The largest metro areas in the United States — New York, San Fransisco, Los Angeles — have seen steady population declines since 2020. Residents reckoned with rising rents in the midst of a sweeping pandemic, and many decided that their newly remote jobs meant they could not justify the living costs of their expensive coastal cities. Instead, people began migrating to smaller metro areas where urban living met more reasonable rents.
Still, life is far from perfect in smaller cities. While housing may be more affordable, many American cities struggle to maintain and nurture their cultural capital—distinct characteristics that can sustainably retain and attract residents—the failure of which often leads to a sense of “placelessness”. Whether you are in Raleigh or Dallas or Phoenix, you are bound to see the same street with the same Starbucks, the same Target and CVS, the same Cortland apartments, the same gas stations, the same sameness. This dystopian future derived from companies’ constant need for growth has stripped cities of local businesses and thus a local brand. Aside from the occasional defining characteristic that no other city has—such as Nashville and music, or Austin and music, or New Orleans and music, or Memphis and music—cities across America struggle to find a reason to convert their residents into as avid advocates as New Yorkers.
With no clear victor in sight, corporations and billionaires have taken it upon themselves to challenge both large and small metro areas by building their own cities — ones that are walkable, fresh, and certainly unique in character. California Forever, a group of tech billionaires, recently announced an investment of tens of billions of dollars to develop a town near Sacramento. Elon Musk has followed suit, declaring his intent to develop his town, Snailbrook, near his Austin, Texas where he currently resides. And Walmart has invested generously in Bentonville, Arkansas — home to Walmart headquarters — a famous company town with everyday great amenities.
Whether it is an established or emerging or manufactured city, managing a city has never been more difficult. A recent report from Truth in Accounting found that over 50 U.S. cities may not have had enough revenue to pay their debts in 2023. While the report focuses primarily on unfunded pension funds, other factors have contributed to this ballooning debt. What once was new infrastructure has now aged and requires costly maintenance. Public services formerly controlled by city agencies have become privatized and outsourced to costly, ineffective nonprofit organizations (Jonathan Ireland writes how community-based organizations have an incentive to enable social challenges in order to continue to exist and secure funding). Cities are in need of resouces if they are to compete in the modern marketplace of urban centers.
These ever-compounding challenges—along with the looming challenge of figuring out where I want to settle down—have spurred on a question that I have been stuck with for years. How do and how can cities succeed? And what are the things a city must get right?
A Reason to Come
Cities have historically stemmed from being an economic hub. The California Gold Rush is to San Fransisco what Bank of America is to Charlotte. People came to cities looking for jobs. These days, however, the professional landscape looks quite different. Indeed, remote work accounts for roughly thirty percent of white-collar workers, which allows a new population of workers to live where they please—where they can afford.
According to the U.S. Census, the two fastest growing cities from 2021 to 2022 were Fort Worth, Texas and Phoenix, Arizona. These cities grew by greater than 19,000 residents. They are also relatively affordable. Tarrant County (Fort Worth) and Maricopa County (Phoenix) require a single adult with no children to earn a minimum annual income of $46,000 and $51,000 to qualify as a livable wage, according to the MIT Living Wage Calculator. For comparison, that same adult living in New York would have to earn nearly $70,000 to be considered as earning a livable wage. It’s no surprise that New York lost over 100,000 residents, as rents rise to a median fair market price of $2,700.
Many of the fastest growing cities — such as Cape Coral, Georgetown, Henderson, Irvine, and Frisco — are not known for being economic hubs. Instead, they rely on an abundance of land supply to drive down rent prices, enabling local businesses to spend less on rent and charge lower prices. The same is true for people. Housing prices, kept artificially low due to supply and subsidies, attract residents from across the nation in narrow search of the American dream — home ownership. Growth is no longer driven by industry as found in the 19th century but by affordability.
However, land abundance is not a sustainable path towards affordability. Aside from the tendency to devolve into suburban sprawl—which too often drains city resources by soliciting subsidies to make up for inefficient land use and failing infrastructure—even cities with great swaths of land have become expensive. The cost of living in Austin has increased by nearly 20% since 2010, driven by housing costs. Atlanta has seen a similar growth of 20% since 2010, driven by healthcare and housing. It is clear that while maintaining affordability is critical to sustained growth, land abundance is not a lasting answer.
