The pace of life is just a lot slower… sometimes it takes someone over 12 years to respond in a smaller town.
Love big cities. Love, love, love 'em. I’d live in Tokyo or New York City in a heartbeat. When we move back to Hawaii, it’s Honolulu for us.
I love cities, but there is a limit, I guess. I don’t think I’d enjoy living in Manhattan or Tokyo, but I love living in Atlanta. It’s a city, but seems to resemble Brooklyn (as a comparison) and has ton of trees and single family houses. I can’t do the rural thing, really. Had an ex from Montana. It was just eerie when I visited that state. The lack of people made me feel very uncomfortable. Also, I’m not a fan of nature (I like the great indoors, thank you very much ;)).
Urban living is associated with higher rates of a variety of mental illnesses, like schizophrenia, depression, and anxiety. If you pack rats into a cage they go nuts from the stress too. Since it’s likely in the future that humans will continue to live in larger, even denser urban settings, at some point humans with normal attitudes and stress levels will cease to exist and be forgotten, unless science steps in somewhere.
Probably not nearly that simple. Causation and correlation are complicated, as always.
From this interview:
That’s in reference to the research published here.
Lots of zombies in the big city.
Add me to the list of city girls. Small towns and rural areas are nice for short (very short) visits, but I couldn’t live in one on an indefinite basis.
I thrive on museums, the opera, the symphony, art galleries exhibits, quirky ethnic restaurants, major sporting events, presidential and papal visits, etc. I met Obama at a book signing before he started his run for the presidency. I looked out my office window and saw Bill Clinton looking out his hotel window when he was in town for the Demo Nat’l Convention. I admit, I thrive on this stuff.
Cue Glen Frey “You Belong to the City”
I love the outdoors. I live in Colorado and can spend the occasional weekend hiking or camping and enjoy the hell out of the isolation and scenic beauty. But I like to wave it bye-bye after the weekend and head back to the city for a good long breath of smog!
Sure, big cities have inconveniences, but they are the pulse and heartbeat of the modern world. Movin’ and shakin’ is going on all around you. It’s energizing to be a part of it.
NYC is nice to visit, but damned if I’d ever want to live there. I suppose that can be extrapolated out to most big cities.
Where in eastern Montana did you used to live, whistlepig? I lived in Ashland, in Rosebud County, for a while. Maybe we know some people in common. 
(Truefax: I’ve been helping a homeless man here in my library for a while and just learned he used to live in Missoula. I told him I used to live in a little town in Rosebu-- “Off Highway 212? Oh, I know Ashland, I used to drive through there on my way to Wyoming! Did you know Ken Kanya?” I did indeed know Ken Kanya.)
I feel you, too. I grew up in and lived till age 26 in the great Northeastern Megalopolis, and I transitioned into living in a pop. 500 town in rural Montana really easily. It was moving from rural Montana to Boston that took months of adjustment.
Not to disagree or show disrespect, since we all have our opinions, but cities aren’t all giant homogeneous concrete places with twigs/treelets sticking out of the concrete. The most central urban core is like that but in Montreal, for example, there are numerous parks (yes, they’re downtown and surrounded by city stuff) but then go a couple of kilometres and you’re in Westmount, which is turn of the century residential with small lawns and tons of trees. And from there out you get NDG, Montreal West, Lachine, Dorval. There is a long, linear park that goes from downtown out to Lachine - about 14 km of it with cycling and pedestrian paths along the river. Montreal also has Mount Royal Park (designed by Olmstead btw). Other Canadian cities have their own counterparts.
Personally I do enjoy my alone time but for me, that’s sitting in a busy coffee place with a good book.
There’s a perfectly good TGI Fridays at the strip mall!
…Just so you are aware - **whistlepig **originally started this post in May of 2003, and hasn’t posted since 2009, so you might not hear back soon…
I love the anonymity of big cities. I can do whatever I want and not be recognized. I used to mock the “Cheers” song, because I always want to go where NO ONE knows my name.
You and your fancy city book learnin’.
Let’s keep in mind that there are many different big cities, and each have very different areas. NYC is different from LA or Detroit, and NYC also has Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens, etc. with different environments in each too. It’s not all the same, and you can hate one part but love another.
As for living in New York City, I should mention that it looks like Mayberry after living here in Bangkok, which many people are surprised to learn is much bigger. The official population is 8 million, but they’ve been using that figure literally for decades. No one believes it. Believable estimates range from 12-15 million, and I think that’s just for Bangkok proper. The greater metropolitan area bumps it up even more. The problem with counting the population stems from so many migrants from upcountry arriving and leaving. Even when they do a census, those people are still counted in their hometowns, not for Bangkok.
Metro suburbs for me, the happy medium. Mid size houses on above-average lots. Connected to the downtown core by 24-hour bus transit. I’m currently at the end of the line. Where I used to live was a bit closer, perhaps halfway (which I did prefer, though not solely for that reason.)
I like both the city and countryside for differing reasons, and try to live in what is a balance between the two. It’s nice to be able to get to the major centres of interest by transit in less than an hour during the evening, drink/club/whatever to one’s content and be able to get home in an hour or two that is usually a fun enough experience in itself. Riding a Vomit Comet with friends is a blast for me, seeing all sorts of different people going their different places, to arrive at a place where I can light a bonfire in my backyard, and play music at a fairly good but not ridiculous volume until 7 A.M. without worrying about disturbing the neighbours or having Johnny Law called.
(Derail - Once, at a friends house a cop WAS called, he came into the backyard unannounced and informed us that someone had called. We were sipping beers, roasting hot dogs and marshmallows, listening to music - there MAY have been a joint at the time. Ahem He looked at us, and said “I see no reason why I should be here, have a nice night.” And left.)
A working class neighbourhood, where the police are too busy to care about silly things. There’s a balance between Cheers and Another Hundred People. I know the local shop keeps I frequent by name and face, but I don’t know their life story, or if they happened to fall into their petunia patch whilst watering twenty minutes prior. It’s city enough where most mind their own business, yet you can approach somebody and strike up a conversation (most times) without them being callous or rude. Mind you, there are apartment complexes nearby that I would probably not walk through alone on a Friday night.
On the other hand, there are forests, valleys, rivers and places you could go and see not a soul for a couple hours (minus the deer, herons, coy-wolves, stray cats, squirrels and coons) within fifteen minutes walking distance.
The suburbs are the BEST for shopping, be it food or wares. I’d much rather go to a MEGACOSTCO and be able to get everything I need in one shot, as opposed to having to visit five different small urban shops in one go, or going to a boondoggle market where growing season is freshness paradise, but things like coconuts and panko crumbs are considered “exotic.”
Traffic SUCKS during rush hour, but otherwise it’s pretty tame…
Madame Bays just awoke, and I think I’ve said more than enough already.
Great thread, very interesting!
Oh, thanks, I hadn’t noticed.
Maybe we knew each other. Two ships passing in the night… 
Bangkok has him now.
This thread is so old I just stared at the date on this post trying to figure out where the hell I was living that I could see a lake from my window. I remembered it eventually. Since then, I’ve acquired a wife, a PhD, two kids, a stepson, and a career. And lived a good half-dozen places.
Still prefer small towns.