use um for larger cities the eater ricks um which have been spectacular even for
00:23:58.380places like Mallorca and I have not been failed I think by an eater wreck um so like I'll write a
00:24:06.160couple of those down and try to like figure out the neighborhoods but I admit it is not a good
00:24:09.740it's not a good solution usually yeah me on google maps being like okay how far away is this from
00:24:17.560this and like is this on the way to this whereas I could just like put pins down in the google map
00:24:23.960and see where everything is but I think that I like this is the same reason why when someone's
00:24:29.020like oh I can I can send you this google doc that I send to everyone about all of my recommendations
00:24:34.140like theoretically that's amazing practically it overwhelms me yes I find that hard too also
00:24:41.020because you don't have any context for it so you're just getting a list of places and none
00:24:44.640of them mean anything to you that's like I find that the worst but if but if you're talking to
00:24:48.740somebody and they say I know you and you have when you go to Copenhagen you have to go and spend a
00:24:53.560whole day at the louisiana museum yeah then you go yeah yeah even if it disappoints you that's
00:24:59.700interesting you just like that's what i prioritize not american cities but uh european cities like i
00:25:06.320actually do trust rick steves's discernment when it comes to museums because he is such a nerd that
00:25:14.020and he and his team are such nerds that they're like the hapsburg furniture museum is sick
00:25:20.520yes totally and I love a niche museum so like that for me like instead of spending all the
00:25:26.920money to go to all like the palaces and stuff like that's the sort of thing that I'm like
00:25:30.220yes I want to do that I also think um it's worth thinking I mean I was thinking about this for some
00:25:35.720of the questions about like how do you love a city we'll get into them but how do you love a
00:25:40.620city that you just ended up in um that like doesn't have some of the things you love like
00:25:45.380great food or whatever or or something else i i find that like it's useful to think about
00:25:51.780the city like when you're traveling to cities to to go for the thing that your city doesn't have
00:25:58.280yes and then like just go for it like if you live in a place that doesn't have a lot of great like
00:26:02.680restaurants or like kind of high level hospitality then you go to new york or chicago or whatever and
00:26:08.080just go to all the places um but i find that's the case also for visiting i'm curious what you
00:26:14.080I think like visiting a midsize or small American city that maybe doesn't have like a town square that you can wander and drink a glass of rosé or whatever on a cobblestone street.
00:26:27.140Like there it is worth thinking, OK, I'm not going to Houston for I'm not going to expect Houston to have a certain type of dining.
00:26:34.500But I am going to expect like they have a really big Vietnamese community.
00:26:38.860Like we should get Vietnamese food when we're there.
00:27:06.780Yeah. I think that like this is where personal recommendations can be so useful and then why it's sometimes hard when you don't have personal recommendations. So yes, next question. First of all, we just need to say to Michelle, we just we want to give you permission to do less.
00:27:23.920yes you shouldn't be disappointed enjoy the things that you were doing just like
00:27:27.980allow your yourself to spread out in them so yes and can I also just say quickly before we move on
00:27:34.100that um I'm Oliver Berkman people talk about him a lot he wrote this book um 4,000 weeks and he's
00:27:40.760kind of like an expert on um giving yourself permission but he talks about this thing called
00:27:45.860the completest mindset where like the fantasy of doing everything is kind of a way to avoid
00:27:52.480committing to anything because like once you choose it's loss like you choose one thing and
00:27:57.420it means that you can can't do the other yes um and a completist kind of wants to keep all options
00:28:02.460alive but a trip where you try to do everything you kind of end up sad and like you've done
00:28:08.120nothing so it's better to sort of like pick a lane and as you were saying expect that you'll go back
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00:39:26.080Yeah, I think that it's really difficult.
00:39:29.440Like even now, I mean, the island that I live on
00:39:31.780is obviously a very serendipitous experience all the time.
00:39:35.560But when I go into town, it's all like going from here to here to here, like errands, errands, errands, and get back to take the ferry. And it can really feel like you're not experiencing the city at all.
00:39:49.480And I think some of my ambivalence just generally about the town, town slash city of Bellingham relates to the fact that I haven't had as much serendipitous experience as before.
