What People Get Wrong About Dense Urban Living

Discussions of urbanism often devolve into fights between "downtown living" and "suburban (or small town) living". This misses something big — most city-dwellers don't actually live "downtown". They live in dense residential neighbourhoods outside of downtown. We understand the aversion that many people have to "downtown living" because it can feel overwhelming, noisy, and crowded, but urban density does not have to be like that. It can actually be quite peaceful and calming. In this video, we cover our experiences based on living in older, denser parts of Toronto and Montreal.

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[aerob]

I don't think people who have never lived in an urban neighborhood realize just how calm and quiet even very dense residential streets can be. I think everyone who goes to New York City should pay a visit to one of the regular neighborhoods in Brooklyn for this reason and just walk around for a little while. Brooklyn is densely-populated even by European standards, but it is worlds apart from, say, Midtown Manhattan, and what people picture when they think of New York (Times Square, mostly).

[SaveMoneySavethePlanet]

People also tend to think that “dense neighborhood” means everyone lives in a skyscraper.

When in reality, many dense neighborhoods actually just have loads of triplexes, and townhomes, with the occasional 2-3 story condo building.

[seanziewonzie]

I moved from a "sleepy" suburb of a major american city to one of Montreal's 'missing middle' neighborhoods. I can confirm that the latter is SO much more peaceful. The big reason is cars. I have never been woken up by a roaring pickup truck here, nobody drives faster than 15mph, and when walking to get groceries I can actually hear myself think.

[mklinger]

This was my exact experience. I grew up in rural NJ. the only city experience I had was Manhattan. This made me hate cities. I never wanted to live in one. I wanted acres of land where I could live far from everyone else. Then I met my girlfriend from queens. I still wasn't the biggest fan of the city, but I was definitely more open to it. Fast forward to now. I moved to a suburb of Philly and after working in the city, I got a lot more comfortable. I now live in south Philly. It's a very similar feeling to my rural town imo. Parking is still a pain, but I don't drive much so it doesn't really matter. The main difference is I'm able to walk/bike/take the bus to everywhere I need to go. I was never able to walk to a restaurant growing up so this is a life changer. Over the course of 2-3 years, I went from hating cities to feeling like I need to live in one.

[jlpack]

Even sections of Manhattan aren't uniformly places that one might consider "downtown". There are plenty of densely populated, quiet residential neighborhoods in addition to the noise of Midtown, the Financial District, or the commercial stretches of major arteries like Broadway.

[AlexCab_]

I think New York is a great example of what ppl think city living is like vs reality. Most ppl in New York don't like even live in Manhattan, they live in the outer boroughs and Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx are also very dense and still full of more quiet residential neighborhoods.

[alex_blue]

When I lived in Portland I was constantly having to explain to my parents that I was in a safe residential neighborhood that had nothing to do with the protests downtown. Even better we had shops and restaurants within walking distance, so there was little need to ever go downtown.

[NamelessProducts]

Getting people to understand that density =/= skyscrapers and concrete jungles is one of the most frustrating obstacles to explaining good community design.


The best argument I have come across is that **rural farm towns, before the car, are enjoyable places because they are dense.**

I partially grew up in rural Ohio. Most of which was built before the car and therefore have downtowns that are walkable.

I grew up on **six acres** and was still able to walk to the grocery store.

My brother lived a town over and lived across the street from his work, the bar, and the bank all while living in a house that was a 4-bedroom 2-bath with a detached 4-car garage.

Both of these towns were less than 2k but still walkable.

Furthermore, both these towns once had regular passenger rail service for when you needed to leave town to larger population centers.

When I moved to a town in Florida (Punta Gorda), almost ten times the population of my rural town in Ohio, the nearest grocery store was over an hour walk away.

Efficient land use, walkability, and good civil design come at all levels of community.

[TommyJonesProductions]

Suburbanites only see the city when there are tons of other suburbanites visiting. Then they complain about city traffic, never understanding that they ARE city traffic, and, after they go back to the burbs, the city traffic goes WAY down.

[joshromanowski]

A lot of non urban people also visit cities and assume they can drive everywhere just like in their small town or suburb. Then they say how stressful cities are and hate on urban life. I would be stressed too if I drove around in traffic all day and expected to find parking at every stop. Like you don’t hate cities, you hate DRIVING in cities!

The benefit of city life is that you have a ton of activities and resources in walking/biking distance. Dense urban neighborhoods are awesome when you realize the car shouldn’t be your default mode of transportation.

