From Island to Metropolis

Is centralized living doomed?

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I grew up on a small peninsula in the North Sea in Germany. From there, I went to live in Berlin for 1 year.

From a place with more sheep than people to the most-populated city in Europe.

That jump got me thinking: how do we live, and more importantly, where should we live?

Over the years, I’ve lived in everything from sleepy little town to mega-metropolises.

That experience let me to a question: What about decentralization?

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Why Centralized Living Is Crumbling

Cities today are basically pressure cookers.

Congestion, sky-high rents, and fragile infrastructure all stem from the same flawed idea: shove everyone and everything into one area and cross our fingers it works out.

It hasn’t. It doesn’t.

Urban planners, residents, and exhausted commuters alike should be pushing for decentralization, spreading out amenities, infrastructure, and opportunities so more people can live well without living downtown.

But what could that actually look like?

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1. Walkable, Mixed-Use Neighborhoods

You shouldn’t need a car just to grab a carton of milk. Or oat milk.

The strict divide between residential and commercial zoning has turned many cities into car-dependent nightmares. Decentralization flips that around, enabling walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods where shops, offices, parks, and bakeries all coexist peacefully.

Barcelona’s “superblocks” are a cool example: traffic is limited to residents and priority vehicles. The result is less noise, less pollution, and way more room for playgrounds, community gardens, and that little tapas bar you now have zero excuse not to visit.

And all that in one of the largest European cities.

It’s working. It’s scalable. More cities should take notes.

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2. Flexible Community Workspaces

During the pandemic, a lot of us learned something: commuting sucks. Duh…

I used to burn three hours a day getting to work. Hours I could’ve spent with my family or learning something useful. But working exclusively from home isn’t ideal for everyone, either.

The middle ground could be neighborhood-based coworking hubs.

Bentonville, Arkansas (yes, really) has done this well. Walmart helped fund local coworking spaces, affordable housing, and bike trails, not just to lure tech talent (but that too), also to keep them out of the congested downtown.

This model would be gold for mid-sized and large cities. Less commuting, more community.

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3. Inclusive, Affordable Housing

You shouldn’t need a six-figure salary to live near a decent school or grocery store.

That’s not even enough in many places.

Cities like Minneapolis are tackling this issue head-on by eliminating single-family zoning and allowing duplexes and triplexes across the board. Oregon went even further, legalizing up to four-plexes in cities with over 10,000 people.

These moves are decentralizing affordability — opening up historically exclusive neighborhoods and spreading access to schools, jobs, and stability.

While this may work in some densely-populated cities, I think it shouldn’t become the norm, though. Space and land should also become more available again. And still livable due to decent infrastructure, which often is the main issue with rural places that have the land, but not the stuff.

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4. Multi-Modal Transportation

Decentralization doesn’t work without strong transportation systems.

Portland, Oregon is trying protected bike lanes, reliable public transit, and walkable zoning within a controlled growth boundary.

The catch? That also made housing more expensive. So… careful what you optimize for. The point isn’t to make it even more expensive.

Still, the idea is fine.

Prioritizing buses, trains, (e-)bikes, and safe sidewalks over car dependency creates healthier, more livable neighborhoods.

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5. Decentralized Clean Energy

Centralized power grids are fragile. One fallen tree or heatwave away from chaos.

Cities like Santa Barbara are turning to decentralized energy with programs like Solarize, which added over 1,700 rooftop solar systems.

Meanwhile, Singapore is experimenting with peer-to-peer energy trading using blockchain. Yes, blockchain, finally being used for something actually useful.

Microgrids, battery storage, and local solar could make neighborhoods energy-resilient, self-sufficient, and even profitable.

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6. Urban Agriculture & Local Production

What if your lettuce didn’t travel more than you do?

Vertical farms, rooftop gardens, and hyper-local food production can make cities more self-reliant. And not only cities. Rural areas, too.

Combine that with distributed manufacturing, like 3D printing and community makerspaces, and cities could produce much more of what they consume. Which we already have anyway if we’re being honest.

Why ship things across the world when you can grow or build them next door?

These aren’t concepts anymore, they’re blueprints for sustainable, decentralized communities.

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The Bottom Line

We don’t need one perfect city. We need thousands of livable places. Small cities, large towns. Communities with spaces to live, houses you can afford, and a good infrastructure around.

By decentralizing infrastructure, housing, and workspaces, we can reduce pressure on urban cores and bring life back to small towns and rural areas.

And as a countryside kid who’s lived the city life, I’ll say this: maybe we’ve been looking the wrong way. Maybe the future of work doesn’t belong in skyscrapers or hip suburbs. It should be small towns, local shops, nearby farms, and homes where you can see the stars at night.

The internet connects us. We don’t need to be in the city to belong to the economy anymore. What we need are places worth belonging to.

Let’s stop cramming people into overpriced shoeboxes just to be “where the action is.”

Let’s spread out (again), and build more places worth living in.