Metropolitan Report 1
Transcription
Metropolitan Report 1
Man made the city, but now the city is shaping man. Rapid urbanisation in conjunction with the effects of globalisation give rise to a global class of citizens who share a mindset and a set of values related to urban living. We call this the Metropolitan mindset. According to the Metropolitan Survey this mindset is present throughout the world. Metro International and business intelligence firm United Minds have surveyed 30 cities in 6 continents. 15,000 urbanites have answered questions on subjects ranging from plastic surgery and casual sex to freedom of expression and social media habits. This report will give you an invaluable insight into the mind and lifestyle of city dwellers at the beginning of the 21st Century. Meet the Metropolitans. 4 5 Values Play Work The Metropolitans Urban Appreciation Expert: Challenge your brand in cities Urban Myth Busting The Metropolitan Mindset Interview: Kumi Naidoo 13 15 16 18 20 24 Work Work all over the World Expert: Meaning is more important than money Interview: Alain de Botton Commuting 29 32 32 34 37 Media Leisure and Creativity Beauty and Fashion Travel Food Interview: Ferran Adrià Nightlife 41 45 48 50 52 54 News Technology Social Media Expert: Listen before joining social media Interview: Paul Kim 61 64 66 68 70 socialmedia P.20 Edit My Profile Share P.36 P.34 P.24 Kumi Naidoo: ’Activism should be cool’ News Feed Sarah A Beginner’s Guide to Metropolitans Alain de Botton: ‘We’re judged by what we do’ Photos News Feed P.46 The Metropolitan Day Status Cut, Buy & Beautify P.52 Ferran Adrià: ‘We’ll see more informal dining’ Messages Calendar Friends 6 P.66 The Physical Facebook Metropolitan Network Urban Community P.68 2 Inga from Swe Check out this guys! Caroline Jungsand: ‘Live by your message’ Create group See all 6 Metropolitan Report – Table of content Metropolitan Report – Table of content Apps 7 2 minutes ago Photo: Daniel Troyse The First Global Target Audience Metropolitan, Milan Credits Management Christian Quarles, Metro International Wilf Maunoir, Metro International Knowledge expands life beyond one’s immediate similarities, regardless of cultural differences: the di- existence. This is the simple idea behind Metro. We versity of people, the number of human encounters, bring new perspectives on the world to our readers, the creativity and pace of life, the variety of leisure Editor we provide them with rich experiences in a format activities. Patrik Kronqvist, United Minds designed to fit perfectly into the fast paced urban life- The Metropolitan Report shows that these similari- style. We let our readers know more to live bigger. ties encapsulate a specific mindset. This Metropoli- As the world’s largest newspaper, with more tan mindset is present in all the cities we surveyed, than 35 million weekly readers in over 100 cities, we to a greater or lesser degree. It is the reason we talk are experts on the city dweller — our reader. It is be- about the Metropolitans as the first truly global target cause we know them — their dreams and aspirations, audience. their interests and priorities, the way they lead their The Metropolitan Report will give you invalu- lives — that we can deliver news to them in the best able insight into the mind and lifestyle of these Met- possible way. Further, it is by knowing our readers ropolitans. With ever-increasing urbanization, well- that we can provide the insight you need in order to connected city dwellers will continue to be the most sharpen your communication strategy towards them. influential target audience as they set the trends of You have in front of you the first of what will be a the future. Needless to say, it is a group that’s es- Survey management recurring Metropolitan Report that aims to give you sential for companies to know well, and to develop a Eduarda Taveira, Metro International a unique picture of how urbanites live, think and strong relationship with. Sepideh Imani, United Minds dream at the beginning of the 21st Century. A total of We hope you will enjoy reading our first Metropoli- 15,000 people in 30 cities on six continents have an- tan Report. swered questions on all kinds of issues, from plastic surgery and casual sex to freedom of expression and Stockholm April 2011 social media habits. Paul Alarcon, United Minds Art Director Johanna Runebjörk, Metro International Writer Hugo McEwen, The Languagelaunderer Additional writers Devi Brunson, Prime Group Elisabeth Braw, Metro World News Romina McGuinness, Metro World News Illustrator Cecilia Lundgren Press Relations Linda Fors, Metro International We have compiled the Metropolitan Report in cooperation with the business intelligence firm Photographers: United Minds, whose extensive experience in urban David Salas consumer research on a global scale, closely allied Daniel Troyse with our own knowledge, gives you a rich and useful Per Mikael Jensen, President and CEO Lluis Gene, AFP Photo narrative profile of this elusive demographic. Metro International Vincent Starr The Metropolitan Report proves something we Metro inhouse photographers have long suspected: After 16 years with our finger Thinkstockphoto on the pulse of city life we know that whether in Gettyimages New York, Mexico City or Hong Kong, there are many 8 Metropolitan Report – Introduction 9 Values Metropolitan, Paris 10 11 The Rise of the Metropolitans Man made the city but now the city is shaping man. A global class of citizens is emerging in modern global cities who share a mindset and a set of values that is related to urban living. It’s time to start paying attention to how these people think, work, play and live, because who and where they are is about to be very important. Meet the Metropolitans. Big cities are nothing new in human history. Rome shows that the emergence of the Metropolitan mind- had a population of over a million 2000 years ago. set can be found wherever you look, throughout the But now the pace of the growth, spread and consoli- world. dation of urbanization all over the world is increas- We are not suggesting that the Metropolitans are ing. going to swallow the world, like some alien blob in Today close to 180,000 people move into cit- 50’s science fiction, or indeed that they are equally ies daily, adding more than 60 million urbanites influential in all the different cities in our survey. every year. By 2030, China will have 221 cities with And we wouldn’t claim that cities are utopian soci- more than 1 million people, and this year city plan- eties, populated entirely with young, nice-looking ners proposed merging the nine cities around the professionals. Urbanisation can be a messy, cha- Pearl River Delta into a single otic business, and even in the mega-city, containing around great cities of the Old World, 42 million people. Just 100 cities account for a third of the world’s economy, and New York City’s economy alone is larger than 46 of subSaharan Africa’s economies combined.* This development com- ‘Metropolitans are excited by new challenges, not scared of them.’ bined with the effects of glo- Illustration: Cecilia Lundgren 12 69% will be living in cities in 2050 51% is living in cities in 2011 there are losers as well as winners. But globalisation and ever-increasing urbanisation will make the Metropolitans a more and more important influence in the cities of the developing world, as they are already in the Western World. The Metropolitan Mindset balisation is producing a class of people who owe is first and foremost about thinking in a similar way. many of their values, habits and defining character- The meeting and melding of cultures, ideas, races istics to city life, wherever they happen to be. that happens all the time, at every level, in modern We call this the Metropolitan mindset. cities produces a mindset that is innovative, creative, Metropolitans are affluent, creative, ‘switched on’, excited by new challenges, not scared of them. socially liberal, mobile, globally and environmen- To a large degree, it is also a matter of lifestyle. tally conscious, well-informed. In a sense they are City folks are used to having everything they need not defined by race, colour, culture, politics or geog- close by, and quite a lot of stuff they don’t need, but is raphy, but instead by their common citizenship of cit- part of what makes living in cities great. There’s the ies anywhere and everywhere. hippie district where every second shop sells crystals Our survey, spanning 30 cities in six continents, and herbal remedies, ▶ * Sources: Intuit (October 2010); Foreign Policy (August 2010); Reuters (January 2011). 13% lived in cities in 1900 37,000,000 the population size of Tokyo, the world’s largest city. Source: World Urbanization Prospects. The 2009 Revision (2010). Metropolitan Report – Values 13 the Chinese supermarkets, the arty cinema that shows Almodovar films and the kind of stuff that doesn’t make it to Hollywood. And there are all-night supermarkets, pharmacies open on Sundays, and What Metropolitans appreciate most about urban life: all sorts of stuff you wouldn’t find in smaller towns, because there just isn’t enough of a market for them there. The increased financial security that comes with city life removes people from the sort of hardships their forbears had to deal with; they become freer to think beyond where the next meal is com- 1. The leisure activities ing from, or whether the local warlord is going to burn their village. Metropolitans worry about what happens to the rubbish they produce, whether their children’s asthma is related to pollution, whether climate change is causing famines in much of Saharan Africa, what can be done to help people in Bangla- 2. The job opportunities desh whose lives have been devastated by monsoon flooding. The American sociologist Ronald Inglehart calls this new value system post-materialism. In places where tens of millions of people live very close together, tolerance and acceptance can’t just be high-minded ideals, they are basic facts of life. A 3. The sense of individual freedom church, a synagogue and a Hindu temple may be in 4. The cultural dynamism neighbouring streets, with a gay bar, a holistic medicine shop and a halal butcher in between. Living in amongst that requires tolerance. Metropolitans want their work to be fulfilling, City identity not just a way of making money, and they want their leisure time to be full of choices and opportunities. 