City, Suburb or Rural living. Pros and Cons

[expat]

My personal experience,
I was born in the suburbs of London, England. When I started work, I wanted to buy my own house, rather than rent an apartment, but was unable to afford house prices so close to the City, so I was forced to buy about 35 miles out from where I worked, and commute. Which, with traffic would take about 45 minutes each way.
I lived in a small village, which was nice, but, at that age, meeting with friends and entertainment was important to me, and that also meant a longish drive (and not drinking)

Later, I relocated to North America. Still single, I bought a house on 5 acres, 15 minutes from where I worked, Price was cheap, but the area was rural, meaning, I would have to drive 10 minutes just to buy a loaf of bread!

Today, I live on the outskirts of a medium sized town, 45 minutes from the city.
I work from home. Cost of living is moderate to low.

I want to say more on this subject about the efficiencies of where to live.
But I will let others have their say first.

 

[fdcg27]

You've got the pros and cons pretty well nailed.
Buying a house in an outlying area is cheaper than in a nearer suburban one, but usually involves a longish commute.
If the time and cost of the drive don't bother you, then you can get more for your money in the country.
You also get less density, less congestion and less noise.

 

[gathermewool]

We were looking for a "forever home" relatively close to where I work or a nicer city a little over a year ago, but ended up in a small town house 25 minutes from work and about 15-20 minutes to any real sort of entertainment.

Why? Cost of living is the largest reason. ALL of our expenses (mortgage, insurance, bills, condo fees, etc) costs much, much less than that of a "forever home." So, while some of our friends seem to need to be very frugal because of their $200-300k homes, we don't really have to think about it. Heck, it even allows us to apkurgesplurge and keep the thermostat at whatever we want, and even still our gas/electric bill is always well less than $200/month (closer to $100 in the spring and fall.)

Our townhouse-style condo also has a full, independent basement (meets all of our storage needs), has enough living space for our small (but growing) family, and is in a decent area.

We'll need to upgrade eventually, but this has opened our eyes the fact that living cheaply is nice, and that maybe our next home doesn't need to be a giant status symbol, nor right near a decent city/town.

 

[supton]

When I got my license it was common to drive a half hour to get to a store. There were some stores around but small shops. Close to an hour to get to the big mall in Bangor. 20min drive to the high school. Grew up with long distance driving, nothing to get in a car and drive half hour, even an hour.

I bought my house as it was between our places of employment. Later she became stay at home mom, but we got bit by the drop in prices during the recession. Which probably was good, less mortgage. No crime around here, quiet streets, etc. Wife and I are introverts, we go out occasionally but we are more likely to go to the ballet or a musical performance, so no bars, theaters, stadiums etc is no loss for us.

I do wish though to move a bit closer, and be in or next to a village. My commute is an hour each way, and that is just a massive time suck. And money suck. But it beats going from stoplight to stoplight, or stop sign to stop sign, and dealing with traffic. I also swore I would not put my kids through a big school, I hated my time in grade school.

No way to win. But I think I like semi rural more than when I was in college and in a crowded area. More going on but most it I am not interested in.

I do miss biking as a way to get around.

 

[SteveSRT8]

We are what I call medium rural. No 10 minute drives for anything, but most houses are on much larger lots (3 acres and up) than my experience in the city (.5-maybe an acre at most).

The one downside is the really affluent areas where I work are pretty far away. I'll take the compromises any day over packed city life...

 

[hattaresguy]

I like living in an area with stuff to do. Anything more than a 5 minute drive away is annoying.

 

[Rick in PA]

I use to work with a guy who like to say "When you can see the smoke from your neighbors chimney, it's time to move." I guess it's a saying from pioneer days. Some days I understand the sentiment.

 

[Pop_Rivit]

Both my wife and I grew up in rural areas. We met in college, and after we were married our first home was in the city. While it was a money maker for us (we put a tremendous amount of sweat equity into it) we both knew that our goal was to return to a rural lifestyle.

For us, the commute was well worth it. We come home to a quiet setting where we can see the stars when we sit on the deck in the evening. We live far enough away so that we don't hear neighbors or see them unless they visit us or we visit them. The property taxes are far lower-we pay less on our 4200 square foot home than our first 900 square foot home if we still lived there.

As far as driving to buy a loaf of bread, we always planned things so we wouldn't have to go to town for something like a loaf of bread. We like having a garden large enough to supply most of our produce needs during the summer. We also can/freeze some so we have our own during the off-season.

Living in a rural area takes a bit more work, but it's well worth the effort not to be squeezed into small city lots.

