Oh, I see. Why is my house here? Well, I moved to the Greater Boston Area after college in upstate NY because I was pretty sure I could get a job in my field (biology) here. Otherwise I had no connections to the area…no family or close friends lived anywhere nearby. 16 years later I am married with a house, mortgage, and kid.
I don’t loathe Greater Boston as much as I did at one time. I still find some stunningly provincial attitudes for such a cosmopolitan place. And the state politics are frustratingly dysfunctional…we have had Republican Governors for something like the last 12 years, but otherwise the Dems have a stranglehold. Favoritism and political patronage are considered routine.
On the plus side, there are way more biology jobs here than there are practically anywhere in the world except the SF Bay area. We really like our house and our small town. We can walk to stores and some excellent restaurants. We have built up a network of friends, and we now have some family not too far away as well. We are only a few hours from places like Cape Cod, New Hampshire’s White Mountains, Vermont, or coastal Maine. I like being near the cultural stuff and funky neighborhoods that the huge college town that is Boston has in profusion.
Now when I visit my family in upstate NY it seems real…quiet. The radio stations frankly suck, and they never hear of any movies that aren’t mainstream.
I was transferred here for a job in 1992. (I had spent time here 1977-79 and 1988-91 also). The original job disappeared years ago, but I’ve found other work so I could stay.
Why?
I love the climate. I hate snow and ice. I love being able to wear short-sleeves all year round.
I love the tropical forest. I can be in the middle of a rainforest within a 40 minute drive of my house.
I love Panama. It has incredible diversity, from white sand beaches to coral reefs to cloud forest all within a small area. And it still has a lot of wilderness to explore.
Chose to emigrate to New Zealand in 1996. Needed a job in order to qualify for a Permanent Residency visa, so a big city seemed a sensible choice for a base. Ended up picking the biggest and generally warmest one out of the five in the country.
For the specific here, home is close to work and in a nice leafy suburb (no high rise buildings allowed).
Family obligations. (Rather long and drawn-out explanation, so I’ll spare you.) I am a native Southern Californian, and am very homesick. But here I am, in my “unnamed midwestern town”. It’s OK in some ways, but it’s still not home. And there are no Trader Joe’s nearby. That is the cruelest thing of all.
To echo Anamorphic, it is where my industry is centered. But, I also grew up here. Here, I am culturally centered, and I have many friends and connections.
And it’s a huge, dynamic city. I love that. It hustles and it bustles, and it’s quite the cosmopolitan. While I appreciate all the Walden Pond folk out there, I’m not like that - I need the throbbing bass line.
Hmmm…, interesting to contemplate: what percentage of respondents are living where they do because they want to v. those who are gonna scram at the first opportunity?
I live here because it’s close to the beach and bushland, you don’t have to dress up to go to the shops and it is about as practically far away from Sydney that it’s possible to get and still work there (Mr Goo has at least an hour and a half commute in each direction).
If I could live where I wanted to, it would be impractical to have a job you couldn’t do from home. One day
But with both parents dead, my sister in another state and not much contact with other family members I am heading out to look for adventure in the Pacific Northwest in a couple years. I will retire in 06 with 20 yrs at my job… time to try my hand at something new…
When I married Drachillix he wanted me to move into his house, and since I had been renting an apt. and commuting to work in the city his house was sitting in…
Because I was born here - and haved enjoyed watching my city change over the years. I can’t imagine being elsewhere. It’s ugly to some, but it’s beautiful to me - Big D!
i was born here too. its home i guess. one thing that is nice is its small, no big crowds at the stores. the biggest traffic jam we have is when the local high school lets out, i really hate that why some days there are 12 cars! heehee. being small has its disadvantages too, but when we want a little excitement, the nearest city (if you call 100,000 ppl a city) is just under an hours drive away minneapolis is 4 hours so all in all its not to bad.
I live where I do now because I bought some paintings last August.
Upon reflection that doesn’t make the least bit of sense does it? Ok I’ll 'splain. Last August I bought a painting from SDMB’s very own jinwicked I liked it so much I ended up buying a few more things from her, including my Mom’s xmas gift. In the process we got to be pretty good friends via email and icq. This was also about the time I started planning a vacation to Belize and discovered that all flights between Anchorage and Belize stopped for serveral hours in Houston and that on the return trip I’d be stuck in Houston overnight (flying right before Thanksgiving will do that) When I told Jin I’d be in town for an evening she offered to pick me up at the airport and hang out for a while.
Now here’s where things get interesting. On Halloween, right after I’d bought my last painting and finalized my travel plans to Belize, I lost my job!* I still took my trip to Belize (best decision I’ve ever made) and kept my date with Jin on my return trip, we went out to dinner and hung out for a while, had a great time. After getting home I opted to postpone my job search till after the holidays. By xmas I’d decided that I really didn’t want to live in Alaska anymore so I decided to move.
At this point I pretty much had any city in the US to pick from, and unfortunately my first two choices, Seattle or Portland, had to be ruled out because of economics. Most of my extended family is scattered about rural Georgia and Florida so moving anywhere near any of them was out of the question as well. So like I said I had a whole country to choose from. I happened to be talking to Jin not long after making the decision to move and she (jokingly she claims) made quite a good sales pitch for moving to Houston. A day or two later after a little bit of research I decided that Houston was just as good as anywhere so I might as well move someplace I had a friend. One month later I moved. So here I am.
Since moving down in Febuary Jin has become one of my best friends anywhere, has introduced me to a great bunch of people (one of which helped me finally get another job recently) who have all done an amazing job making Houston feel like home (thanks!)
To answer Ringo’s question I’d say I fall inbetween the two catagories. I’m happy living here now but I’ll eventually want to move to back to the Pacific NW. My natural wanderlust and desire to be near mountains and forests is too strong for Houston to be a permanent home
*note: correlation is not causation, buying artwork from Jin then buying plane tickets to Central America won’t result in job loss for everyone.
If you’re referring to the country or even the planet, my answer would be “Because I was born here.”
If you mean the city, I’d have to say it was closest to home with the additional benefit (disadvantage?) of having a very good university for technical subjects.
Either way, I hope I’ll be able to move to a new city and / or country next year.