00:40:02.560I mean, I one way that I do love to experience other towns that I have visited, this is like one of the ways that I've really come to love various places is going on runs and replace run with cycling.
00:40:19.480like and it doesn't have to be you know sporty cycling it can just be like riding your bike
00:40:23.920and again this is like it depends on the infrastructure that your place has for some
00:40:27.840sort of cycling but usually there is some sort of cycling capability and you just you notice more
00:40:35.100when you're not in a car um yes or if you go and you park downtown and this is what we do now is
00:40:41.000like park downtown and be like okay i'm gonna like i'm gonna go to this coffee shop and then
00:40:46.920i'm gonna go to some of these shoppy shops and then my movie starts in 45 minutes and i'll go
00:40:52.260over there because there is like a great little indie movie theater downtown and that facilitates
00:40:56.620a little bit more of that meandering so even though you're not able to walk from your place
00:41:03.440the place where you live to these other places you can drive to the place where you can be a
00:41:08.980little bit more serendipitous yes yeah it also i don't know how um how much of a not walking
00:41:16.640city she lives in yeah but i imagine that like a lot of non-walking cities like i mean la is huge
00:41:24.580so it doesn't maybe doesn't count but like we'll have a walking neighborhood that actually you can
00:41:29.500live in if you want like there are some houses that are walkable and it might be worth if it
00:41:34.640really matters to her to maybe try to live in one of those yeah um otherwise i totally agree like
00:41:40.420you yeah wherever you can kind of like find a spot to park and hang no one would call seattle a
00:41:48.300public transportation city even though it does have a very good light rail the light rail just
00:41:53.220doesn't have great connections to get you from anywhere that's not along the light rail but it
00:41:58.420is such a neighborhood city and so like if you find the different neighborhoods and like post up
00:42:04.120there even if you can't afford to live there that's the other problem is that a lot of those
00:42:07.740places are increasingly unaffordable but like that can be your place where you try to
00:42:12.480at least experience some of that serendipitous feeling whether it's on the weekend or after work
00:42:18.080or whatever so yes yeah I have a thought too because Kansas City is very car centric it's
00:42:23.120really spread out I never drive on the interstate even though that is the fastest way to get
00:42:28.960anywhere so like my therapist's office I go like every other week if I took the interstate it would
00:42:34.700take me like 15 minutes to get there I would much rather go on the boulevard it takes me 30 minutes
00:42:40.940to get there so nice but it's like then I'm driving past all the cute houses and then it because I'm
00:42:47.220also driving slower and I'm taking a like longer route I'm noticing the new places that are open
00:42:53.680and so I think avoiding the interstate and maybe taking a different route to wherever you have to
00:42:59.260go is also good that's great the other thing is the bookstore like see if there's a good bookstore
00:43:05.180yeah yeah just have that be the place where serendipity happens well and like that's the
00:43:09.600thing about like bookstores especially independent bookstores we're not talking about the barnes and
00:43:14.020noble that's like no yeah barnes and nobles serve their purpose but they're also usually like on big
00:43:19.880box store lane in my experience um but if you can find the place where the the independent bookstore
00:43:25.660is, it is almost always in a place where there is foot traffic because that is how independent
00:43:31.360bookstores survive. So that is your place. And that's like downtown. So the other thing that's
00:43:37.560interesting about Bellingham is it used to be four towns and then they like plopped them all
00:43:42.980together. So there actually are like four different places that you could think of as like a little
00:43:47.880mini downtown. And that's where the independent bookstore is in like one of the four satellite
00:43:53.580downtowns and it's a very lovely place to go it's so nice there's always events there too
00:43:57.980they like want you to make friends exactly exactly like book clubs all sorts of things
00:44:03.020um okay our next question comes from jessica how do you fall in love with a city that you
00:44:07.960move to for practical reasons and not because of the place itself my family and i recently
00:44:13.220moved to new haven because it was the closest we could afford to our aging parents in new york city
00:44:17.860and because it seemed a better long-term bet climate wise than the southwest i assumed that
00:44:23.560I'd just fall in love with it the same way I fell in love with Tucson a decade ago, that every city
00:44:28.620has a uniquely lovable character if you take time to discover it, that immersion would foster
00:44:33.640belonging, and it just hasn't happened. I don't know if it's my stage in life, I'm a mom of small