67% identify themselves with their city, almost equally as many as identify themselves with their nation (69%). Wherever they are in the world, as increasing affluence broadens their mindset, Metropolitans share 5. The possibilities of meeting new people values and aspirations. And the Metropolitans are on the rise. Cities are growing all over the globe, new cities are appearing almost spontaneously in much of the developing world, it feels as if the planet is shrinking. As the movement of people and ideas increases from city to city around the world, it is becoming less and less relevant which country you happen to live in. What will be important are the shared values, characteristics and habits of city dwellers everywhere. And those values, characteristics, habits are essential as Metropolitans are at the cutting edge of the zeitgeist. This global class set the trends of the future and increasingly dictates to employers the way they want to work. It is the target group advertisers, politi- t are willing to change their lifestyle for the sake of the environment cians and marketers alike turn to for the dominant cultural mindset of the day. Listening to the Metropolitan is hearing the voice Notes about the survey results Results presented in the Metropolitan Report are representative of the online population aged 18–49 years, who work or study in any of the 30 cities surveyed. Internet penetration in surveyed cities varies from close to 100% in Stockholm to 20% in Mumbai. Due to lower internet penetration in emerging market cities, e.g. Mumbai and São Paulo, the online population represents primarily the growing affluent middle-class in these cities. of tomorrow. ▪ Metropolitan, Hong Kong Metropolitan, Paris 14 Metropolitan Report – Values 15 Concrete Jungles Where Dreams Are Made Dreams are what keeps a city’s heart pumping. Dreams of a better life, of excitement, of self realisation. This is what Metropolitans all over the world appreciate most about life in the urban jungle. Architecture aficionados Most satisfied Urban to the bone the concrete jungle itself is one of the ones who are most satisfied In London 68% feel things they like most about the city. with their lives. most at home in a big city. Melting pot appreciation 39% of Metropolitans in Beijing say that Amsterdam’s residents are the The diversity of people is the third best thing about New York, according to New Yorkers. Culture lovers Hungry for work 55% of Parisians say that the city’s cultural dynamism is what Mexico City is where the job they like most about urban life. opportunities created by cities are most appreciated. I Mumbai 75% of Metropolitans in Mumbai have a strong city identity. Least satisfied In Tokyo life satisfaction is at its lowest. Hardcore Metropolitans In São Paulo 49% could not imagine living outside a big city. Embracing diversity 66% in Cape Town do not mind living in a diverse community with ethnic plurality and other sexual orientations than their own. Expert: ‘Companies need to dare challenge their brands in big cities’ Fredrik Törn is researcher at the Center for Consumer Marketing at the Stockholm School of Economics. In 2009 he published his thesis ‘Challenging Consistency – Effects of Brand-Incongruent Communications’. 16 What is incongruent communication? Incongruent communication is communication that is contrary to what one would expect from a brand. Convention today is that brand management should be uniform and consistent. So it is for brands that have not caught up in consumers’ memory structures. Well-established brands, by contrast, face other challenges. Why should Metropolitans in particular be Metropolitan Report – Values communicated with incongruently? In a cluttered advertising milieu like a big city the need is great for new tools to reach out. Wellestablished brands that communicate consistently and coherently risk losing consumers’ attention. Strong brands have a greater degree of freedom than the brand owners believe. They can afford to dare more in their communications. Incongruence increases brand interest. Is incongruent communication always good? Completely atypical communication is not good, and using a famous face that consumers dislike is of course negative. However, it is important to be creative in your communication and in cities there is both a greater acceptance and greater demands for advanced communication. Metropolitans are post-materialists and valuedriven consumers. How should this affect brand management and brand development? Products are now much more than their functions, we see increasing demand for authenticity. More companies are communicating a social mission. It is a consequence of consumers having all their material needs met and beginning to think about what meaning they fill their lives with. In a world of brands, companies must communicate their social mission, by daring to challenge their brands. Metropolitan Report – Values 59% feel most at home in big cities. 29% could not imagine living outside a big city. 17 Busting Urban Myths Alright, so let’s get some of the myths about city life out of the way, before we explore how it really is for modern urbanites; or the Metropolitans, as we call them. Fact: Metropolitans are neither selfish nor lonely. Popular culture has done much to reinforce many of do with ingrained assumptions about the negative our assumptions and prejudices about urban exist- effects of city life, as against a rose-tinted dream of ence. But it’s a viewpoint coloured by the extraordi- small town existence that rarely turns out to be true, nary and chaotic expansion of cities over the past two if it ever was. centuries or so, not by any real basis in what it’s like The truth is, as modern urbanisation matures in to live in them at the beginning of this new millen- the developed world, the initial chaos of urban ex- nium. pansion has largely been ironed out. And if we look We tend to think of cities as alienating, lone- around us, we find that many of the assumptions and ly, overcrowded, dangerous, dystopian, and a lot of prejudices about the negative impact of city life on great art over the centuries has done little to dispel our collective psyche prove to be a lot less certain those fears. than we think. In fact, it may turn out to be the big- Whether it’s the crime-ridden London of Oliver gest urban myth of all. Twist, the psychotic New York loner Travis Bickel Metropolitans are more extrovert and open- in Taxi Driver, Renton and his sociopathic, junkie minded than rural inhabitants. Their values tend friends rampaging through picture-postcard Edin- to be more inclusive and externalised, beyond the burgh in Trainspotting or the future-very-imperfect, Tokyo of the Japaneese Manga series Ghost Shell, cities are threatening, unwholesome places. And the people who live in them are either weird, mad or barricaded into their apartments, waiting for the prob- narrow walls of their own self- ‘There’s a new sense of community in cities, an increase in social capital, an increase in trust. It all leads to less alienation.’ ably corrupt cops to arrive. 72% believe people in small towns are happier than people in big cities. 86% try to be friendly and helpful towards tourists in their city, Lisbon being the friendliest city of all. charity, concern for the plight of people in a less fortunate position than their own. In short, Metropolitans care more. Even that great-granddaddy of urban clichés, that cities are lonely places to live, has been And conversely, you only have to look at the green, seriously dented by recent research. As American always sunny English countryside of the British social science academic John Cacioppo writes in his crime series Midsomer Murders to see an urbanite’s book ‘Loneliness’, ‘There’s a new sense of communi- view of a rural life that probably never existed, and ty in cities, an increase in social capital, an increase certainly doesn’t now. No ethnic minorities, very lit- in trust. It all leads to less alienation.’ tle apparent poverty, no one apart from barmen ever In addition, although more people live alone in cit- seem to do a day’s work and the only worry is that ies than elsewhere, they socialise more, have wider you might get shot in the back by a mad retired colo- social networks, go out more and have a more active nel with a crossbow. emotional life than people in smaller communities. Even amongst Metropolitans, as our survey The fact is, we’re getting good at living in cities. We shows, almost three quarters believe that people in had to. That’s how most of us will be living from now small towns are happier – a figure that has a lot to 18 interest – environmentalism, 28% believe people in big cities are happier than people in small towns. on. ▪ Metropolitan Report – Values 77% usually move out of the way if someone is in their path on the sidewalk. 55% have donated money to charity in the last year. Metropolitan, Beijing 19 Inside the Metropolitan’s Head Metropolitans, like cities, are full of paradoxes. They’ve got big egos, but they’re altruistic. They worry about the environment, but they love shopping. They aren’t especially satisfied with life, but they believe there’s a bright future ahead. A beginner’s guide to the Metropolitan mindset. What Metropolitans consider give them the most social status: 1. Having broad general knowledge 2. Having a successful career 3. Being self-confident/extrovert Dissatisfied optimists Metropolitans don’t do ‘content’. They’re curious about new things and not scared of change. They’re never satisfied, but they believe things can be better. They’re more likely to change jobs, partners, hairstyles, brands than country folk. 4. Being creative 5. Being engaged in the community/helping others 6. Having a long and stable relationship 7. Having built your own fortune 8. Having a large social network Local globalists Metropolitans have global instincts, but local identities. They care as much about global events as local news and identify themselves as much with their city as with their country. 9. Being able to set your own working hours 10. Being fluent in several languages Caring egotists Metropolitans are individualistic, but unselfish, altruistic. They have big egos and don’t lack self-confidence. They take responsibility for their own lives. They’re not self-obsessed, however. They value helping others, ‘community’, sharing, charity. Consumption is the urban way of life, but Metropolitans are aware of what they consume. They are post-materialistic, which means they put a high premium on humanism, creativity, personal freedom. As consumers they’re socially and environmentally responsible, not just buying things to have more, bigger, shinier possessions. Informed but numb Liberal traditionalists Metropolitans like diversity. It’s a basic requirement, living in a modern city. They’re inclusive, socially liberal, but they don’t smash taboos for the fun of it; they’re pro same-sex marriage because they believe marriage is an institution worth preserving and everyone should be allowed to do it. 20 Considerate consumers Metropolitan Report – Values Metropolitans are media junkies, advertising connoisseurs. That doesn’t mean they believe whatever they’re told to believe. On the contrary, they’re hard to persuade. You have to earn their respect, they don’t give it without thinking. And you have to get them at the right moment, because the blur and hum of city life numbs brains and reduces attention spans. Metropolitan Report – Values 21 Photo: David Salas A Better Breed? Say what you want about Metropolitans, but their mindset is inarguably sympathetic. They can afford to see the bigger picture, because they’ve got everything they need. They care deeply about individual rights and free speech, and they choose the environment before jobs. 51% 74% say that their lives are governed primarily by themselves and not by external factors. believe freedom of speech must never be restricted. This is less true in cities such as Cape Town, Mumbai, Seoul and Moscow. 