> Most Asian people love living around others. We crave the human energy, the hustle and bustle of economic activity, the opportunities, the food, etc.
Any statement starting with "Most Asian people" that doesn't end with something like "have two arms and two legs" can be discarded. 4.6 billion people, many of whom are culturally as close to each other as they are to someone from Sweden.
Even here in Seoul, one of the more populous cities, so many people would move in a heartbeat if they could keep the same job and e.g. education for their children. They certainly don't love it.
> Even here in Seoul, one of the more populous cities, so many people would move in a heartbeat if they could keep the same job and e.g. education for their children. They certainly don't love it.
That's interesting -- because Seoul is one of the most overwhelming examples of city preference (perhaps not internal desire, but opportunity seeking behavior) in the world. Korea has a problem in that the population is in fact too concentrated in Seoul, which creates distortions in the economy, and the government has been trying to get people to spread out more (Sejong City is an attempt). People are frustrated with things about Seoul but they still stay for the opportunity.
Let's flip the question this way: if apartment ownership was affordable, opportunities were good, air was clean, most things in life like healthcare, education, etc. were affordable, would people naturally seek to move to a big city?
Tokyo is such a city and the answer for many people has been yes. It may not be the preference of most people you meet online, but empirically the numbers reveal preference.
One of the most common reasons (probably number 1) people here would rather not live in Seoul if they could keep their job and educational opportunities is in fact straight up "too many people, too crowded".
This is nicely worded but I'm not sure what to make of it. No offense, but doesn't make a lot of sense.
Younger populations tend to get attracted to cities, tolerating worse living standards in exchange for better wages and shorter commutes. But higher commodity prices negate benefits, and also lower standards of life suppress offspring, which is politically highly problematic. Isn't that the fundamental defect in concept of a city since the industrial revolution?
A typical luxury condo in Tokyo costs $1m, offer 100m^2(1k sqft) of single floor dwelling, with 300 individual properties on average spanning couple dozen floors. That might be a 0.1% lifestyle, relatively speaking, but objectively and especially in comparison with historical descriptions of opulent life, I can't exactly see how it compares.
Cities did not use to suppress offspring. When countries were developing, and even in developing countries today, cities had high-fertility slums. Look at pictures of New York in the 1900s with multigenerational families sharing a room.
If anything higher standards of living (and higher expectations of what children should get) suppress offspring. Easier access to medical care and family planning in cities also plays a factor.
Any statement starting with "Most Asian people" that doesn't end with something like "have two arms and two legs" can be discarded. 4.6 billion people, many of whom are culturally as close to each other as they are to someone from Sweden.
Even here in Seoul, one of the more populous cities, so many people would move in a heartbeat if they could keep the same job and e.g. education for their children. They certainly don't love it.