Romantic Urbanism
by Daphne Lundi & Louise Yeung
Cities have long been fertile grounds for romance: chance encounters in the street, furtive glances on the subway, long meandering walks with a new crush, and introducing loved ones to favorite neighborhood haunts. This syllabus explores how cities can be designed to facilitate the timeless, universal human endeavor of trying to love and be loved.
Finding Love in a Hopeless Place
The Hallmark-ification of romantic comedies of the past decade has positioned urban spaces as bereft of love, pitted against wholesome small towns to settle down with The One. A high-powered girlboss caught in the rat race of city life1 experiences an unexpected circumstance that takes her to a small town,2 where she succumbs to its quaint charms, unlearns her city slicker ways,3 and falls in love with a gruff local man4—or so the story goes. In such movies, the town is often surprisingly walkable5 with a village center where everyone convenes, usually for holiday festivities.6 In recent years, the town is also racially integrated,7 but it is a vapid multiracial8 society9 devoid of real cultural contexts to ground its diversity.10 These depictions on film are often at odds with car-dependent, racially segregated realities of American suburbs.
Meanwhile, professional and academic pursuits of urban planning do not teach us to think critically about the ways that cities can be designed to foster love, be it romantic, familial, or platonic. What would cities look like to prioritize love as a necessary ingredient of a full life with as much seriousness as other worthy goals like affordable housing, good jobs, and safe transportation?
Romantic comedies, which offer light-hearted explorations of courtship, provide an illustrative lens for considering how to design cities for love. Films have dealt with romantic themes for as long as there has been cinema, but the neo-traditional rom-coms of the 80s, 90s, and aughts are characterized by romantic narratives set in cities.
In Romantic Comedy: Boy Meets Girl Meets Genre, Tamar Jeffers McDonald highlights how modern rom-coms are grounded in an urban milieu, with New York City as the most common metropolitan background for successful romantic love:
New York is where romantic love happens: against the odds love (Green Card, 1990), Cinderella-style cross-class love (Maid in Manhattan, 2002 and Hitch, 2005), blue-collar love (Moonstruck, 1987), black love (Brown Sugar, 2002), lesbian love (Kissing Jessica Stein, 2001). The presence of the city is a warranty for the successful love story: its mere evocation in the credit sequence of The Wedding Date (2005), the main action of which takes place in England, is enough to confirm that the two New Yorkers Kat (Debra Messing) and Nick (Dermot Mulroney) will become a couple.
In effective place-based rom-coms, the city can feel like a distinct character in the love story. Take Amélie (2001), where the titular heroine’s relationship with Paris has created a magical world. When Amélie encounters Nino, an equally astute and playful observer of Paris, they are drawn to each other’s abilities to tune into the rhythms of the city that are often overlooked. Amélie taps into the intimacy we can build by learning to love a city from the eyes of our beloved.
Romance in City Design
Rom-coms show us the building blocks of urban space that are integral to cultivating love. By applying Kevin Lynch’s five elements of urban space—Paths, Edges, Districts, Nodes, and Landmarks—to the question of love and the city, we can develop a framework for analyzing how urban design can enable spontaneous meet-cutes, pose and resolve conflict, and deepen intimate connections. The majority of movies included below are set in dense urban environments, but a few take place in more rural or suburban settings. Our goal is not to cast cities as inherently superior to small towns, but to highlight movie examples that effectively employ spatial planning and design in advancing romantic plots and character development.
Paths
The way we move through space shapes the people and places we interact with along the way. From sidewalks and bike lanes to subway and bus routes to the classic yellow taxi cab, cities offer many opportunities for romance.
How can both old and new paths create conditions for serendipitous encounters?
- In When Harry Met Sally (1989), Harry and Sally fall in love precisely because their paths cross many times (multimodally, by car, plane, and foot!) over the course of a decade, allowing them to meet again after periods of change and growth. Their chance run-in at a neighborhood bookstore exemplifies the spontaneity of walkable urban environments, and sparks a budding friendship after years of animosity.
- Sliding Doors (1998) explores what happens to the roads not taken when we embark on one path. The movie traces two alternate futures of Helen, who misses a subway train on her daily commute in one life, and catches it in another. Although the two futures lead to a divergent chain of events (in one path, Helen catches her partner cheating and starts her own company; in the other, she remains unaware of his infidelities and struggles to make ends meet after being laid off), they also include convergences that prompt us to wonder what parts of our lives are inevitably destined.
