Why bright city lights dazzle and illuminate: A cognitive science approach to urban promises

Abstract

Despite the many uncertainties of life in cities, promises of economic prosperity, social mobility and happiness have fuelled the imagination of generations of urban migrants in search of a better life. Access to jobs, housing and amenities, and fewer restrictions of personal choices are some of the perceived advantages of cities, characterised here as 'urban promises'. But while discourses celebrating the triumph of cities became increasingly common, urban rewards are not available everywhere and for everyone. Alongside opportunity, cities offer inequality, conflict and poor living conditions. Their narrative of promise has been persistent across different times and places, but the outcomes and experiences of urban life compare poorly with the overoptimistic expectations of many newcomers. And yet, millions still come and stay regardless of odds, raising the question why we have such positive and persistent expectations about cities. To examine this question, this paper considers the process of urban migration from the perspective of decisionmaking under uncertainty. It discusses how decisions and evaluations are based on imperfect information and offers a novel contribution by examining how the cognitive biases and heuristics which restrict human rationality shape our responses to urban promises. This approach may allow a better understanding of how people make decisions regarding urban migration, how they perceive their urban experiences and evaluate their life stories. We consider the prospects and limitations of the behavioural approach and discuss how biases favouring narratives of bright urban futures can be exploited by 'triumphalist' accounts of cities which neglect their embedded injustices.

Unmet Aspirations and Urban Malaise

“…Utilizing the vocabulary of Ballas and Tranmer (2012:p. 94), quality of life might be dependent not only on the contextual setting of the community, "something about the place", but also on "the characteristics of its inhabitants". As an indication of the latter-concentrating specifically on persons migrating from rural to urban areas- Cardoso et al (2019), for example, argued that one reason for lower SWB among such migrants can be attributed to the effect that several cognitive biases exert on creating overoptimistic expectations concerning the outcome of their move.…”

No Place for Poor Men: On the Asymmetric Effect of Urbanization on Life Satisfaction

“…Recent literature is increasingly highlighting the role of compositional effects and people-related aspects, i.e. individual heterogeneity, in the explanation of the relationship between urbanisation and subjective well-being (Burger et al, 2020 ; Cardoso et al, 2019 ; Morrison, 2022 ; Hoogerbrugge & Burger, 2021 ; Morrison & Weckroth, 2018).…”

“…Second, and possibly more importantly from the subjective well-being perspective, education, occupation and income are key determinants of individual life satisfaction. Heterogeneity of individuals in these respects translates first into (income) disparities across people and, second, on opposite effects on subjective well-being (Burger et al, 2020 ; Cardoso et al, 2019 ; Morrison, 2022 ; Hoogerbrugge & Burger, 2021 ; Morrison & Weckroth, 2018). The final effect on urban subjective well-being depends on the relative size of the different groups of individuals, and can be negative as far as the group of more disadvantaged people experiencing worse or deteriorated living conditions, and thus expressing lower subjective well-being, is larger than the group of privileged ones.…”

“…First, there is some evidence documenting that the urban well-being paradox can be the outcome of irrational behaviour or false/misplaced hopes of urban migrants expecting to move to places where their satisfaction is high (Hanell, 2022 ). 1 Second, there is more and more interest in understanding the relative role and interplay of people and place characteristics in the explanation of the urban well-being paradox (Burger et al, 2020 ; Cardoso et al, 2019 ; Morrison, 2022 ; Hoogerbrugge & Burger, 2021 ; Morrison & Weckroth, 2018).…”

“…These categories of individuals, i.e. those with better education, employment opportunities and income, are more likely than the others to grasp the advantages from urbanisation economies in terms of accessibility to diversified and rich labour markets, consumption amenities and highly specialised and customised services (Burger et al, 2020 ; Cardoso et al, 2019 ; Morrison, 2022 ; Hoogerbrugge & Burger, 2021 ; Morrison & Weckroth, 2018). At the same time, they are the least likely to suffer from the disadvantages of urbanization, in terms of higher costs of living, congestion and lower environmental quality.…”