68% say that the need for governments to monitor citizens is never more important than the citizens’ right to privacy. 55% 53% think marriage is an institution worth preserving. think same-sex marriage should be legal. 67% 63% think that protecting the environment should be given priority, even if it causes slower economic growth and some loss of jobs. are willing to change their lifestyle for the sake of the environment. Rainbow living 65% do not mind living in a diverse community with ethnic plurality and other sexual orientations than their own. Metropolitan, London 22 23 Photo: Andrew H. Walker Kumi Naidoo: ‘Activism should be cool’ Kumi Naidoo has fought apartheid, poverty and global warming. Today he is the head of Greenpeace International. Naidoo thinks that activism should be trendy. ‘But in my experience, today’s youth care about more than just being ‘cool’ and fashionable.’ Two thirds of Metropolitans believe that protect- cusing on their career? the web via smartphones than by computers. ity, even if it slows down economic growth and There isn’t a conflict between pursuing a career and More than half of Metropolitans are willing to cuts jobs. Is this just a cool, trendy fad? doing public good. Increasingly, young people are change their lifestyle for the sake of the environ- saying that they want ‘green’ jobs – jobs that are good ment. Do you think young Metropolitans’ will- Activism should be cool, it should be trendy, but in for workers and good for the planet and society as ingness to build a better world is genuine and my experience, today’s youth care about more than well. Many young entrepreneurs are going out and lasting? just being ‘cool’ and fashionable. Everywhere I go, creating these opportunities for themselves, by form- such as to the monster UN climate change negotia- ing their own organisations or social enterprises, to The 3rd US President, Thomas Jefferson, said in the tions, there are always huge numbers of young peo- take action on climate change in their communities. early 1800’s that ‘Every generation needs a new rev- ple there lobbying and taking action to press their This is happening all over the world so altruism defi- olution.’ Young people have always been at the van- governments ‘much-older’ negotiators to do the right nitely seems to be on the rise. guard of positive change in the past. Young people ing the environment should have political prior- thing, to act to protect their environment. Kumi Naidoo Occupation: International Executive Director of Greenpeace International. He is the first African to head the organization. Background: Naidoo fought apartheid in South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s. He has also led global campaigns to end poverty and protect human rights. Recently, he has led the Global Campaign for Climate Action. Education: Ph.D. in Political Sociology. 24 have applied their energy to historic battles against One of the slogans the youth groups wear on their Having a broad knowledge is listed as the ulti- slavery, colonialism, apartheid, women’s rights and t-shirts reads ‘How old will you be in 2050?’. Scien- mate factor in reaching the top of the social sta- more. tists say we need to reach a 100 percent renewable tus ladder. How can you tap into young Metro- They’ve been willing to peacefully break unjust energy society by that date – when most of today’s politans’ burgeoning desire to be informed? laws and go to jail in protest to the old systems, or 20-somethings will be 60-something. They know they’ve begun to build new institutions and new that it is their generation who will need to solve the The best way to help young people get the informa- ways of doing things. In every movement for change, environmental crisis they’ve inherited. tion that they need is to bring the information to the both approaches are necessary, and we see the same forums where young people are, in ways that they happening today as today’s generation of young peo- Being engaged in the community and helping want to access that information. Greenpeace has a ple are fighting for sustainability. And just like in others ranks in the top five in the status ranking. big focus on social media like our Greenpeace Face- previous struggles, I’m sure that their dedication and Are we seeing a rise in altruism and doing public book pages and Youtube channels. Mobile apps are commitment will endure until they’ve secured the good, even if young and hip urbanites still harbor also becoming increasingly important - it’s predicted ‘egoistic’ aspirations like being extrovert and fo- that within the decade, more people will be browsing Metropolitan Report – Work sustainable future that they want. ▪ 25 Photo: David Salas Work On wheels! 12% cycle to work during a typical week. Metropolitan, London 26 Metropolitan Report – Work 27 Work to Become – not to Acquire Metropolitans take their jobs very seriously, but they want to have lives as well. They see no point in winning the rat race if they’re still just going to be rats at the end of it. Our survey shows that almost half of Metropolitans ing, however, between the priorities of Metropolitans see a good career as the best indication of status in and the demands of employers. Businesses are often life, central to the way they see themselves. It shows using flexible working practices and new technolo- that when Metropolitans prioritise their lifetime gies to increase the pressure of workload into the goals; having a successful career ranks just above leisure hours and ‘downtime’ of their employees. Al- having children. It clearly proves that one of the ready over a third of Metropolitans work somewhere greatest attractions of cities is the depth and range of other than in their office or workplace and half work jobs to be found there. Employers know that they can outside normal office hours regularly. tap into the same depth and range of prospective employees. But Metropolitans are not hung up on salaries. Six out of ten say that work is part of who they are, not just a way of making money, against only four in ten who put money first. Their jobs are about proving The collision will come ‘Metropolitans are asserting for a less hectic more complete life.’ they have intelligence, Illustration: Cecilia Lundgren 28 when the demands of employers run into the postmaterialistic needs of city time spent on work on a typical weekday. 62% say that their work is a part of who they are, not just a way of making money. dwellers. Metropolitans are asserting for a less hectic, more fulfilling, more complete life. And with trailblazers like the companies in California’s Silicon Valley showing the world that employees don’t necessarily have to be miserable to creativity, ambition and maybe just a dash of the be productive, it’s only a matter of time before the ruthlessness you need to stay ahead of the game. In rest catch on. their post-materialistic worldview, it’s good to have What Metropolitans evidently don’t want is for enough money to be comfortable, but there’s no their jobs to take over their lives. They can live with point in devoting your life to making more than you meeting a tight deadline by putting in a few hours in can possibly need. the evening, but not if it’s happening every evening There’s a fundamental clash of interests brew- and not if it’s stopping them from doing something ▶ Metropolitan Report – Work 60% always keep their eyes open for new job opportunities. 29 fun with their friends at the weekend. Another challenge for employers is that if you look inside the Metropolitans’ heads, you’ll find dissatisfied optimists. What Metropolitans most of all would like to achieve during their lifetime: They want things to be better than they are, and they truly believe they can be. They may rate job satisfaction highly, but only one in ten say that they are very satisfied with their jobs and almost two thirds are always on the lookout for a change of job. Employers are going to have to start thinking about how they hold onto a workforce that’s lukewarm about what they’re doing, and are more inter- 2. Find true love 1. Stay fit and healthy ested in finding inner peace than in getting rich. And they’re going to have to work harder at ensuring their 3. Find inner peace employees are content and loyal, given that ‘wordof-mouth’ for Metropolitans is largely conducted online, and a negative opinion about a company from a dissatisfied employee can spread as fast and far as a positive one. Employees can be company detractors, but also great company ambassadors. A labour market dominated by post-materialistic values is going to require post-materialistic solutions from employers. 4. Have a successful career People want to be able to do their jobs even if their 5. Have children kids are home with a cold. Maybe they don’t want a bigger salary when they do well, just a membership of a really good health club, and the time to enjoy it. And as Metropolitans have a restless need to move, expand their horizons, test their abilities in new ways, they should be given the opportunity to move sideways within companies. This mixing of ambition and quality of life has a lot to do with greater opportunities and equality in the workplace for women. Increasingly women are outearning men and climbing corporate ladders, and are equal or dominant partners in dual-earning households, a process that has caused family life in cities to evolve and change enormously over the past couple of generations. But only in relatively few countries have governments and businesses acknowledged Metroptimists 73% think that their future looks bright. how much juggling of time and parental responsibilities families now have to manage, and compensated for it with more flexible and humane working practices. That is changing, because Metropolitans have had enough of it. Metropolitans all over the world are pushing this process on, because they are the backbone of urban labour markets and their increasingly confident demands for flexibility in their work is obliging employers to change. What they are looking for is for their work to be a part of their quality of life, not just a way of paying for it. One way or another, employers Metropolitan, Montreal 30 are going to have to meet that demand. ▪ 78% I believe formal education is important to succeed My work is a part of who I am, not just a way to make money 62% I always keep an eye open for new job/ educational opportunities 60% I feel I have a good work-life balance 49% 44% I often work outside my actual working hours I often socialize with my colleagues off work My salary is the most important measure of success in my career I often work somewhere other than my office Metropolitan Report – Work 38% 36% 35% 31 The Working World Only 23% in Stockholm socialise Top 5 hardest working cities Top 5 ’slacker’ cities with their colleagues off work. 1. Seoul 1. Copenhagen 2. Hong Kong 2. Sydney 3. Prague 3. London 4. Lisbon 4. Barcelona 5. Cape Town 5. Stockholm Not social Scandinavia In harmony 59% in Montreal say they have a good work-life balance. Globetrotters A+ students Most satisfied People in Amsterdam are the most 22% in Hong Kong have been on a 85% in Mumbai believe formal business trip abroad in the last year. education is important to succeed. satisfied with their work (60%). Disloyal workers No money, no cry keep their eyes open for new job Social South America opportunities. 