I used to think it was convenient since you would assume you always had stores nearby but not that i’ve talked to a few people and lived in a moderate sized city I do not think this is true anymore. When I was living in a small town it took just as long to get to college and the grocery store as it does in a medium sized town. All my friends who go to college in large towns take 3-4x as long (almost 2 hours) to get to college as it took me to commute the 20 miles from a small town a couple of years ago.
So is living in a big town really convenient or is that just a myth? I know there is more to do there though, but the commute sounds really bad.
If you live and work in a large city, you are probably not commuting by car. I live on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, and I work across the street from the Smithsonian. I walk a few blocks to the Metro to get to work. There are lots of stores and restaurants in my neighborhood, and most things I need are within walking distance. I could walk to the grocery store, but it’s more convenient to just take the car and get everything I need for the week at once. I also go to graduate school part-time, and I can hop on Metro to get to the university as well.
My experience has been the larger the town, the more time everything takes.
I live in a small town at the moment, and it takes me 15 minutes to drive all the way across town. Most places are a five to ten minute drive. There’s never really any traffic to speak of. When I’m doing errands, about 85% of the time I can park right in front of the store I’m going to. There’s a Target, a Wal-mart, and a supermarket less than a 2 minute drive from my house.
In comparison, whenever I’ve lived in larger towns, the shopping and work areas are farther away. I don’t think I ever had less than a 20 minute commute to work, for example, and it could have easily been much longer. Going downtown? No way can you park in front of where you’re going - you have to park at the parking lot or garage several blocks away.
I live in Denver, which I suppose is a moderatly sized city. I commute 9 miles or 15-20 minutes to work. The traffic can be bad, but I’d MUCH rather live in a city. There’s much more to do here than in the small town in which I grew up. As for convenience? I pass by one of the two grocery stores I shop at on my way home from work, the other is 8 blocks from my house. There are bookstores, shops, and restaurants within walking distance. But one thing that I really like (some might say most importantly) is the abundance of public transportation. Going out for beers with friends? I can walk/take the metro and then when we’re done, a quick $5 cab ride gets me home. Much better than transporting yourself.
So I’d rather live in a bigger city…but as far as pure convenience of getting around/shopping/running errands, I don’t think living in a big city saves you any time, and in fact may take you longer.
I think the “convenience” of a big city is predicated on not using or needing a car all the time, as Miabella’s example shows. The idea is to live near where you work, shop, etc., or at least live near mass transit. In a big city, a car-based lifestyle wouldn’t be any more convenient than in a small town, as long as the town’s not too small, I guess.
I think you can find some of the big-city convenience in small towns. Going to college in Delaware, Ohio (population 25-30 thousand), I am within walking distance of pretty much any basic need because of the layout of the town. That’s not due to the college, which is small and not really a base of support for many local businesses. The only thing is that a big city would obviously have a lot more options for everything, as well as many non-essential things that are not here.
I suppose I’m speaking somewhat theoretically, since suburbs and Wal Marts have done some good work destroying “convenient” urban neighborhoods in many cities, so probably a lot of people in big cities are just driving everywhere anyway.
We (Wife and Me) live in the sticks. I used to live in Denver. Now I’m in the mountains.
Convenience, is, what is convenient for you. People are very adaptive.
We don’t get mail delivery, or trash pick up. Nothing gets delivered to my house. UPS, and Fed-X would try, but I don’t bother. I have that stuff sent to work. The mail goes to a PO box. For Internet and TV I use DTV.
Our utilities provided are electricity and a phone line. Heat is propane (used to be wood [did that for 10years]). Septic system and a well and you’re all set.
On my way to and from work every day, my wife and I both drive right by the Post Office, a grocery store and a number of gas stations. Most everything we need is fairly close to where we work.
I never have to deal with traffic. From my house to the first small town I may see 0-10 other cars. The rest of the route I may see another 30.
We never run back into town to pick something up, we make sure we have what we need at home. It’s rarely a problem.
Just takes a little planning.
Most of our friends live in town, just 20 minutes away. Lots of good restaurants and entertainment if you want (it’s a ski resort).
It works out well. We have a very nice house with fantastic views. And privacy.
