What your city says about you
The deeper meaning of where you live
I love this essay from Paul Graham about cities and ambition. He says:
Great cities attract ambitious people. You can sense it when you walk around one. In a hundred subtle ways, the city sends you a message: you could do more; you should try harder.
The surprising thing is how different these messages can be. New York tells you, above all: you should make more money. There are other messages too, of course. You should be hipper. You should be better looking. But the clearest message is that you should be richer.
What I like about Boston (or rather Cambridge) is that the message there is: you should be smarter. You really should get around to reading all those books you've been meaning to.
I chose Barcelona as my home because of the message this city sends:
We have a Mediterranean climate with decent weather year-round. It’s close to the sea but surrounded by mountains. Tons of activities to build community (many free). Beautiful architecture. Nude beaches. Contrast between the old city & the new city. It’s affordable compared to other major European cities. It’s walkable and not too big, leading to serendipitous encounters. Bike infrastructure is fantastic. Public transit system is great too. The quality of life is just hard to beat.
Aside from the tangibles, another thing that makes Barcelona so appealing is the type of people it attracts. Going back to Graham’s essay:
When you talk about cities in the sense we are, what you're really talking about is collections of people. No matter how determined you are, it's hard not to be influenced by the people around you. It's not so much that you do whatever a city expects of you, but that you get discouraged when no one around you cares about the same things you do.
Does anyone who wants to do great work have to live in a great city? No; all great cities inspire some sort of ambition, but they aren't the only places that do. What cities provide is an audience, and a funnel for peers.
This is an important point. Much of Barcelona’s charm lies in its ability to cater to a diverse set of interests. About 1 in 5 are foreigners so it’s super diverse. And I find that those who live here tend to be open-minded and non-judgemental.
People come here for vacation and end up staying. This makes me feel as if I’m surrounded by people who aren’t afraid to take risks. Those are exactly the kind of people I want to be around.
Especially in this phase of life where I’m still figuring shit out. Living in a city like Barcelona exposes me to a wider range of inputs and ideas.
Trial & error
Moving somewhere doesn’t have to be a permanent thing. A quick reminder that most decisions are type 2 decisions, not type 1.
When I came to Barcelona, I wasn’t certain that this was where I wanted to spend the rest of my life. I was testing it out. Even if I were forced to move back to the US, the past 5 years still would count as a success. The experiences I’ve had, the lessons I’ve learned, and the friends I’ve made, will all stay with me forever.
I’ve changed as a person. I would be returning with new eyes.
Graham touches on this in his essay:
You don't have to live in a great city your whole life to benefit from it. The critical years seem to be the early and middle ones of your career.
Unless you're sure what you want to do and where the leading center for it is, your best bet is probably to try living in several places when you're young.
You can never tell what message a city sends till you live there, or even whether it still sends one. Often your information will be wrong: I tried living in Florence when I was 25, thinking it would be an art center, but it turned out I was 450 years too late.
So it’s possible to reap the benefits of an ambitious city just by living a mini-life there.
And most of us aren’t sure what we want to do with our lives at a young age, which is why it’s best to learn by wandering.
What messages does your city send about you? Is this something you’ve ever even considered?
Until next time my friends,
<3 B
I love Barcelona too, moved here last summer with my wife and kids. Another thing that's amazing about Barcelona is the number of tech startups, the sheer number of studios: design, advertising, video games, and then also major corporations, universities, etc. Barcelona isn't just a touristy beach town or a one trick pony like LA for film. It has a little of a lot of things going for it.
I grew up watching American romcoms from the 2000s and the promotion of the American dream as an achievement to reach. As an architecture student, I read Delirious New York and was fascinated. My biggest dream to go and visit is still standing, not only for the architecture, but also for the vibes, as the text said. It is a city that motivates me to grow, you are like an ant among so many buildings and people wanting to earn their own place, it motivates you to be who you want to be but you have to be the best at it, it motivates you to be more successful, to want to earn more money, to conquer the world, etc. (And for the field of art and design, the city is one of the most important epicenters). But after reading the article, I started thinking more about where I live, which is Argentina, specifically Buenos Aires, which also has a similar mystique. It is difficult economically to grow, especially for the new generations, but it is a city that offers you more of itself for what you want to be, where everyone can find their place, if they take risks, if they are not afraid to fall along the way and get back up to achieve what they want, Buenos Aires will always be waiting for you and embrace you with open arms.