Where do you live/where would you like to live?

dbzmomma · Post by **dbzmomma** » Sat Jun 27, 2009 8:09 pm

Curious as to folks' preferences for where you live. Not area specific, just general. I live in a small village in the Finger Lakes region of Upstate New York, but will probably move to Missouri to live near my sister by the time I retire (which isn't soon enough). Just hoping it isn't too busy. I hate traffic.

Survey not too scientific!

Killua · Post by **Killua** » Sat Jun 27, 2009 9:01 pm

I grew up in the country and grew to hate the isolation, and lived in the city the past 6 years. But now I find myself longing for the peace, quiet, and yes, isolation of the country.

teggacat · Post by **teggacat** » Sat Jun 27, 2009 9:17 pm

grew up in the country, moved away from parents
house to the country, still live in the country and
hopefully always will, cant imagine anything else

Post by **Rekka Alexiel** » Sat Jun 27, 2009 11:46 pm

I live within Nagoya city; not exactly in the "downtown" area, but with Nagoya dome less than a 10 minute walk down the road, it's a nice part of the city. I think I'm much more a city person than a country person. Always have to be doing something!!

Belldandy16 · Post by **Belldandy16** » Sun Jun 28, 2009 12:01 am

lived my entire life in the city, never anywhere else. But i always wondered what it was like to live in a small town.

for the most part im happy here, i guess.

(whats that phrase, a frog in a pond knows not of the ocean?).

toonybabe · Post by **toonybabe** » Sun Jun 28, 2009 2:39 am

I grew up in the suburbs and I really like it. I've never lived out in the country, but I lived in San Francisco for almost a year. I hated it! The city was fun and exhilarating at times but mostly it was just a hassle - the noise, smell, cost of living. Living in a big city made me realize how much I need nature around me. Having green and trees just naturally calms me down, grounds me. I'm not a hippie or a tree-hugger - I think I just need space and fresh air.

Ideally I would like to live in a suburb on the edge of the country but a short drive (like under an hour and a half) from a big city. I really want to live in the northwest for some reason - like Washington or Oregon. Ohio's nice though...I can't complain.

graymouser · Post by **graymouser** » Sun Jun 28, 2009 1:51 pm

Neat question.

I am in a suburb. I have lived in both the country and the city. I think of my suburb as a happy medium. I am in love with where I live.

It was nice living in the city where everything (live theater, movies, nightlife) is close by, but the traffic and noise was a pain. I liked the peace an quiet of the country, but I got bored easily and hated having to travel so far to see or do anything.

I live in a condo now, and when I am not working most of my errands can be done on foot. There are 2 grocery stores, a movie theater, a public garden, a park, hiking trails, a museum, library, dental and medical offices, Staples, postal center, Kohls, Michaels, A LOT of restaurants, etc. all within walking distance. On top of that, a large portion of the land nearby is a county/state/fedral owned (different acreage by different entities all joined together) and designated a wilderness area that is supposed to never become developed (crosses fingers that it stays that way).

If I want to go downtown, it is a 15-20 minute freeway drive due west.

If I want to go to an Indian run casino/golf course, it is a 15-20 minute drive south. When I want to go horseback riding in the mountains/country it is about 20 minutes either to the south or to the east.

dbzmomma · Post by **dbzmomma** » Sun Jun 28, 2009 3:11 pm

Thanks for the answers! I did once live in a suburb of Syracuse for about 1-1/2 years, and I liked that for the same reasons as you - kind of in between city living and country living. I have hay fever something terrible, so living in the country would kill me. The 'burbs offer somewhere to shop close by, not to mention the restaurants, yet you don't get all the traffic and noise of a big city.

moonrabitt · Post by **moonrabitt** » Mon Jun 29, 2009 1:45 am

I live in a city, like 25 min from Disneyland, near L.A, near everything really, and I love it...
I know that I HATE living in a small town, and anything isolated, because it's creepy, (yes I have seen a lot of movies)....
I just fear getting killed or something....and it's just too isolated

Gonzai · Post by **Gonzai** » Mon Jun 29, 2009 6:50 am

I live in the city - I guess - well in Iowa, its considered
a large city.

Davenport's population is just under 100,000, but the
metropolitan Quad-Cities population is around 400,000,
and Davenport is the third largest city in Iowa.

Not as big as most of what most of you would call a city,
however, much larger than where I lived when I was
married - Calamus, IA which was 395.

dbzmomma · Post by **dbzmomma** » Tue Jun 30, 2009 4:15 pm

Gonzai wrote:I live in the city - I guess - well in Iowa, its considered
a large city.

Davenport's population is just under 100,000, but the
metropolitan Quad-Cities population is around 400,000,
and Davenport is the third largest city in Iowa.

Not as big as most of what most of you would call a city,
however, much larger than where I lived when I was
married - Calamus, IA which was 395.

395 is SMALL! Ten times that number in my village!

