For us, we are very attached to our city. I think this is one of the best places in the state to live, and we want to retire here if possible. I love this place; just driving around certain parts of town (esp. right now, in early spring) makes me grateful and happy to be here.
We could move, though. If the employment situtation was impossible enough, we’d just have to. There aren’t that many jobs in DangerDad’s field here, and he’s currently looking for a new one. He’s also starting a venture that we hope will allow us to stay here and do contract work remotely.
I’ve lived in Montreal all my life and I love it here. All my family is here, and I’m connected to the culture and the language and everything. There’s so much to do here, any time of year. The winter is cold and snowy and pretty, and the summer is one street festival after another. There’s all sorts of shopping and dining and nightlife, and in my eyes it’s the best city in the world. But… I met a man, and he happens to live in Maryland. So, I’m packing up and moving south.
I’m young and just out of school and ready to set up a little life for myself - why not try starting it out somewhere new? It’s very, very hard to leave my family, because we’re very close. I visit my grandmother at least three times a week for tea, and I’m going to miss that a lot. But they’re all that’s still holding me here, really. If I’d bought a house, had a job I was in love with, or had other attachments like school or kids, I’d be more reluctant to leave, but for now I’m basically free to wander.
I’m living with my mother at the moment, as I’m saving up to move in with my fiance, who lives three hours away. We haven’t picked out a place yet, but we know that our deadline for moving will be in June or July, as I start graduate studies in August. I’ll be moving to the area that he’s in, and doing my graduate studies long distance. I’m not very tied to the place that I am at in the immediate moment, but I’m still tied to Florida in general for the next couple of years. We might look into moving out of state once I’m done with my master’s.
I grew up in the suburbs and have always been close to Chicago. I imagine when the time comes that I have enough time in my fancy-schmancy state pension, and get good and tired of cold weather, I might have someplace warm to escape to in the winters, but I’ll always be close to here I think.
Last year, I moved into the town I work in, and I really like it here - nice people, nice standard of living, close enough to the city to be there for events, but far enough away to say I’m not IN it.
I’m “tied” here in terms of home and land ownership, community, work opportunities and accumulated experience in the field I work in with relation to this region. I could however shift to some other place with a cheaper standard of living, and translate what I know to another area so I could (hopefully) get work. I’ve certainly got no blood relations or other close ties to worry about. My life’s my own.
But the community is harder to kick, and it’s expanded. Too many folk rely on me here in Auckland for me to turn my back and just up and leave. Then again, I don’t particularly want to leave – just making my forays away from homebase, and know I have a home to return to, is cool.
My husband has a great job so here we stay, in the NJ suburbs. Every time I think about moving I go into Manhattan in less than an hour and remember why I like living here.
Not tied at all. The only thing that’s slowing me down is that I’d have to take a cost-of-living paycut to move with the same employer and finding a private sector job takes a bit of time.
Plus, there are only 5 other cities I’m willing to live in, and practically speaking, only about 3 are realistic (Chicago, D.C. and NYC) given that I’d move to be closer to my family.
Boston transfers seem really hard. I’ve tried looking but they never seem to post many openings.
At this point in my life, I’m very tied to where I live. I was born here. I was raised here. I left here as a young adult to “spread my wings” and experience the world. I just bought a house here with my “domestic partner” (heehee, boyfriend, but for insurance purposes and the mortgage, we’re "domestic partners).
So, this is home. This is where I want to be. My parents, brother, both grandmothers live in town. I’m the oldest (and female), and while thankfully everyone is in good health, they won’t always be, and I’ll be the one who has to take care of people.
I also work in town! It’s crazy. If you had told me even 5 years ago that I’d be buying a house not 5 minutes from where I grew up I would’ve laughed as I was headed off to NYC for the weekend or moving to CA for a year. But growing up has a funny way of forming your opinions on what makes a good home. And this is it.
I’m not particularly tied here - no house, no family - but my husband and I both have good jobs that we like a lot and we’re establishing a community. (We’ve been here < 1 year.) So we could move, but having just moved half way across the country, I don’t particularly want to do so again right away. I love the excitement of starting over and going somewhere new, but it’s an awful lot of work and I wouldn’t want to do it very frequently.
I did live outside of Boston for a year post college, pre-grad school. In some ways it’s a great area: cultural, historical, natural, etc. I love Boston itself and love to wander around downtown. However, the suburbs surrounding Boston can be a tough area to break into. I found it very hard to meet people and to make friends, and I’m someone who makes friends easily. (I’m doing very well meeting people in Minnesota where others have said it’s tough so I think I’m a pretty friendly person.) People can be clique-ish and even a bit snobbish. Compared to here, I felt much more that people were judging what I wore, what kind of car I drove, etc. Now it may have just been where I lived and I’m sure some of the suburbs are fine, but [major broad brush generalization] the Northeast can be colder socially than the Midwest.
Before anyone gets offended, please note that I grew up in Upstate NY and have lived in the Northeast for my whole life. I personally have just found that Midwesterners are friendlier and more open than New Yorkers or New Englanders.
Minnesota’s surprisingly liberal too. Being an East Coaster, I always thought the “fly-over” states were conservative, Bible Belt types. But MN’s pretty darned liberal. I like it here a lot.
It would be hard. My wife and I both have professional licensing that ties us to our respective jurisdictions. We own a home with a mortgage and I have enough roots here now in the way of friends and professional connections that moving would be rough.
