We'll somehow go all the way over there and find a way to live in those hostile conditions.
Guess what, fast forward, people don't just want to stay on Earth, but will also prefer SF proper, Manhattan and/or Paris within 20 arrondissements.
Even smaller cities are losing population. I guess that Spengler's narrative lives on.
SF straight in the title of https://www.amazon.com/Other-Worlds-SF-Human-Imagination/dp/...
SF also serves to include both 'science fiction' and 'speculative fiction' but that's a whole other debate
(And people also want to go to Antarctica... There are multiple "colonies" there, by Chile and Argentina, thousands live there in the summer, and about a thousand people winter over there, and tens of thousands of tourists travel there annually... All this in a place that is illegal to mine, illegal to claim nationally, and even illegal to build new permanent structures by international treaty, thus essentially illegal to build a city or anything like a real economy, which would require mining at least for gravel.)
The interesting thing about people is that there are many different kinds with many different motivations.
Although I do suspect that space settlements will be even more urbanized and centralized than Earth cities. The extra costs associated with living in space are reduced by living in larger settlements/cities (think surface area to volume ratio), and just like on Earth, economic productivity will increase with increasing population density.
I think far more people actually want a 'holiday' off-planet, than actually live off-planet.
I know what it's like to live life in a tunnel. That's the Twin Cities in Minnesota during the winter. Minnesota is where the modern indoor shopping mall was invented. The entire downtown of Minneapolis is still walkable in the middle of the winter because all the buildings are connected by temperature controlled skyways and tunnels. No reason you can't see what cafes are in the next building or indoor level.
You just described rural life in some places pretty much
> living permanently in a tunnel
Adding that one makes it more like living on a submarine or large boat.
Which while unpleasant prospect for many people, there are those who enjoy and/or even prefer it to normal life
The highest population growth places in the US are places like Dallas, TX and Greenville, SC. That's been the case for a long time. NYC and SFO are treading water and are at risk as their economies have de-diversified over the last 40 years.
Yet people live on the ISS, where there are no fancy cafes. How do you explain that?
I guess you can say it isn't highly populated anymore.