- Conversely, Groundhog Day (1993) relishes in how to develop new perspectives by repeating a well-trodden path.
- Ana Kinsella’s syllabus, Chance and the City, prompts us to heighten our senses when we take the same journey over and over to “reconnect with the wild chance that underpins city life.”
Edges
Edges form the boundaries between two places. Some edges are marked with physical barriers, like railroads, walls, and shorelines. Others, like class stratification and redlining, mark economic and racial delineators that can be just as difficult to traverse.
How have urban planning decisions created different edges, and how can planners break down those barriers? How do two people from divergent backgrounds (whether racial, class, geographic, or cultural) navigate the edges of different identities in their relationship? What happens within relationships when one person seeks to cross into another world that is unlike the one in which they grew up?
- In The Half of It (2020) and Lady Bird (2017), respective teen protagonists Ellie and Christine grapple with how to relate to others while being from the proverbial wrong side of the tracks. As both girls navigate romantic interests and conflicts across socioeconomic and neighborhood edges, their familial and platonic loves grow into the bedrocks that ground them through periods of change.
- The Half of It, a queer Cyrano story, finds Ellie literally and figuratively at the edges of Squahamish, living far away from others in town. Her responsibilities caring for her Chinese immigrant father and managing her family’s financial precarity alienate her from her classmates. When she starts ghostwriting love letters to a popular girl she likes on behalf of a tongue-tied football jock, Ellie transcends the boundaries that have been spatially and socially reinforced by society—as well as those she has imposed upon herself.
- Many call Lady Bird a love letter to Sacramento, where Christine yearns to leave for “a city with culture.” She goes to great lengths to situate herself beyond the edges of her upbringing by attempting to fit in with the upper middle class, and even pretending to reside at her boyfriend’s address in a wealthier neighborhood. These actions create distance between her and her childhood best friend and mother as Christine struggles to reconcile her sense of belonging in her hometown with her desire to expand her horizons beyond the limits of what Sacramento can offer.
Districts
Districts are sub-areas with recognizable borders and cohesive neighborhood character. Districts, where people seek and build community, can be ripe places for seeking romance.
How do different types of communities carve out unique districts within a city?
- Rye Lane (2023) is firmly rooted in Black South London as we watch Yas and Dom process recent breakups while wandering through Brixton and Peckham. They share personal spatial histories (a once-frequented restaurant of a prior relationship, a favorite taco joint, a go-to nightclub, the home of an ex’s parent, the home of the ex and his new lover), which lead to an emotional wayfinding. The neighborhood comes alive as they move through it, gently holding Yas and Dom as they bring each other out of heartbreak and depression.
- Inspired by Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Fire Island (2022) is an homage to “America’s first gay and lesbian town” that follows a friend group’s annual tradition of going to Fire Island Pines. As a destination district, Fire Island allows us to step outside of the heteronormative city. The movie features the many ways that queer people have shaped place-making in Fire Island. The total pedestrianization of Fire Island cultivates intimacies that are both fleeting and long-lasting. The love stories told in the movie are as much a celebration of chosen family as they are a tribute to the sanctity of gay spaces.
Nodes
Focal points of urban settings create many kinds of nodes. Nodes can form at junctions (a plaza at the convergence of many roads) or from concentrations of activity (a lively street corner). Sometimes nodes are dictated by set paths, like subway stations.
In love stories, how do nodes function as spatial and emotional junctures that require someone to make a decision about which path to take? How and why are nodes intentionally created vs organically formed?
- William’s travel bookstore in Notting Hill (1999) becomes a central node for his romance with Hollywood celebrity Anna. William and the bookstore both remain sites of refuge during Anna’s trips to London over the course of several years.
- The action of Let It Snow (2019) primarily takes place at the Waffle Town, the home base for romantic storylines of local teenagers to converge throughout the day. Like many teen rom-coms, the node of this movie is a humble yet vital third space that kids can access without cars, linger without much money, and socialize without adult supervision.
Landmarks
Landmarks are commonly recognizable points of reference. Widely recognizable landmarks like Eiffel Tower have long been sites for grand romantic gestures at the climax of rom-coms. Landmarks can also be tied to personal memory, like a childhood home or the bench where someone had their first kiss. To share a personal landmark with a loved one invites that person to understand the spaces that shape us.
What are the landmarks of your most significant relationships? What landmarks would you introduce to someone who wants to know you better?