00:44:41.080kids, or a bad cultural fit, or what, but I am struggling. Help, any and all advice for making
00:44:48.880this work is appreciated. I really appreciate this question because I think a lot of people
00:44:53.960find themselves in these situations would love to be able to like pick and choose the city that
00:45:00.600they live in that like best matches their personality and their vibe. But that's not the
00:45:05.920case, whether it's for work or family. So but man, New Haven is particularly tough for many
00:45:13.660intersecting reasons. Have you spent much time there? A little bit. Just because I went to
00:45:19.260school kind of nearby, we would go to shows there because we could get cheap tickets to see Wilco
00:45:24.740and things like that. Classic millennial college. Totally. I know. Ridiculous. But it has this
00:45:32.820really difficult thing of being a place where like if you aren't going to college there or working
00:45:39.520in some capacity in relation to the college like a lot of people who do work there don't live there
00:45:47.580like it's almost a commuter town with also these long-term residents who only live there for four
00:45:52.820years you know what i mean like it's just like it's hard yeah it's also a tough stage of life
00:45:59.300i mean like small kids moving without choosing the place like practical reasons it's kind of
00:46:06.440that also adds another level of difficulty.
00:46:11.600I mean, the nice thing about New Haven is that1.00
00:46:14.900they have all these little Italian spots.
00:46:19.900a lot of little shops that like sell like cheese and pizzas
00:46:23.740and there could be kind of fun communities in there.
00:46:26.000And obviously it has free classes at Yale
00:46:29.180and you can see shows for cheap, as I mentioned.
00:46:32.360And, you know, you can like just go out one night and go see a student show of, you know, classical music that I'm sure will be awesome and all of those things.
00:46:44.080But in this one, again, I feel like maybe what you need are people like friends who stop by.
00:46:50.440And I don't I don't know how hard that would be in New Haven in this particular circumstance for this particular person.
00:46:57.820But there's this study that I think about all the time.
00:47:01.320It's called the Framingham Heart Study. And it basically says that like having friends who live, if you have like one or two friends that live within walking distance of you, you're like 25 to 35 percent happier.
00:47:13.300I know. That's like the whole argument of my book.
00:47:18.220Do what you have to do to have those friends, whether that's making friends with people who are nearby or moving next to your friends.
00:47:24.160I think the hard thing that at least from a lot of readers and listeners who've told me who are in similar predicaments is like, you're probably doing like a fair amount of like aging parent work.
00:47:39.480Not especially if you're commuting into the city because it says we could afford closest that we could afford to our aging parents in New York.
00:47:46.960So like that's a that's a pretty big time commitment.
00:47:49.220Right. Going into the city to spend time with your aging parents.
00:47:53.500And then small kids who are pulling you in different directions. And usually the most likely vector of friendship is the parents of other kids. But if you don't feel like those parents, like the cultural fit feels off, you're like, throw up your arms. Like, what the frick am I going to do? Right. And yeah, I would say like, well, maybe because there are different
00:48:23.420places like that aren't new haven that are maybe a little um that are still like you can still
00:48:29.960access new york yes and there are actually a lot of good like towns like cool towns like mystic or
00:48:35.680whatever that like are actually strangely walkable groton long point i don't know mystic this i mean
00:48:41.040famous for mystic pizza but that's how like it's a really cool town too it is a great town yeah
00:48:46.180actually and mystic pizza is a real pizza place that has mediocre pizza but go anyway
00:48:50.860um but i would maybe suggest that like trying to branch out and find some people that aren't
00:48:57.920parents is the way that you're gonna find like and then maybe depending on how jessica feels in
00:49:03.780terms of like relationship to to yale like i know if i lived there like i would be like
00:49:08.680uh yale right like it's just like there's like a an aura around it but um and maybe also around
00:49:17.760people who are affiliated with it but i also think like whether it's people who work on staff
00:49:22.460or like going to like some of the offerings that they have for classes or like going to concerts
00:49:28.000like again this is hard because she has young kids but there are ways i think to maybe go beyond
00:49:33.960the parents to try to find some of the things that people love but yeah we sympathize yeah i think
00:49:40.980that's right we do okay next question fun we're going outside of the united states melody's going
00:49:46.840to read this question from Z. I've lived in Berlin for more than 10 years after many, many years of
00:49:52.540moving around. This is the longest I've ever lived anywhere in my nearly four decades of life.