[youweremymuse]

I moved from South Carolina to Chicago. When I showed my grandma a street view of my neighborhood on the northside, she was shocked. I think she was under the impression that I lived in a concrete jungle and have to dodge stray bullets from gang fights every time I walk out my front door. The truth is that I rarely feel unsafe in my neighborhood and haven't had any problems with noise at all. I'm a very light sleeper and an insomniac and I haven't once been woken up by noise from outside. In addition, I feel way safer walking and biking in Chicago than I would in the suburban neighborhood I grew up in. Of course there will always be people who prefer a suburban single family with a giant yard and a two car garage. And to them I say congratulations! You have plenty of houses to choose from. But for those of us that want to live somewhere where you can walk to the grocery store and ride the train to work, it's extremely difficult to find affordable housing.

[saifis]

I live in Tokyo, the loudest thing I encounter working from home for a long time is the children going and coming back from school, since I live next to a middle school you hear them yelling and running around, but outside that not much else. I think I hear car once or twice a year at the house.

[dannymongrain]

another great video, thanks!! I couldn't have said it better myself. I was born & raised in a small town in a remote region in Northern Quebec and I also tough of 'downtown Montreal' as Montreal as a whole (because that s the only place I had visited younger). I've been living in Montreal for 22 years now and found an awesome family and diverse neighborhood in Rosemont-La-Petite-Patrie. My kids can develop their autonomy at 7 & 9 years old by walking to the nearby school, park & shops, something that was absolutely impossible for me at their age. Within 10 minutes of walking distance I have access to more than 100x cafés, restaurants, small owner shops & boutiques, medical care, various small and medium food store, 3x metro stations, lots of bike paths, librairies, sports facilities, etc, etc.

If only these 'missing middle' high-density neighborhood could still be built. They don't make these anymore yet the demands for them rises and rises thus the costs makes us wonder who might be our future neighbors in 10 years from now, beside couples of doctors, lawyers and other high income

[waisinglee]

I currently live in Singapore, one of the most densely populated cities in the world, and it does not feel crowded at all. The government has in place measures such as a cap on private vehicles, easy access to public transit, green spaces, etc in order to avoid the chaos you sometimes feel in very densely populated cities such as Kowloon.

[Korpiloukku]

You didn't bring up the fact that usually population density is relatively low in downtowns or major business districts. Sometimes there can be over 50 000 jobs inside one square kilometer but there is very little or sometimes almost none housing. Neighbourhoods right next to downtowns or CBDs on the otherhand can be quite densily populated and the most desired urban areas are usually close but not right in the middle of the city.

[warw]

Incredible video as always. I had someone make this argument recently and this is a great, concise way to explain to them what I'm talking about.

[plangineer]

Your balanced view of urbanism is very appreciated! So many YouTube urbanism posters are focused on expressing their specific biases: particularly anti-car, anti-suburb and anti-(North) American rants. Your videos do a great job of showcasing the plethora of options without the "Karen" attitude. 😀 Keep up the great work!

[MrOlympuse]

This concept of a "downtown" as a central hub for an entire city is a very North American concept. Being from London, there are so many cultural "centres" spotted all around the city that it doesn't have a "downtown", off the top of my head you have Shoreditch, Islington, Wembley, Kensington, Hammersmith, Greenwich. The square mile in the centre is the CBD with a lot of landmarks but it's not the only destination worth seeing.

It comes back to this idea of car dependency meaning you don't have commercial hubs for different residential areas - you have endless residential areas with a massive drive to anything useful, so you just have one big block of non residential stuff and it becomes the only place that isn't a sea of single family homes. Not that London doesn't have its problems of course

[scpatlnow]

Thank you for making this distinction. So many neighborhoods would be so much nicer if they allowed a mix of low rise housing mixed with small shops and businesses. These are the places so many people like to visit yet they can't make the connection to where they live. In Atlanta, there are many places that are downtown adjacent that could benefit from this type of mixed zoning. Some in their natural progression were going in this direction, but then they gentrify and the single family homeowners block any and all changes to the area pushing things like 4 to 6 unit buildings and small shops out. If you are in a downtown adjacent place, you should be willing to relax your zoning to accommodate these types of things. These areas can't be treated like the suburbs since they were not designed to be that way.

[TheNomoNom]

People definitely underestimate how loud the suburbs are, especially the more affluent ones that invest a lot of time into lawn care and hire teams to mow the lawn for them. Right now I have three sets of lawn mowers and one leaf blower going off that will each take an hour (not sure how it could take that long) and inevitably 20 minutes after they're done a new lawn will start mowing. Winter is a bit quieter but when it snows everyone has to plow long driveways. And don't forget that everyone Has to have a car, since there is no public transit or bike lanes, so even cul-de-sacs have minimal car traffic at 3am. Plenty more mid-life crisis cars too ;)