The Problem With Cities Designed for Dates, Not Marriages

Cities are having a bit of an identity crisis.

They’ve been working out. Getting efficient. Optimising everything. Transport flows. Data layers. Footfall. Conversion rates. Even “vibes” are now measured in dashboards somewhere.

And yet, walk through too many of them today and something feels… off.

Faster. Smarter. Slicker.

But somehow, less human.

Because while cities got smarter, people didn’t get happier.

Globally, over 55% of the population now lives in urban areas, heading toward nearly 70% by 2050. Yet at the same time, loneliness has been declared a public health crisis in countries like the UK and Japan. In the US, 1 in 2 adults report feeling lonely.

We built density.

We forgot to build connection.

We built cities you can use.

We forgot to build cities you want to love.

I’ve often said there are cities you date… and cities you marry.

Dating cities are easy. They’re exciting. Polished. Instagram-ready. They know how to show you a good time. You fly in, you flirt with the best version of them, you leave thinking—wow, that was fun.

But you don’t really know them.

You don’t know how they treat you on a Tuesday morning. Or whether they hold you when things go wrong. Or if you can build a life there without slowly losing your soul in the process.

Marriage cities are different.

They’re not always the loudest in the room. But they grow on you. They earn your trust. They make space for your rhythms, your family, your contradictions. They don’t just impress you—they support you and build you up.

Right now, most cities are stuck in dating mode.

And the algorithm loves it.

Because dating cities optimise for discovery. For spikes. For attention. For that one perfect shot that travels faster than any urban policy ever could.

But here’s the problem.

You can’t build belonging on a spike.

You can’t build trust on a trend.

And you definitely can’t build a city for the future on visitors who come once, tick a box, and never return.

Because the data is already telling us something.

In many major tourism cities, over 70–80% of visitors are first-timers. Repeat visitation - the real indicator of emotional connection; is often an afterthought in strategy decks.

Destination management used to be about arrivals.

Now it’s about returns.

But, the real KPI isn’t how many people show up. It’s how many come back. Again. And again. And again.

Because returning guests are a signal. They tell you something is working at a deeper level. That the city isn’t just consumed—it’s experienced. Remembered. Missed.

Loved, even.

And love is inefficient.

Which is exactly why we engineered it out.

Retail went online - global e-commerce now accounts for over 20% of all retail sales, and rising. Physical stores didn’t die. They just stopped being designed for humans.

Restaurants became content - built for turnover, not time. In some cities, average dining duration has dropped while table rotations have increased by over 30% in high-traffic zones.

Public spaces became transitional. Move through, not linger in.

Work left the office - but cities didn’t redesign for what came next. Hybrid work has reduced weekday footfall in central business districts by 20–40% in cities like London and New York.

We created urban environments that are incredibly good at moving people through systems. But not very good at helping people feel something.

And here’s where it gets interesting.

Because the next chapter of cities won’t be won on efficiency. It will be won on humanity.

This is the shift the HumanX City Challenge at EHL is trying to provoke. A simple but radical idea: what if we stopped designing cities as machines… and started designing them as living ecosystems?

Not optimised for speed.

But for care.

Not for consumption.

But for connection.

Not for scale.

But for belonging.

Sounds soft?

It’s not.

Because the hardest thing to engineer is not a transport system.

It’s trust.

And trust has metrics too.

Cities with higher perceived safety, stronger community ties, and access to green space consistently outperform on wellbeing, productivity, and even economic resilience. One study found that people living within a 10-minute walk of green space report significantly higher life satisfaction and lower healthcare costs.

Think about it.

Can you walk safely at night?

Can your children play without supervision becoming a full-time job?

Can you breathe clean air, see the sky, hear something other than traffic?

Do you know your neighbour’s name?

These are not “nice to haves.”

They are economic strategy.

I have had the privilege of working on building a city from scratch at NEOM and advise on many other projects from the ground up. A rare, almost impossible opportunity to not just tweak what exists, but to rethink what a city could be.

When you strip everything back to zero, you’re forced to ask uncomfortable questions.

What actually matters? Not in theory. In practice.

And what became very clear, very quickly, is that livability isn’t a feature. It’s the system.

Because if you don’t design for human experience from day one, you spend the next 50 years trying to retrofit it.

Badly. Expensively. And usually too late.

The future city isn’t just smart. It’s aware.

Aware of how people move but also how they feel.

Because here’s the uncomfortable truth.

You can build a city that works perfectly.

And still have no one who wants to stay.

Or come back.

Or call it home.

So maybe the real question is this:

Would anyone choose your city… if they didn’t have to be here?

Because that’s the difference between a city you date…

And a city you marry! 

And right now, too many cities are still swiping right - when they should be learning how to commit.