Conversation

“Where to live next year” decision is turning out to be NP-hard. Wife and I are gleefully vetoing each other’s ideas and getting nowhere. “Too snowy” “Too dry” “I need a decent airport” “Need a Whole Foods” ... Megacities: unsustainably overpriced Schelling points from hell.
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There are only 3 American stories. 1. Never moved away from Smalltown 2. Sustainably living in Charismatic Bigcity, having moved from Smalltown 3. Crashed out of Charismatic Bigcity to Different Smalltown that exists as a living critique of the former
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Varun gets it, A city is not a candidate until I understand what continuation it represents. It’s a narrative extension problem. The constraint satisfaction part is merely the legible bit so it’s easy to get caught up in that.
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Replying to @vr00n @kellybianucci and @DanielleMorrill
You’re possibly the only one among people responding who is grokking the way I’m trying to frame the problem. 😀 It’s not a constraint satisfaction problem. It is a narrative extension problem with a set of constraints.
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The city you live in is a *powerful* predictor and embodiment of the story you’re enacting, especially in the context of the series that came before. If you don’t have a good narrative justification for why you’re moving there, you won’t last long (unless you get trapped there)
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One of the best arguments against the big economy and in favor of paycheck career is in fact “too much freedom.” With paycheck career, job hunting = lifestyle design. Your next job locks down your next chapter.
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Another thing single people don’t appreciate (going by responses) is that the couple version of the problem is an entirely different problem. Qualitatively different.
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Loop linking macro cities thread
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Since WW2, the story of humanity has increasingly been the story of the top 100 or so charismatic big cities. The ones that can each lay claim to an important subplot of the human story. Not necessarily the biggest ones but the ones that you instantly associate with a big story.
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The only thing more fraught than giving people city advice is giving them dating advice probably. Career advice is less fraught, coming in at #3. Wonder why there aren’t “city match” sites the way there are dating, marriage, and job sites.
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You’re forgetting about drifters here, which is very American They just follow the road which goes to all kinds of places They could spend years in towns you’ve never heard of and then hit a big city out of the blue
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I went through the same thing 4 years ago. The answer is (still) Berlin. Cheap Safe Walkable Vibrant Art Scene Vibrant Tech Scene Good Salaries Culturally and Economically Diverse Great Public Transit Great Community Easy travel to all of Europe Easy Immigration Food?
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