Move to be closer to work, or stay to be in my neighborhood?

In My Humble Opinion
1

**Tl;dr version: **I live in the city. I’m going to be working out of an office in the suburbs. Moving to the suburbs would save me a ton of time and money, but I think I’d feel isolated there. Staying in my current neighborhood would give me an annoying, inconvenient, and expensive commute (and a higher cost of living), but I’d get to stay in a neighborhood I love. I’m not sure what to choose. I’d appreciate getting your advice.

More complete version:

I’m a tutor. I live in NYC, but my students are in the suburbs. After a few years of working with my students at their houses, I’m getting an office in the area where my students live. The office gives me opportunities to expand my business, and a couple of other tutors and I are working on starting a small tutoring and practice testing center. Overall, I’m excited to get started!

Renting that office isn’t going to be cheap. Neither are some of the other startup costs. And I’m going to have to be in the office a lot, especially while we’re getting things going. I’m thinking of cutting my personal expenses, at least until the business gets fully established.

The commute from my place to the office is about an hour door-to-door each way, if I drive. It’s about an hour and a half each way, if I take public transit. That commute is expensive, and the cost of living (including taxes) is much higher in NYC than it would be in the suburbs. So I’m considering whether I should move closer to the office. There are apartments near where my office is going to be, so my commute could be cut down to a 10- to 15-minute walk each way. Moving would save me a bunch of money, time, and stress.

Here’s the thing, though–the parents whose kids I work with have said they feel lonely and isolated in their towns. (Several moms have admitted that they have no friends anywhere near them. Granted, I don’t have an unbiased sample, but I rarely hear about how happy people are in the area.) What little sense of community I can find seems to come from kids’ activities or schools. As a single 40-something woman–especially one who works odd hours and has weird interests–I think I’d feel completely alone there.

Besides–even if I didn’t have to drive to work, I’d still need to drive to get most other things done. One of the great advantages of NYC, IMHO, is that I don’t have to rely on a car to get around. Bleh.

I love the neighborhood I live in now. I’m friendly with my neighbors, my bodega guy, and some of the people I’ve done some local activism with. My neighbors and I chit-chat in the hall of my building, congratulate each other on good things in our lives, and help each other out when something goes wrong. In short, I feel like a member of my community. (Not to mention that I love the museum and the park near my place. I go as often as I can from spring through fall.)

So, here’s the thing–do I move? Or do I stay put and suck up the commute and extra expense? I have to make a decision in the next few weeks. The lease on my current place is up on June 30, and I’d have to give notice by May 1. I thought I’d tap into the wisdom of the Teeming Millions to help me figure out what to do.

2

How old are you? That’s rhetorical. If you are of solid “adult” age, you probably know what you’d like. You sound gregarious. If you are gregarious, you’ll always be able to find your herd.

Are you single? If you are, you will always be able to find the right one for you (assuming you are gregarious). If you aren’t single, how does this affect your significant other?

How adventurous are you? Everything can be undone----until it can’t.

Being close to your job is HUGE. You say you are an hour a way now. What would it mean to have an extra 1.5 hours a day------assuming you could find a place 15 minutes from your job?

An hour and a half extra of every work day, for me, would be worth a move. But I am introverted, so YMMV.

3

My advice would be to find students IN the city (or outer boroughs) to tutor, if you can.

Where in the suburbs would you be living/working?

4

Disclaimer: I am not you.

Advice: If I *was *you, I would stay put

Reasons: I totally understand what you say about liking an inner city neighborhood more than a suburb. That’s exactly how I feel too. In fact, we’re in a slightly similar situation in our family - my husband’s working out in the suburbs, the high-school age kids are going to a school in the same direction, it would make a ton of logistic and financial sense to just move out east. And yet. I just can’t make myself do it. I love my local area (it’s not really inner city - kind of the front edge of suburbia. But I can cycle to the city center in half an hour) I know what a positive impact it has on my mental health being able to walk and cycle places in the nice weather, rather than stewing in dumb-ass traffic all the time. An hour IS a long commute time, and I feel for you, but even so, you’re spending more time living in your actual home and local area, than you are travelling to and from work, so why not make it a pleasant experience?

Also, if you’re a natural inner-city-liver I feel you’re unlikely to be happy living in even a nice suburban area, let alone one you’ve already had negative reports from the current residents about.

My two micro-credits’-worth…

5

I’d say move closer to work for now. You’ll have more time to spend on getting the business up and running, and you’ll give the new area a try. Who knows, you might like it there. If you don’t, there’s nothing stopping you from moving again in a year when your business is on firmer footing.

Myself, I found that a 1-1.5 hour commute each way became soul-killing after a while. I’d rather live closer to where I work, and maybe visit friends in NYC on the weekends.

6

Move closer. That commute time is going to eat your lunch.

7

Stay in the city. Don’t be like my friend ‘Z’ who moved to the burbs for his new job, gloated about it for about a month, and is now miserable out in a boring Chicago suburb where he whines about it incessantly.

8

Everyone is different, of course, but I think suburbs get a bad rap. I like The City, but living in it would get me a ticket to the room with soft walls.

I get (relative) peace in the suburbs, own a little piece of land and a home, and can visit the city whenever the mood strikes.
mmm

9

Just an idea: Why not “simulate” your commute on a weekday at the times you’d be traveling?

You might be surprised how easy it is. My experience is that commuting out of the city to the burbs in the morning and back in the evening is better than the reverse. You’re opposite of typical traffic patterns and may find the lanes in your direction less crowded. This is based on Midwestern & Western cities though, so I’m not sure how it applies to NYC.

I couldn’t tell from your post whether you already own* a car. If not, you might want to calculate how many hours of your workday are spent paying for vehicle miles. I think balancing this against the additional commute hours would be informative.