Go for a walk or snowshoe? Just leave the house and choose a direction.
Just got back from seeing my oldest son in Houston, TX. He was telling me how his friends kid him about growing up in a small town (Tupelo, MS). He tells them he did everything they did and more (gads!). They say “Yeah, but how about concerts?” His reply is that he went to more concerts than they did and instead of having to be home afterwards, Memphis was so far away that he spent the night (true, but not every time). We moved out here in the country 20 miles from Tupelo and he and his brother bitched about having to drive so far for a date. The brother has spent several years in Philadelphia and we all laugh now about how “moving ruined their lives.”
The commute time doesn’t just depend on where you live , though. It also depends on where you are able to find a job. I work for a state agency. About half of the employees are assigned to offices in NYC. I live in NYC and have never had more than a 30 minute commute- right now it’s ten minutes. My co=workers who live north and east of the city mostly have commutes of between one and two hours, because they have to travel into the city during rush hour to get to work.
There are so many variables; but we feel lucky with job and house location.
I am another Coloradan, right smack in central Denver. We chose our house because of schools for the kids, but there are other conveniences.
Downtown is 10-15 minutes away by bus or car, and restaurants/shopping/movies/library/other amenities are within walking distance.
Three different parks are within walking distance, as are the Botanic Gardens.
Doctors are close. Everything is close; nothing requires a lot of effort.
Both of us have 10 minute commutes to work; I would ride my bike there if I didn’t have to schlep so much stuff every day.
OTOH, with the city come city annoyances. I doubt that enipla listens to police helicopters or sirens. Or leaf blowers.
Our living situation works well for us now, but later on we would like to trade some of these conveniences for more peace and quiet.
Of course, there’s a lot of factors that go into a commute. But there’s literally noone in the town I live in who has more than a 15 minute commute. Worst case is the people who live in one of the smaller towns a few miles away; they might have as much as a 30 minute commute. But in my experience, most people choose to live close to their jobs.
Mr. Athena contracts with a company based in NYC, and most of the people he works with have 1.5 - 2 hour commutes each day. He tries not to mention too often that his commute consists of walking from the bedroom to his office
Interesting that so many Denver people chimed in; the “larger towns” I spoke of were Boulder and Longmont. Driving through Boulder always took way longer than it should. When Mr. Athena and I were dating, he lived in Boulder, I lived in Longmont. My job was between the two cities, much closer to Boulder, though. It took me as long if not longer to drive from Mr. Athena’s house to work than it did going from my house, even though the mileage was much less.
I can see, though, how if you live in the heart of a city, things are much more convenient than if you live on the outskirts or in the suburbs. The point I was making was that small towns are often convenient no matter where you live - in the heart of downtown or right on the edge of town.
I went to an art school in Chicago with no dorms, so I found my own apartment about 6 miles away. The commute every day taking buses or the El took about 45 minutes. I had a car, but once I found a parking place even relatively close to my apartment, I was scared to move it. It only moved about once every 2 months, when I went home to visit my parents.
There was a grocery store right across the street, which was very convenient. Unfortunately, I could only pick up a bag or 2 at a time, which required 2 or 3 trips to the grocery store every week.
My favorite story about living in Chicago is the time my computer monitor pooped out on me. There was a Best Buy about 8 or 10 blocks away, but I knew I couldn’t carry a CRT (it was before the time of LCD) that far. I took my car. I picked up the monitor and drove back to my apartment building. I lived on a narrow 1 way street, so there was no such thing as double-parking… only “park and completely block all traffic”. The alley was blocked by a garbage truck that appeared to be empty. So I drove around until I found a parking place and walked back with the monitor. I ended up parking about 8 blocks away. The whole event took a couple of hours.
I now live in Peoria, which is a smaller city by all measures. I much prefer being able to drive and find a parking place. Peoria is big enough to always be able to find what you’re looking for, but not spend a lot of time doing it. A trip to Best Buy now would take 45 minutes and wouldn’t involve nearly breaking my back by having to lug an enormous box around. The only thing I miss are the museums and oddball movies that come out in limited release.
