What makes Milan a great city? 🇮🇹

[georgina3]

Hi! Milan is one of my top cities in Teleport, but I find it's not always so easy to get a good sense of what makes a city great just by looking at data. Hence my question, what makes Milan a great city to live in according to you? And what makes Italy a great country to live in?

Thank you

[davide1]

Well, this is kind of an open question regarding Milan and Italy, I'll try to answer with a few takeaways (I'm Italian, I come from a small village and I've been living and/or working in Milan for the past six years and a half):

• Milan is the place-to-be if you work in the fashion, advertising and digital industries: there are far more opportunities here than anywhere else in Italy;

• Italy, on the other side, is made up by small villages and towns: we have a few big cities (Rome, Milan, Turin, Venice, Naples, etc.) and each of them has its own identity. While most of these cities are well-known touristic destination, Milan (and Turin) are probably the only ones that stands out also in terms of working and studying opportunities;

• Hence many people come to Milan for studying and working, from the entire country and from abroad: this create a somewhat unique environment with a lot of different people coming here for a lot of different reasons - despite the main reason being that you have much more chances of getting a well-payed job. People born and raised in Milan are a minority, people from anywhere else are the majority;

• The rest of Italy...is not so much diverse, tolerant and with the same opportunities as Milan (believe me, my hometown is a village of 5.000 people almost in the middle of nowhere...it's becoming more and more of a cultural shock when I go back there)

• Despite its international allure, Milan is a small city compared to other european cities like London, Berlin or Paris: this keeps the livability of the city at a decent standard. Yes, it is gray, yes there's traffic, but you can still pretty much go across the city and find little nice spots were to hang out without having to pass hours on public transportation;

• Something that really sucks for me is that there are not many parks, so I find that Milan is more urban and less green than many other cities (Barcelona or Berlin for example);

• Rents are expensive: this is probably the biggest pain point of living in Milan, unless you get a big paycheck at the end of the month, you will be forced to live with other people if you want to live in a nice, well-connected area. If you want to live by yourself in a big place you definitely need to move out from Milan (I did it for a few years);

• The city is slowly but steadily improving: there is an undeniable gap between Milan and other european cities, but so far it is the only city that can even think of competing with foreign cities;

• It is very difficult to think about moving to other parts of Italy once you live in Milan, for all the abovementioned reasons: there's no place like it in Italy, for better (opportunities and services) or for worse (highest rents in Italy, I think, and the quality of the air is poor).

[Davide_Ambrosini]

Sure is one of the best city in Italy for what concern cultural and night life. You have plenty of choices every day to hang out or got to cinema, teathre, art exibition, pub or disco.
Living in Italy is great for the food and the wine, the easy and edonistic approach to life and for the variety of places you can go (especially if you live in Milano). In about one hour and a half by train you can choose between the sea, the highest mountains in Europe and many turistic cities (Verona, Venezia, Firenze).
Hope to see you here soon!

[stefano_salvia]

the answer to your question is - in a way - a paradox. Italy has (for western not-italian people, of course) a bunch of good stuff about daily life, i don't need to mention.
well: Milan has all that stuff, but at same time has a global excellence perspective in many branches. i don't like to mention fashion (i'm just fed up with those horrible people), but consider 7 universities (two of them worldly recognized); a strong name in design; not so marginal in finance... and i just stop here.
all things crammed in a milion size city you can cross east-west or north south in less than 45 mins.

well, i've been living here in the last 25 yrs; i never fell completely a "local" and i get to know nowadays still new things about this city. in a way i have become one "milanese", even more than a "native" one
it's a place where you BECOME a native; you're not born.