Can we have the best of both worlds?
There is a lot of talk in books, reports and internet blogs about the advantage that living in a Big City brings about to the individual. Serendipitous encounters, broader acceptance of the fringes and large-scale public infrastructure pull many ambitious upstarters to the Big City every year.
Things have changed a lot in the last two decades. Big Cities have become Mega cities with millions new inhabitants. Pollution and traffic, lack of coherent community, stressed infrastructure due to overpopulation and high housing costs have ruined the Big City dream for me. I needed a new refuge.
I need some light sense of community belonging, a place where people take a minute to breathe and chat lightly to neighbors. I need a place with joyful outdoors - essential infrastructure combined with lots of nature. A place that still holds the coherence of its culture combined with an openness to welcome outsiders. I wanted the best of both worlds - the small town community and the big city convenience, along with a culture that fuses both.
I have a location-independent worklife. This means, I am not bound to live in the Big City for my work. My dislike for the current state of the Big City life and the location-independence offered by my worklife made me go on a search sprint to find a better place where I can take refuge. The biggest element in curating a joyful everyday life was to select the right place. So I read hundreds of reports, blogs and compared the quality of life in dozens of places, filtered by what I was looking for. I tried beach towns, foreign cities, country villages, boom cities, college towns and tourist cities. I kept optimizing for what I like and what I dislike. Then I found my new homebase.
The mountain city of Dharamshala (in North India) fits the small goldilocks city criteria I was looking for. It is located in the foothills of western Himalayas and is home to a good mix of outsiders and insiders. I do not see the indignity of homelessness on the streets here. The residents are welcoming and friendly to outsiders but still hold on to their culture and community. A vibrant sub-community of spiritual Tibetan Buddhists (including the Dalai Lama) adds to the diversity-mix along with proud Punjabi people from the neighboring state, nomadic mountain tribes of Himalayas, families of retired army veterans, and a disparate flow of exploring backpackers.