Am I alone in this mentality (location dictates everything else in life?)

In My Humble Opinion
41

[QUOTE=VCO3]
I have a friend that was just shopping around for grad schools, and it means that he’ll be packing up and moving to either Boston, L.A., somewhere in New Mexico, etc.
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I think there are at least a dozen major cities in the United States alone that are likely to have most if not all of the general characteristics of that fantastic neighbourhood in Chicago. You don’t think there are great locations in Boston? Los Angeles? New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Baltimore, Washington, Miami, Seattle, San Francisco, Oakland …

And then you’ve got whole other countries too! No fantastic locations in London? Paris? Venice? Montreal? Nothing anywhere worth leaving for?

How could that one place in Chicago be so special that it’s unthinkable for someone to leave for grad school in (for example) Boston? C’mon, a chance to go to Harvard? M.I.T.? Tufts? Boston College? Boston University? Brandeis? Wellesley??? Wouldn’t even consider any of those places 'cause they’re not within walking or subway distance of where you live right at this very moment?

42

My SO and I have talked about this, when different job opportunities came up. For us, it’s not location, it’s the people. We moved around the midwest, but when something came up farther away, we decided ( a couple of times) that we wanted to be within driving distance of our friends and family. 200-400 miles is no big deal, but we don’t want to have to fly every time we want to see someone.

43

[QUOTE=acsenray]
How could that one place in Chicago be so special that it’s unthinkable for someone to leave for grad school in (for example) Boston? C’mon, a chance to go to Harvard? M.I.T.? Tufts? Boston College? Boston University? Brandeis? Wellesley??? Wouldn’t even consider any of those places 'cause they’re not within walking or subway distance of where you live right at this very moment?
[/QUOTE]

Exactly. Every city or region has places that would work. You may decide that living in the snow belt is simply not for you, and I would completely understand that. I need to live near the mountains (and snow) so there are parts of the country that I wouldn’t consider. But I’m sure I could find a neighborhood that I like in Denver, Seattle, SF, SLC, Portland, etc.

There’s nothing wrong in wanting to stay where you are. But something like grad school is important enough (to me, maybe not to you) that I could put other parts of my life on hold briefly for an immensely rewarding opportunity.

44

[QUOTE=tdn]
The tragedy for me would be to move away from somewhere I love so that I could work at a job that I at best tolerate. Even a fantastic job is still just a way for me to pay for the part of life I find worth living.
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I’m not talking about a career job, I was referring to grad school. Grad school is a very temporary thing, then you can move back to the place you love. I would rather go to Harvard and be able to get a job I really love in the place I really love, rather than pass up every opporunity because I can’t be away from that place for a year or two.

45

Wonder why I didn’t see this thread earlier. As an Environmental Psychologist I believe place has a massive impact on what makes you who you are. I got into the field when it was reletively new, in the early 90s it was only 20 years old at best. I loved that I could study the way people behave in their environment and actually measure things like personality through what you surround yourself with.

I spread my wings quite a bit as a recent college grad, I moved to Arizona and enjoyed it immensely, but New England ran through my blood and I had to return after only a few short years.

Now my wife and I have lived on both coasts and we much prefer the CT coast to anywhere we have lived. Again, I could go on and on about it but I find the OP and I have similar views and I sure hope we are not a dying breed.

46

Absolutely. I like my job, and I’m damn good at it, but it’s a job, not a calling. I work with a lot of professors who have made incredible sacrifices, moving far, far away from loved ones for their jobs. I admire their dedication to their work, but I don’t share it.

47

[QUOTE=Swallowed My Cellphone]
I’m not talking about a career job, I was referring to grad school. Grad school is a very temporary thing, then you can move back to the place you love.
[/QUOTE]

Yeah, I get that. School is temporary, and at the young age when you attend it, it’s a good thing to broaden your horizons.

But for myself, I love New England. I could see myself loving other places as well. But there is no way I’d move to North Dakota for the priviledge of working in a box factory. I’m at an age where I want to choose the life I want to live, then find a job to fit that.

48

[QUOTE=tdn]
<SNIP> I’m at an age where I want to choose the life I want to live, then find a job to fit that.
[/QUOTE]

I was lucky in that respect, I knew the place I wanted to live and the job found me after a while. Heck whats not to love about New England?

49

[QUOTE=Phlosphr]
Heck whats not to love about New England?
[/QUOTE]

You’ve been paying attention to the weather, right? :wink:

50

I think location is very important. If you have to deal with crime, traffic, congestion, or all of the above on a daily basis that makes life less fun. Ditto if you’re a person that likes warm weather and you live in Buffalo, NY.

I like where I live because it’s rural, there’s plenty of elbow room, and I can live pretty good on what I make. There’s a lot of resentment of people that move down here from up North to “get away from the city” and then start complaining that our county has no mall, no Starbucks, no Taco Bell, no this, no that. They seem to want to turn our county into the same crowded lump of stores and apartments they came here to get away from.

I could move to the city and make more money, but then instead of liesurely 20 min drive through the country to get to work, I’d be fighting traffic every day.

51

Nope, not alone.

When we began house-hunting, The Boy and I sat down and plotted out which neighbourhoods in the city were pedestrian-friendly and were close to the types of things that matter to us (which really ended up boiling down to food).

In the end, the biggest selling points for our house were a good brunch place within 15 min walk (check), a large grocery store within 10 min walk (double check), mixture of different ethnicities in the area (check), parks or trails within bike or walking range (check), access to reliable transit (check, check and check), and walkable from our respective workplaces (yup).

Sure, we probably paid $100K more than what we would’ve for the same house in a suburban neighbourhood… but then we’d have to drive everywhere. Ew.