That being said, if the right opportunity came by in the way of money, I would consider it. It would have to be to a city, and unless it is abroad, I would prefer to stay on the East Coast.
I’ve never really been tied down to any location. My family moved around so much when I was younger that I’ve kind of grown used to it. I do like it here (in Chicago) and I’ll definitely be staying until I graduate this June and perhaps for another year if I get a job. But most of my friends are moving away after June and if I apply for a PhD I doubt I’ll be staying here anyway. My parents are in Seoul, my brother here in Chicago, and my best friends have been scattered to the four winds. Sometimes I wish I had strong ties to a particular place, but for now, I don’t mind being a bit of a nomad.
Just yesterday I surprised myself by realizing that I’ve lived in Northern Virginia for almost 9 years – and nearly 4 of those years have been spent living in my current town.
On the “not tied” side I have:[ul][li]I’m still a renter.[/li][li]I’m single with no kids.[/li][li]I grew up moving every 2-3 years, including a stint overseas, so I’m not afraid to go somewhere new.[/li][li]I think that I could find work in my field (tech writing) in/near most major cities; just maybe not in my particular sub-field (gov’t IT).[/li][li]I’m not responsible for any pets or houseplants or anything.[/li][li]My immediate family members live out-of-state and the rest of my family is even farther away, so staying near kin isn’t a consideration.[/li][/ul]
On the “tied” side I have:[ul][li]I’m in grad school, which I’m committed to for at least another year.[/li][li]I’m in a 3-month-old relationship that is going very well so far. He isn’t very tied here, though, so if things work out I can see us moving away together someday.[/li][li]I would really, really miss my best friends and their amazing 5-year-old son (practically my nephew).[/li][li]This is absolutely the best area for government contracting work.[/ul][/li]Basically, I have no idea where I’ll be in 5 years.
Hey, I grew up (pretty much) in Lexington. I admit I am biased about Concord-I consider it WASP-central and significantly more “old money” than the surrounding towns. Lexington is far more diverse, or it used to be. Possibly Concord is a little bit more down-to-earth now.
I know you said you can afford most places-just to let you know, homes in Lexington and Concord of the size you speak of very rarely start below 650K. And most of the capes have been torn down and mansionised.
That said-I am really biased. I want to do one more city before I move back to Boston but my dream is to eventually live in Brookline or Newton (Concord and Lex are a little too suburban for my tastes).
That number alone isn’t a problem. Tho with the kids out of the house, we certainly wouldn’t need 5 bedrooms. And any $ I spend I’d rather put towards an interesting smaller home on a nice bit of property, than a mini-McMansion.
When/if we start getting closer to making a choice, I’ll definitely drop you a line. I think what realy made my wife think fondly about the area was the bodacious ice cream joint we hit up a couple of towns west…
I want to move somewhere cheaper and cooler than Sydney, and it seems like it’s nearly possible. Mum doesn’t live in Sydney anyway, my dad does but won’t be around terribly much longer, I don’t think, and my sister is about to move to a country town. I’ve got friends here, but I’m slack at keeping in touch with most of them anyway, and my closest friend and I will probably get around it (three day visits once or twice a year instead of five minute cups of coffee every other day). Main issue is access to my stepson, who is only nine. I can’t move too far away until he’s older.
My job with the post office is a sticky point. There are occasional transfer opportunities, but I’m waiting for redundancy anyway. Once that happens, I’ll run my transcription business full time, and I can do that anywhere on the planet with an internet connection.
fifteen years from now, I’ll probably be in Victoria, Tasmania, or NZ ( extreme south of South Is.).
I think we’re settled for the moment. My last 5 moves (taking place over twelve years, half of which we’ve now spent in Boston) were Tasmania -> Western Australia -> Sydney -> Oregon -> Boston -> Half a mile from where we first set down in Boston. That last one was a tremendous shock. I never expected to be settled, I took picking up and moving far for granted. Staying put for this long, combined with moving a half-mile to be in a nicer part of the same suburb is so weird. But, when we moved to Boston, the first day we were here we went to the Common and saw the fountain right by the Park St. T station, and it is cast from the same mold as my favourite fountain in my home town in Tasmania. It seemed like a sign, and so far Boston has very much felt like coming home.
My husband and I are very tied to our present location. His siblings and their families–who we see about once a week–are in town and my parents are moving here soon. I have a lot of childhood friends here. We know the local history, the geography, and the background of the area. Our families have lived in the state for hundreds of years. This is home.
I work at a college, and many of our students and some of our faculty seem so rootless. They don’t have a deep connection to any place, which seems very sad to me. I’ve had co-workers tell me that they envy how (geographically) close I am to my family and friends. They don’t seem to realize that it’s a conscious choice that I’ve made career trade-offs for.
I don’t have any family here but otherwise, I’m very attached to Austin. I have lots of friends and am very active in a sport for which there are exceptional facilities in Austin (and almost all my friends are connected to this sport as well). That sounds pretty minor but, I’ve heard from friends who have moved away, it’s very difficult to replace the community we have here.
Plus, at this point in my career, I have a ton of contacts, etc. that would be tough to rebuild in a new location. Also, I just really love the city and have never visited anywhere I’ve liked half as much. I like it so much I finally took the plunge and bought a house. (and I’m actually should be packing for my move tomorrow but I’m procrastinating…)
