Let's Get Real

Interacting with a physical place in an authentic manner is way more important now than it was before.  Maybe I am a bit anomalous, but I recall when applying to schools that I had my heart set on Penn primarily because it had the nation's number one undergraduate business school.  The fact that it was located in Philadelphia was intriguing but neither a draw or a deterrent.  Simply put, at the time I was picking Penn, not Philadelphia.  Whereas nowadays it seems like when people decide on colleges (or jobs), they understand that part of that package is where it's located, and they prioritize and choose accordingly.

Importantly, they want to have a real relationship with that location.  When I was a freshman at Penn, the formal orientation made clear to us newbies that its location in West Philadelphia was not something to be explored much.  "Don't go west of 40th" was not just the party line but a statement shared amongst the out-of-town students themselves, which would never fly today.  People might not fall in love with a city and put down roots like I did, but nor would they treat it as not worth getting to know because they'll be moving on in a few years anyway.

Similarly, when we parachute into a city for a convention or a sporting event, we blanch at the thought that that city would systematically scrub the heavily trafficked areas of riff-raff or graffiti so that we outsiders could have a pristine yet artificial experience.  Being more socially conscious, and armed with such tools as Yelp and Lyft, we prefer to wander far from the carefully manicured grounds of our hotel or stadium (or the well-trod touristy places) to experience a city more authentically, whether walking the streets or taking in a local bar or going to some way-out-of-the-way venue that only the locals know about.  It seems less enjoyable and more gauche to our modern sensibilities to opt out of truly engaging with a host city and stick with the hotel lobby and the chain restaurant across the street.

Real places are what people want nowadays.  That's what makes being a traveler, and helping a city welcome travelers, so worth it.