I figured out a long time ago that there’s nothing in a BIG city that I appreciate to the point it’s worth living right next to it. Things like culture…um…culture…ok, some convenience to culture…that’s all something I don’t need daily, and like to just day-trip in to get my fill.
Having ‘nature’ closer to hand is far more appreciated by me.
Of course right now I’m in the worst of both worlds, with ‘outdoors’ being 120degrees+ half the year, and just sand and dirt the rest of the time. I appreciate a little desert, but when that’s all there is, blech. I’m just not the dune-buggy kind.
Aiming to get the Mr. back up into Idaho with me. Boise’s finally grown enough for me, and living in a state that’s still 70+ percent national wilderness is a blessing
I’ve never lived in a small town. I grew up in a suburb, which technically was small (20K), but it blended into the metro area of a fairly big city (about 1mil in the metro area). As an adult, I’ve lived in 4 cities, all in the top 15 largest US cities.
But my husband grew up in a small town (under 5K) and we spend a fair amount of time there with his family.
I would be deeply unhappy living in a small town. I value my privacy. I know this sounds odd to some people, that I like privacy and cities, but in a small town everyone knows your business. I want to be able to dye my hair blue, have a bad day and cry in public, go to the store in sweatpants when I’m sick, whatever, without anyone noticing or bothering me about it. I went to a normal sized high school (200 kids in my class), and remember the feeling of going to a very large college and being thrilled with the idea of “no one gives two flying fucks if I sit on this bench and read alone.” It was liberating, this freedom from judgement that I felt in a large crowd.
Of course, that would get lonely after awhile. Luckily, cities also offer a large collection of people, which means that you are much more likely to find others with common interests. And venues for such interests. Several of my favorite things to do are mainly available in cities. Mainly, art museums, eat at a wide variety of restaurants with interesting and good food (expensive fancy places AND hole in the wall ethnic eateries), go to plays and concerts, see movies (can be done in any town with a theater, but my husbands town didn’t have one, plus a lot of the movies I like show on relatively few screens so probably won’t make it to a small town theater). I also love to travel, but as long as I’m within a couple hours drive of an airport, it wouldn’t make that much difference. Still, flights are easier the bigger the airport.
The nature is good. But not being obliged to own or lease a car is much better – take a cab, grab a train. I guarantee I spend far less per year on frequent cab rides (average cost, per trip, maybe $15-$20) than some schmo living in the sticks does per month on gasoline, and I don’t have a coronary if somebody smashes a window or bashes in a headlight with a baseball bat.
It doesn’t have to be dead, you know.
I grew up in a rural area a few miles outside a town of 45,000 in Idaho, and I felt quite socially isolated there, and longed to move to a big vibrant urban center.
I did end up eventually in Seattle, and I really loved it there. Lived there almost 10 years.
Then moved to Omaha, which is also a pretty good sized city, but was quite different culturally from Seattle. Very midwestern conservative, but friendly and generally accepting of outsiders. Definitely fly-over country for any bands I might have wanted to see, though.
Now I live in a small west coast city of about 130,000. That seems about right. It is home to a large state university and is know for “progressive” attitudes, which often means a reactionary attitude – a resistance to anything that would alter the hippie culture that was present back in 1976 when most residents seemed to have been hitch-hiking across the country and stopped here and decided to make this place home.
No way would I go back to the social isolation of rural or even small town life.
Grew up in a village of ~1000, which has ballooned to ~1500. I live outside town now with a bit of land and a couple sparsely-positioned neighbours on a quiet backroad, recently paved.
I have a 15-minute drive to a small city of 30k, a 25 min drive to a city of 150k, and an 80-min drive to a city of 6 million+. I guess one of the differences between rural, or small-town living compared to big-city, would be that I have the perception that we do a lot more driving, here in the country.
I love living in the country, but I also enjoy visiting large cities; I find them exotic. I actually was checking out the satellite map of Chicago last week and it looks like a beautiful city, with the nice fat river going through it and everything neatly located.
I don’t mind having to drive to “get to the action”, as it were.
I don’t see where either of these facts makes me a schmo, a red-neck, or an unintelligent religious-zealot hick.
We here in “cottage country” have a name for our northbound urban brethren who like to visit our area every weekend, but I won’t share it at this time.
I’ve mostly lived in the suburbs, but I spent several years of my youth living outside a small town. My rule of how to tell when you’re in a small town vs. a large town is if you drive by someone you don’t know, and they wave at you.
Personally, I really loved the small town, but I think it depends on where that small town is. Where I grew up was only about 30 minutes to the mall, shopping, movies, or airport and maybe an hour into the city itself, though that area has quickly grown into more of a suburb than small town now. The thing is, if you can get that small town fairly close to a large city, you basically don’t give up a whole lot from living in the city, short of maybe being able to walk to the store and have Greek food delivered at 2AM. We lived on a dozen acres, with immediate access to the woods and water for all the outdoorsy stuff, but we could still do shopping, see a new movie, or whatever without making a big deal out of a trip to town.