Let’s back up a second — why do cities want to grow in the first place? Residents from Atlanta and Dallas are infamous for exclaiming, “we’re full!” Indeed, cities want higher occupancy even when its residents may not for they are in pursuit of sweet, mouth-watering property taxes.
The majority of a city’s revenue can often be attributed to property taxes. Property taxes in many cities, like New York and San Antonio, contribute to roughly 30% of the overall budget, with some cities depending on property taxes for as much as 50–70% of their revenue, such as Dallas or Boston. No other revenue stream comes close. The next three highest categories — federal grants, state grants, and personal income tax — each individually make up no more than 15% for a typical city.
Thus, the more people that a city can attract, the more properties are filled and thus property taxes are paid. And the more revenue a city can earn in addition to federal and state grants, the more services a city can provide — public transit, well maintained infrastructure, childcare vouchers. As such, a great city is one that has bountiful housing to attract residents and, ideally, maintain rent prices at a reasonable rate.
Wait! Wouldn’t the pursuit of property taxes incentivize cities to maintain a scarce and expensive housing supply in order to increase land value and earn more tax revenue? Certainly, luxury apartments and condominiums are an important part of the housing supply. Luxury housing earns great deals of property taxes on a city’s prime real estate—something that must be maintained, too. However, a surplus of luxury housing will displace low-income and middle-class residents which will ultimately result in less property taxes paid (consider: half of American households make less than $75,000). Low-income and middle-class residents also contribute more of their income to sales tax and local businesses — vital sources of capital for a successful city. There truly exists an equilibrium between affordable and luxury housing, where there is enough supply for all income levels.
Ultimately, the best way for a city to attract residents is to ensure that there is not only enough housing but that there is enough affordable housing. Housing policy is one of few areas that a city can directly influence its cost of living. A city could force developers to rent a portion of their residential units to low-income residents through inclusionary zoning. It could broker the development of affordable housing units and public parks through a community benefits agreement between the developer and local neighborhoods. One could even tap into affordable housing trusts or even build social housing. In truth, there are a myriad of ways to secure sufficient affordable housing that the best cities have already done (e.g., Vienna, Tokyo, Toronto).
A Reason to Stay
Affordable housing may attract new residents, but housing alone will not convince residents to stay long-term. In fact, the fastest shrinking cities—such as Jackson, MS or St. Louis, MO or New Orleans, LA—are places with relatively low housing costs. Residents from St. Louis, for example, have cited that they are leaving for better public schools and lower crime rates. Residents from Philadelphia also cite public safety as a number one concern. Indeed, a primary reason that people stay in their cities is whether or not they feel safe.
Safety, however, is a loaded term, often weaponized by conservative America to pit people against city dwellers. When safety is under the magnifying glass, it bodes an ominous political campaign that strengthens police presence in exchange for other public services. New York, for instance, has infused the subway system with police officers from 2020 to 2023 at a cost of $260 million — meanwhile the public library budget has been slashed by $50 million and has shut down service on weekends in some areas. Despite the surge in funds, the MTA found that customers were less satisfied, felony assaults increased, and burglaries rose 140%, according to a 2023 survey. Policing is but reactionary. When it comes to safety, a city only succeeds when it deters crime by maintaining all of its public goods and services.
Consider roads for a moment. The leading cause of death in the U.S.—outside of disease—is not gun violence or stabbings but motor vehicle crashes. Furthermore, an alarming number of road fatalities are linked to poor and BIPOC neighborhoods. In an analysis of Los Angeles roads, UCLA researchers found that the roads with the most fatal injuries were almost entirely concentrated in predominately Black neighborhoods. This public health crisis only further exacerbates racial disparities and crime rates.
An inclusive relationship to roads and urban design is paramount to a sense of safety. Cities can calm traffic and reduce speeding-related accidents by narrowing lane widths, planting trees along the road, or adding speed bumps. Cities could initiate a complete streets program, a type of street design that provides infrastructure for all commuters — wide sidewalks for pedestrians, protected bike lanes for cyclists, and healthy pavement for motorists — to reduce fatalities. Most importantly, cities must ensure that investment in public infrastructure is equitable — never to overlook marginalized neighborhoods who are disproportionate victims in motor vehicle crimes.
