Another place for me?

"Roxanne" was set in a walkable small town with third places. It is, alas, only a movie.

 

 (from globalfilmlocations.net, used without permission)

[The title of this piece riffs on the title of a blog, no longer available online, by Gracen Johnson about her move to Fredericton, New Brunswick. She and Chuck Marohn later collaborated on an episode of the Strong Towns Podcast called "Another Place for Chuck?"]

A couple weeks ago on Twitter, Brent Toderian, an urban planner and urbanist based in Vancouver, asked on Twitter:

If you could live in ANY other city in the world OTHER THAN the city that you currently live in, what city would you choose? Your answer is interesting, but even more interesting is WHY you chose the city you chose, so be sure to include an explanation.

The answers he got are interesting, including a lot of "the usual" world-famous cities (Barcelona, Paris, New Orleans, New York), as well as places near and dear to urbanists (Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Vancouver, and--new to my radar--Utrecht). Most of the places were in Europe, with Canada and the United States close behind, but the non-western world got shouts for Mexico City, Singapore, and Tokyo, among others. And there were some votes for less-famous places, like Sunderland, U.K., Durango, Colorado, and a number of Dutch towns I'd not heard of.

I did not vote, because as you are about to experience, I immediately began overthinking the question. I thought if I answered it would be either ignorant (based on reputation but no personal experience) or superficial (a pleasant day or two spent on vacation). I do know I have no desire to move back to any place I've already lived, except maybe Washington, D.C.

Yet I've been thinking a lot lately about Decorah, Iowa, about two hours north of here and where we've spent some time because it's where my older son went to college. I've thought about retiring there, though I don't think it's going to happen. It's a small town (pop. 7526) with a terrific downtown centered on Water Street. I imagine I could live well in a manageably-sized home in the residential area south of downtown, and on a morning walk down this hill...

(Google maps screen capture)

...to one of Decorah's three downtown coffeehouses. And it has a fine independent bookstore (Manson 2015).

So maybe my answer is Decorah? 

Trying to think more systematically, here are some qualities I'd hope to find in my new home. 

• walkable, most daily life can be accomplished without using a car;
• accessible to natural areas as well as the wider world (like a train to a larger city)
• cultural life (arts and thought, especially) which in most places requires a college, particularly if I'm going to make this imaginary move before I retire
• diverse by race, religion, occupation, and social class, as well as politically
• climate is a consideration: though I've lived in the Midwest nearly all my life so I should be able to put up with anything I'm not sure I could put up with relentless heat, particularly if paired with relentless humidity
• cost of living should not be unreasonably high

(Someone responding to Brent Toderian's question did try an even more systematic approach, with an impressive spreadsheet full of metrics, albeit the topic is really too subjective to get much out of statistical analysis. His winner, by the way? Philadelphia.)

Jim's Steaks, Philadelphia PA. George Washington did not eat here but Tony Taylor did.

Decorah's small size attracts me because I imagine it guarantees life could be lived on a human-scale and at a moderate pace, with available quiet spaces. Small towns don't guarantee this--the smallest place I've ever lived has a WalkScore of 30 and no cultural life--but I know Decorah well enough to know it does. Decorah's WalkScore is 83--lower than San Francisco but higher than Boston. On the other hand, it's 94.6 percent white, so hardly diverse, and the 6.8 percent drop in population since the 2010 census is indicative of peril. The nearest Amtrak station is 54 miles away in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Minnesota's Twin Cities are 150 miles away.

What about Fairfield, then? It is also small (pop. 10,425) but growing--up 10.2 percent since 2010. WalkScore is 73. The Maharishi Institute of Management has attracted a decent-sized Asian population, though it remains 90.3 percent white (down from 94.35 percent in 2000, though). We know they have good coffee. It's 71 miles south of Iowa City, and 23 miles west of the Amtrak station at Mount Pleasant. It has twelve parks and was named a Blue Zones community in 2015, but is in a decidedly less beautiful part of the state than Decorah.

