Quote:
Originally Posted by kool maudit
i just got back from running some errands in the center of my adopted northern european capital. it was a nice day, so we walked through the old citadel and through the gardens surrounding the castle. the palace guards at amalienborg were posing for photos with chinese tourists.
because i didn't really grow up with this sort of thing, it kind of charmed me. it probably always will ("let's cut through the palace..."), but these things are so subjective. if i were born here, the above would hold little to no value. things like art deco skyscrapers might be far more appealing, or — as per acajack's example — affordable swimming pools.
you can't really say "better" with canada and europe. i mean, i like playing tennis and don't really like playing squash, but that doesn't mean tennis is better, or that squash should be more like tennis. they're just two different phenomena between which i made a personal choice.
there are some things about where i live that i like, and that are quite tangible. for one, this is a small city of 1.5 million people that has a 107-station rail system. i use it to go everywhere. it's a great thing, and ottawa could have such a system too if they really wanted.
but i am not living in europe for the trains. you don't switch countries over railway setups. the reasons why this continent resonates with me are more internal and subjective; they are kind of the counterpart to the canadian "i like the future and helping to build my country"-type thoughts expressed upthread.
if you are fascinated by history and enjoy the sort of human habits that are made finer by long repetition — rituals, essentially — europe's a good place. if you like the vast, undefined nature of the frontier, you'd be happier in canada. if, like most people, you get kind of a thrill from both things but don't really have a huge temperamental leaning, you'd likely be happy in either an established canadian city like montreal or toronto or a progressive european city like copenhagen or amsterdam.
the stuff we talk about on the forum is really pretty important to me. a street and neighborhood of substantial pre-war buildings isn't an ideal or a perk, it's a prerequisite, and i wouldn't be really happy in a place where that wasn't both available and the norm. i don't like cities where urban living is a niche for yuppies or a market segment (picture a rehabbed factory called something like "the oatmeal lofts," perched above "ginsberg café" in an otherwise parking-lot filled neighborhood)... i like cities where it just goes without saying, where it's what's always been done and is effortless.
in a lot of canada, neighborhoods like this
are something of a boutique product, but in much of europe they're just life. i like that. but i will always have less living space, a lamer car, and fewer possessions here than i would in north america. nothing drastic or anything, but a noticeable step down. you sacrifice a bit of private for a bit of public and that's just that. |
I completely agree, just with lower standards.
It takes so little for a neighbourhood to feel like a self-storage unit to me. I need the homes to be attached, I need there to be absolutely no front lawn. Even a few feet of grass between the sidewalk and the houses takes something away for me.
jeddy1989 used to be a tenant of mine, but now lives in another part of the city that's more suburban. He popped round on Friday because he had an hour to spare between appointments, parked his car outside my door, and we decided to walk down the block for some tea at Formosa.
We're walking down my little block and it's full of life. There are old women leaning out their bathroom windows on the second floor, smoking, chatting with passers-by. There are high school students heading back to school from the little cluster of restaurants at the end of our block. There's a woman sitting and reading on her front step. There's a Muslim man and his wife standing by their car screaming for their kids in the house to hurry up and get out.
And, near the end of the block, we hear someone shouting our names. It's Shannon, from Portland, Oregon, leaning out her house, asking where we're going. She can't join, she's already running an hour behind schedule, but we should stop by for drinks shortly before she gets off work at an expensive restaurant with an affordable bar in an alley off Duckworth Street.
We stand in the middle of the street to chat with her for five minutes. Every pedestrian walks on the street, not the sidewalk. Cars weave through.
As we're ready to move on, jeddy1989 says, "That's what I miss. I don't miss the run-down rowhouses, but I miss that community."
And that's what I need. I've never been able to achieve that in any other city. I'm sure it exists, but I've never been able to gain access to it. Things have always been either more deserted, more shut up indoors, or they've been too impersonal.
I need everyone to be living on everyone else's lap, grapevine gossip, being on a first-name basis with all the neighbours because I haven't a fucking clue what their surnames are.
My parents have managed to do it in a very suburban neighbourhood. They always have visitors, are always visiting. Someone comes over from a house or two away every day to play cribbage with Dad. Mom's invited out for a walk or a movie or some arts class with a call or visit every other day.
So I know it's possible, but I don't have whatever the necessary skills are to build it. For me, I need it, and it has to be the natural consequence of the built environment.
I've never lived for an extended time in Europe, vacations only - but I imagine it's easier there to achieve this type of... fully engaged lifestyle.
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The French political establishment is getting more and more worried about this phenomenon of a skilled workforce leaving the country, to the point that what they call "le modèle social français" (literally the French social template, pattern, model or whatever synonym) is now more and more questioned. For now, immobilism in France is promoting expatriation to some extent, which is a rather new trend in France's habits. They say it's turning into an issue. Losing skilled people is nothing good for any country indeed, though having a growing diaspora abroad is not uninteresting at all either. Also, I see no problem in a French expatriation to reinforce Quebec's population, I think it's pretty good for France's interests.
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