00:49:57.800Recently, I found that I have fallen a bit out of love with my hometown. It's lost the magic that
00:50:02.720initially drew me to it, which was it's at once creative and free and progressive and adventurous
00:50:07.820spirit, which recently seemed stifled by gentrification and money flooding the formerly
00:50:12.640poor but sexy city what advice do you have for rediscovering a city where you've lived for a
00:50:17.640long time in the hope of falling back in love with it and what would you say to someone with
00:50:21.460terminally itchy feet how can I decide whether this city is it for me have you ever had this
00:50:28.140feeling um I actually did in like my earlier though in my earlier years in New York after
00:50:35.620two years I felt like or through two or three years I was like all my friends from you know
00:50:40.680my sisters lived here and friends I already knew lived here and I felt kind of stuck in a routine
00:50:45.480and I felt that I actually that the city was stifling in some way. Yeah. And actually leaving
00:50:52.460it really helped me. And when I came back, I felt totally different. But it is a it's a great
00:51:01.340question. I think that one thing I mean, like, it's I actually Yeah, one thing that is just a
00:51:08.540simple thing that you can do is just like get on a bus and then just like go a random number of
00:51:15.380stops and then get off the bus like maybe just like and just like see just kind of let go of
00:51:23.680the way that you already know your city and try to just like really try to see it in a different
00:51:29.200way from a different person's point of view from a different you know I mean there's definitely a
00:51:33.800lot of grief in watching your city change yeah and that's real and also cities change and like
00:51:45.500that's also what's beautiful about them and it's not always all only bad that cities change and
00:51:51.500actually like when some areas get gentrified then other areas get weird and like go to those areas
00:51:57.460and like maybe it's not the area you used to go to and maybe it feels like yeah you know it's full
00:52:02.880of young people or maybe it's full of a culture that you don't know or whatever but like I don't
00:52:08.300know get in there um yeah yeah kind of I mean it's a cheesy frame but like just beginner's mindset
00:52:16.060yeah and like where yeah where is the cool and weird stuff happening like in some ways that's
00:52:23.000hard to find especially as you get older but like what vitality if you can find that right like
00:52:28.040where are the places that people move because they can't afford the center anymore go there
00:52:33.640and like fight like what's an art show that's happening there right like that's where you're
00:52:37.280going to find the cool weirdos um what are like pop-ups that are happening or all sorts of things
00:52:43.620like that like find a bar that like does live stuff of like weird readings and that sort of
00:52:49.600thing like i think reacquainting yourself with the thing that you really like try to pinpoint
00:52:54.540what was it that made this place feel really alive to me yes when I moved here and find the
00:53:01.660different the new version of it maybe yeah yeah because maybe that involves moving and maybe it
00:53:06.860doesn't like moving within your city even which I know is a privilege but like sometimes like
00:53:13.960people move to find more space all the time so like it's okay to move to be like with the cool
00:53:20.380like creatives again. Yeah. Moving within your city is a great is great advice. I hate to quote
00:53:26.660Esther Perel. I don't know why. I'll have I'll quote Esther Perel here. And she has this thing
00:53:31.860that she said for years and years about how you can have many you have many relationships in your
00:53:36.620life. You could either be with many different people or many relationships with the same person.