- In Moonstruck (1987), Loretta develops an all-consuming love for her fiance’s estranged brother Ronny. Loretta tries to continue with her marriage plans but succumbs to her feelings for Ronny when he asks her on a date to the opera so he can be with the two things he loves at the same time. The Met Opera House becomes a physical manifestation of their love story: although Loretta doesn’t know where The Met is, or where this relationship will lead, she agrees to meet him there.
- In Sleepless in Seattle (1993), the Empire State Building becomes the site for testing the romantic potential between Seattle widower/single dad Sam and Baltimorean reporter Annie when she is moved by his story on the radio. The plot culminates around a singular grand gesture at an iconic landmark on a quintessential day (inspired by An Affair to Remember, 1957): Annie invites Sam to meet her at the top of the Empire State Building on Valentine’s Day.
Planning for Romance
Rom-coms function as wish fulfillment on multiple scales. They present a world where romantic love can develop even in the most improbable situations: a global superstar falling in love with a nerdy local, a woman falling in love with her fiance’s brother, an independent bookstore owner falling in love with a corporate overlord that puts her out of business, or a conventionally attractive and/or wealthy person falling in love with an unconventionally attractive (by Eurocentric standards) and/or working-class partner.
While rom-coms are often dismissed as a trivial and gendered genre, romantic narratives have historically featured female protagonists, prompting us to consider how cities can be designed to center the femme experience. Conditions are ripe for love precisely because they are hospitable to women. Romance can blossom when women are able to safely get from place to place, access gender-inclusive spaces for recreation, and have career options to sustain financial independence so that romantic pursuits need not be so tied to economic fortunes. Many things that make cities good for women are also good for all genders, such as ample third spaces like libraries, plazas, or bookstores where people can safely linger. Reliable public transit enables the autonomy of women, and also young people, to meet affordably and safely in third spaces outside the surveillance of watchful parents. Streets that prioritize pedestrians allow for strolling while having meaningful conversations or being deep in internal thought. The city is compact and multimodal enough for making grand romantic gestures like running across town to stop someone from boarding a train. Chosen family, aka the best friend characters that counsel the lead characters on their quest to find love, all live within close proximity providing the social cohesion necessary to navigate the perils of dating and city life.
Love and zoning are not two words that are typically put together, but exploring the origins and purpose of land use regulations may help us understand how to develop urban planning policies that center love and joyfulness in cities. Not only has New York City played an outsized role in romantic comedies, it has also played a major role in the development of American zoning policy. The 1916 New York City Zoning Resolution was the first comprehensive zoning code in the United States. Its development was largely driven by the proliferation of tall buildings that cast wide shadows. The zoning code sought to improve public health by creating height and setback rules to ensure sufficient light and air and limiting the proximity of residential areas to noxious commercial and industrial uses, creating the “wedding cake” effect on New York City’s skyline.
Over time, zoning has been shaped by waves of urban policies: redlining and segregation, suburbanization and car-centric planning, economic development to strengthen central business districts, a shift from single-use to mixed-use developments, inclusionary zoning to support affordable housing, waterfront public access, climate change adaptation—the list goes on. These evolutions of zoning and land use have impacted where and how people live, work, and interact with others in society—all of which influences how people find love.
Zoning and urban design aren’t panaceas for supporting love and joy in cities, but what we choose to prioritize or deprioritize in our urban planning regulations shapes how we experience our built environment. There’s a growing understanding that loneliness and isolation are some of the biggest social challenges of our time, and that car-centric planning makes it all the more difficult for people to develop and maintain close relationships. And a majority of U.S. adults think dating has gotten more difficult in the last decade.
What might romantic urban policy look like?
Paris, famously nicknamed the “City of Love,” is filled with Kevin Lynchian romantic elements: parks, tree-lined boulevards, shops, cafes, and architectural landmarks that have all the makings of a rom-com backdrop. Most of these hallmarks were the result of a major redevelopment initiative from the 1800s. That these beloved features were created by a Robert Moses-like figure who was despised in his time reminds us that there are oftentimes histories of injustice that belie the romantic transformation of cities. COVID-19 forced many municipalities to rethink urban policy, expanding the focus from economic revitalization agendas to developing policies that make cities work for the people that want to be in them. Paris’s latest love note has been the massive expansion of the city’s bike network, clearing out cars from many areas in the city center in an effort to decrease carbon emissions and support sustainable modes of transit, helping Parisians breathe—and hopefully love—easier.