Rochester is close enough for a city - about 30 miles from me. I think it has a population of about 200,000. Moonrabbit, I feel the same about the city ... creeps me out. Too many people ready to snatch your purse. Or worse.

aernath · Post by **aernath** » Tue Jun 30, 2009 8:40 pm

I live: stateside
I want to live: back on the islands again!

But yeah, stateside, ideally I'd like to be within comfortable driving distance of a city with an excellent college. Colleges bring in some wonderful international experiences.

(movies, theater, dining, languages...)
But I want to be able to get away from it all by just going home. I like seclusion.

Shampoo · Post by **Shampoo** » Tue Jun 30, 2009 9:22 pm

LOL!!

Sylia · Post by **Sylia** » Tue Jun 30, 2009 9:51 pm

I hate being more that 40 minutes away from the city. I agree that living permanently squashed in around 13 million or so other people is not ideal, but as long as I can come and go as I please I'm happy. I think of being next to a massive city as having a nice freeing place to escape to when you want more than little houses and trees, when you need a bit of adventure. I also need to be within an hour of the ocean, and I'm not right now (about as far away as it could possibly be) so I go a little batty sometimes with the need to go to the sea for the day but it's impossible.

Right now I live in what I would have called a very small city when I first arrived (half a million people, a very short drive to get from one end of the metropolitan skyline to the other). But I realised it has a lot more benefits as a main base than a massive city does. You can eventually feel spoiled by the fact that it's a city but it feels so.. empty. Yet there's enough people around to make it feel homey, and they all seem less harassed from not being obligued to deal with so many people. Strangers frequently stop and talk with me -but not so often it gets annoying-, and they're actually not just looking for a date XD!

There's more opportunities as people aren't all competing for limited space, but at the same time it has the infrastructure and benefits of a city (on the downside, due to the size it can be difficult to get enough things going... there's sometimes just not enough people or publicity). I also live basically 5 minutes out of the city centre/downtown, and it's great because you can live that close but get cheaper rent. And parks lol.

Where I want to live? I think I'm going to drift. I'd like to try other cities for a couple of years later, just to explore somewhere else- I love what I've found here but I need to go away and grow on my own. Different cities have a different feel for the arts I think, so it'd be good to strengthen my experience. I'd like to go back home for a few years at some point. I kind of miss being right by the green belt land too. Ultimately I'd like to end up near the sea in 20 years, maybe on the edge of a coastal city. Seattle and San Fran sound great, although I fear for the inevitable earthquake every 20-60 years

.

There's advantages to living in all types of places really, although somewhere where you can too easily feel trapped is not good for me in the long run. Also in smaller isolated places I'd suffer from not fitting in, which I do anyway, but in the kind of way where it's okay because it's accepted. Not to stereotype the rural areas, but I've been in a few places where it's not really 'okay' to be different in any way. And 'normal' is a particularly narrow set of things... Places that seem like they're afraid of the outside world and of differences, and become zealous and uncompassionate in dealing with them are a huge turn-off to me.

dbzmomma · Post by **dbzmomma** » Wed Jul 01, 2009 3:38 pm

Shampoo, you live in KC?!? And don't like it?! Wow ... I've been there about 6 times because my sister lived on the Kansas side about 50 steps from the state line. She loved it. However, they have now moved to a suburb - Independence, MO. She said she likes it because it's much quieter. How quickly she forgot living in Upstate New York where we're practically living in the 19th century!!

They DID acquire some kind of accent, especially her oldest daughter. I took my son out with me last November - we were having a blizzard and almost got stuck in Cleveland, where they were having a blizzard. We got to KC - sunshine, and about 60 degrees. (We all went to the Bills/Chiefs game. The Bills were stinkin' until they played the Chiefs, who were stinkin' even worse.)

Sylia ... I agree with some of those things. I love the ocean, too, but I've visited it maybe 5 times in my life. My sister lived in Boca Raton, too, for about 7 or 8 years until she moved to KC. Wow - just realized she hasn't lived in New York in 26 years!

It's fun being only 30-35 minutes away from Rochester - there's almost always something going on, and if I'm bored, I just go. We have a couple great malls nearby and a huge Outlet Mall. What I like about our small village is the quiet. Occasionally there's some excitement next door because the kids who live there with their grandma can't seem to behave. My son will go out to smoke at 2 or 3 a.m. and deer will stroll down our street!

The Finger Lakes are a great source for recreation and a lot of New York wines are produced within a stone's throw. Naples is about an hour's drive away - grape festivals, grape pie, a lot of arts and crafts dealers, galleries and festivals. And Bob's and Ruth's, an absolute must-stop-at diner.

Canandaigua is another artsy city. It's small, but they always have something going on in the summer. Canandaigua Lady paddlewheel steamboat rides and dining. Arts and crafts festivals, an Italian festival. (Being Italian myself, I fit right in!)

Geeee, and here I was looking for somewhere to go out of state for a vacation. What was I thinking?

Anime-Beta TNG

Where do you live/where would you like to live?

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Where do you live/where would you like to live?