00:53:41.220And I think that can be true in cities, too, that like you can sort of let go of the old
00:53:48.080relationship you had with that city and develop a new one like i don't go out in the same way in
00:53:53.360new york that i used to um i discovered like this is so silly because i'm a culture journalist but
00:53:59.240i discovered off broadway and was like oh this is great what was i doing and now like there's
00:54:06.600like a whole world of people they're like this is your first time here oh my gosh how could this be
00:54:10.520your first time you know and they are like oh that's like a whole corner of the city um so
00:54:16.380yeah just kind of yeah go with that and and i think that like insisting that you're still in
00:54:21.820the same relationship is a way to get like incredibly resentful absolutely and that's a
00:54:26.100horrible way to relate to the city yeah um and so if you can't for some reason discover that
00:54:31.700then again there's like there's no moral balance in living in a city for longer yes like both in
00:54:39.800terms of like it's bad to move or it's good to stay like you have to figure out like the the
00:54:47.340reasons that that work for you absolutely and let go of any sort of judgment in that capacity
00:54:52.860this episode of the culture study podcast is brought to you by honey love
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00:57:48.200culture. After you purchase, they're going to ask you where you heard about them. Please support
00:57:52.340our show and tell them that we sent you. Okay, we're going to do some city specific questions
00:58:07.480we got. It's very interesting to see what what cities came up again and again. And one of them
00:58:13.160was Boston. So here's Anna. Help. I moved to Boston or really the greater Boston area a year0.93
00:58:19.980and a half ago to be with my partner who grew up here and has a really solid tie to this community.
00:58:24.660I previously lived in New York City for years, which I'll forever believe is the best city in
00:58:29.480the United States. And I'm really struggling to fall in love with Boston. As someone who grew up
00:58:33.960halfway between the two cities, I've always really thought of Boston as the far inferior city. I love
00:58:39.820being back in new england culture but otherwise i've struggled to make the city feel like home
00:58:43.940will just take time since i'm comparing year six in new york city to year two in boston
00:58:48.760or will i never get over feeling like new york city is the best place to live in the world
00:58:54.400should i try to make boston feel more like new york city or should i embrace boston for boston
00:58:59.880i try to focus on all the things that boston has to offer but i really still miss brooklyn
00:59:04.940all the time oh man you are uniquely equipped to answer i am very equipped uh this one is
00:59:12.940fantastic because as uh listeners now know i know boston well and am i bored of going to the science
00:59:19.480museum yes i am and do i find a lot of the restaurants like kind of broey yes i do um and
00:59:27.320i totally get it i think like the answer is do not try to make boston feel like brooklyn
00:59:32.560Boston let Boston be Boston Boston contains multitudes it really does like you do you said
00:59:39.120you like the New England vibe like that is very close like you can you feel a New England-ness
00:59:43.960you could feel like a small town yellow wood house literal red barn like within five ten miles away
00:59:51.280it's so it's so charming um there's like I would say like Back Bay is very gorgeous but like very
01:00:01.960unfriendly. But, you know, I grew up in Brookline, and we took the tea everywhere. And it was just
01:00:09.760like such a lovely way to live. It was kind of they called it a trolley suburb, like kind of
01:00:14.700urban suburban. And I felt like I had a lot of freedom. And that was kind of a special community.
01:00:19.720Jamaica Plain is totally different in a special community. The North Shore is a special community.
01:00:25.220You know, there's like there really are a lot of corners of Boston and you can live very kind of different experiences of the city in them.
01:00:34.140And I would encourage you to, like, find the one that feels the most like you.
01:00:39.060I think one of the best museums in the world.
01:00:40.800I have an emotional attachment to it, but it's the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, which is like a rich old lady who filled her house with a bunch of random things.
01:00:48.340And when she died, she said, if any of you move anything, it's all going to Harvard.
01:00:52.540And so no one's moved anything except for some robbers who took, I think, six paintings in the 90s.
01:04:32.240And I think also, like, Melody and I were talking about this before we recorded, there is this tendency to be like, well, the city is OK, but it's not New York.
01:04:40.740Yeah. And like, I think New York is objectively the best city in the United States.
01:04:47.260But I also like there's not objective.
