Are We An Urban Generation?
“I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York’s skyline. Particularly when one can’t see the details. Just the shapes. The shapes and the thought that made them. The sky over New York and the will of man made visible. What other religion do we need?”
“So like, you’re just gonna live in the countryside from now on, in the middle of nowhere?” This is something people would ask me when I had to turn down dinner invitations in Warsaw, well yes I am - and I have for the last year and a half and I love it. Why?
When I cross the city lines of Warsaw, a heaviness dawns on me, as if I enter a magical kingdom of claustrophobia. The pandemic has changed my life, I have moved 280 kilometres outside of Warsaw, into a rural paradise of no masks and clean air. I have always been a city girl. Some would say even too much. I hated nature, camping sounded like torture, hell I wouldn’t even walk barefoot on the grass because the bugs will get ya. All I ever needed was a city, the bigger the better. So how did I get to the point of a knot in my stomach when I see a skyscraper? How did I become so wild?
First, let’s talk about how we got here. How did we become so obsessed with cities and how this year contributed to a growing independence from the busy city life? Pretend It’s a City. Fran Lebowitz may not be a representative of Generation Z, but speaks so much to what I have been feeling for the greater part of my life, as an urban enthusiast. A city has all you need. In the few blocks around you, you can create a world of your own and whenever you need a change, just pick a different district, it should feel like a trip. Nature is for “resting”, but not for living. A city is where you can get all the products, clothes and experiences you will ever need. Like little islands. But there is more. A city is where you work. The financial and corporate world have created a culture of their own. The big banks, and big bucks have lured the bright minds from all over the world. With the hard work came the hard play. Clubs, restaurants, bars, city life. What’s the city at its best? When so many things are going on!
Above all these amazing practical features came one more, perhaps most important thing of all. Anonymity. If you were born and raised in a small town, everybody knew your business. Let’s be honest nobody likes that. Or do we? Thinking and living small is not for everyone. So the pilgrimage to the cities, where there were too many people to notice the weird things about us, that would otherwise make us stand out. Too many people to care here, I once heard. So that anyone could be whatever they want to be, to find people alike, to feel like we belong. And so tolerance and inclusivity became in fashion.
Broadway Boogie Woogie by Piet Mondrian (1942-43)
Then came Social Media. Over time, the cities became smaller and smaller. More people started to know each other or know of each other. The anonymity disappeared. Quite the opposite, everyone was once again aware of your every move. You would go somewhere to be seen, but with time you would dream of not bumping into anyone familiar at a bar. For some it became more overwhelming, suffocating, and all oh so ironically local.
2020 hit. The pandemic. Everything that’s attractive in a city was closed, we were cramped in small apartments, probably with family, hopefully with other people and not alone. No space to breathe. With a chance of contamination and depression. Not great odds, you have to admit. I was lucky enough to have a place in the countryside to move into, but believe me I was not happy about it. I fought it for a long time, as I didn’t imagine a life in which I am not surrounded by all the things I love so much in a city, but ultimately I realised I was torn. After the intensity and drama of living in big cities for all my life there was a desperate need of a break and this was the perfectly induced obligatory meditation I needed. At first I thought that would be the end of my intellectual and social development. Oh, how wrong was I! After the initial withdrawal period, I decided I couldn’t just sit around, there was nothing else to do but make the best of it. I started horse riding and read books and took courses online on arts, mental health and screenwriting. The latter turned out to be a breakthrough as it gave me confidence to put together scripts I would apply to my Master in Film Producing with. The application period alone took a good four months and of course there was remote work. But there was more, so much more. After living abroad for three years I reconnected with my family, I started to visit my grandparents almost daily and finally had time to sit down with my parents and have all the clever and fun conversations I missed so much. You don’t even realise it when you’re gone, you get used to being far away so much, you forget the little things. Cooking with your grandma, listening to your grandpa’s war stories, them bickering over groceries, having coffee, or just being there without the constant rush of a plane ticket back to somewhere else. It was the ultimate gift I’m most grateful for, as I embark on a new journey in my life. For many people a being in a city is being away from their family and the pandemic allowed us to realise that being close matters.
The dilemma of a city versus nature came back into my life when choosing my next place to study, it came down to New York City versus Los Angeles. I know they’re both huge cities, but let’s be honest… Apart from arguments connected to schools, I could’t imagine a life without a hike, a day at the beach, a horse riding trip in the hills, without room to breathe and space to escape into, without being close to a force of nature.
Do we still need cities? The practical aspect of it is not appealing, it’s more expensive, cramped, dirty, possibly dangerous, I could go on. You can buy anything you want online, ship anything you might need, you can work remotely and hop on a zoom call with anyone in the world. Yet there is this energy to cites which I still believe is irreplaceable. When you dress up and go to a dinner with friends, when you randomly run into your classmate at a party, when a friend texts you and you spend a Sunday together, the random connections, strangers who become friends - people. So perhaps it’s all more beautiful because it’s not brought by necessity. Do we need urban landscapes to fulfil who we are? A social generation, brought together by media, separated by an epidemic who finally taught us how to be with oneself.
“You’re awfully isolated the way you live.
Isolated? I’m surrounded.”