Athens, Greece is not a place for the faint of heart. It is a buzzing metropolis for sure, but, while some find the Athenian hustle and bustle to be delightfully invigorating, many find themselves to be completely discombobulated by it.
Either way, most people who have lived here a while would agree that Athens is a different kind of busy. Some would call it pandemonium.
Stress
Athens is one of the least green and most densely-populated urban areas in Europe. It wasn’t built for so many people and its expansion in recent decades has resulted in some ugly urban sprawl. The economic crisis of the 2010s really took hold in Greece and negatively affected most of the population, especially the middle and lower socioeconomic groups. Many, many folks still haven’t recovered, but the truth is that things weren’t exactly in superb shape before the crisis. We have always had financial problems, a weaker job market, a difficult housing market and other woes as a nation.
Therefore, it comes as no real surprise to read that our stress levels are said to be the highest in Europe.
The reality
Of course, we all understand that living a totally structured life can be dull and some people truly thrive on the anarchic and archaic systems which still abound here. I have actually met people from super-orderly countries who find the unpredictability of Athens and Greece in general to be quite charming and refreshing. It should be noted that many of those people hightail it out of here once they realize that they have to spend far too much time taking care of life’s basics, leaving them with less time for the fun in the sun that initially drew them to Greece.
They also often cite that they were completely taken by surprise regarding the extreme bureaucracy, the high levels of noise and air pollution and the lack of civic-mindedness and reliable public services. These things are either not mentioned or simply glossed over in those countless cutesy articles and videos titled “Moving to Greece” and such.
The possibilities
I truly believe that Athens has great potential.
It needs a lot of work, to be clear, but I am hoping with all my heart that soon we will get leaders with the vision, courage and foresight to bring about the changes we need to level up as a European capital. Athens really could be a remarkable metropolis. It is flanked by three impressive mountains and its outer edges are blessed with some picture-perfect coastlines. However, we need proper forest management as fires have devastated the area in recent years and we need our magical coastlines to be protected from profit-hungry developers who have ruined much of the landscape and from our own poor waste management practices which have degraded the seawater quality around the capital.
Downtown Athens has some world-class museums, restaurants and of course some of the West’s most important archaeological site. A few gorgeous specimens of neoclassical architecture have been spared the wrecking ball and that’s better than zero. There’s a lot to work to be done if the goal is to get the city to a cleaner and greener state.
The one thing that we could do right away is simple maintenance. We have a tendency as a nation to let things go until they can’t be fixed and then buy new things. This is not only environmentally unsustainable but also hard on our communal wallet! I see it in public buses, public parks, street signs, traffic lights and more.
Upkeep and repairs are rare. Replacements seem to be the answer.
Some say this is laziness at a local level and others say it is purposely done in order to offer lucrative business contracts to the favored friends of those in office.
Rankings
A recent evaluation of the city’s livability confirms that the 4-plus million inhabitants of Athens and the greater metro area do not have the quality of life found in most other European cities.
In fact, the European Commission recent put out a report which placed Athens as the second least-livable city in Europe.
Palermo was deemed the least livable. Others in the bottom ten include: Podgorica (Montenegro), Rome (Italy), Skopje (North Macedonia), Belgrade (Serbia) and Istanbul (Turkey). The study looked at lots of factors such as employment opportunities and satisfaction, housing affordability, air quality, public transportation, the built versus the natural environment, financial situations, safety and so on.
What city planning? What public transportation? What sanitation?
City planning and zoning have been largely ineffective and/or non- existent here and the results have been disastrous. Fines for building code violations are often discussed as part of regular expenses. They are often built into the price of a residence. Not enough people stop to think that they are there for good reasons and successive administrations seem to like the easy and steady stream of income from such things.
Public transportation is quite limited and often functions with delays, so many people prefer to have their own car. Narrow streets abound, coupled with tall apartment buildings, some of which don’t even have their own parking spots. Traffic and parking are generally a disaster, especially as there are far too many cars.
Most shops and stores do not provide any parking spots for customers, so people regularly end up using the sidewalks for that purpose. The poor sidewalks are already frequently over-burdened with filthy and overflowing dumpsters, dog mess galore and more. Unfortunately, city sanitation has taken a nosedive since the economic crisis of the 2010s took hold and sanitation workers were fired en masse. That fact, coupled with the fact that Athenians are notorious litterbugs, makes for some really smelly and messy streets and plazas which could otherwise be really pleasant.
Hope?
I do have some hope, especially when I see young people forming groups to help with the many legal, environmental and social challenges we have here in the Greek capital. As a Gen Xer myself, however, I do feel some guilt that we as a nation and also as a world often look to the young people to save us and to make our messes better! I hope we can all chip in, here in Greece and elsewhere, to improve things for those who come after us.
It would be helpful if we could all get the incredibly wise Seventh Generation Principle into our everyday thoughts and actions.
We can do better and I hope we do, for Athens’ sake and for our own.
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Read more about Athens here in Dispatches’ archives.
A Pittsburgher by birth, Christina T. Hudson is also half Greek and has – so far – spent most of her life in Athens, the chaotic but captivating capital city of Greece.