70% in São Paulo often 81% of people in Santiago always In Sydney only 26% agree that salary is the most important measure of success in their career. socialize with their colleagues off work. Most overtime 67% of Capetonians often work outside their actual working hours. Expert: ‘A suggestion box on the wall just isn’t good enough’ Richard Donkin is author of the book ‘The Future of Work’, and a longtime columnist for Financial Times. 32 For most Metropolitans salary is not the most important measure of success. What kind of challenges does that pose to employers? The challenge will be to offer meaningful work. We want to feel that they do not only improve our lives but also the lives of others and the planet. We’ve reached a point where the middle class have everything they can possible need. More Metropolitan Report – Work people now think life is for living, not about a pay package for some distant glow of retirement. Serial cruising and golf sessions are not as exciting as people think. What can employers do? Employers will have to offer a creative environment. People want to be able to influence things with their ideas and a suggestion box on the wall just isn’t good enough. Companies like 3M, where employees spend in around 20 percent of their time on projects of their own choosing, shows that this creates values in all sorts of ways. And this is true not only for more advanced jobs. When I look around there isn’t a job that can’t be done better. 6 in 10 Metropolitans are always looking for new job opportunities. Why is that? I believe companies themselves have created this mentality by almost looking down on employees that are being loyal. As a society we tend to always look for the greener grass. Most managers really don’t know how much it costs to recruit new people. Metropolitan Report – Work 33 Alain de Botton: ‘We’re judged by what we do’ Yes, there’s such a thing as a rockstar philosopher who writes about work. Alain de Botton is Swiss born, but British-educated, with a Cambridge degree and an almost-completed Harvard doctorate in philosophy, who has made a career of writing about philosophy in everyday life. In his bestselling book The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, de Botton investigates professions from accounting to rocket science. Alain de Botton Born: In Zürich in 1969. Lives: In London. Family: Wife Charlotte and children. Works: de Botton published his first book at the age of 23. He has since written several essayistic books that have been bestsellers in 30 countries. He has also started a school in London dedicated to a new vision of education. 34 According to the Metropolitan Survey, 60 per- point of work as being primarily financial. You work long hours we put in or the fancy machines we use to cent of Metropolitans are always looking for new to feed yourself and your loved ones. You don’t live get it done; the most extraordinary aspect of the work job opportunities. Why do we change jobs more for your work. You work for the sake of the weekend scene is in the end psychological rather than eco- often today than in history? and spare time – and your colleagues are not your nomic or industrial. It has to do with our attitudes to friends necessarily. The other view of work, very dif- work, more specifically the widespread expectation People change their jobs often in search of meaning. ferent, is the middle class view, which sees work as that our work should make us happy, that it should One of the great sources of satisfaction in work is the absolutely essential to a fulfilled life and lying at the be at the centre of our lives and our expectations of feeling that we are making a difference to people’s heart of our self-creation and self-fulfilment. These fulfilment. The first question we tend to ask of new lives, that we have – at the end of the working day two philosophies always co-exist, but in a recession acquaintances is not where they come from or who – somehow left the planet slightly healthier, tidier, the working class view is getting a new lease of life. their parents were, but what they do – presuming to saner than it was at the beginning. I’m not neces- More and more one hears the refrain, ‘it’s not perfect, discover the core of their identity. sarily talking of huge changes; the difference might but at least it’s a job’. When work is not going well, it’s useful to remem- merely involve sanding a stair banister, removing the ber that our identities stretch beyond what is on the squeak on a door or reuniting someone with their lost Nine out of ten are not ‘very satisfied’ with their business card, that we were people long before we be- luggage. Industrialisation has made some of these work and career. What does that signal to you? came workers – and will continue to be human once feelings of helping others far less accessible, simply we have put our tools down forever. As an entirely because of scale. In the course of writing about work, one of the more secular person, I’m struck by St Augustine’s injunc- A lot of your satisfaction at work is dependent on consoling ideas I discovered was just how rare and tion that it is a sin to judge a man by his status or your expectations. There are, broadly speaking, two historically ambitious is the modern idea that our position in society. In other words, when work is not philosophies of work out there. The first you could work should deliver happiness to us on a daily basis. going well, we need to remember to distinguish our call the working-class view of work, which sees the The strangest thing about the world of work isn’t the Metropolitan Report – Work sense of worth from the work we do. ▪ 35 The Metropolitan Day Life in big cities is fast paced, but not all aspects of it. One quarter of Metropolitans spend more than two hours per day in the subway, in cars and on buses. This is the everyday life of Metropolitans. Means of commuting during a typical workweek: % Top bicycle cities 60 52% In Cape Town 85% take the car to work every week. In Tokyo only 8% do the same. 50 44% 16% in Seoul take a taxi to work at some point during a typical week. 38% 36% 40 30 In Mumbai 38% get to work using a motorbike in a normal week. 20 12% 9% 6% 10 Capetonians spend the least time on transportation during a typical day. 1. Amsterdam 42% 2. Copenhagen 33% 3. Tokyo 26% 4. Berlin 25% 5. Stockholm 22% Longest morning commute 1. St Petersburg 44 min 2. Moscow 40 min 3. Seoul 40 min 4. Beijing 40 min 5. Hongkong 39 min Leisure: 3h 31 min Transportation: 1h 40 min Work/school: 8h 11 min Work only: 8h 28 min Metropolitans in Seoul both sleep the least and work the most. Type Car Railbound Walk Bus Bicycle Taxi Motorbike 22,000 the number of licensed taxis in London. Household chores: 1h 48 min 10 million Cooking/eating: 1h 53 min the number of bicycles in Beijing. Metropolitan men spend 1h 34 min on household chores a day, women spend 2h 01 min. Sleep: 6h 57 min 300 km the length of Moscow’s subway system. 3,160 billion the number of passenger rides per year in Tokyo’s subway system. Sources: New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (2010); Tokyo Metro (2009); Beijing Transport Development Research Centre (2001); Moscow Metro (2010); Department for Transport UK (2007). 36 Metropolitan Report – Work Metropolitan Report – Work 37 Play Metropolitan, Moscow 38 Metropolitan Report – Work 39 The City Feeds Your Brain Metropolitans are creative, and city life feeds their creativity. Their leisure time is essential to that because it is when they absorb, experience, enrich their imagination. But it’s a rich diet, and too much of it can do more harm than good. Metropolitans are constantly stimulated by the col- production line industries and work ethos that domi- our and vibrancy and ever-shifting impressions nated urban economies in the 20th Century; com- their cities provide them. Leisure time for them isn’t puter programming and graphic design, as opposed just the time they spend slumped in front of the TV, to building cars or screwing the caps on toothpaste watching the latest Miyazaki release with the kids, or tubes. And leisure time has therefore become less an playing Fifa on their Playstation. It’s always happen- escape from work, more an essential part of Metro- ing, all around them, and they can just dip in and out politans’ ability to be creative in their jobs. of it when and how they want. It’s not an escape from The ability of cities to feed our creativity with new their life, it’s the way to reconnect with it. experiences and impressions is one of the great at- Cities are by their nature creative places, al- tractions of urban life for Metropolitans. Just walking most nothing is static in urban life. Researchers at down Notting Hill market, or through Greenwich Vil- the University of Toronto noted that the 40 mega re- lage, or the Khan El-Khalili Bazaar in Cairo is to be gions around the world were home to fewer than 18 percent of the world’s population but accounted for about 85 percent of all global innovation. Change and innovation and evolution are perpetual in places where cultures, ideas, traditions collide and mix ‘A rich and varied life filled with new experiences is more important than wealth.’ and cross-fertilise each other 40 enriched with a feast of different sights, sounds, smells, time spent on leisure on a typical weekday. 