I have to point out something else as well - everybody is saying you don’t need a car if you live in a big city. Well, you do need one, for when you leave the city. And it’s liable to take much, much longer to get out. DOn’t forget holiday traffic. And snow.
Someone once sneered at my living in Albany. It was a family member of my future in-laws, so I didn’t respond. But if I had, I would have pointed out - we just spent Thanksgiving with them and it literally took us one hour to get across one bridge to NJ. And we knew before going in it would take an hour, because the big scrolling marquee said so.
I would never move into a large city, unless I was filthy rich.
No kidding. One of the many reasons we left the Colorado Front Range was that every time we wanted to get out of town, it involved at least an hour of sitting in bad traffic, and often longer than that. And I’m not talking just when we tried to get out of town on a holiday weekend, or even on Friday night or Saturday morning. It was like that no matter when you left, and you could expect the same coming back.
If you live in a big city and only use a car a couple of times a month, one is probably much wiser to rent one for the times one needs it. Here in DC, a friend of mine walks to work and uses a car two, maybe three times a month. That costs him about $70 in rental fees; insurance on owning a car is that at an absolute minimum (if not several times higher), not even considering the cost of buying a car, repairing periodic broken windows, parking tickets, parking fees, registration, etc.
The convenience of living in a big city is kind of a crapshoot. When I lived in London, my life was as convenient as it has ever been: for me, everything I wanted (and more!) was within a 20 to 25 minute walk, as I was just a stone’s throw from Central London. Meanwhile, most of my friends had to deal with overcrowding and delays on the Tube, including the dreaded Northern Line, just because they happened to live in a different place than they liked to work and play.
Plus, some cities are more hassle-free than othes. San Francisco and London (my personal experience nothwithstanding) have lots of problems with intracity transportation and high costs of living; Washington, DC, OTOH, is a much more efficient city in comparison.
It depends which city it is and where in the city you are.
Montreal has a very high downtown residential density, and downtown has a thriving commercial sector, with malls, chain stores, and small businesses. Most residential areas near downtown have enough supermarkets, post offices, etc.
I have a five-minute walk to the supermarket and post office (although their produce is shit), a slightly longer walk to the dollar store, community clinic, and drug store, and a dépanneur (convenience store) on my street corner. There’s a mall about a fifteen-minute walk away.
I’m also a block away from the metro; getting downtown takes between five and twenty minutes, depending on where I’m going. Parking is such a nightmare downtown that if I were taking a car, it would take a shitload of time longer to do anything.
There’s your problem. I’d venture that rural areas take a lot of time, little towns take very little time, medium-sized North American towns take the most time (both distance andoften scarce transit), and for big cities, it’s wholly dependent on the transit system.
gah. naturally, the post office does not sell produce. I also wanted to point out that there are suburban areas (such as the West Island) that are probbaly just as inconvenient/car-requiring as any other city.
I live in the District (married to Miabella) and I agree with what she said. I have always been struck by how much time is spent by people who live in New York over how to get from point A to B. I swear everyone spends an hour a day planning the right subway route to meet up somewhere for dinner.
I remember and conversation involving someone in Queens coming to Greenpoint to meet up, the time and subway route permutations involved left my head spinning. In short I think it depends on what city, and what area of the city more than city vs suburban.
I grew up and now live in Columbia, SC, a mediumish city with the state capitol and a large state university. I went to college in Decatur, GA, which within I-285 and supposedly “convenient” in the sense that it’s on Atlanta public transit and all. The big city is incredibly inconvenient. I didn’t go anywhere on the weekdays between 3 and 7 PM. The shopping and culture and everything were great, but they sure were a pain in the ass to get to. Public transit is not really an option for a woman by herself after dark, either. You do need a car. Here, to go to the “good” mall, way way far away on the other side of town, never takes me longer than it did to get to work the one semester I had an off-campus internship. Oh, and I can park when I get there. We complain about there being no parking by the bars and such here - we’re sooo spoiled.
Maybe if Columbia didn’t have the advantages of a college/government town, I’d be bored senseless, but as it is you couldn’t pay me enough to go back to Atlanta. More stuff to do? Sure. More convenient? Hell no.
