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PaperclipPerfector  18d ago (text post)   27023 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 13, 2024

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So a bit of a time ago there was a discussion here about the gender war, demographic implosion and political male-female divide in South Korea. @rokmonster stated that "Seoul is the only city worth living in [there]" as self-evident fact, apparently.

As someone who knows little about Korea, I find this puzzling. Aren't there other large cities there? I'm sure there are. Are they really that bad? And if yes, what is "that"?

I can't speak for Korea, but one-major-city countries are pretty common. England is famously lopsided: London is 7/8x the size of the next largest city, and contains almost all of the seriously high-paying jobs. With a few principled holdouts, if someone lives in a city that isn't London it's usually because they can't afford it there.

Singapore is basically a city state. I'm sure there are others.

The term you are looking for is 'Primate City'. My running theory is in addition to obvious geographic and economic factors, the sharpness of this phenomenon is proxied by how status-conscious a place is..

You know the whole "make it big in the city" schtik.

I do sometimes get the impression London is full of monkeys...

Thanks, I didn't know that term.

the sharpness of this phenomenon is proxied by how status-conscious a place is

I think you're probably right. Bit of a feedback loop, too: the more absolute the hierarchy, the more people care about their place on it.

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