What can make cities hard places to live can be the very things that make them hard places to find love. Housing is expensive. Many free or affordable third places are suffering from potential budget cuts or have shut down during the pandemic. The amount of money required to live a comfortable life with time outside the workday for nurturing love and social networks is out of reach for most people. Yet, the revitalization of American cities and suburbs points to pedestrian-friendly streets, economically vibrant downtowns, and dense mixed-income housing as key ingredients to improving quality of life.
When thinking about love, it’s important to consider the conditions that enable both self-love and collective well-being: being able to live comfortably and close to loved ones; having access to spaces that foster social connection; urban design that prioritizes the safety and accessibility of queer, non-binary, and femme people; policies that address harms caused by systemic racism and environmental injustice, and a touch of serendipity and whimsy that make the most impossible things feel possible.
Reading List
Muizz Aktar (2022). Too Many American Live in Places Built for Cars–Not for Human Connection. Vox. https://www.vox.com/features/23191527/urban-planning-friendship-houston-cars-loneliness
Anna Brown (2020). Nearly Half of U.S. Adults Say Dating Has Gotten Harder for Most People in the Last 10 Years. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/08/20/nearly-half-of-u-s-adults-say-dating-has-gotten-harder-for-most-people-in-the-last-10-years/
Alieza Durena (2018). Getting from Here to There. Slate. https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/03/the-suburbs-were-built-for-cars-todays-suburban-incomes-were-not.html
Henry Grabar (2022). Cities Are for People Who Want to Be There. Bloomberg CityLab. https://slate.com/business/2022/12/new-york-city-quality-of-life-report-pandemic.html
Ana Kinsella (2022). “Chance and the City.” Syllabus Project. https://syllabusproject.org/chance-and-the-city/.
Tamar Jeffers McDonald (2007). Romantic comedy: boy meets girl meets genre. Wallflower Press.
Esther Newtown (2014). “Cherry Grove, Fire Island: America’s First Gay and Lesbian Town.” Duke University Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv123x66p.
Feargus O’Sullivan (2021). Inside the New Plan to Make Paris ‘100% Cyclable’. Bloomberg CityLab. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-22/how-paris-will-become-100-cyclable
Linda Poon (2019). The Urban Rural Divide of Christmas Movies. Bloomberg CityLab. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-24/the-urban-rural-divide-of-tv-christmas-movies.
Julie Strupp (2018). Can Transforming Suburban Places To Walkable Urban Ones Be Successful and Popular? Greater Greater Washington. https://ggwash.org/view/66351/transforming-suburban-places-more-walkable-popular-suburban-remix
Kim Willsher (2016). Story of cities #12: Haussmann rips up Paris – and divides France to this day. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/mar/31/story-cities-12-paris-baron-haussmann-france-urban-planner-napoleon
United Nations Development Programme (2022). Cities Alive: Designing Cities that Work for Women. https://www.undp.org/publications/cities-alive-designing-cities-work-women
U.S. Surgeon General (2023). Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation: The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on the Healing Effects of Social Connection and Community. https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-social-connection-advisory.pdf.
Viewing List
Amelie (2001). Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Director).
Fire Island (2022). Andrew Ahn (Director).
Groundhog Day (1993). Harold Ramis (Director).
Lady Bird (2017). Greta Gerwig (Director).
Let It Snow (2019). Luke Snellin (Director).
Moonstruck (1987). Norman Jewison (Director).
Notting Hill (1999). Roger Michell (Director).
Romantic Comedy (2019). Elizabeth Sankey (Director).
Rye Lane (2023). Raine Allen Miller (Director).
Sleepless In Seattle (1993). Nora Ephron (Director).
Sliding Doors (1998). Peter Howitt (Director).
The Half of It (2020). Alice Wu (Director).
When Harry Met Sally (1989). Rob Reiner (Director).
Daphne Lundi and Louise Yeung are friends, neighbors, urban planners, and artists who have a deep love of cities and a soft spot for romantic comedies.
- Sweet Home Alabama (2002) ↩︎
- Two Weeks Notice (2002) ↩︎
- Christmas Inheritance (2017) ↩︎
- Falling Inn Love (2019) ↩︎
- Single All the Way (2021) ↩︎
- Knight Before Christmas (2019) ↩︎
- Last Christmas (2019) ↩︎
- A Majestic Christmas (2018) ↩︎
- Holiday Calendar (2018) ↩︎
- Falling for Christmas (2022) ↩︎
Romantic Urbanism references Chance and the City, a syllabus by Ana Kinsella.