 

[eljefino]

I'm somewhere that's "trashy rural". The big news was paving a cow pasture and putting in a Family Dollar. The town still has an abandoned sand pit where "everyone knows" you can go and shoot and stay out of trouble. A perpetual turnpike spur is being proposed which would dump suburbia on our doorsteps, and, presumably, possibly, the preppification that goes along with. All it would take is a planning board that allows smaller lot sizes, and, boom.

My work is "beltway" not "downtown" so the commute is still reasonable at 23 minutes.

We just had a 4th of July ish parade and the floats can still throw candy to the kids on the sidelines. Neighboring towns brought kids to spectate as that's forbidden nearly everywhere else.

I'm also in one of the fewer towns where we don't have to pay by the bag to get rid of trash. Naturally at the dump I'll see rednecks pull in past the recycling and dump a dozen hefty bags, which my tax dollars pay to handle.

My folks bought at the right time, 20 miles west of Boston, in the early 1970s. They 10x'd their investment in 35 years then retired somewhere more rural, then immediately complained that they couldn't get high speed internet. ???

 

[Mr Nice]

I would always want to live near a city the has all the stores I need to shop at on a regular basis. I would hate to live in a concrete jungle with no yard, big parking lot and noisy neighbors. Having dogs I need a yard, working on my cars require a garage, also need a garage for lawnmower / tools.

I work from home 3 days a week, on the road the other 2 so traveling does bother me. Good paying jobs are usually in bigger cities so workers need to live in suburbs and not in a rural area. If you are retired you can live 1 hour from big city with medical facilities / shopping / restaurants /.... etc...

 

[simple_gifts]

Quote:

I use to work with a guy who like to say "When you can see the smoke from your neighbors chimney, it's time to move."


Remember he might see smoke from your windows too.

I live in a village; not a suburb, not rural, not a city.

I can walk to the center of town; pizza, bank, library, food store, shops. I can drop my car off to get fixed and walk home.

This was critical to me, moving into a new area and not having a big support group of people I know in the area.

 

[Shrubitup]

Originally Posted By: fdcg27

You also get less density, less congestion and less noise.


Noise only occurs once you've experienced quiet. Now that I've acclimated to quiet even staying in a hotel somewhere with any noise wakes me - though I am a light sleeper too.

 

[gathermewool]

Originally Posted By: supton
When I got my license it was common to drive a half hour to get to a store. There were some stores around but small shops. Close to an hour to get to the big mall in Bangor. 20min drive to the high school. Grew up with long distance driving, nothing to get in a car and drive half hour, even an hour.

I bought my house as it was between our places of employment. Later she became stay at home mom, but we got bit by the drop in prices during the recession. Which probably was good, less mortgage. No crime around here, quiet streets, etc. Wife and I are introverts, we go out occasionally but we are more likely to go to the ballet or a musical performance, so no bars, theaters, stadiums etc is no loss for us.

I do wish though to move a bit closer, and be in or next to a village. My commute is an hour each way, and that is just a massive time suck. And money suck. But it beats going from stoplight to stoplight, or stop sign to stop sign, and dealing with traffic. I also swore I would not put my kids through a big school, I hated my time in grade school.

No way to win. But I think I like semi rural more than when I was in college and in a crowded area. More going on but most it I am not interested in.

I do miss biking as a way to get around.

I feel the same exact way, and a lot of what you say weighs on me and where we'll decide to finally end up, now that we have a newborn.

I grew up near the city and went to public school with a lot of very bad kids. I was big for my age (nearly 6' tall and 170-180# by the end of middle school, though I lost some of that when I started playing football in highschool,) but didn't have much money, so I got picked on by those same bad kids. I was never smart enough to let it go, so I always fought back. It was rough.

It also wasn't cool to be smart, so I played the sarcastic silly kid in class and often did poorly. It took great football coaches and teachers in highschool to turn me around and get me on the right path, and I'm very thankful for that.

With that said, preppy kids can be bullies too, so where do you really want your kids to go, somewhere that will give them the experiences I had to help them appreciate things or approach them a little differently (and maybe gain a little street smarts) or somewhere that will encourage them to focus on all of the right things, with the right resources? I think the choice is clear, at least to me.

//

My wife is a city girl, and is definitely more cultured than I am, so there's that too. We live close enough to big cities, that I think we can give that experience to our kids with frequent trips, but can still live outside of a small town.