01:06:20.800so. My husband and I moved to Denver a few years ago. He wanted to move here for a long time and
01:06:26.980is very outdoorsy while I'm insidey to say the least. Surprisingly, my adjustment has actually
01:06:33.240been easier than his thanks to the fact that I already had friends here. But even though I enjoy
01:06:38.600my life, I still feel the weight of expectations about what living in Denver means and see the
01:06:44.480disappointment every time I tell someone I don't ski or that I don't hike much. How do I get over
01:06:50.340this idea of what my life should be if I'm going to live here and better enjoy the insidey things
01:06:56.080the city offers okay I've never been to Denver so I can't answer this like specifically and I'm sure
01:07:01.920that you can answer that better but I will say like F those people like the city that you live
01:07:07.940in and the city that like other people think you live in um are kind of two different cities and
01:07:14.800that's totally fine you can live in one version of the city and they can live in another and you
01:07:19.800can be disappointed in them for not doing inside things with you. Like, it's not up to them how you
01:07:26.060interact with the city. And, you know, you don't have to earn Denver by experiencing it the way
01:07:32.460you prefer to. And you seem to love it the way you prefer to. And actually, you should probably
01:07:36.860tell everybody all the inside things that people should do in Denver, because that sounds fun to
01:07:40.660me. Yeah, no, I think that there's actually there's a real market for that. Totally more people.
01:07:45.340there is a thing that happens in the mountain west and in the pacific northwest where because
01:07:50.760our weather is not great that often that there's just this incredible pressure when the weather is
01:07:56.480great that you should be outside like right absolutely optimizing doing every single thing
01:08:00.900that you could and then also that like people who are of a certain age do all of these things right
01:08:08.840And I got a very different perspective, like, when Charlie and I lived in Missoula, Montana, and he grew up on the East Coast and, like, didn't grow up camping, didn't grow up doing a lot of the things that were very, like, very, very natural and, like, that my family did all the time and that I wouldn't think twice about.
01:08:28.060And he's like, everyone just expects you to already know how to do these things.
01:08:32.940and kind of looks at you funny if you don't and that it's really hard to be an adult beginner
01:08:38.020in these things and like that's erica's not describing that because she doesn't have like
01:08:42.540the desire to she's not like i want to get into camping and it feels hard and exclusive
01:08:46.280she's like that's just not me yeah and so i think that sometimes there is just this like
01:08:51.720hegemonic understanding of like what type of person belongs in a place yes and that can be0.61
01:08:59.020related to so many different identity markers and just sucks. And so like the more that you0.96
01:09:05.120can actually redefine what it means to be like be a person who lives in this place, I think is
01:09:09.920really useful. Yes. And actively kind of push people on that. They may not even realize they're
01:09:15.000doing it. Totally. Yeah. I think it's often just a crutch that people don't know. It's like a,
01:09:19.780it's a small, small talk crutch. Like, oh, do you ski? Like, oh, do you whatever? And I don't know
01:09:24.620if she's talking about people who also live in Denver who are asking this her this or if it's
01:09:29.480other people when they hear about it because that's a huge thing right it's like when I lived
01:09:35.140in New York people are like oh so are you going to like museums all the time like yeah do you go
01:09:39.780to Broadway every night and like do you know how long of a train ride that is you know Broadway is
01:09:45.540like 350 bucks a ticket exactly and so some of it is just like other people trying like if they meet
01:09:52.060you on a zoom call or something like that like a work meeting they're trying to like make
01:09:55.580conversations yes um and understand that like that you can just be like it's it actually reminds me
01:10:04.280of how when people are like oh so like do you spend a lot of time with your kids or like right
01:10:09.420they're just trying to think it's find something they're like what's new it's there what's new
01:10:15.400just be like actually i don't have any children right actually i'm not married to my partner and
01:10:20.380just like let the the silence sit there yes yes someone's like so do you love skiing and you're
01:10:25.960like actually i'm really into knitting it's great knitting weather here like denver is a great city
01:10:33.660where you can spend a lot of time indoors like it's so cozy totally so flip that script that's
01:10:39.360really great that's such a good that's such a good framing uh someone in the the comments of
01:10:44.580one of the newsletters the other day framed their own experience of like visiting denver
01:10:50.120they were like, I am not outdoorsy. I am outside-y. And what they meant by that is they like
01:10:56.040sitting on a patio and having a beer. Oh my God. And I loved that distinction. I thought it was
01:11:03.740so valuable. Yes. So coming up with some language like that, that best describes you, I think will
01:11:09.200be useful in disarming. Absolutely. Can I make one more point about cities that I'd actually
01:11:14.320want before we move on that i wanted to ask you about um one thing that as i was looking at all
01:11:20.200of the questions i kept finding myself thinking about is like how valuable it is when you live
01:11:25.320in a city to make local friends and to make weird friends and by local friends i mean like
01:11:31.840locals and like that could be like an old person and that's your neighbor or it could be like uh
01:11:39.820Your crossing guard or it could be, you know, just like really people who really live there because their relationship with the city is totally different.
