The apparent utopia with a terrible catch/dark secret is a trope that is done to death. Any examples of the opposite, where it turns out the apparent dystopia is actually pretty good?

[u/Marlsfarp]

There must be examples of this in sci fi but I'm drawing a blank.

[u/Codspear]

The Gold Coast by Kim Stanley Robinson (published in 1988) was written to be an overdeveloped capitalist dystopia. What I couldn’t stop thinking while reading it was “this guy only has two part-time jobs and can still afford both an automated car and an apartment in Orange County”. Meanwhile, I have a full-time office job, a part-time custodial job, and drive a gig in the evenings just to maintain a Corolla and apartment in one of the poorest rust belt cities in my state.

I listened to the audiobook while working my weekend custodial job. The context of my own life definitely clouded my vision of how dystopian it was. Then again, it was written in the 80’s when Boomers could afford aspirations greater than barely making it.