If you’re actually hours away from the nearest big city, then you’re going to have much sharper trade-offs. I don’t think I’d want to live more than an hour or two out from the city, but I love the space and outdoors the, at least superficially, nicer people and just don’t miss the extra conveniences. It was nice being recognized at places… at least until my brother started getting into trouble.
I’ve always been a big city person. There’s something about the vibe, the activity, the being-somewhere-ness of the city that fits in with who I am on a fundamental level. For me, nature is nice, but it’s for visiting.
The primary reason for that, I think, is that I grew up in a small town, a small town where everyone hated me. Now, while it wasn’t exactly without cause (in retrospect) in that I’ve always had a contrarian streak. But frankly, it turned me off to living somewhere where everyone knows who I am. I left when I was 18 and have only come back for short visits.
Another part of it is that I just like living somewhere that other people know of. That’s why I liked living in Paris. That’s why I liked Santa Barbara. I don’t know what that says about me exactly, but there’s some smug sense of (admittedly false) superiority in that. I’m not sure why that makes me feel superior, but I have to admit it does.
Now, though, I’m living in a small town in Iowa, about 4,000 people, and I think that number includes the students at the college I work at (about 1,500). And it’s strange to me to have a college be smaller than my high school was. And I wonder a lot about what the students’ experience is like. But while I will be happy to leave forever come the new year, it really isn’t too bad here. But I do kind of feel like I’m in exile.
I grew up in a small Saskatchewan farming town (around 1000 people), then moved into the city of Saskatoon, which has a population of about 236,000 now, and then spent the last 22 years in Calgary, which has over a million people now. Saskatoon was a bit too small, but Calgary is a bit too big. It’s nice to have all the options available in the big city, but it does come at the cost of price and convenience, and spending all your life in traffic. I’m feeling like I’d like to be done with that, and move someplace where I don’t have to deal with heavy traffic every day of my life.
I don’t think I’d enjoy going back to a really small town, though - I recall finding it terribly boring as a kid. It seems counter-intuitive, but living in a bigger city, I’m able to walk everywhere - I’d probably spend even more time driving in a small town.
Believe it or not, some people enjoy the quiet comforts of home. Cooking, gardening, reading, quietly enjoying nature and each other – even playing on the Internet. We’re actually not depressed and suicidal at the thought of not being able to run out to a movie, bar, or restaurant on a moments notice.
I guess I should have been more clear about my OP.
I doubt I would want to live in a realy small town - say under 5k. I prefer my anonymity too much. But, like I said, to a big city boy, my current town of 35k seems pretty darned small. You could drive from one end to the other in under 10 minutes, and there is nothing you could remotely call a rush hour. If you lived 10 miles outside of town, you could be on your own on 5-10 acres or even more - or in a small town of 1-2k if that’s what you wished. But you’d be 10 minutes away from a decent college, a fine library, movie theaters, stores including independents as well as Home Depot/Michaels/Menards/etc, and every chain restaurant imaginable as well as a number of very fine independents.
And I can be in downtown Chicago in under 90 minutes (unless I get caught trying to fight my way through the Dan Ryan - &!)@&^!)
Personally, I could imagine living on acerage outside of a middle sized town - and that may be the route we take over the next couple of years. So I guess I should have added a third category. I’m thinking that being in or near a middle-sized town - maybe 25-100k, which is within a couple of hours from a much larger town, might be about optimal IMO.
I’m enjoying hearing all of the answers. Another factor is what is best for you at what stage in your life. I loved growing up in Chicago and then spending a couple of decades in the burbs. But now [cue music] land spreading out so far and wide, keep Chicago and give me that countryside!
interesting thread. in my 20s I lived in and around Minneapolis and have been moving to smaller cities and towns ever since.
the OP’s 35,000 is a small city, but not a town IMO. 3500 is a town.
where I live now is way too small & I want to relocate. but I do enjoy the feeling of safety and how laid back things are.
after I got used to it, I don’t mind that I can’t shop for groceries without seeing people I know from work. originally, I was creeped out by this. and I love that there isn’t any traffic here.
Yeah, but if it ain’t, they think yer auditioning.
I spent half the past year living about 15 minutes outside of Sutter Creek, California, so, 15 minutes from the nearest grocery store, an hour to the nearest Best Buy, Target or movie theater.
On the other hand, it was gorgeous.
I’d rather be able to go shopping without packing an overnight bag, just in case.