We visited Flagstaff, Arizona on our southwestern vacation last year. Its population is bigger than Decorah or Fairfield, but smaller than Cedar Rapids: 75,038, up nearly 10,000 since 2010. It is 73.9 percent white, 11.7 percent Native American (mostly Navajo), and 18.4 percent Latinx. It has a small state university, Northern Arizona, where my cousin got a master's degree, and the Lowell Observatory. It was the first city designated an International Dark Sky City. Its average WalkScore is only 38, but nearer downtown it's as high as 91, and its BikeScore is 65. There's an Amtrak station in town. On a plateau at the edge of a mountain range, it's higher than most of the state and its climate is to die for. (When we attended church there, the pastor was preparing to move to a church in Tucson. This seemed like a bad idea to us.)

What about looking outside the United States? It's difficult to relocate internationally, but we are dealing in the realm of speculation here anyway, so let us not be detained by practicalities. I'm a bit tired of the United States just now anyhow--we've pretty well botched the pandemic, because individualism, and 43 percent of us still think, in the face of massive evidence to the contrary, that Donald Trump is doing a good job. A series of policy and personal choices have landed us at #28 on the international Social Progress Index, with the biggest decline of any country on the chart (Kristof 2020). So while not expecting the grass to be greener just because it's on the other side of the fence--see this grim report from Germany, for instance--what about checking out the lawns of Europe?

Edinburgh, Scotland (Wikimedia commons)

Edinburgh got a few mentions in Brent Toderian's survey. I've been to Scotland but not to any of the cities. Helo (@Helo_Yellow) said: It's Scottish, it's gorgeous (medieval and Victorian), it has the sea, the hill, and OK the clubs close at 3 a.m. but you can always jump on a bus or a train to take you to Glasgow to continue the party! (Thanks, but that probably won't be necessary.) Tim Wilson (@TimWil014) adds: A fantastic walking city. Simran Arora (@simran_aro) said: Probably Edinburgh because it would be like waking up in a (cold) fairytale. 

 

BBC Radio Scotland has a weekly show called "Out of Doors" that would soon get me prowling the countryside like a native. And who could not love a country with a legislated "right to roam" on private land? For the record, its population is 488,050, with the metropolitan area over 900,000. The population is 91.7 percent white, with Asian being the largest nonwhite category. It is home to three universities and hosts the well-known Edinburgh Festival among others.

Leuven, Belgium (Wikimedia commons)

Leuven got no mentions, but I have fond memories of visiting this university town nearly 30 years ago. Its Catholic university, currently called KU Leuven, dates from 1425. Its population is just over 100,000. I remember a town square and outdoor cafes. I don't know about life in a university town, though. My five years in a university town during my 20s made me think that high a concentration of young, temporary residents lends a sort of manic energy to the town that is more about consumption than community. Would Belgium be different from Illinois? Or living farther from campus?

Utrecht, The Netherlands (Wikimedia commons)

Utrecht, as I said, got a lot of love in Brent Toderian's survey. Doug Gordon (@BrooklynSpoke) said A wonderful place for cycling, of course, but also a vibrant university town and a site of so much history. Central to so much of the Netherlands, which would provide access to many of its great cities and lovely countryside. I have dreams of moving there all the time. Rory Davis (@_roryearle) said: Human-scale/car-free streets, historic architecture, great connectivity to other cities, views of water, everywhere is 'walkable,' international student population, rapid access to open space. (Any of those international students have a hankering to try my U.S. Constitutional Convention simulation?) Clir Susan still 2m away Gallagher (@sugallagher2) added: I really admire the Dutch approach to flood management and transport planning. The Netherlands is a country that has interested me since I was a child, but apart from a few weeks picking apples in Zeeland as a student, I've never lived there. The population is 358,454 and growing; statistics are not strictly comparable but it seems more racially diverse than Leuven or Edinburgh.

After this survey, am I any closer to identifying my dream city? I don't think so, but I feel more clear about the characteristics I value in a town. Maybe the answer, as Grant Henninger wrote on Strong Towns, is to work towards developing those characteristics in my own town.

I also note how many of the places I picked to examine are predominantly white. It could have been an accident of selection. (New Orleans is cool, and it's only 33 percent white.) Or it could be that racial bias is so strong that it prevents us from building the communities we would otherwise build, because we're building barriers instead.