01:11:48.160And a lot of those people really like are happy to take you in if you if you want to, you know, and they may not be your actual sort of like intellectual social scene or sort of like cultural like you may be in even different cultural classes or whatever.
01:12:02.760and um no and they're gonna be the one who can like tell you like where to get your pants tailored
01:12:09.480or something you know what i mean like they have some of that essential knowledge or like that the
01:12:14.500handy person that they recommend or yeah and they're gonna be the ones that like have their
01:12:18.700family in the area and they'll invite you to easter thanksgiving or whatever um but do you
01:12:24.020have any sort of recommendations uh in cities that people are living in and moving to about making
01:12:30.080friends based on all the research you've been doing? I know it hasn't been it. I read in your
01:12:36.340recent thing that it's been it. Yeah, no, I mean, yeah, you're like, oh, you're a slog of a book.
01:12:41.520Sorry to make you talk about your book, but I'm curious.
01:12:44.500You know, it's interesting. I think that for parents, it's one thing, right? Because it's
01:12:51.320oftentimes, as we discussed in this episode, like there is just an infrastructure there for you.
01:12:56.800And those might not be your forever friends, but it is a way to get hooked into something that then allows you to expand your options in a lot of ways.
01:13:06.540Yeah. And then for people without kids, like in my experience, it actually is much more difficult unless you find some sort of community infrastructure that you want to engage with.
01:13:19.260And that can be a volunteer organization. That can be classes. I think classes sometimes like people expect them to provide more bonding than they actually do.
01:13:30.820It could be like service organizations where you go and once a week you just pack boxes for like whether it's books for prisoners or packing boxes at the food bank or putting together backpacks that kids take home for the weekend that are filled with with stuff for meals and other supplies.
01:13:49.100like something like that where you're doing an activity i think allows conversation to flourish
01:13:54.620in that sort of way um that's a really good point like they're every we're talking about indie
01:14:00.740bookstores they always have book clubs and that is also a way to really get plugged in with an
01:14:05.500intergenerational community totally too but what i tell people that is so frustrating to hear is
01:14:11.080that it is going to take like three to five years yeah it just says yeah and like you you will make
01:14:19.000some connections and like they will feel good and then like maybe someone will move or one connection
01:14:24.840just like they're just so busy and won't move to the next level but like it will happen yes with
01:14:31.560that persistence but that is always part of the risk right of moving to a new place is you have
01:14:36.880to rebuild that and even if you have some friends who are there like you know I had my best friend
01:14:42.500who lived on this island like you can't one friend is not enough it's just not so how do you expand
01:14:48.680that yeah web of support it's interesting that you it does take time it's interesting that you
01:14:53.280said that about sort of doing something together it's like you kind of have to be in the trenches
01:14:59.680together I feel like sometimes and it's hard to force that but like to push your intimacy with
01:15:04.760a friendship into the next realm like um if you're a co-worker is one thing but if you travel together
01:15:11.580as co-workers you like have a totally different relationship if you're taking a class together
01:15:16.360and then going home afterwards, one thing.
01:15:18.240But if you're both packing boxes for a,
01:16:40.320Friends are what make a place feel like a place that you love.
01:16:43.780Like you can love the landscape, you can love the restaurants, you can love the walkability, but it's not going to feel like have that aura of homeness, of care.
01:17:00.940Okay, for paid subscribers, Lila's going to stick around and help me answer an Ask An Anything question about keeping up long distance friendships with your friends' kids.
01:17:10.420So if you want to hear that, upgrade your subscription at patreon.com slash culture study.
01:17:16.180Lila, do you have any city trips coming up?
01:17:24.420I don't have any planned, but I do want to go see two concerts this summer, Bad Bunny and Rosalia, and I would love to see them not in my own city.
01:17:35.620So I'm thinking, I have a friend who's going, I don't know if I can swing this, but I have
01:17:40.100a friend who's going to Milan to see Bad Bunny.