Sanitation services are also a crucial component to safety, namely trash and sewage. Trash bags left too long on the sidewalk would attract rodents. Their stench would fill the streets. They would begin to ooze. A well-funded sanitation department can help a city feel like a respectable place to live—perhaps establish a Neighborhood Rat Reduction Initiative to keep rodents at bay in response to resident concerns. Conversely, poor sanitation practices can cause unprecedented harm to its residents. The North River sewage treatment plant, located directly in West Harlem, has long plagued New York’s Black residents. Since its inception, Harlem has been home to some of the highest rates of asthma and lung disease fatalities in the country. In Dallas, the Trinity River Audobon Center resides over what was a former illegal landfill site chosen for its distance away from white neighborhoods yet overlooking its proximity to Black neighborhoods. In both cases, it is clear that safety must encompass the ability for every resident to live without fear for their health.
It is not just sanitation that affects one’s physical and emotional health but also their access to grocery stores, recreation spaces, and hair salons. It is access to essential services within a fifteen-minute walk that embeds safety into daily life. When people are able to walk down the street to grab a bag of sugar or speak with their local barber, an active community is built and with that, safety. The famous urbanist Jane Jacobs coined the term “eyes on the street,” which describes the natural surveillance found in an active community. People watch the street from their apartment balcony, from the stoop, from the public benches, from the outdoor seating at a nearby cafe. It’s the reason why you may feel unsafe being the only person on a subway cart but not on your town’s local main street. These protective eyes are only possible when a city’s zoning allows for residents, customers, and business owners to occupy the same public space.
Of course, there are many more public services that contribute to safety. There are social workers working to empower unhoused people. There are transit authorities planning new bus routes to mitigate dangerously long and difficult walks. There may be an Office of Heat coming to your city planning solutions for unsafe temperatures. It is clear that safety is a culmination of well-funded, well-maintained public goods and services.
It must also be clear by now that these services require lots of money. Resurfacing one mile of an asphalt road can cost $200,000. Replacing a pipe can cost $50,000. Simply maintaining a city government staff costs millions of dollars. And as the city grows in size, the cost to maintain the city grows with it. Luckily, there is one universal truth to meet demand: density.
Density is a prerequisite for many of the services listed above because it allows for the tax revenue of one square footage of land to multiply by ten, twenty, forty, one hundred times. A city can earn far more property tax revenue from a 20-unit apartment than it would a single-family home; it can earn far more income tax from forty adults than two.
The inverse is also true. The neighborhood of mid-rise apartments is home to a thousand people. The same land occupied by single family homes may only be occupied by fifty. When a neighborhood is dense, a city can provide plumbing, sewage, electricity, and road mileage to a hundred people for a fraction of the cost. Providing services to sprawling densities can cost as much as 2.5 times that of compact locations, according to University of Utah’s Arthur C. Nelson. In other words, it is economically improbable for a city to provide strong, lasting services as it outwardly sprawls.
Thus, for a city to truly retain its residents—and to successfully avoid the trap of narrowly defined “safety”—it should focus on well-maintained public services, most of which can only be adequately funded through great density.
A Reason to Love
The best cities are not merely places to live. They are brands. Lifestyles. Identities. People are not moving to just any hyper-dense city littered with trash and rats and urine-scented subways — they are moving for the New York experience. A Chicagoan is not walking in negative 15 degrees without an adoration for the architecture, history, and people. Kendrick Lamar will never fail to mention Los Angeles in any one of his songs. These cities have staying power because they are more than urban areas.
World-class cities do not face the same placelessness challenge that emerging cities are reckoning with. These cities have a strong history of culture and a knack for developing new cultural capital. Certainly, they have had time on their side — decades or centuries with scarce competition. Yet, they have also found success (mostly) combatting corporate sameness and embracing local restauranteurs, university partnerships, and new artists. Cultural development is what separates the NYC’s and LA’s from the DFW’s.
Cultural institutions—such as performing arts centers and museums—infuse cities with people, jobs, and cash. In 2017, the national arts advocacy nonprofit Americans for the Arts found that the nonprofit arts and culture industry generated over $166B in economic activity. This activity includes over 4.6 million jobs, $27.5 billion in government revenue, and over $100 billion in event-related expenses like nearby dining.
However, cities should not solely care for major institutions nor arts-driven economic surplus. The local arts scene realizes and drives a city’s sense of belonging and inclusion. As Roberto Bedoya, Cultural Affairs Manager for the City of Oakland, describes, arts-infused civic infrastructure or “civic imagination” is critical in operationalizing belonging from feel-good goal to lived experience. The City of Oakland’s cultural plan outlines investments in people, grants, and infrastructure for three key areas: (1) cultural spaces (i.e., for-profit and non-profit spaces meant to produce arts and culture), (2) neighborhood places (i.e., places people organically live and express their identity), and civic cultural commons (i.e., public areas and structures where people gather). The goal is to preserve the unique history and diverse cultures that reside in Oakland—Paramount Theater, Living Jazz, Youth Radio, Oakland Interfaith Gospel, and so many more artists.
