We should follow the rules less – our quality of life depends on it
Strict rules make for dull lives. The best cities know when to look the other way…
The point is simple: a great city is one that doesn’t over-nanny its citizens – and may even let them get away with minor infractions, as long as they know how to take care of the serious stuff. It’s the sign of a city that isn’t too tightly buckled and lets its citizens get on and live.
As someone residing in the bel paese, who enjoys the national sport of rule-bending that takes place in Italy, I’m campaigning for “colouring outside the lines” to be given consideration in our next ranking of the world’s most liveable cities. Indeed, the city where I abide, Milan, may have been in Monocle’s Quality of Life listing last year but didn’t make the cut this year. Of course you can’t please every metropolis, and each year we get people writing in to us making a case for why their home warrants inclusion. The case I wish to make on the Lombard capital’s behalf? Milan warrants inclusion for one vital quality of life metric: the freedom that it gives people to, well, just be.
Don’t get me wrong: I am a fan of the civic good-neighbourliness that exists in the UK and the rules-based order that the Nordics are best-in-class for. But as I come up on my fifth anniversary in Milan, I’m starting to appreciate the elasticity of rules (or rather, the interpretation of them) and the fact that you’re left to get on with things without too many people getting in your way – the police included. Milan manages to do all of this, while also being a design, fashion, business and finance powerhouse. In other words, it hasn’t descended into lawlessness in the process.
Take parking. When I first moved here I was horrified at the idea of briefly mounting a pavement in order to pack-up the car for the weekend, or double parking if you need to drop your child at school in the morning. But these things are generally deemed to be acceptable – and I have mellowed. On a recent trip to the park, I was forced (your honour) to leave my car in a temporarily questionable position which saw me following one of the the Italian rules that everyone can agree on: if someone else has done it before you, it’s fair game. I felt an odd, and slightly wrong, feeling of exhilaration that I had finally become a local – happily popping my car into a space that clearly wasn’t an official space at all, swerving to avoid a crowd of smokers flouting the “hardened-up ban” introduced earlier this year.
And yet, despite having lived everywhere from Buenos Aires to New York, something continues to niggle at my northern European soul. Maybe I really should be raging against the small contraventions that happen here. But then I fear all that stress wouldn’t be good for my quality of life at all.
Monocle’s 2025 Quality of Life shortlist has been revealed – but which cities pipped Milan to the post? To enjoy Monocle’s full city guide to Milan, click here.