I don’t know if I could do a small town. I lived in Minneapolis for four years, and was surprised by how much it resembled Mayberry. I suppose most people wouldn’t qualify it as a “small town,” but by the way everyone knew each other, and had moved in from the same crappy Minnesotan towns, and all went to the same five high schools and the same university, it sure felt that way. I wasn’t there long, and it still felt like I knew half the town, and was very hard pressed to meet anyone who didn’t know at least one other person I knew. This sort of thing does not happen in Los Angeles, where I’m from, or Chicago, where I live now.
It’s a joke. Lighten up, Doom. I know you have doctorates in parnormal psychology and psychology, but pretend I’m William Atherton.
I love to drive as well, and I’m pretty good too. Part of the great antagonism between cityfolk and people-who-drive-in-city-folk. We all have a pretty good understanding – nobody’s butt gets hurt when I insist on taking the crosswalk when I have the light, and I don’t hurt nobody’s butt by torching SUV dealerships.
Just a mental image I have of drivers as hayseeds, but there’s only one way up to the mountains, and that’s by car or plane.
As I said, I view not relying on an expensive, unreliable moneypit as my only means of transportation is a positive for cities. But there’s the legless on trains as well begging for money and all that plus the smell. Just saying, it’s not a settled question – everyone decides for him- or herself.
One thing I truly believe and this thread reinforces is that there are some personality differences in people that choose to live in big cities versus small towns and everywhere in between. It isn’t that small towns are all filled almost exclusively with hicks (although there are plenty of those too) or that big cities are filled with rich hedonist liberals + a whole lot more welfare dependent degenerates. Not that anyone here has said that but those are the broad brushes that people often use especially in political discussions and general chatter but we know it isn’t true especially in some select places. You will find more doctorates per capita in the medium sized city of Hunstville, Alabama than almost anywhere else in the world and more millionaires per capita in the small city of Natchez, Mississippi than you will in Manhattan for example.
The driving preference is a huge one to me. I simply don’t and won’t do public transportation on a regular basis. I will sacrifice just about anything to stay away from it. I also get disturbed when I go on vacation and either don’t have a car to drive or have to share one with several other people. There is no way I would live like that day to day no matter what it cost me. I like to drive as a form of relaxation and I love the freedom it offers me. However, some people love big cities because they don’t have to have a car and can walk or take public transportation. To each his or her own. God bless the people that love concentrating in huge cities because it frees up a whole lot of space for those of us who don’t want to live in them.
It makes me bristle when people say this. Especially in Chicago. I think this city is what you make it, and definitely what neighborhood you choose to live in. I’m right next to the beach fer chrissakes. Since I moved to the city, I’ve always made sure to live near the lakeshore. It baffles me when I talk to people who live in other neighborhoods who pretty much never see the lake and have to make a special trip to go there. I mean, it’s fine if they don’t care, but with people who complain, I’m like, "but you could live right next to the [park, lake, forest preserve]…?
I think this is another case of making what you want out of the city. Life here is malleable. I also can’t fathom why people would subject themselves to crazy traffic on a regular basis. I make sure to live in walkable neighborhoods and close to bus and rail lines. I haven’t had a car in over a decade and don’t miss car ownership one bit. I use iGo if I need wheels for holidays or furniture trips.
When I went to visit my parents “lake house” in Missouri, I felt uneasy there over the four days I visited. It was on the second day that I realized why. I hadn’t seen a single brown person of any shade in days. It was really weird to me and I didn’t like it at all. I came back home and all I could say to people who asked about my trip was that it was nice enough, but all the people are white there and it made me uncomfortable.
sigh This is another one I don’t get. Was most of your DL experience actually in the suburbs, and not really in Chicago? I’ve use the Washington Express since about 1994 and have never been in there longer than 15 minutes, and while the clerks don’t ask me my vastly interesting life story, they’re efficient, quick, and plenty pleasant. I was in and out of there in August, for my DL renewal, in 8 minutes flat, including an eye test and a new picture.
Sorry. I’m being overly sensitive and nitpicky, but I’m posting this anyway. I really feel that the Big City is what you choose to make it, and adjusting your lifestyle, finding the niches and neighborhoods that make you most well adjusted, and getting to know the city secrets, is essential. It’s the key to why I like living in the city so much. I’ve met and know a lot more natur-y granola types, vegetarians and vegans, and functionally crafty people here than anywhere else.
I lived in Moab, Utah for 20 years and never owned keys to my house. Another advantage was when I was subjected to a full, felony takedown (Someone falsely accused me of pulling a gun on them, I don’t own one.) Anyway, lying in the parking lot with a dozen guns on me while they secured the handcuffs, it was sure cool to be able to address the officers by name. “Steve, I’m not going to give you guys any trouble, okay?”
Thanks for the much needed education about Chicago, Sea Dragon, seeing as I only grew up on the NW side, attended all CPS, and worked downtown for a quarter of a century, running along the lakfront most every day for a decade. But I guess I don’t know the town!