71% have visited a cultural institution in the last year. and to interact with it all every step you take. When asked what they like most about living in a city, over a quarter of Metropolitans say it is the cultural dynamism they value the most, which might mean anything all the time, continually generating creativity. from street musicians and pavement artists to Mardi Metropolitans value creativity highly, around two Gras Parades in New Orleans or the Philippines, mas- thirds considering themselves creative and the same sive New Year celebrations in Sydney or Beijing, and proportion devoting time to some form of artistic everything in between. activity at least once a week – music or painting or But on the same question, the biggest propor- singing. They rank creativity only behind being well tion, more than half, like the range of leisure ac- informed, having a good career and social self-confi- tivities on offer most about urban life; significantly dence in their list of priorities. more, even, than are attracted by the job opportuni- The dividing line between leisure time and ties. Ironically, this means that a substantial part of work is becoming increasingly blurred. In the knowl- urban economies is geared by the leisure needs of the edge economy of today, many of the jobs on offer inhabitants, and this will inevitably increase as the are creative in essence, as opposed to the uniform, post-materialism of Western Metropolitans spreads ▶ Metropolitan Report – Play 37% have been to a sports event in the past three months. 60% sic n to a mu have bee ear. y t s the la concert in 41 are voracious consumers of experiences, which creates a vibrant, post-materialistic urban economy. Most Metropolitans visit cultural institutions such as a theatre or art gallery regularly, over half have done so in the past three months. But they devote at least as much of their leisure time to popular culture, most have been to the cinema in the past Photo: David Salas to the cities of the developing world. Metropolitans 150 the number of museums and art galleries in Mexico City. three months, four in ten in the past month and six in ten have been to a music concert in the last year. In addition, almost half of Metropolitan men are sports fans, attending a sporting event at least four times a year. Add all this together and you have lives filled with experiences and impressions, ranging from the new exhibition of Impressionist painters at the city’s main art gallery, to the latest Takeshi Kitano, Ridley Scott, Bollywood movie, to roaring your team on with fifty thousand other fans, or just walking through the streets, drinking in the atmosphere. For Metropolitans a rich and varied life filled with new experiences 66% 68% perform creative activities at least once a week. have been to the cinema in the last three months. is more important than wealth and possessions. And then there are all the activities Metropolitans like to do alone, in their own space; jogging or spend- 67% ing a hour bicycling at the gym, or window shopping or just wandering in a park on a sunny lunch hour. That walk in the park might just be the most important of all the Metropolitan’s leisure activities. New research from the University of Michigan suggests that our brains have a saturation point under the bombardment of sensual information we have to absorb in cities. We become less receptive, less intelligent, less positive as the day goes on, and we tend to do our forward planning earlier in the day, when our minds are fresher, less cluttered. An advertising campaign, a newspaper headline, a new song on the radio will have more of an effect on us in the morning than late in the afternoon. City planners should take note of this, because 478,000 view themselves as creative persons. the number of trees in Paris. 34% the antidote is simple; Nature. We need to see trees, clouds, grass, moving water, open spaces. Parks and green spaces are not just wasted potential for more development, they are essential for our spiritual have spent time in a park in the last week. wellbeing, relaxing us when our minds overload with the blur of impressions cities give us. And just as cities provide Metropolitans with all the nourishment they need to be creative, there has to be space, both physically and spiritually, to step outside that, slow down, empty your mind a bit, because creativity needs that as well. ▪ Metropolitan, London Sources: The Secretary of Tourism Mexico City (2010); Paris’ Department of Parks, Gardens and Green Spaces (2005). 42 Metropolitan Report – Play 43 Photo: Daniel Troyse It’s What’s on the Outside that Counts It’s said that beauty’s only skin deep. But in the city that first impression may be the only impression you get to make, so it has to count. In the urban jungle interesting plumage gets you noticed. Fashionistas! 63% of Metropolitans think what you wear reflects who you are. Metropolitan, Milan 44 Metropolitans rank being beautiful on a par with in a city of ten, twenty million inhabitants Metropoli- having a degree from an internationally prestigious tans try. Nearly half of them state that they would university in their list of priorities. And new research rather be noticed than blend in. suggests that cities accentuate the advantages beau- But looking and feeling great isn’t just about tiful people already enjoy. clothes. Not looking like a flabby, unhealthy office- Researchers at the University of Georgia found slave who spends their whole life chained to a desk, that in cities, the prettiest girls had ‘both a higher squinting at a computer screen has a lot to do with it psychological wellbeing and social connectedness’, as well. Metropolitans like to stay fit. They treat their contrasting strongly with women in rural areas, who bodies as ongoing Art, to be improved when the whim defined themselves, and other women, more on what or the need demands, and time allows. Sweating in a kind of people they are, than on how they look. gym, doing thirty lengths of a pool at the weekend, The truth is, you meet a lot of new people all the jogging ten Ks after work isn’t just about exercise, it’s time in cities, but you rarely have the space to get about feeling good about yourself, liking the way you to know them at leisure, so people tend to rely on look, being in shape, as opposed to out of it. snap judgements about each other. And the quickest And it’s also about releasing pent-up energy – judgement you can make is whether you find some- and maybe some aggression too – putting your mind one attractive. No wonder Metropolitans care about in neutral while your body does the work, so when their appearance, then. you have to turn your mind on again, it’s fresh and Metropolitans know about fashion. How they clear. Exercising is another way for Metropolitans to present themselves is an important statement of express and define their identity. They’re proving to identity and individuality, six in ten say that the themselves and to anyone who sees their posts on Fa- clothes reflect who you are. Metropolitans set and cebook that they have the stamina of a cross country notice new trends, but they’re wary of being caught runner or the precision and discipline of a taekwon- in the stampede of everyone wearing last week’s new do ‘dan’, or the muscle power of a competition rower. thing. And it’s about being attractive. There’s twice as much status in having great in- That focus on ‘the body beautiful’ extends beyond dividual style than in wearing the latest fashion. It’s just keeping fit. Metropolitans are not above con- cooler to mix ‘n’ match mum’s old Seventies jacket sidering a little cosmetic help to improve the bodies with a bit of Chanel and a pair of Converse Allstars Nature gave them, whether it’s hair transplantation than to look like a fashion victim with more money for prematurely balding men, or botox for women than personality. You don’t want to scrimp on the looking to stand out just a bit more than they do, or a Prada though; that’s what gives the retro-relaxed strategically placed tattoo. look its vital element of chic. Metropolitans understand the importance of And even if it’s hard to stand out from the crowd plumage, basically. Metropolitan Report – Play 61% of women associate shopping with pleasure, compared to 48% among men. 17 minutes 24 minutes Time spent on appearance each morning. 55% exercise at least once a week. 45 46 47 Ecosumers Plastic Cities 1. Seoul 2. São Paulo 3. New York Tattooed Cities 1. Stockholm 2. Copenhagen 3. Sydney And 42% are willing to pay more to get environmentally friendly products. 47% avoid products that are not environmentally friendly. transplantation. of men would consider hair 31% Metropolitan Report – Play 3. Tokyo 2. Moscow 1. Beijing Shopaholic Cities go shopping at least once a week. 34% have tattoos. 14% their bodies. 8% are very satisfied with to 21% among men. er plastic surgery, compared 38% of women would consid- Nip and Tuck Cut, Buy & Beautify in fashion, compared to 37% among men. 59% of women are interested Fashion Fatales of women would consider botox injections. 25% Global is as Global Does In Stockholm 14% would like to live in Copenhagen, whereas no 91% more than 7% in Copenhagen would like to live in Stockholm. ‘Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness’, said Mark Twain. Metropolitans take his words literally, grabbing every chance they get to travel and experience new cultures. These are the favourite cities of city dwellers. are interested in travelling and visiting new places. Metropolitans in Hong Kong would 61% rather live in Shanghai (14%) than 9 in Beijing (7%), but most of all they 2 1 London New York City 7 have weekended abroad for leisure in the past year. Amsterdam 3 4 Los Angeles 23% 8 Paris San Francisco would like to live in Tokyo (37%). Barcelona The Metropolitans most in love with London are found in Mumbai, where 40% would like 55 Rome 10 Tokyo identify themselves as global citizens, ranking just below identification with one’s nation and city. to become Londoners. Rome 49% have travelled abroad for leisure in the past year. 18% in Santiago would like to live in Buenos Aires. 33% of Capetonians would most of all like to live in Sydney. 6 Sydney Expert: ‘Metropolitans seek iconic metropolises and immersive experiences’ Ola Thufvesson, Ph.D. and cultural geographer at Lund University, Sweden, studying cities and tourism. 