*or ridesharing, whichever method you plan.

10

I was thinking the same thing. I have a reverse commute --my job is WAY out in suburbia and I’m on the edge of the city limits – and I can usually be at work within a half hour if the cross traffic to get onto the highway isn’t backed up. If it is, I either take a back road to get onto the highway further down or resign myself. The former roughly adds 10-15 minutes; the latter, a good 30 minutes on average.

Then again my metro area is decidedly smaller than NYC’s so YMMV.

11

No! It’s time vs. time.

You have to decide.

Is it better—you DO know the choice. CHOOSE!

Don’t hide behind us. Choose. And make your choice known. Be proud!

12

Most of my life, I’ve had long commutes because of where I wanted to live. For me, that was the priority: home. Where we live now, my commutes have run anywhere from 25 to 45 minutes, depending on the jobs, and my husband had one job that was more than an hour away. Over the last 14 years, there have been several jobs, but only one home, because that’s what matters to us.

My priorities may not match yours, but they work for me.

13

I agree with the potential reverse commute comments. Check that out.

I would stay put for now, until you are confident the new business venture is successful and stable. Nothing would be worse than moving only to find out later the job did not work out for some reason. Postpone the decision.

14

I faced a similar choice myself a few years ago, and made the wrong one. You may find my experience relevant, albeit this was in London not NYC (hey, they’re practically sisters).

At the time I was self-employed, and worked mostly from home, so I really didn’t need to live in a tiny apartment in the heart of town - move a few stops up the tube line, and I could buy a whole big house with a garden, and still get into the centre of London by Tube in less than an hour if I needed to.

I decided to rent for a year to see how I felt being in the burbs in my lovely big house.

Thank god I did. I hated it. I felt isolated, out of all the action, starved of decent restaurants and culture, and had to go out of my way to see friends who lived in the city. It was, honestly, the loneliest year of my life in London - and I was living with my wife (who felt the same).

We jacked it in after a year and have really come to appreciate how location is way more important to us than the size of the house, or the commute.

I now live in a different city, but deliberately chose to live right in the centre. I can walk to restaurants, enjoy the buzz of the city, and when I want space, I drive out at the weekend for a walk. My house is small, and expensive. And worth every penny for the lifestyle it gives me.

Big gardens are a hassle anyway.

15

I love my big garden. I often walk around in my garden for a few minutes when i arrive home from work, before i go into the house.

That being said, I don’t think you should move. I live in the burbs, and I drive into town a few nights a week. The vast majority of my social life is in town.

I’m gregarious. I’ve become friendly with some people who take the same train I take. I’m friendly with the regular clerks at the coffee shop I go to, one of the lunch ladies in the company cafeteria, and a couple of merchants around my suburb. I’ve met most of my neighbors, and I’m friendly with most of those people. I even borrow eggs and sugar from the last next door. But it’s a lot of work, and still, most of my real friends and most of my social life is down town.

And it’s hard to find a nice apartment in NYC.

My advise is either:
Try the commute for a year, and see how it goes. Or
Sublet your apartment for a year, and rent in the burb, so you can see how that feels.

But don’t drop the lease unless you think it will be feasible for you to move back if you want to.

16

Oh, and if you do move, plan to actively work to meet people. Throw a housewarming party and invite all the neighbors over. Say “hi” to people in the street. Ask about their dog. (They are walking the dog, or they’d be indoors.) Consider getting a dog. (One you could keep in the city.) Chat with the local salesclerk if there isn’t a line. Volunteer in local politics. Join a church. Invest time in doing stuff with people in ways where you will see the same people often enough to form friendships with the ones you are compatible with.

17

I was born/raised in Chicago. Always had a thing against the burbs.

After lawschool/marriage, my wife wanted to move to the burbs. I reluctantly agreed. Never looked back.

If you feel you will always be a “city guy” and need what that involves, then stay put and suck up the commute. But the burbs have a lot to offer - which you are aware of. And the city will still be there when you want it - just not right outside your door.

I worked downtown for 25 years after we moved to the burbs. We always lived where I could walk to a train for and approx. 1 hr commute. Gave me a little exercise walking on either end of the train, and 45 minutes of alone time to read. I would never commit to an open-ended driving commute (tho I have had periods that I drove 45-60 minutes each way for a year or so. Only way I stood that was they were perfect reverse commutes, w/ NO traffic hassles.)

Now my commute is 6-7 minutes. When I compare myself to others around me, I consider myself extremely rich in time. I often leave to work at the same time or later than my neighbors. Then I get home, read the paper, do some chores, maybe walk the dog, cook and eat dinner - and THEN see my neighbors pulling up to their homes. In MOST cases, a commute is simply work time that you are not getting paid for.

Just my opinion and experience.

18

Personally, I’d move. Driving to/from work is the bane of my existence.

But I was raised in the 'burbs and feel completely comfortable there; I don’t really know what it looks or feels like to lifetime city-folk.

19

That commute is a meat-grinder - on top of having the stress of growing a new business and the long hours and financial uncertainty that entails, I would heavily favor moving to be closer. Sitting in traffic is pure loss with almost no redeeming characteristics, and 2+ hours a day is asking way too much on top of a “building a new business” workload.

The biggest mitigating factor is if you have a nice rent-controlled place - it would be a lot of effort or impossible to find that again in the city, so if you had that, that might tip the scales towards just absorbing the punishment of the commute for the longer term picture.

But if you don’t have that, I’d absolutely recommend moving - you can always move back if it doesn’t work out, and you’ll reduce your stress and increase your chances of success in growing the new business.

20

For me, if I’d stay in the city. I was just in the burbs yesterday to run an errand and everything In every neighborhood was the same, the same chains, the same houses, I just find it all stultifying.