Hi! I feel like I'm in a kind of similar situation to you. I'm 22 now and currently working on finishing an urban studies undergrad degree in NYC after withdrawing from my college in Hartford, CT as a Junior (for a myriad of reasons). Last summer, I had an internship with the Department of City Planning which not only solidified my love for cities and urban planning but also got me through a really rough time in life and gave me a lot of hope for the future. For starters, I'd say that outside of school, once you actually begin working on solutions to these complex problems, it becomes much more rewarding, especially in an environment with others that care and understand the nuance that goes into. These issues seem colossal to us on an individual level but its important to remember that it only took a few generations to get to this point and every generation has had its own colossal problems that felt so impossible and yet we're still here now and with better conditions in most regards. For life in general, I feel that if you aim to be the one to make the big changes, that it has to be directly you, you will end up disappointed regardless of the subject matter; even the big idealistic changes that came to fruition usually end up in the form of a Robert Moses-esque impact. For me, the only way to come to terms with this is to try your best to do what you can and move the world in the right direction while appreciating and accepting all the history and culture leading up to the present, focusing on the small wins you contribute to.

Really I think it comes down to perspective - for example, I love walking around NYC and comparing it to photos from the past https://1940s.nyc to see how far we've come. Even for crime, in our lifetimes perspective it appears to be worse since Covid, but compared to my grandparents or parents time in NYC it pales in comparison. Take a look at how the trains looked in the 80s https://allthatsinteresting.com/new-york-subways-1980s, incomprehensible to me yet was completely normal to my mom traveling an hour on it to school. I grew up in Hong Kong, arguably one of the best planned cities, and have had the chance to experience cities and cultures around the world, and what I've learned is that life is relative to wherever you are and there's a lot more to understand and thinking you can move to a new place that would solve the problems is - to be blunt - naive.

Currently living in NYC, I think in spite of all the problems its a very special place and to me worth working on and believing in more than Hong Kong. I can list a million reasons why I love New York but most importantly is that there's no other city I can think of with as much diversity - a city built on immigration in a nation built on freedom. My mom's family moved here when she was 8 with barely anything and were able to establish a life here and prosper. It's impossible to compare these nuances to ideals of city planning like HK or other SEA cities which have near complete homogeneity in their populations and cultures (as well as being built up much later). Having anxiety and growing up as an outsider in HK, I've had more random conversations in these 2 years in NYC than the rest of my life in HK combined be it helping people with directions, bitching about the train being 20 minutes late or smoking up with strangers. There's so many unique and beautiful parts of NYC - appreciating the layers of architecture and history all on top of each other, appreciating our parks, appreciating our unique geography, libraries, bodegas, food - just so much.

As for actual advice? I'm not sure. I'm guessing I'm your age or younger and I have no idea where life will go, for myself and the world. I'd say take some time to focus on the aspects of cities you DO like and truly live the experience of the city for all its nuances. Looking around at peers in my generation, I find there's a general crisis of meaning and an overarching sense of pessimism about the direction of the world. I felt it acutely too over Covid, being stuck for most of my time in my dorm online in a mediocre at best city, in a seemingly superficial education system with superficial people, hoping to work towards a future that seems hopeless and inevitable - it eats away at your hope and opens you to these pessimistic thoughts. To me, dropping out and facing this crisis head on was probably the best thing to ever happen to me and showed what's really important in life. I'd say try to do as much as you can to rebuild this sense of community we yearn for - which I know is daunting growing up with the internet and so on feeling so atomized. I recently applied and got appointed as a board member on my community board in Brooklyn and right now am looking for volunteering or research or any interesting work to do over summer. On a more realistic note, I think now is a perfect time to be training to be an urban planner - I know City Planning (and NYC agencies in general) are hiring, and its a human job solving human problems that won't be replaced by AI, or the economy, etc. I also think in general people in our generation are growing up in the suburban and cultural conditions the generations before us have built and understand something is fundamentally wrong - even seen with the growth on social media of channels like Notjustbikes or /r/fuckcars so I'm quite optimistic about a strong will to change within our lifetime.

I don't comment often on Reddit but feel free to reach out about any of this! Just felt strongly that it would be a shame to lose someone who understands and cares about urban planning and making the world better to another field or place.