Metro Italiano

This is going to be a newsletter about the urbanist euphoria I’ve experienced living in Milan, but to understand that feeling, I need to take you back in time.

The year was 2017, when I moved from Boston to upstate New York for a newspaper job. It was shortly after I graduated college, and I settled into a new home in Troy, the delightful and small city on the banks of the Hudson River. My apartment was downtown, in a charming old row house that was walkable to Troy’s growing number of hipster-y shops, bars and restaurants.

And yet, every day I got in my car and drove to the near suburbs to reach my office. The office was small, a gray-walled and -carpeted box tucked into a floor of similar boxes, in a building with three floors full of them. The exterior was tomato-red brick, with stripes of highly reflective windows running through. Copy-paste corporate suburbia.

On lunch breaks, I’d usually go for walks. When I didn’t want to get in my car and drive to a park, I’d walk up the hill along a lonely sidewalk, or traverse the strip mall that connected to our complex.

During one such walk, I texted a friend to marvel and rage against what I saw as the suburban absurdity of the many parking lots and drive-thrus that encompassed me. He reminded me that it was wholly unremarkable, the default condition of America. Indeed, I had grown up in a place like this (a New Jersey suburb) and had lived only four years of city life as a student in Boston. My preference for and experience with urbanism was the real geographic anomaly.

Back at our newsroom, we wrote frequent articles about attempts—mostly by real estate developers—to revitalize the region’s downtowns, which included Troy, but also Albany and Schenectady. As a resident of one of those urban outposts, I wanted nothing more than to see this happen. And during what became seven years living there, it did: I witnessed a boom in downtown businesses and apartment buildings, the addition of bus-rapid-transit lines and the build-out of new bike trails.

But even with all this progress, I would often return the same thought: If we took the commercial activity that was concentrated in the region’s suburban strip malls and shopping centers, and returned it to the downtowns, it would be absolutely incredible. Imagine these downtowns becoming, rather than collections of quirky shops, true centers of commerce as they had once been.

I knew this was a rather delusional idea. In a place like upstate New York—a place like America—the suburban form would probably maintain its chokehold for many more decades. But I still nursed the fantasy, imagining small cities reborn with grocery stores (plural!), department stores, speciality stores, anything and everything you currently find in the endless expanse of suburbia that surrounds them.

Some major American cities are lucky enough to have this kind of density. When I spent the last year living back in Boston, I relished the convenience of a walkable neighborhood that offered much of what I lusted for: Grocery stores, shops, transit connections. But even there, the grocery stores were often suburban-style, their giant parking lots crammed into city neighborhoods. Parts of Boston were still very much in the process of de-suburbanizing.

But here in Milan, I think I’ve finally found my match. My neighborhood has an almost shocking level of density and diversity. I don’t live among soaring skyscrapers; rather, most blocks are lined by handsome five-story apartment buildings. And yet, this enables an urban vibrancy that absolutely blows my mind.

Within a five-minute walking radius of my home, I can reach several parking-lot-less grocery stores. There’s a subway line, tram lines and a couple (all-electric) bus lines. Sprinkled into this mix are a dizzying array of shops specializing in housewares or electronics or mattresses or bikes or books (or books specifically about mountains) or leather bags or vintage goods. I’ve lost count of the number of barber shops and bars. When I need something—almost anything—I don’t have just one option, but usually several that I can reach quickly and easily. Literally every time I leave my home I pass by a new business I didn’t notice before. If that weren’t enough, every Friday a farmers/clothes/everything market fills several streets of the neighborhood.

It’s just as I long-imagined it would be: Everything you could ever find at an American-style mall, packed into the walkable density of a city neighborhood.

And sure, this vibrancy tapers off the further you go from Milan’s urban core. A couple of the larger grocery stores near me having parking garages buried beneath them. Fine, I’m happy for them! But what I love about this city is that urban density and walkability are the default, not the exception. It’s absolutely sublime to live in this kind of place, to not be even the teensiest bit deprived without a car.

Maybe I’ve still got my rosy, newcomer glasses on, clouding my vision. I was, after all, just as chuffed by my home in Troy when I first moved there, and for a long time after.

But consider this scene: I recently welcomed my first guests to stay at my apartment in Milan. I knew they’d be arriving hungry and tired after a long flight, so before they got here I walked a flew blocks to a fabulous bakery to pick up some provisions for lunch. They arrived and dug into their food, grateful for the nourishment, but then got a hankering for some prosciutto and melon (a classic Italian combination). Not a problem. I ran downstairs, popped into the grocery store on my corner, and picked up some fresh prosciutto. They didn’t have a melon, so I walked a couple more blocks to the fruit and vegetable shop. Sure enough, the proprietor grabbed a melon for me, plopped it on the scale, and sent me on my way.

Within ten, maybe fifteen minutes, I had acquired everything I needed, all on foot—a feat that I don’t think I could have accomplished even in my lovely city neighborhood back in Boston.

The taste of this new urban paradise is, as it turns out, quite sweet.

This week, I’m leaving you with a fun little photo from my adventures around Milan. Enjoy, and see you again soon!