{"id":33077,"date":"2025-07-03T10:10:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-03T10:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/?p=33077"},"modified":"2025-07-03T10:10:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T10:10:07","slug":"myth-of-the-big-bad-megacity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/?p=33077","title":{"rendered":"Myth of the big, bad megacity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> \n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Stay informed with free updates<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__content-sign-up-topic-description o3-type-body-base\"><span>Simply sign up to the <!-- -->Life &amp; Arts<!-- --> myFT Digest &#8212; delivered directly to your inbox.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe class=\"article__content-sign-up-iframe close\" scrolling=\"no\" id=\"signUpIframe\" data-prev-url=\"\/register\/in-article-sign-up?ft-content-uuid=7fe724a3-208d-4b35-ad6d-eaed0908d0e9&amp;concept-id=0b83bc44-4a55-4958-882e-73ba6b2b0aa6\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div id=\"article-body\">\n<p>Donald Trump attacks \u201cour crime ridden and deadly Inner Cities\u201d. Alabama\u2019s Senator Tommy Tuberville calls their inhabitants \u201crats\u201d. Rightwingers reckon that New York\u2019s likely next mayor, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/6f5556b5-88d4-4898-9524-9c6aa3365919\" data-trackable=\"link\">Zohran Mamdani<\/a>, supports terrorism. Trump\u2019s aide Stephen Miller tweets: \u201cNYC is the clearest warning yet of what happens to a society when it fails to control migration.\u201d Across the ocean, British pundit Matthew Goodwin pronounces that London is \u201cover\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009a city in visible decline\u201d with \u201cno real sense of identity\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s the rightwing consensus on big multicultural cities. Yet if you go by actual numbers, these places are astoundingly safe. A quick statistical taster: just before Miller\u2019s warning, New York\u2019s police announced \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nyc.gov\/site\/nypd\/news\/pr010\/nypd-record-low-shootings-murders-the-first-five-months-2025\" data-trackable=\"link\">record low shootings and murders<\/a> for the first five months of 2025\u201d. The city of more than 800 languages is on track for its lowest annual homicide rate since 1944. <\/p>\n<p>Where the critics have a point is that ethnically mixed places are potentially flammable. Race riots have afflicted New York, London, Los Angeles and even Singapore, where fighting between ethnic Chinese and Malays killed 23 people in 1964.<\/p>\n<p>What matters is how metropoles handle racial tensions. These places can\u2019t stop being multicultural. Only murderous ethnic cleansing could make them monochrome again. So when tensions erupt, the authorities visit \u201ccommunity leaders\u201d, hear their grievances and try to patch things up. <\/p>\n<p>Singapore wrote its obsessively anti-discriminatory laws largely to prevent future race riots. After London\u2019s jihadist \u201c7\/7 bombings\u201d 20 years ago this week, the British establishment united behind the city\u2019s Muslims. The Conservative opposition leader, Michael Howard, said anyone throwing a stone at a mosque was \u201cthe enemy of all of us\u201d. The priest of the church near where the number 30 bus exploded said in his sermon the next Sunday: \u201cWe can name the people who did these things as criminals or terrorists. We must not name them as Muslims.\u201d <\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"n-content-pullquote o3-editorial-typography-pullquote n-content-pullquote--no-image\" aria-hidden=\"true\">\n<p>Whereas outsiders often imagine cities divided into ethnic \u201ccommunities\u201d, many residents identify chiefly as Londoners, Singaporeans, et cetera.<\/p>\n<footer class=\"o3-editorial-typography-pullquote__author\"\/><\/blockquote>\n<p>In some megacity right now, a besuited mayor is paying an awkward visit to a black-robed imam. The Dutch far right mocks this practice as \u201ctea-drinking\u201d \u2014 but it\u2019s how megacities function. To live in London, say, is to accept mixing. Otherwise you can\u2019t easily have a job, make friends or go outside. Moreover, most metropolitans seem to enjoy mixing. Academic studies show that they disproportionately display the psychological trait of \u201copenness\u201d to new experiences and ideas. Whereas outsiders often imagine cities divided into ethnic \u201ccommunities\u201d, many residents identify chiefly as Londoners, Singaporeans, et cetera. <\/p>\n<p>Anyway, people in big cities rarely have the time for race wars. The knee-jerk retort to this is: \u201cThat\u2019s fine for you urban elites\u201d, but in fact many metropolitans are poor. Housing is unaffordable precisely because these places are seen as desirable. <a href=\"https:\/\/robinhood.org\/news\/robin-hood-annual-poverty-tracker-report-shows-25-overall-poverty-rate-in-new-york-city-climbing-beyond-record-highs-observed-in-2022\/\" data-trackable=\"link\">A quarter of New Yorkers live below the poverty line<\/a>, double the national rate. Happily, megacities still offer a realistic shot at social mobility. London and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.straitstimes.com\/singapore\/singapore-students-rank-top-in-maths-science-and-reading-in-oecd-study\" data-trackable=\"link\">Singapore<\/a> have fantastic state schools. In Queens, New York, possibly the world\u2019s most diverse urban area, there\u2019s a ritual where thousands of parents gather to clap out the borough\u2019s kids emerging from the entrance exams for selective high schools.<\/p>\n<p>All this keeps these places safe. Only statistically innumerate critics could trumpet each brutal crime in a megacity as proof of Armageddon. After Trump sent troops into LA, Arkansas\u2019s Republican governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders tweeted that in her state, unlike California, \u201cwe value order over chaos\u201d. California\u2019s governor Gavin Newsom replied: \u201cYour homicide rate is literally DOUBLE California\u2019s.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Homicide rates are the best indicator of disorder, because murder is the most accurately reported violent crime. Writing a book on Greater Paris, I found homicides down three-quarters since 1994, even if public discourse implies the opposite. Visiting Singapore recently, I saw a city that barely even has a homicide rate. The 10 cities with most foreign-born residents include the almost tediously safe Dubai, Sydney, Toronto and Vienna.<\/p>\n<p>What the far right feels about metropoles isn\u2019t physical fear. It\u2019s discomfort. Canadian urban planner Brent Toderian decodes this feeling as: \u201cI\u2019m not the majority any more, it isn\u2019t my city anymore.\u201d Recently the writer David Goodhart asked, in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.standard.co.uk\/news\/uk\/london-immigrants-broken-system-islington-b1233625.html\" data-trackable=\"link\">an endless screed against London<\/a>: \u201cWhat happens when London\u2019s white British population falls below 20 per cent in 10 years time?\u201d Well, what does happen? (Even presuming the dubious statistic was correct.)<\/p>\n<p>Anyone who thinks London should be \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/acebdd5e-ad0f-4d49-8f31-65be1e4c1f1f\" data-trackable=\"link\">white British<\/a>\u201d should say so. Just don\u2019t pretend that the world\u2019s most sought-after places are failures. <\/p>\n<p><em>Email Simon at <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/mail.google.com\/mail\/?view=cm&amp;fs=1&amp;tf=1&amp;to=simon.kuper@ft.com\" data-trackable=\"link\"><em>simon.kuper@ft.com<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>Find out about our latest stories first \u2014<\/em>\u00a0<em>follow FT Weekend Magazine on\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/FTMag\" data-trackable=\"link\"><em>X<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<em>FT Weekend on <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/ft_weekend\/\" data-trackable=\"link\"><em>Instagram<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/7fe724a3-208d-4b35-ad6d-eaed0908d0e9\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the Life &amp; Arts myFT Digest &#8212; delivered directly&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":33078,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","cs-entry","cs-video-wrap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33077\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}