// what attracts people most, it would appear, is other people (c)

When I moved to one of those Canadian cities that regularly appeared in rankings of the happiest places to live, the first thing I did was go for a walk. It rained during my first few days there, and the streets were completely empty. And I absolutely loved it. I no longer had to weave through crowds or squeeze past endless streams of people. I could walk at my own pace without constantly bumping into anyone. No honking, no rushing, no one smoking next to me.

After twenty-million-person Istanbul, that kind of silence felt like a luxury. I spent hours wandering through the city, looking at the colorful houses, the trees, and the steep streets. The city’s harsh climate, with its damp air and sharp winds, at first felt like nothing more than part of the atmosphere. Everything looked so new, almost cinematic. At that moment, I thought this was exactly what a truly comfortable city was supposed to feel like.

But after a couple of months, something strange started to happen. The rain was long gone, the days had become dry and calm, yet the streets were still empty. I would leave the house and catch myself thinking that I didn’t really want to keep walking. For a long time, I couldn’t understand what had changed. Everything around me was still just as clean, peaceful, and well-organized, but somehow my walks were no longer enjoyable.

There wasn’t really anywhere to go. And it wasn’t because there were no shops or attractions. It was because nothing was happening. Empty streets, deserted parks, half-empty cafés. Sometimes it felt as if I was the only person who had decided to go outside without a specific destination, simply for the sake of walking. I could walk for ten minutes, half an hour, even an hour without seeing anyone. It was as if everyone had disappeared.

The interesting part was that I wasn’t craving crowds, and I didn’t miss the noise. What I missed was the feeling that the city was alive.

When there are people around, even if I never interact with them, a city feels alive. Someone is sitting on a café patio, someone is rushing somewhere, kids are coming home from school, someone is reading on a bench. You simply walk past them and feel like you’re part of the city.

I didn’t need conversations with strangers. I just wanted to see that other people were there: to catch fragments of conversations as I walked by, notice the morning line outside a bakery, smile at people passing by, walk past a street musician, watch someone playing with their dog. It’s these ordinary little moments that make a city feel alive. Without them, walking started to feel emotionally empty.

Instead, I found myself walking along a wide road past a parking lot, then another block, then another… and absolutely nothing was happening around me.

That was when I found myself thinking about something I had never considered before. Before moving, I looked at the usual country rankings: safety, income levels, healthcare, cost of living. But it never occurred to me to ask myself a different question:

Would I actually want to leave the house and simply walk wherever my feet took me?

Until then, I had never thought of judging a city by whether it made me want to go for a walk. It had always seemed so obvious that I never even considered it a quality worth noticing. It was only after moving that I realized that being able to step outside with no destination and genuinely enjoy the walk itself is also part of quality of life. And that walkability isn’t just about having sidewalks, parks, or short distances. It’s about whether something is actually happening on the street.