Why I Love Living in a City

Living in a city offers me convenience and a lifestyle I can’t usually find in non-urban settings.

People often ask me why I enjoy living in a dense urban area so much. Currently I live in San Francisco. Before I lived in Los Angeles, New York City, and Chicago, with occasional longer stint residencies in places like Palm Springs and Las Vegas. Cities have thus far appeared to be my thing most of the time when choosing where to live.

As I was walking early one morning recently from my apartment to the restaurant where I have breakfast most days, some of the reasons I enjoy living in a city became clear.

On my way to the restaurant I immediately encountered a good friend walking his dog and we chatted for a few minutes. There are lots of dogs in San Francisco. It surprises people when they visit here. Despite being a cat person, dogs make me happy. I try to pet a few dogs every day on the street when I can.

I then ran into two more friends with whom I conversed briefly in the three blocks walk to the restaurant. There are about 10–15 decent to great restaurants within a 3–4 block walk from my apartment along with an abundance of coffee shops and small retail shops.

Once at the restaurant, I saw one friend and one good acquaintance with whom I also chatted briefly. Then a close friend came in and…