Grew up in a coastal town. Moved to suburbia. Flitted between city and suburbs while saving money. Finally reached nirvana - bought a log cabin on 60 acres.
I didn’t realise how much the background irritation of traffic, trains, other people was affecting me until it was gone. I do hear chainsaws and the occasional rifle fire on weekends, but generally the noises that assault me now are cows mooing, birds chirping and the wind in the trees. I see 3 cars a day & one of those is the postie. I love the peacefulness, the opportunities now open to me, and all the lush greenery that I see wherever I look (as opposed to harsh angles, concrete, glass, buildings, graffiti). I love that sometimes at night it is pitch black and other times it is bright and silvery from the moon, but the stars are bright (as opposed to harsh aritficial lighting when trying to sleep). I love that sometimes it is cold and we have a fire going for warmth, and sometimes it is warm and we open the windows to catch the breeze (as opposed to reaching for the air conditioner/heater).
Each to their own. I’m happy many people prefer city or suburban life, because if everyone wanted what I have, I wouldn’t be able to afford it!
I live in a rural area outside of Seattle. Beautiful home on 2 1/2 wooded acres–look out and all I see are trees, can’t see any of my neighbors, etc. Nearest town is about 10k people. Big forest near my home for hiking, small town nearby is great. Great place to raise my daughter. For the most part I work from home telecommuting but I do go into Seattle a couple days a week. When I was commuting daily into Seattle it got old but this I can handle.
I love the rural area where I live day to day but across the water via ferry is Seattle and I go there often enough to enjoy the fun aspects of the city without getting suffocated by it. For example this weekend, my wife, my daughter and two of her friends are going to see Jersey Boys at the 5th Ave Theater. We will make a day of it, nice lunch, the musical and then a nice dinner. Then head home to our rural home.
Put me down for another in-between. In my case, a college town: Most of the charm and safety of rural small towns, but most of the culture and energy of a big city. As far as I’m concerned, it’s the best of both worlds.
If I could live in a tiny house on a starry-skied patch of land – mountains or forests, take your pick – with convenient commuter rail into a walkable city with museums, theaters, diverse restaurants, and markets, I’d be set.
That said, I’ve lived in rural and suburban areas most of my life. I want to have a life where I don’t need a car, where I can walk a few blocks to whatever I need, take the subway further abroad to more excitement, and hop a train to the countryside.
Far as I know, this doesn’t exist in many places in the US.
To give an example, one of my personal interests is west and central African affairs. In the past few months I have:
Eaten at two different Cameroonian restaurants (and Ghanaian and Senegalese and LOTS of Ethiopian)
Attended policy events at think tanks and universities on development in Africa
Researched my interest in security in Mali by having in-depth conversations with people who currently work in Mali
Danced at a Cameroonian dance party and caught up on what the new hit songs are over there
Gone to a book signing by an international aid skeptic, and joined said skeptic for dinner
Attended various social events with people who hold similar interests- like returned Peace Corps volunteer groups, development worker groups, and academic groups that draw heavily from three very prominent universities with strong programs in the field
Browsed the “African Affairs” section at a well-stocked specialty bookstore
Attended some very intensive specialized training for people interested in this field
Popped into the African art museum and tried my hand at identifying Cameroonian stuff without reading where it was from
Watched a play about colonialism and independence in Zimbabwe
And it’s not like this is stuff I’m building my life around or even going out of my way to do. Most of these events are things I tagged along with friends to, or went to because it’s down the street. If you are interested in something, it’s all there for the taking, and you can get as in to it as you want. For some people it may be opera and art museums, for some it’s punk rock and graffiti.
Beyond your interests, it’s easy to do stuff you’d never considered- I’ve gone square dancing and blues dancing, sang karaoke at a Salvadorian night club, watched presidential debates with the Libertarians, and joined a competitive skee-ball league.
Anyway, it’s different strokes for different folks. I’ve never felt the need for a big house. My feeling is that a person can only be in so many rooms at a time, and I’d rather be out and about than at home anyway. But if you are a homebody, you probably feel differently.
Yeah we’re pretty much home bodies and in the past two weeks we’ve been out to dinner a couple times, to a jazz club, a couple of ball games and popped into a museum. When you live in a city, stuff like that just happens because its so easy.
Urban, or in a college town of at least 50k. I grew up in rural Idaho, and could not wait to get out of there. Rural living represents cultural isolation and a total dependance on automobiles. The happiest times of my life were when I lived in Beijing, Kobe, and Seattle. Right now I’m in a university city of about 130k. It’s OK, most of the time, but not quite enough.