48 What is the common denominator for the most popular cities among Metropolitans? These cities are all very dense, lively and walkable. Most tourists don’t have cars and need to find things close by. I also think that nearly everyone has seen movies and read books that are set in these cities. People like to go to places they know about. Metropolitans probably just don’t have the same mental pictures of, say, Osaka, Seoul and Sin- Metropolitan Report – Play gapore. But a city’s brand can be turned around. Do Metropolitans have different travel habits than others? Metropolitans are fastidious tourists because they have refined everyday habits when it comes to shopping, food and leisure. They tend either to travel to iconic metropolises like New York City or London, or flee the city altogether seeking immer- sive experiences like hiking in Patagonia or renting a cottage in the middle of nowhere without running water. It is the contrast to city life and unique experiences that attract them. What will be the most important travel trends in the coming years? I believe environmental and economical factors will lead to a surge for ‘staycations’ – vacations spent close to home. If you travel far, you’ll probably stay for a longer period of time than today. We will also see a rise in combination travels, like hiking with luggage transport. And new versions of old types of travel, for example cruising - but hostel style. Future travel trends will be governed by global subcultures; people with similar interests and values will travel to the same places, regardless of where they are from. Metropolitan Report – Play 49 Friends on the Menu Terry Walters is a chef, cookbook author and main advocate of the ‘clean food’ trend, focusing on minimally processed food. When Metropolitans want to plug in to their social circles they use the facilities their cities provide for them: restaurants, cafés, bars. Their sophisticated tongues like tasting new cuisines and they enjoy cooking. However, due to the urban pace of life, they seldom have time to spend hours juggling pots and pans in their own kitchens. Expert: ‘People want to put a face on their food’ 49% Time spent on cooking and eating during a typical weekday: Which new cuisines will be on everybody’s tongues tomorrow? We’re seeing a return to basics. People are going to farmers’ markets again, and aren’t just paying attention to the look and taste of the food but also to where it’s coming from. It’s almost as if they’re putting a face on the food. I don’t think there will be a particular cuisine trend but rather an emphasis on new ‘old’ products, like different kinds of grains and legumes. eat a healthy diet. 39% visit a café or coffee shop at least once a week. st 23 k. 2. Madrid ee aw 1. Barcelona on ce % ‘Eaternal’ cities r at a restauran dinne t at e v l ea ha Nearly a quarter of Metropolitans have dinner at a restaurant at least once a week. Will they eat out even more in the future? I think they’ll eat out less. One of today’s big trends is cooking at home. That’s why cooking classes and cooking shows are so popular. And young parents in particular are turning to food as an alternative to medicine. Their attitude is that eating products from local farmers is good for one’s health, for the environment and for the local economy. 3. Mexico 4. São Paulo 5. Santiago 38% Café capitals have breakfast on their way to work at least once a week. 1. Lisbon 2. Madrid 5. Milan Fast food friendliest 1. Hong Kong 2. Beijing 3. São Paulo 4. Mumbai 27% ood ast f g a f a at urin eat nt d k. a r u a ee rest al w c i p ty 69 % e. 4. Rome 68% of the women are interested in coocking, compared to 60% of the men. sin 3. Barcelona like try t ing new and differen ty c of s pe ui A third eat fast food every week. How will our relation to fast food change and how will fast food itself change? There will always be a place for fast food. But fast-food chains are changing, too. McDonald’s recently promised to improve its treatment of meat, and other chains are cleaning up their act, too. Larger chains will change their menus. It’s surprising how many fast food places already serve vegan and gluten-free meals. During a normal weekday Metropolitans spend 1,53 hours cooking and eating. Do you think we will spend more or less time in the future? More. I think we’ll see a continued return to home cooking. People are discovering how little time it takes to cook. And people will cook more at home because they’re becoming concerned about nutrition and the rising number of children with food allergies. Which food trends will be the most influential in the future? The gluten-free trend is here to stay, and not just among people with gluten intolerance. And the incredible increase in farmers’ markets will continue as a strong trend. As a result, prices for local produce will go down. 5. New York 50 51 Photo: Lluis Gene, AFP Photo Ferran Adrià: ‘We’ll see more informal dining’ Among food lovers, Ferran Adrià is God. The Spanish chef’s restaurant, El Bulli, has 400 reservations for each table. Naturally, it has three stars in the Michelin guide, and for many years it has been known as the world’s best restaurant. To the relief of those of us who’re unable to wait two years for a dinner reservation, Adrià recently opened a fast food restaurant. Seven in ten Metropolitans want to try out new good’. What is the difference between the two? er for women to combine their working life with their cuisines. Why is that? I sell food that is fast and healthy, but not necessarily personal one, as people tend to work either the day It’s all down to the huge amount of travelling peo- cheap. I can’t be a hypocrite about this. At the end shift or the night shift. In the EU however, most peo- ple are doing these days. My generation, and I am of the day, a meal at ‘Fast Good’ would be around ple in the catering industry need to be committed to 48 years old, was the first to start going abroad on ten Euros, and if someone had three Euros to spend, working both day and evening shifts. That’s just the a more regular basis. Thanks to low cost airlines, they would probably head to a fast food joint as it all way it works. Many women try to handle both lives at young people can now travel more than ever before comes down to money. first, but many find that juggling between the two can and this is something that opens them up to new culinary cultures and traditions. Ferran Adrià Born: 1962 in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat close to Barcelona. Restaurant: Head chef for El Bulli since 1987, voted best restaurant in the world five times since. Famous for: Inventing the technique where a dish is deconstructed into its components, which are often served as food-foam, another technique invented by Adrià. 52 be too hard to combine as life goes on and if say, they Do you anticipate that more top chefs will cross come to have children. At El Bulli I get around 5,000 over to fast food? applications and for every nine male applicants, I Three in ten eat fast food every week, a trend It’s actually a very good business model but the prob- have one woman. you’ve obviously picked up on with your new res- lem is you need to be driven by passion. You can’t taurant. How will our relation to fast food change just click your fingers and get into this type of busi- Which food trends will be the most influential and how will fast food itself change? ness, you need some sort of personal aim and the in the future? Fast food is the cheapest eating out option and the problem is that most young chefs have this dream of Food will stay very much the same and what will only way out from this trend would be to eat at home, opening their own high end quality restaurant, not a change will be the setting in which it is enjoyed. which is difficult today, as people no longer have the fast food joint. What we will be seeing more of is informal dining time to do so. I myself came up with a home cook- Metropolitan Report – Play rooms where people can feel relaxed and comfort- ing concept based on the recipes my staff at El Bulli A surprising finding in the Metropolitan Sur- cooked at home, showing that you can eat well at vey is that men are almost equally interested in home for little money. The problem is that people cooking as women. However, most top chefs are Will you be involved in them? don’t have the confidence to cook. men; why is there such a gap between restau- I have been working on an informal tapas bar in rants, run by culinary kings, and home kitchens Barcelona called ‘Tickets’. The idea was to create a Fast food used to be the antithesis of good food, run by women? modern and contemporary place where people could but your motto for the new restaurant is ‘fast This is not a global problem. In the US, it is a lot easi- Metropolitan Report – Play able as they eat. come and eat good food without any fuss. ▪ 53 ‘Sin’ Cities Metropolitans are nocturnal. A pulsating nightlife is the most striking difference between city and countryside. And Metropolitans know how to take advantage of cities that never sleep. 18% have had a one-nightstand in the last year. 24% 12% have used illegal drugs in the last year. 31% ‘Easiest’cities 1. São Paulo 2. Seoul of Metropolitans aged 18–34 visit a bar at least once a week, compared to 20% among all Metropolitans. 3. Stockholm 4. St. Petersburg 5. Moscow Men are from Venus too smoke tobacco at least once a week. ‘Highest’ cities 1. Toronto 2. Montreal 3. London 4. New York 5. Sydney Men (25%) have more casual sex than women (12%). 45% drink alcohol at least once a week. Heaviest drinkers 1. Tokyo 2. Rome 3. Athens 4. London 12% have had same-sex sexual experiences. Gay capital of the world In Berlin 22% of all Metropolitans have had homosexual experiences. 5. Milan 54 Metropolitan Report – Play Metropolitan Report – Play 55 6h 57min time spent sleeping during a typical weekday. 25% Cities that never sleep 1. Seoul of Metropolitans aged 18–34 visit a nightclub at least once a month, compared to 18% among all Metropolitans. 2. New York 3. Sao Paulo 4. Tokyo 5. Prague Italian dancefloor divas a third in both Milan and Rome go to nightclubs at least once a month. Expert: ‘Superficial knowledge about subcultures usually leads to embarrassment’ Sarah Thornton is a sociologist of culture and a writer for The Economist. In 1995 she published the groundbreaking book ‘Club cultures’ where she coined the term ‘subcultural capital’. 56 What is subcultural capital? It’s the kind of knowledge that gives status in subcultures. In night life milieus it’s the knowledge of music and DJ’s, the dance styles and the ability to execute them. Metropolitans would be the key arbiters of this kind of knowledge, because in cities there are subcultures that you don’t find in the countryside, where everyone goes to the same pub. What has happened since you wrote Club culture? In 1995 subcultures was much more of a new phenomenon and perhaps only really true in London and New York. Nowadays it’s a truly global phenomenon. Internet is the number one factor leading to this. Also air travel is much more common today than it was 20 years ago. Metropolitan Report – Play How does new technology, like social media, affect subcultures? Technological advances contribute to subculturalism. Today each subculture has it’s own media. The effect is that people are much more likely to stay in their subcultural niche. What kind of advice can you give to marketers targeting subcultural groups? I have one main piece of advice. You need to have someone who understands the culture in depth. Superficial knowledge usually leads to embarrassment. In the UK we have a history of night clubs being owned by breweries. They really miss the mark sometimes spending huge amounts of money refurbishing night clubs, but missing the cool altogether. Smoking hot 35% of Metropolitan men smoke tobacco at least once a week, compared to only 28% among women. Metropolitan, Paris 57 Media Metropolitan, Mexico City 58 Metropolitan Report – Work 59 Addicted to News Knowledge makes the world go round. And especially so in cities. For Metropolitans possessing a broad general knowledge is on top of the status ladder. Consequently they are news junkies, using all the tools the modern world can provide them to stimulate their addiction to knowledge and share it with others. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the movie ‘Slumdog come as no surprise since news nowadays is avail- Millionaire’ was such a worldwide success, or that able everywhere and all the time thanks to smart- ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire’ has been syndicated phones, laptops and free newspapers. In the subway, in over eighty countries. Knowledge is king, and the on the beach, at the hairdresser – there are no longer idea that with a broad general knowledge you can any news-free zones. buy your way from slum to super rich in one evening There’s much discussion about the increasing is the Cinderella fairytale of our time. pace of the torrent of information the modern world Metropolitans rate a broad general knowledge pours over us, with just cause; we now record and above any other value or attribute on the status lad- transfer as much information every week as we did der, and seven in ten consider it to be a fundamental part of who they are. It is essential, in the white noise of city life, to have voices you trust telling you who, where, when the best gig, the most interesting exhibition, the hippest club, the newest restaurant in a year at the turn of the ‘The better informed you are, the more broad-minded and tolerant you are likely to be.’ can be found. Illustration: Cecilia Lundgren 60 millenium. But Metropolitans have learned how to edit the knowledge they assimilate 1st broad general knowledge is the most desirable attribute on the status ranking. 67% state that being well informed is part of who they are. 69% often discuss news with friends and colleagues. down by relying on likeminded people who communicate directly through social media. Perhaps for this reason, the rise in media consump- Being well-informed, having up-to-the-minute tion is more marked with younger people than with information about world events and culture and hav- the older generation. They are more likely to be het- ing opinions about them is about being connected, erogeneous in their media habits, less wedded to a ‘in the know’, erudite, as well as having the intellec- single newspaper, a particular television channel. tual firepower to survive and thrive in the knowledge The implications of this for news organisa- economy. It’s no accident that governments refer to tions are far-reaching, brand loyalty is eroded, and information as ‘intelligence’. That’s what it gives you. something that is free and freely available is going And the attraction of knowledge is that it’s elusive, to have a lot more chance of reaching the collective intangible, without boundaries; you can’t buy it, you consciousness than something that is sold on a news- can’t get enough of it, you can just find better ways of stand, or protected behind a paywall. It is also less getting your hands on it. important where an article is published and more Media consumption is rising all the time and six- important who recommended it. ▶ time spent on reading news during a typical week. ty percent of news is now read online. That should Metropolitan Metropolitan Report Report – – Media Media 61 This is a hard nut to crack for media companies struggling to find a different business model. In order to remain as relevant as possible they will have to make their information available wherever their readers are and whenever they want it, on Youtube, on Ipad, on the subway or on whatever the next revolution in communication happens to be. The Metropolitans’ hunger for infor- 58% of all metropolitan news consumption is digital. mation is fed by all the range of media and social networks they can get their hands on, from the newspaper on the morning train, or the live broadcast they watch on their smartphone, to a friend on holiday tweeting them first hand about the latest natural disaster on the other side of the planet. And maybe, when something really big is happening, they might just tune into the news channels on TV when they get home in the evening, to see what CNN and Al Jazeera are saying. And the fact that they are discussing the news not just face to face, but online is creating an entirely new sense of community, in which knowledge, insight, opinion and concern are pooled and shared across the planet. Recent research by sociologists Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart in fact strongly suggests that the better informed you are, the more broad-minded and tolerant you are likely to be. It’s lack of information, not too much of it, that causes prejudice, chauvinism, bigotry. Which is why news has become a new and powerful social coagulant. Traditional news combined with new technology give Metropolitans the capacity to care. Fifty years ago a massive oil leak in Alaska or a failed revolution in South America might have passed unnoticed. Now they’re on Facebook, smartphones, news sites everywhere, instantly. And enough people around the world knowing about a very local occurrence can change the event even as it happens, make it an almost interactive international moment, kickstarting governments, aid and news organisations, charities into instant action. And knowing people around the world are watching and care may shame an apparently untouchable multinational corporation into cleaning up its mess, or give a protest movement the courage to fight a little harder than it would have done otherwise. That oil leak might just be caught before it becomes an environmental catastrophe. 69% of Metro politan smartph one user s read news in the mob il e phone in a norm al week, and 48% do it every d ay. That failed revolution might just pick itself up and succeed. ▪ 62 63 Technophisticated Consumers Smartphone owners daily activities: Video game console: 42% have 19% intend to buy Digital camera: 48% 41% read news use social media 57% 25% browse the internet 78% have 14% intend to buy 25% play games watch video/ TV 13% use maps/ LBS/GPS Regular mobile phone: 4% intend to buy 74% have Smartphone: 43% have 28% intend to buy Tablet: 37% intend to buy 8% have Laptop: 70% have 20% intend to buy 29% 54% are often asked for advice regarding new technology. 64 25% 41% are usually among the first to try new technology. 63% 82% try to keep updated on new technology. Metropolitan Report – Media 52% 57% Mobile Metropolitans 90% have a laptop or intend to buy one. consider brands to be important when buying new technology. Metropolitan, Paris 65 The Physical Facebook The city is not a skyline, it’s a physical Facebook. Contrary to the beliefs of dystopians, both urban and digital life are deeply social in character, and Metropolitans are creating a seamless existence between the two. At the end of a nondescript Lower East Side alley, Metropolitans use social networking sites. On aver- on the top floor of low-profile hipster hangout Free- age, active users spend seven hours and 57 minutes mans, Sarah sips her Hawkeye Sour as she checks in on social media each week. at the restaurant via Foursquare. Two seconds later, And Metropolitans do in fact have a larger social someone comments her update: ‘Hey, Sarah! Haven’t circle than people living in rural areas. This was es- seen you since high school. I’m around the corner at tablished by sociologist Claude Fischer, who in his The National. Swing by!’. At dawn, the two long lost 1982 classic study found that the friendship-based comrades exit the club they visited after meeting up. social networks of those who moved from semi-rural During the night, Sarah’s friends bonded with her areas to the urban core grew by forty percent. But high school friend’s new acquaintances and vice ver- when a social network grows, so does the demand to sa. Some are American, others Chinese, Swedish and tend to the many intricate relationships. French. A single check-in was enough to spark more In groups of chimpanzees, social grooming is per- than twenty friendships. ‘Friends are the glue that binds cities together’ stated Aristotle in The Nicomachean Ethics. Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, believes that friends are the glue that binds the Internet, hence the world, together. But News Feed Sarah Edit My Profile Share 56% are active social media users (at least one hour/week). every day average time spent on social media a week, equally much for both sexes. Inga from Sweden esome!! Check out this guys! Aw Calendar Friends Metropolitan Network Urban Community 50% are on Facebook. 6 Video Link Photos 25% update their status News Feed Messages Status ‘It is in the metropolis melting pot where social media reach their full potential.’ upload pictures at least once a week. Create group kingdom spend twenty percent of their waking hours pampering each other. This activity is often limited to just two individuals. Humans groom in a more effective way. We when social media first communicate with many made the big time it was individuals at the same believed that rural areas would benefit most. How- time through language, perhaps gossiping by the ever, it is in the metropolis melting pot where social water cooler. Robin Dunbar, professor in evolution- media reach their full potential. ary psychology at Oxford University, believes this is People move to the city to be able to express the reason why chimps live in groups of fifty, while themselves. To play. To find likeminded others. So- humans tend to create collectives of 150 individuals. cial media enhances all three factors, becoming a In the city there are many more monkey backs key tool to achieve these wishes. Sarah checked in at to groom, and the rise of social media has created the Freemans to express her culinary and cultural prefer- means for us to groom our social acquaintances on ences. She found likeminded others by going to The a grander scale. This suits Metropolitans perfectly, National and ended up playing with new friends. who are often up to their ears in work or play, with Therefore it’s not surprising that certain studies no time to meet up with all contacts for coffee once suggest that Metropolitans are twice as likely to use a month. Thus, Metropolitans groom their friends ▶ Metropolitan Report – Media Women in Stockholm are the most avid social media users spending 10h 09 per week on social networking sites. See all fur of others. Our closest relatives in the animal A new Stockholm Syndrome 49% 2 formed by cleaning the Twitter as rural dwellers. Today more than half of 66 socialmedia 18% are on Twitter. 