“The whole thesis” of his book [about London], he says, “is about prestige. What makes people tick. We seek cities because there are a greater range of girls at the bar, of reproductive choice. Number one. Number two is there are better outcomes for health and wealth. And now we care more about the environment, and cities are better for the environment. But above all, talented people seek cities for fame. They can’t get famous in the fu*king village.”
Frederick uncut says: It’s hilarious how much more U.K. politicians can get away with saying than their American counterparts. He’s not exactly wrong, though, but he should specify *Big* cities like London, no one moves to Tulsa or Lubbock to get famous.
thomas tucker says: Classy.
James C. says: Do they not teach logic and critical thinking at Eton and Oxford?
First, in the section quoted by Rod, he extolls the advantages of city life, chiefly that they provide an environment in which people can indulge their appetites for wealth, power, fame, and especially sex (“reproductive choice”) without limits.
Then he backs it up by reciting a poem about pursuing fame, ignoring the inconvenience that the poem’s author was the Puritan John Milton and that it was a cautionary tale illustrating that a man’s pursuit of earthly fame was liable to end up with him drowning in the Irish Sea!
Yet here is another quotation from the same interview, in which Johnson applauds Nanny McBloomberg’s righteous war on the vices of smoking and sugary drinks:
“People really do need and want to be governed. And I think Mike Bloomberg is sort of on to that. The question is where do you draw the line.” His answer? “Obesity is a new problem. It’s a problem of affluence and acrasia, moral weakness. You know, it’s associated with debt—there’s a strong connection between the fattest societies and the most indebted societies. Or the most emotionally incontinent societies and the most improvident and the weakest wills.”
We are witnessing the emergence of a New Puritanism, but for this new brand, the only sin worse than smoking or being fat is placing limits on the indulgence of sexual appetites and greed. Don’t dare touch those!
The mayor of Cambridge, Mass., this week proposed the idea of banning or restricting the sale of sugary drinks at city restaurants.
From the Boston Herald:
“As much free will as you can have in a society is a good idea . . . But with a public health issue, you look at those things that are dangerous for people, that need government regulation,” Mayor Henrietta Davis told the press. “When people are served these gigantic portions of soda in bottomless cups, sometimes it’s just more than people are able to resist.”
Like sex? No, no, no—better for the state to pay for abortions and STD treatments than even to admit that our pornographic culture is often “more than people are able to resist”.
I liked the Herald columnist’s reaction:
By the way, I love the idea of a future where a gang of Cambridge liberals is burning an American flag, insulting the military and smoking pot when one of them spots a cop and tells his buddy “Hide the Coke Classic, quick!”
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/op_ed/view.bg?articleid=1061140075
JonF says: Re: since when are “cities better for the environment.”
Efficiencies of scale.
A densely populated city (think NYC, not Phoenix) will have a lot more amenities in a smaller amount of space, reducing, even eliminating, the need to drive. Cities often have mass transportation too, which is less polluting (per passenger mile traveled) than a car. Rural people drive — a lot. City people less so. It’s the difference (as an example) between Rod’s lengthy commute to go to an Orthodox Church in Baton Rouge and my short three mile trip across downtown Baltimore on Sundays. It’s also me biking to work most days while my friends up in rural Chatauqua County NY have 30+ mile (one way) commutes.
Beyng says: JonF:
Quite right, and a fair point. Then again, the city dwellers I know consume, on average, a lot more than my rural compatriots. Cars and miles driven aren’t the only factors to consider in assessing the environmental impact of a given locale. The concentrated waste–the commodities, the industrial pollution, the sheer proliferation of things–produced by cities surely exceeds the proportional output of a small town.
I’m so tired of simple, vaguely Darwinian balderdash. They go to the city to be rich, while they overpay massively for horrible schools and rent compared to suburbs, and poor quality of life. They go to the city to be famous, despite how impossible it is for 95% of us plus to do so no matter where they are. They go for the sex, but they sure can’t get married for crap, since over 50% of people age 20-59 in london are single, and the common complaint of the young urban professional woman is they can’t find a good man.
You might as well say they go to the city because it has the best buildings to swing from while we scratch out armpits, pound our chest, and present our buttocks for all that.
JonF says: Re: Then again, the city dwellers I know consume, on average, a lot more than my rural compatriots.
I assume you know some well-off people– maybe not 1%, but top 20% maybe?
However cities have lots and lots of poor people in them as well.
Sam M says: “no one moves to Tulsa or Lubbock to get famous.”
I’m not so sure. It depends on your definition of famous. A Holywood starlet? OK. But there is something to be said for big fish in a small pond. If what we are talking about is “making a name for yourself,” Tulsa could be your place. I know people who turned down Harvard Law in favor of “lesser” regional schools because those regional schools were actually a different way forward in regional centers of power. I know people who worked in NYC just long enough to get a “name,” then moved to places like Atlanta in order to rise to the top there.
German_reader says: “We seek cities because there are a greater range of girls at the bar, of reproductive choice”
And he’s supposed to be a conservative.
Lulu says: Well, as a straight female, I wasn’t tempted by NYC because of the girls at the bars–in fact, I went to more bars growing up on the south shore of Long Island than I have in NYC. For me, living in NYC is about minimal commuting time, 24-hour-ness (I work nights) and walkability (I don’t know how to drive). There are other reasons that I love NYC, but those prosaic reasons keep me here.
Floridan says: On this issue, one might read Edward Glasser’s Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier and Happier.
Glasser is a little too strong an advocate of unfettered free markets for my taste, but he provides plenty of data showing that, on average, individuals and society are significantly better off in an urban environment.
Obviously not everyone wants to live in NYC (although a whole lot of young adults do), but that’s the great thing about America . . . you can live pretty much wherever you want as long as you can afford it.
Just Some Guy says: I call bullsh*t. The population of London in Shakespeare’s day was around 200,000, just under the current size of that bastion of culture and cosmopolitanism, Fort Wayne Indiana.
Hector says: Re: The mayor of Cambridge, Mass., this week proposed the idea of banning or restricting the sale of sugary drinks at city restaurants.
Cambridge, MA is my hometown, and that law seems sensible to me.
JonF says: Re: And he’s supposed to be a conservative.
he is a conservative. Note that he rhapsodizes about the girls in the bars, not the guys.
Noah172 says: Until very, very recently in human history, cities were demographic sinkholes: festering sores of epidemic disease, starvation, and lawlessness. In much of the non-advanced world, that is still the case. Johnson is talking about whiterpeople havens like his town.
Indeed. As a relatively non-competitive person who ended up (temporarily, I hope) in a mid-sized city, after spending some time around DC, after having grown up in rural Appalachia, I am indeed disgusted in general with the people I meet. Yes, I’m blatantly generalizing. But the people in cities really are different–and not in ways that entirely improve upon their rural fellow-citizens.
Meanwhile, I know I’m missing the point here, but since when are “cities better for the environment.” Than what? I’m pretty sure the rural communities of my origin left a smaller environmental footprint, even proportionally, than, say, London. The lack of disposable income probably helped.