Zatera Ul

Obviously, I’m building off Stuff White People Like; but I’m trying not to overlap with it, even though most of those White People are definitely City People.

So, loosely categorized, Stuff City People Like (in Minnesota, at least):

Work
1. Dual career couples. Stay-at-home moms are slackers wasting their education and mooching off their husbands.
2. Working more than 40 hours a week. Otherwise, you’re still a slacker. Those who are not at work must carry….
3. Cell phones (which will soon be implanted directly into the body), so they can be put to back work again at any moment. Work consists mostly of
4. Meetings in conference rooms with PowerPoint presentations, and of
5. Meetings at coffee shops, both of which require
6. Laptops. Otherwise, work is done in
7. Cubicles. “You can have a private office when you’re promoted to vice president.”

Transportation
8. Mass Transit. It’s important for everyone to be able to stand out in the sub-zero cold to wait for a bus that’s running twenty minutes late and then pay to ride shoulder-to-shoulder with smelly, coughing strangers in the middle of flu season for a distance that could have been walked in ten minutes; this raises social consciousness and compassion for the fellow Democrat (city people are Democrats by default). Trains are even better, because they’re prettier and can be more heavily subsidized, while not actually stopping at the places where smelly, coughing strangers might want to get on or off.
9. Changing lanes in heavy traffic. Signalling is optional.
10. Road salt. City people firmly believe that the application of road salt can cure any snowfall and make winter driving safe again. Even if it actually makes the roads slipperier than plain old ice for a while, and prevents drivers from getting any real winter driving practice the rest of the time.
11. Parking ramps. Then they can pay for their parking in round dollars, or, better yet, by credit card.
12. Skyways. Fresh air and sunshine without the fresh air and sunshine.

Recreation
13. Gyms. The only places to actually get exercise in the city.
14. Spas. I really have no idea what goes on in these, but they scare me.
15. Shopping (see below). The main reason city life is so expensive.
16. Paved, level trails along the waterfront. Can’t let one’s fabulously expensive new shoes actually touch the ground.

Children
17. Family planning. Two children is the absolute maximum, just like China.
18. Strollers. Children aren’t allowed to actually touch the ground either. Bonus points if the stroller is too big to fit in the SUV.
19. Nannies. So mom can get back to the corporate world ASAP and recuperate from the strain of pushing the stroller.
20. Daycare. But only for those who can’t afford a nanny. These have four-seater strollers.
21. Preschool. Starts at the age of two, but the child is put on the preschool’s waiting list prenatally.
22. Charter School. Still counts as public school, yet protects the child from having peers that can’t achieve high test scores.

Home
23. Sharing interior walls with neighbors. Some city people subcultures assign rank in their social hierarchies based on the size of the TV and the power of the stereo system; shared walls facilitate the assertion of personal social status.
24. Balconies.
25. Minimalism. Rationalizing one’s inability to afford the really nice stuff as “voluntary simplicity”.
26. Trying to hobby farm on a city lot. May include pigeons, chickens, goats, and compost.

Shopping
27. Target. The resemblance that the Target logo has to a giant nipple is purely coincidental.
28. IKEA. When the minimalism gets to be too much.
29. MOUS–Malls of Unusual Size.
30. Small, hyperspecialized shops that cater to their precise teeny-tiny niche market.
31. Small, hyperspecialized shops that cater to other people’s precise teeny-tiny niche markets; if they ever find themselves needing an XYZ, by golly they know where to get it.
32. Driving back and forth across town from one location of a major chain store to another, trying to find the store that actually has the item they want in stock.

Food
33. Expensive coffee.
34. Organic everything.
35. Trader Joe’s. Organic and relatively cheap; hence the mobs of city people there.

Religion
36. Worship of Democratic politicians such as Wellstone and Obama.
37. Churches with professional praise bands, stadium seating, and cupholders on the armrests for the expensive coffee from the in-church coffee shop.