I live on a microfarm in the sticks. When I was not handicapped, it was fine but now it is just a huge dog and pony show to go do anything, the doctor is half an hour away, and we are an hour and a bit away from Yale-New Haven hospital where I see the more advanced doctors than my PCP.
We are getting the place ready to put on the market so we can move to Tucson as I want to go to the University of Az in Tucson [it is highly gimp accessible and has the degree program I want] and we want to be within 10 miles of campus, preferring something less rural. It would be nice to have city water and sewer instead of being dependent on electricity for pumping our own water and having so many damned power outages that we have a generator to pump water [we average at least 2 days a month without power thanks to storms and jackasses running into the power poles and wiping them out, and branches falling onto the lines and ripping them off the poles.] It would also be nice to be able to go for a gallon of milk and take less than an hour for the round trip.
While I wish I lived in actually town, instead of 10 minutes outside of it, I do love living in a small town area. And I only want to live in town in the sense that I wish I could actually walk and get somewhere useful–even a gas station would be nice.
I went with living in a small town, because “out in the country” is actually further out–at least an hour ride to the nearest city/town. You could say I live in a suburb of my small town.
We live deep in the country, in a hamlet. The nearby village is about 1000 unhabitants and we’re surrounded by forests and fields. We’re gonna move in a few weeks to a similar place (I’ve just bought land), except we’ll be way closer (10min) to the main little town (about 8000 unhabitants), and about an hour from the nearest big city (64 000 unhabitants).
We love every minute of our life.
I love our town but I wish it was closer to mountains and/or sea. I’d love to be an hour or less away from some decent hill wallking country, rather than 4-5 hrs.
I wouldn’t call Boston a “big city” (big cities don’t roll up the sidewalks at 1:00a), but I think it fits for this poll. I actually live about 5 miles north of Boston, in a place too close and densely populated to be considered suburbia, I think.
I’d go crazy any farther away from the city than I am, and I’ve stayed as close as my cost per square foot tolerance allows for. It’s a ten minute walk to the T, and I can be at a museum, a ball game, a club, or pretty much anywhere else I’d want to go in less than an hour. I can’t imagine living in a place where going for milk is a project.
Our county is mostly rural, except for Patuxent Naval Air Station, which is 20-ish miles from us. We’re in the boonies in that the only store within walking distance is a teeny mom-and-pop-mostly-beer-store just under half a mile away. The county seat is 7-ish miles away, so that’s the closest for groceries, and the nearest Lowe’s/Target/WalMart/chain restaurant area is 17+ miles away. Nearest mall is over 25 miles away.
I love where we are. It’s mostly quiet, but just over a quarter of a mile to a main road. We’ve got 3 acres, and no HOA, so that’s a win. I’ve never seen anyone around here get pizza delivered, but that’s probably good for us - it forces me to cook. The only thing that would be better would be waterfront on the Chesapeake Bay, but that won’t happen in my lifetime, so I’m very happy where I am.
My apologies to those who don’t think their situation (or preference) is well described by the options – I was trying to include an array of options without making the survey unwieldy.
I edited the OP to suggest that people ignore the word “big” in “big city” and the word “small” in “small town,” in hopes that will fit better.
Nooo, I’m a local hire. The expats get a much better deal, but then again they don’t get to stay as long as they’d like: most get 3 years tops.
But if I ever do move back to the US, I’d have to be near a big city for job reasons too, so that means either SFO or NYC. And you mention that the pharma corridor is out that way eh?
If it makes you feel any better (probably not), you know we’re supposedly way way WAY overdue for a huge earthquake here; in fact we had a teeny tiny rumble today.
I live in Zone 2 in London and I love it. I wouldn’t want to live in a city smaller than this one. I would love to live in Zone 1 if we can afford a house there (and I hope we will someday).
I live in a small town in the mountains–and that’s a small town by Kentucky standards, just for reference. I love the area, and I love our house, but if I could poof the house somewhere out in the county instead of here in the middle of town, I’d do it in a heartbeat. It’s cool having neighbors and all, but I wish they weren’t within a rock throw of me on all six sides. Having people around every single second of every single day works my nerves.
I put that I live in the burbs and love it, but it’s actually a small town that’s a bedroom community for the nearby small-to-medium sized city. It’s possible to just stay here in our little town most of the time, though, and it’s pretty awesome. There’s drug stores and grocery and hardware and very highly-rated schools, and a huge forest preserve and park that our house is literally in the middle of… lots of people park their campers in town for the summer as a vacation. We’re in prairie country, generally, but our little town is in a hollow along a river, so it is all woods. I just love living with lots of trees around. The park also has playgrounds, lakes, formal gardens, and a little museum.
I freaking love it. Plus, the city is just ten minutes down the road, whenever we want to do some real shopping or see a movie.
It’s certainly not New York or Los Angeles. It’s more “just the right size city.” If I were forced to relocate, I’d probably pick San Francisco or Seattle. But I like that the beaches here are swimable.
Country and love it. Well, the mountains really. A bit different than what people think of when they think ‘country living’. Closest loaf of bread is 4 miles away. Closest gas station about 15.
I end up in a big city at least a few times a year. Often for a few days. It’s OK, but I always miss home.
I really have no need for night life, or fast food.
I love living in London, and couldn’t imagine living anywhere else (even the city I came from), except maybe New York. New York seemed to me to have the same energy and bustle as London.
I ticked “big city” though it’s a small city. I love it. A thousand years of history, amazing architecture, good nightlife, great pubs, reasonable restaurants, lots of cultural stuff going on all the time - both mainstream, classical and sub-. I live in a profoundly multicultural area too, so there’s great ethnic food, culture and shopping, and makes the city not too white-bread, despite the existence of so much crusty academia. And it’s small enough that you get to recognise the characters of the city, of whom there are many.
That said, the weather sucks and I’d leave for that reason only. Improve the weather and I’d be here for life I think.
Well it’s kind of hard to answer. If I didn’t have kids, I would live in the city. But I do have kids, and the metro schools are not very good nor could my kids play in the street or safely walk to a friend’s house if we lived downtown.
So I guess I prefer to live where I am, all things considered, but I’d rather be living in the city if it were practical.
Tel Aviv, in a neighborhood outside of the actual city center, but Israel is crowded, so it’s still all high-rise apartments here.
Best of many worlds – barring really bad traffic, it’s 15 minutes to downtown; there is local shopping and culture as well (and I’m 5 minutes’ walk from the University); and I really prefer an apartment to a house as I have no intention nor ability to do any gardening.
I live in the suburbs and love it. I love sprawl and big box stores and strip malls. Free parking, big houses. And if I feel the need to go into the city for entertainment, DC is 45 minutes away. But hell, I work in DC and that’s about enough of that.