Well, I criticized rural lifestyle, but I"ve something to say in its favour : it’s great for a kid. I do not regret having spent my childhood in the countryside, having fun in the forest and creeks, etc… (though with parents being so much more protective nowadays, I suspect children can’t do half of what I could back then).
But as an adult, no way! As someone mentioned, the nearest (small) movie theater being 20 km away, the nearest pharmacist 10 km away, etc…And besides, there’s the rural mentality, which isn’t necessarily that pleasant (petty jealousy, long-held ressentments, lot of ado about nothing, conservatism, dislike of “strangers” who haven’t been living there for at least three generations, etc…)
Middle-sized towns/cities vary a lot of on the other hand. Some might be an incredibly boring place to live, other are exceptionnally lively.
Yes, that’s true. There are things that I miss quite a lot, like trees. No city park is ever going to do for me. Even forests around Paris where I live aren’t “real” forests for me. They’re clean, well-maintained, with paths, etc…instead of being the hilly mess I expect a forest to be. I have recurrent dreams about discovering a forest or rural area in the middle of Paris.
Especially true during the spring (like in your picture) and autumn. I miss the snow in winter, too.
Still, it doesn’t make for the inconvenience of living in the middle of nowhere.
If I enjoyed museums, plays, concerts, dining out, people-watching, or talking to people I don’t know, I guess I would find the constant machine noise and lack of any natural living thing whatsoever no drawback. But I don’t. Cities make me physically ill with stress. If I cannot be alone in a natural place, I feel gradually more and more crazy inside. When I was young I lived in North Beach in San Francisco for awhile, which at the time was entirely Italian and funky artists. No longer either. But it was pretty dang fun when I was young, footloose, and flexible.
Today I milked my goats, made chevre, collected eggs, looked in on my setting geese and setting hen, played with my new puppy, and took all the dogs on an off leash run in woods, cleared the line of the electric fence for a new browsing space for the goat herd, which is mostly baby kids right now . . .
It was windy and a small oak tree came down on the road, it’ll need to be cut up tomorrow. I’ll have to drive out tomorrow to the feed store and buy some cheddar culture because with just two milking does I am getting about a gallon of high-fat milk every day and something needs to be done with it.
I didn’t see a soul except my husband today, although he was only here in the morning and the evening. I did not miss anything or anyone.
No, really, when I think of the smells of the city, my mind immediately jumps to urine. Every time.
Maybe it’s just the major city I live near - Seattle. I grew up in the northeast and if you misbehave, people there will call you on your horseshit. Not here. People here are passive, docile and helpless. If they see bad behavior here, they shrug or giggle - that is, if they react at all.
There’s no consensus of acceptable behavior in Seattle proper. The people there reject the very idea - after all, applying one community’s standards discriminates against the standards of other communities. Or something. All I know is that I have to dodge globs of mucus and puddles of piss - and keep checking my pockets to make sure the contents are still there - when I walk down a street in Seattle proper and I don’t here in Bellevue.
100% Rural. I can’t stand cities, and I’m not all that fond of the suburbs. Sure, maybe town is 20 miles away, but meh… there is no traffic, no stop lights, no 25MPH zones.
I don’t have any plans of moving from my little slice of nowhere.
Much of suburban Boston or Fairfield County, CT and Westchester, NY is like that. Probably more dense than what you describe, but it’s very much sort of an LL Bean wooded community vibe. But you can hop on the commuter rail and be downtown within 30-45 minutes.
If you ever watch shows like Friends, Seinfield, Sex And The City, or How I Met Your Mother, there are a lot of similarities. Obviously every moment isn’t a hilareous laugh riot or fabulous gala opening. But it’s sort of a similar “vibe”.
My wife and I have about 5 or so regular neighborhood restaurants we go to several times a week. Plus there is all of NYC if we want to try someplace new. Later this week we are signed up to go to some sort of fund raiser. Friday I’m going to a job fair / trade show for technology startups. Last week we had dinner at the members-only restaurant at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Although sometimes it does seem all there is to do in New York is eat and drink. You do find a lot of random interesting stuff from time to time.
I was thinking about Boston because of the news. When I was in high school, our orchestra took a trip there. It was the first time I’d ever really spent any time in a city and explored and it was just magical, I knew that I wanted to live in one when I got away from home. Boston was the first city I ever fell in love with.