Moreover, it is the local, grassroots creative workforce, as Dr. Roberta Comunian describes in the Urban Studies journal, that can boost a community into a national and international profile. An indigenous arts scene that amplifies the community’s history is essential in building local pride, which further propels a city’s retention rate and creative production. To achieve a “creative city”, geographer Dr. Allen J Scott suggests that a city can stimulate the cultural economy like other labor economies. Among what has been mentioned prior, such as activating historic sites, there must also be formal and informal arts education. There must be plenty of affordable residential neighborhoods. There must be ample opportunity to enjoy the arts organically, from amount of leisure to the built environment.
Culture and creativity extend far beyond the traditional arts. Food is another essential contributor to a city’s cultural development. Indeed, food consumption is crucial in making ethnic groups feel represented — respected. The ability to patron a restaurant that serves culturally relevant dishes and accommodates for religious dietary restrictions can reaffirm one’s identity and belonging. Nothing has made me feel less at home than being unable to find a single Asian restaurant during work trips to rural Kansas.
Beyond inclusion, food provides a key sensory experience that embodies a city’s relationship to spacetime. Dr. Robert Harrington provides a framework to understand a region’s gastronomic identity through the environment (e.g., geography, climate) and socio-historical factors (e.g., religions, ethnic groups, traditions, innovations). For example, place is captured through what ingredients a city considers local—seafood in the Northeast and maize in the Southwest. Conversely, migration patterns are captured by what types of restaurants are available. Both of these factors influence the flavors and dishes that a city becomes known for—inextricably tying food and place. Thus, it is critical that a city or a city’s chamber of commerce invests in local restaurants and food suppliers.
To a similar extent, the local economy also play a crucial role in a city’s culture. We can either choose to be consumers of corporations or of our neighbors—the family-run print shop over Staples; the independent bookstore over Amazon; the neighborhood barber over Supercuts. These are the decisions that enrich city’s economy into one that is diverse and distinct.
For a city’s local economy to thrive, city officials must focus on accessibility and walkability. In the U.S., walkable areas embarrassingly comprise less than 0.1% of its land mass yet contributes to over 20% of the nation’s GDP. In other words, walkable cities are outsized economic drivers due to the increased amount of foot traffic and subsequent sales — the more walkable, the more economic surplus. It should be no surprise that the more people exist outside of their cars, the more likely people are to stop by storefronts. In Jeff Speck’s Walkable City, he finds that customers in walkable cities are more likely to be shopping at a store because it is close than they are because of a predetermined plan. Walkable areas generate more business — and more property and sales tax revenue. This is great news for cities, where commercial rent prices are up to 75% higher than less walkable suburban commercial rent prices.
Cultural development requires many things to fall into place — intentional and inclusive planning, investment in local supply chains, and walkable infrastructure. However, the vibrancy and richness and sense of pride that will flow through the city will be a powerful force that has yet to reach its full potential in many cities across the US.
Epilogue
The best city has long been a contentious battle in the United States, so much so that it has become cyclical. New York was the premier city for 90s. Miami became the de facto party city of the early 2000s. Los Angeles found itself at the epicenter of new age entertainment in the late 2000s and 2010s alongside the rise of YouTube. TikTok has seemingly brought New York back to the number one spot for the 2020s. Boston was quite neat during the American Revolution. In any case, no city will ever be agreed upon as the “best”. Still, the best parts of these cities have much to teach the younger, emerging cities (and new young urbanites) in the South and West Coast.
If we are to have any community—any collective action—we must start with the cities in which we live. It is the local city officials and municipal policymakers who shape our ability to connect with one another, tend to everyday needs, and care for our community. To demand for the best city, we must understand what a great city is.
A great city is one that builds plenty of affordable housing—this will attract enough residents to be financially viable. A great city is one that focuses on density—this will enable efficient public services for its residents. A great city is one that invests in placemakers and walkability — this will infuse a city with a sense of local pride and identity. Together, these actions can help build a sought-after city that is responsible, compassionate, and inclusive for all of its residents.