5th The possibility to meet new people is the fifth most important aspect of urban life. 28% Apps Checkin Map 2 minutes ago ways rcon and Maggie Sam l Ala Christian Quarles, Pau n, miss you! Valerie Love it! Talk soo e about 5 minutes ago Lik you? Which Metropolitan are 31% comment every day on others shared material and status updates. More Friends on Chat Sarah 41% s Checked In at Freeman er Talecki Eduarda Taveira and Pet since high ah! Haven’t seen you Inga from Sweden Sar National. Swing by! The at ner cor the school. I’m around one Like 7 minutes ago via iPh play games or take tests almost every day. 8th Comment Like Paul funny bird of metropolitan smartphone owners utilise social media in their phone every day. 49% share links and video clips more than once a week. Having a large social network ranks in the top ten on the status ladder. 10 minutes ago Like Comment 67 Photo: Daniel Troyse on a digital basis not by picking, but by liking and commenting. Dunbar’s number of 150 may still reign supreme, but we are perhaps on the brink of a new social revolution where our networks truly expand due to the effects of urbanisation and digital life. Of course, Metropolitans don’t only groom others. The city is the ideal arena to build on one’s personal image. In a small town, the local restaurant may be the only place for gastronomic recreation. Enter the city limits and you have a seemingly endless Zagat’s selection to wine and dine at. Metropolitans are well aware of what choices they make, and what to let others see of their edited life – a check-in at Freemans flies higher than at, say McDonald’s. These seemingly unimportant projections of where you go, who you rub shoulders with or even what you ate for breakfast – expressed through links, comments, likes, films and images – create a social digital beacon for other likeminded people to spot and ultimately join. These digital connections sooner or later become analogue. Sarah, like most people who are active in social media, uses her online network to meet people offline. Four out of ten smartphone owners use social media via their mobile devices every day. The dawn of location based services such as Facebook Places, Gowalla and Foursquare, present in smartphones, allows Metropolitans to keep track of acquaintances in real time, leading to semi-spontaneous meet-ups face to face. Social media also solve the precarious urban problem of never meeting the same person twice. As Sarah’s friends woke up the next morning after their night out, all they had to do was go on Facebook to seek out the new acquaintances. Archetypal romance dramas where boy meets girl, boy loses girl and needs to find her again, are Caroline Jungsand is partner, creative director and social media expert at the Swedish communication agency Prime. Expert: ‘Companies must live by their message – not just promote a brand’ What are the keys to successful corporate communication in social media? Because Metropolitans are such savvy social media users, stakes are high for companies that enter the digital realm. In social media it’s the consumer that sets the rules. The key for success is therefore to listen in on the conversation before joining it, and to not engage half heartedly. increasingly a thing of the past. As the use of social media grows, a new map of the city is drawn on the borders between offline and online. Digital life and city life are no longer separate. They have become so intertwined that they not only mirror life on the other side of the Internet connection – they change and affect it. The image of the dystopian city with its population droning in the harsh light of computer screens is fading. Social media enhances the urbanity of urbanity, creating a people’s city – a living, breathing, constantly updated city, which is being built post by post, check-in How do social media change the rules for how companies communicate and brands are communicated? One liners like Nike’s ‘Just do it’ says little about what a company stands for, it’s societal commitments. Considering Metropolitans caring nature, leaving out a company’s social mission in today’s participatory culture is a capital error. Companies must live by, and communicate, their message and mission rather than to just promote a brand. Using social media has implications for the whole organisation. Traditional marketing normally involves only the marketing department, but building a presence in social media involves the whole company. Will the social media revolution give us more ‘good’ companies? The simple answer is yes, basically because it’s harder to hide things in our times of transparency. Tripadvisor will tell you if a hotel is bad and Pricerunner lets you know if the 3D-TV you’ve been drooling over is overpriced. Power has shifted towards the consumer. It’s also about being good in a relevant way. After the tsunami hit Japan in March of 2011 Apple let their users donate money using their ordinary iTunes account. That made it easy for consumers to act on their kindness, while giving Apple goodwill at the same time. Women rule! 45% of female smartphone owners use social media in their mobile phone every day, compared to 38% among men. by check-in. Even Aristotle himself would be overwhelmed by all the glue binding modern Metropolitans together. ▪ Metropolitan, Milan 68 Metropolitan Report – Media 69 Paul Kim: ‘Smartphones disrupt social norms’ Smartphones and location based services will lead to increased possibilities for us to engage with our friends. And with new services, that let us share our interests, a whole new set of interactions becomes possible. But it will disrupt our current social norms, says Paul Kim, vice president for Wordpress-owner Automattic. ‘We’ll get to live through the beta test together.’ According to the Metropolitan Survey four in ten Does blogging change people’s real life? into producing knowledge, benefiting all of us. The Metropolitans have smartphones and seven in In my personal experience, absolutely, it does. Where idea being that we’re turning an previously untapped ten have laptops. What do you see as the coming in the pre-web era, maybe 100,000 people had expe- ‘cognitive surplus’ into something valuable, mean- trends of social media? rience of writing in public, with the advent of blog- ingful and available to everyone on the web. The past few years have seen an explosion of adop- ging there are now millions of people with sustained tion of multiple flavours of social media: from blog- experience of writing in public on the web. Each of Smartphones are on the rise, and four in ten Occupation: Vice president for Automattic the company that owns Wordpress.com. Career: Has previously worked for Mozilla and Adobe. Lives in: Oakland, California. ging to photo sharing to status updates and more. In these people – and I would include myself in this smartphone users access social media on their the years to come I expect we’ll see even more op- group – now has a myriad of new connections and phones daily. How will this change how we con- portunities for people to publish and share in ways opportunities that this sustained communication via vey information and interact with each other? that require even less commitments of time and at- blogging on the web has opened up. On a basic level, location-aware mobile devices that About Wordpress.com: A weblog hosting provider which opened in 2005. It is financially supported via paid upgrades, ‘VIP’ services and limited Google Adsense advertising. Paul Kim 70 tention. Mobile sharing and media apps point one connect to the web and our self-defined networks way forward as they increase in prevalence. When it People spend a lot of time blogging, facebooking increase the possibilities, planned or not, for us to becomes as easy to publish media as pointing, shoot- and tweeting. As blogging and social media grow, engage with our friends. As new services arise that ing and clicking a ‘share’ button, it means both more won’t it make us less productive? enable us to not just find existing connections but people and more content will come online. Related Like with any new medium, some will become less to share our interests and tastes, a whole new set of to this, tools for discovering content that is most rel- productive while others will discover new ways to interactions becomes possible. On the other hand, evant to you will come to the fore as the sheer volume create, share and connect. I love the observation that these new interactions disrupt current social norms. of social media strains the time each of us has avail- new outlets for activity like Wikipedia have chan- One thing is certain – we’ll get to live through the able to devote to experiencing new content. nelled time that would have been spent watching TV Metropolitan Report – Media beta test of these new capabilities together. ▪ 71 About the Metropolitan Survey The first Metropolitan Survey is part of an ongo- The questionnaire was designed in collaboration The sample was drawn from the Metropolitan Panel ing global research programme that aims at under- between Metro International and United Minds. and access panels from leading international sample standing the similarities in mindset and lifestyle of suppliers Toluna, AIP and Vision Critical. Metropolitans; people aged 18–49 years, working or The fieldwork was conducted online for all cities by studying in cities all over the world. the Metropolitan Panel team from January 18th to A total of 15 000 Metropolitans in 30 cities (500 February 22nd 2011. in each city) answered the survey. The survey was performed in the following cities: Stockholm St. Petersburg Copenhagen Montreal Toronto London Amsterdam New York City Paris Milan Barcelona Lisbon Madrid Mexico City Moscow Berlin Prague Budapest Beijing Rome Athens Seoul Tokyo Hong Kong Mumbai Sao Paolo Santiago Santiago About Metro International Metro International is the inventor of the free daily newspaper and the publisher of Metro, the world’s largest international newspaper, with 17 million daily readers in over 120 major cities across the world. Every day from Stockholm to New York, Mexico to Hong Kong, Metro delivers essential news to Metropolitans and effective advertising solutions to local and global brands alike. Cape Town Cape town About United Minds United Minds is a business intelligence firm specialised in global consumer insight and trend analysis. From offices in Stockholm, New York and Brussels, United Minds helps companies and organisations to develop strategies, communications and business. Sydney Sydney About the Metropolitan Panel The Metropolitan Panel is an online research panel dedicated to investigate the lifestyle and mindset of young, active and urban people. Present in 13 markets, the Metropolitan panel provides a robust platform for advertisers and media agencies to refine their communication strategies towards Metropolitans. More info at unitedminds.se More info at metropolitanpanel.com More info at metro.lu 72 73