Some cities have bad UX
“Systems Thinking starts by viewing the environment and one’s involvement with it in holistic terms. The environment and one’s place in it are perceived in terms of interconnectivity and interdependence rather than separation and disconnection.”
Error: Path Not Found
Think about a well-designed app… it anticipates your next move.
A well-designed city works the same way. You don't need a map because the streets make sense. I remember the first time I met a native New Yorker and they just knew how all the streets and boroughs connected. I was like wow… The infrastructure fades into the background, and you're left with the experience itself.
I live in Pittsburgh. It has good public transportation if you're going somewhere within a 15-20 minute car ride. But I don't have a car. So I'm constantly doing the math: bus routes, transfer times, uber/lyft prices & whether it's worth it at all.
What gets me is that Pittsburgh basically ran the industrial age, they call it the Steel capital of America. They built the infrastructure for the rest of the country: bridges, tunnels, railways. The city is full of tunnels carved through hills, remnants of streetcar lines, old rail infrastructure that's still visible.
So why doesn't it have a functional train system now? The bones are there. The engineering legacy is there. But somewhere along the way, the city that built America's railroads decided cars alone were the future? It's like watching a software company abandon its best product.
All these thoughts stacked up so hard that I had to write this.
Background Processes Draining Battery
Every day, there's a tax. Not financial, though that's real too. The tax I'm talking about is cognitive.
Confusing transit schedules. New bus routes or road closures announced without warning. Lack of walkability. Spatial stress from car traffic, unsafe crossings, poorly lit streets. Imagine crossing four lanes of bridge traffic after leaving a tunnel.
You can't think clearly when you're spatially stressed.
Some people get to live on autopilot. The city works for them without them having to think about it. For others, thriving requires constant strategy.
When a city has bad UX, people with options leave. The cycle reinforces itself: bad UX → people leave → less investment → worse UX.
Meanwhile, the people who benefit from the current design (the ones with cars, the ones who love sports bars, the ones with family there) don't feel the problem. So there's little pressure to change.
When a place isn't built for you, you have to reverse-engineer belonging. And that takes a lot of energy.
Default Settings Don't Fit
A friend visited me in Pittsburgh and said, "This is just like Syracuse."
The top things to do here revolve around sports bars, hockey, football, baseball. None of it is my vibe. I don't like sports. I don't like beer.
It's not that I'm unwelcome. It's that the city is not my place. The infrastructure for connection caters to a narrow demographic. If you don't fit that mold, you're just... not considered.
It's like using software built for a different user persona. Technically, you can make it work. But every interaction reminds you: this wasn't made for you.
Being here has been quite a lonely experience. Shout out to my few friends, though.
Making friends feels like playing chess as an amateur. You're trying to think three moves ahead, but the board is working against you. I tried Bumble BFF. Some successes, but mostly weirdness and failure. The apps assume the infrastructure exists.
But if the city doesn't provide the spaces where casual connection happens naturally, no algorithm can fix that.
Connection Timeout
Car dependency fragments social life in ways that are hard to see until you're living it. It's not just the environmental cost. It's the emotional cost of planning everything, of every interaction requiring intention instead of ease.
I lived in Houston for a while and still go back occasionally. It stresses me out every time. From the airport to home is nearly an hour on a good day. Zero public transportation. $70-$100 for an Uber or Lyft, one way.
People say they live in Houston, then tell you they're 40 minutes away by car. Public transportation barely exists so spontaneity doesn't either. You need a car. But even having a car, most of your day revolves around commuting if your community isn't nearby. Friendships that rely on frequency become harder to sustain.
And let's not pretend having a car is cheap. Insurance, maintenance, monthly payments, paying for it upfront, gas, parking. God forbid an accident. It's one of the most inconvenient conveniences.
I think about when I was interning in Cupertino. Silicon Valley isn't known for great transit, but they had something called Hopper, an on-demand shuttle service you could book from an app. As low as $3.50 per ride. Even lower around $1.75 for students.
It wasn't perfect, but it worked. You could get around without a car. You could say yes to plans without calculating whether it was worth the Uber surge pricing or the hour-long drive.
It made me realize: cities can choose to make access easy. And in doing so, chose isolation.
You can't build community when the city itself keeps people apart.
Abundance Behind a Paywall
One of the reasons I love New York is because it has everything. Museums, restaurants, shows, communities, niche scenes for whatever you're into. With just your legs, you can accomplish and discover a lot.
But every trip is a mission.
How many times have I entered through the wrong subway entrance? Transfers are confusing. Getting from one borough to another can take an hour. Uber and Lyft are crazy expensive. If you have a car, there's basically nowhere to park, or parking costs are high. Unless you have connections. Then maybe.
The LIRR from the airport to Manhattan is a pretty nice option compared to ride-sharing apps, but you're still dragging your luggage through stations when sometimes you just want to relax after you land. Oh also Uber Shuttle… fantastic! Now that's a cost-friendly option.
You have access, technically. But the friction is high enough that abundance starts to feel like its own kind of barrier.
The city offers so much, but asks so much in return.
At some point, you have to ask whether access you can't easily use is really access at all.
Seamless Experience
I've been to Tokyo. I've ridden the Shinkansen. The train arrives on time to the second. The platforms are clean. The signage makes sense even if you don't speak Japanese. You don't think about the system, you just move through it.
I also hope to experience Copenhagen's biking infrastructure & Barcelona's superblocks one day.
Good urban UX feels effortless. You don't think about how you're getting somewhere. You just go. The city anticipates your needs and gets out of your way.
So how do you know if a city has bad UX?
Ask yourself: Does every outing require a plan? Are you constantly calculating: routes, costs, time, whether it's worth it? Do you feel drained before you've even done the thing you came to do?
Bad UX shows up in the cognitive tax. The spatial stress. The friction that makes spontaneity impossible.
It's also in the isolation. Making friends feels impossible because the infrastructure for casual connection doesn't exist. The things you love, or want to try, are either far away or nonexistent. The city lacks the vibrancy that makes life feel alive.
Good UX makes access easy. It puts you close to what matters. It creates spaces where connection happens naturally, where community forms without effort, where you can build a life that feels like yours.
A city with good UX doesn't just move you from point A to point B. It lets you be curious instead of cautious. It doesn't assume you're someone else.
I think about that a lot here in Pittsburgh. How much of who I've become in this city is shaped by the friction of being here. How different I might be in a place designed with me in mind.
Maybe one day I'll find out & I'll write about that experience with you.
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Thank you for thinking with me. This piece is part of Ode by Muno, where I explore the invisible systems shaping how we sense, think, and create.
I'm curious what patterns you're noticing in your own life: Does your city have bad UX? What's the cognitive tax you're paying daily? Where do you feel the friction in transit, in making friends, in accessing the things you love? Leave a comment with what resonated, or share what good urban UX looks like in your city. And if you want to follow this evolving conversation, subscribe to get new posts.
The quote at the intro is from the book, Systems Intelligence. The concept of "third places" comes from sociologist Ray Oldenburg's 1989 book, The Great Good Place.
In my next post, I want to shift from “some cities have bad UX” to something more hopeful: future spaces and what they could look like if we redesigned them with people in mind. If everyday places can make life harder, they can also make life easier and a lot more social. So I’ll be exploring a series of imagine if scenarios: small changes businesses could make that would instantly create better third places, better routines, and better ways for people to meet. Because the future is the spaces we choose to build around each other.