Sadly, the joke’s on me. Thanks to my new position, I now split my time between two of my company’s offices - the downtown head office that’s walkable from home, and the sprawling suburban “campus” in the middle of nowhere… which is a $%*&ing a 2 hr commute from home.

52

I’ve moved twice in my life, over a thousand miles away each time, and location has been the biggest factor influencing my choice of destination. It’s at the point where I’m certain that unless I’m moving somewhere for a specific reason, I can’t live anywhere that’s not a liberal coastal city. Climate and job prospects are secondary, and traffic and crime are minor, minor factors.

I am not a partyer or an artsy-fartsy snob or even remotely close to exciting, but I like the options that living in a city gives me. I’d be very restless living in a rural county of some landlocked state.

I guess it’s where I am in my life, but I like not having any strong psychological ties to where I live. I like that I don’t live where I grew up and that I don’t often see people I knew growing up. I love where I’m from and the people there, but I also love the feeling of having gone out and explored the world a little. I can no longer relate to feeling integrated into my community or having so many familiar places and people around me, and so far, I prefer it that way.

53

[QUOTE=Swallowed My Cellphone]
I can’t imagine how tragic it would be to pass on amazing opportunities due to geographic limitations. Imagine passing up a chance to go to Harvard because you’d have to move, and instead going to Smallville College of Basket Weaving because that’s the best you get near you.

[/QUOTE]

I think it depends on your personal situation. School, by nature, is temporary. I went to college in Pennsylvania but I had no inclination to ever live there after graduation. On the other hand, I like New York City. If my company asked me to move accross the country to head up the Nebraska office, I would look for a new job. I know too many people who followed “great career opportunities” only to end up moving to some rural dump with nothing to do.

54

[QUOTE=VCO3]
I value place over a lot of other lifestyle decisions in life, and it seems like I’m finding that most other people put “where they live” on the extreme low-end of deciding factors and priorities for living. I feel that place - where you choose to live on a city and neighborhood-level - actually has a major impact on the lifestyle that you live and so on.

In other words, I decide where I want to live, and everything else must fall in line with that when it comes to life decisions, for the most part. I love my neighborhood in Chicago and I chose to live here and other lifestyle decisions must accommodate it. I have a friend that was just shopping around for grad schools, and it means that he’ll be packing up and moving to either Boston, L.A., somewhere in New Mexico, etc. That mentality boggles my mind; in my sense of priorities, the #1 factor in choosing a grad school would be “is it close enough to where I live for me to take public transportation or drive to it?”

Ditto for jobs - you hear about people moving across states for new jobs all the time. My mentality is, “oh, the job isn’t within commuting distance of where I’ve chosen to live? Well, no thanks, then.”

Some friends of mine - married couple - recently moved out of the neighborhood in Chicago that they loved in order to buy a place in an exurb that’s almost an hour and a half away. Sure, it’s great that you were finally able to buy a house, but when you have to move an hour and a half away from where you actually want to be, doesn’t that kind of defeat the point? Now you life in a soulless, boring suburb that you feel absolutely no connection to - but at least you finally own!

Does anyone else feel the way that I do? I’m starting to feel like an army of one.
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For me, it’s a balance of many factors. I’m still at the point in my life that I want to live in a city, or perhaps a city-like adjacent suburb (for example, I really do like Evanston and maybe Oak Park or Skokie.) I would not want to live in exurbia, and I couldn’t deal with an hour-long or more commute (commuting is not an issue for me at the moment, anyway).

It’s not the number one priority in my life, though, as I enjoy living in many, many different locations, as long as it’s in an urban area. Like there’s no single neighborhood in Chicago I really really want to live in. They all have their plusses and minuses. I would prefer not to live in the South/Southwest (don’t like the climate), New York is a bit crazy for me (but I would move if the money were crazy), and Los Angeles doesn’t appeal to me on any level (except possibly for hamburgers). Otherwise, I’m pretty much happy to consider any large city here in the US and any major city in Europe, Canada, etc.

I’m also a person who tends to very quickly adapt to a new location and have it feel like “home.” I also like the adventure and the stimulation of change that sort of move imparts.

55

Huh.

Having moved 13 times before I was 10 years old and just about every year since beginning college, I must say the idea that one ‘‘chooses’’ where one lives is a novel one.

I think it’s a very interesting (and certainly not invalid) idea. Home can definitely have a huge impact on one’s sense of mental well-being. Maybe some day, years from now, when I have the luxury of being picky about where I live, that will be good advice to take to heart. (Sure, school is a choice… essentially I’m saying that when one prioritizes one’s education/career, it can limit living options.)

But then, I’ve always been comfortable no matter where I am.

I talked to a dude once who believed where you lived had pretty much everything to do with your personal happiness. If you were depressed, it was because you lived in the wrong city. I’m not sure I’d take it that far, but I definitely think you might be on to something.

56

[QUOTE=olivesmarch4th]

I talked to a dude once who believed where you lived had pretty much everything to do with your personal happiness. If you were depressed, it was because you lived in the wrong city. I’m not sure I’d take it that far, but I definitely think you might be on to something.
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I think it plays a huge role. Taking New York as an example again. I immediately liked living in the City. I liked the nightlife, the realative anonymity, not having to deal with driving, having everything right there in walking distance. On the other hand, I can see how someone might not like the lifestyle. They might not like the confined appartments or the masses of people. They might prefer more outdoorsy cities like Seattle or towns with a smaller, more community feel.

If you’re in the wrong city, I think it can make you feel very transient or temporary. You can end up in this limbo where you don’t really pursue other aspects of your life (relationships, permenant housing, local activities) since your mindset is “I’m out of here in X months/years”.

I think the trick is to not live your life like it’s some preparation for something later on. HERE is where you live. THIS is your job. etc. If you don’t like it or don’t see a future there, don’t waste any more time.