 

[Delta]

I live in a rural neighborhood that used to be a giant cornfield, heck the neighbor catty-corner from me is a cornfield. I love it. I do not mind the minimum 15 minute drive to get to town, gives the cars a chance to get warm anyways. It's quiet and low crime, I could leave everything unlocked and not worry about it. Fact I'm only 4 houses down from where I grew up. It is a rental, but we're trying to restart our lives back "home" so a house will be in our immediate future. Might not be in the same neighborhood, but the same setting. This part of south central PA and north central MD is very rural outside of the larger towns and small cities. Might even move a couple towns over since homes are cheaper, so it might be a 30 minute drive anywhere, but I don't mind.

 

[Cujet]

I live on 2 acres. It's not enough and I'd like at least 10 acres. But, I'm not that far from town. Publix groceries is about 4 miles away, and town is about 6 miles. That's just about right.

My home backs up to the Everglades, my back yard is in fact, protected land that will never be developed. So I'm on the far edge of civilization. I like many aspects of that.

 

[aquariuscsm]

My take and experience:

I HATE small towns. Everyone is related and knows everybody. Seems everyone has their nose in everybody's business and the people are very unfriendly and clannish.

Big cities,there are so many different kinds of people and no one cares who's doing what or knows who. People respect your privacy and don't worry about what so and so is doing. But it can be really congested and busy.

"Suburb cities" which are a few miles outside of a big city is my favorite environment. You have the peacefulness and quietness of a small town without the ignorance and backward/repressed frame of mind of a small town. You're close enough to a big city without being in the middle of the congestion.

I used to live about 5-10 miles outside of DFW which I absolutely loved. Currently shopping for a house there to move back. Property taxes there are cheap too.

 

[gathermewool]

Originally Posted By: aquariuscsm
My take and experience:

I HATE small towns. Everyone is related and knows everybody. Seems everyone has their nose in everybody's business and the people are very unfriendly and clannish.

Big cities,there are so many different kinds of people and no one cares who's doing what or knows who. People respect your privacy and don't worry about what so and so is doing. But it can be really congested and busy.

"Suburb cities" which are a few miles outside of a big city is my favorite environment. You have the peacefulness and quietness of a small town without the ignorance and backward/repressed frame of mind of a small town. You're close enough to a big city without being in the middle of the congestion.

I used to live about 5-10 miles outside of DFW which I absolutely loved. Currently shopping for a house there to move back. Property taxes there are cheap too.


I think my wife has your preference. She wants to live near a city, in a neighborhood with sidewalks. There are no sidewalks here, but the neighborhood is quiet and off the beaten path enough that taking a stroll in the road isn't dangerous.

I'm a bit of a hermit myself, preferring a more rural setting, away from people to maximum extent possible, but within walking distance (5 or so miles) of civilization, so that we're never truly stuck if the power goes out, we're snowed in, or both, and need to walk somewhere for supplies or communication with the outside world.

 

[hattaresguy]

Originally Posted By: aquariuscsm
My take and experience:

I HATE small towns. Everyone is related and knows everybody. Seems everyone has their nose in everybody's business and the people are very unfriendly and clannish.

Big cities,there are so many different kinds of people and no one cares who's doing what or knows who. People respect your privacy and don't worry about what so and so is doing. But it can be really congested and busy.

"Suburb cities" which are a few miles outside of a big city is my favorite environment. You have the peacefulness and quietness of a small town without the ignorance and backward/repressed frame of mind of a small town. You're close enough to a big city without being in the middle of the congestion.

I used to live about 5-10 miles outside of DFW which I absolutely loved. Currently shopping for a house there to move back. Property taxes there are cheap too.



The suburbs are nice, I much prefer older cities, places that have culture and have been around a bit. New Haven, Boston, Philly, and Chicago are my absolute favorites.

 

[gathermewool]

Originally Posted By: hattaresguy
Originally Posted By: aquariuscsm
My take and experience:

I HATE small towns. Everyone is related and knows everybody. Seems everyone has their nose in everybody's business and the people are very unfriendly and clannish.

Big cities,there are so many different kinds of people and no one cares who's doing what or knows who. People respect your privacy and don't worry about what so and so is doing. But it can be really congested and busy.

"Suburb cities" which are a few miles outside of a big city is my favorite environment. You have the peacefulness and quietness of a small town without the ignorance and backward/repressed frame of mind of a small town. You're close enough to a big city without being in the middle of the congestion.

I used to live about 5-10 miles outside of DFW which I absolutely loved. Currently shopping for a house there to move back. Property taxes there are cheap too.



The suburbs are nice, I much prefer older cities, places that have culture and have been around a bit. New Haven, Boston, Philly, and Chicago are my absolute favorites.



That's right, and where else can you get the experience of a life time like New Haven and Philly? All you have to do is take a wrong turn on your nightly walk and experience a stabbing, right before your own eyes! Who knows, you may even get to experience it first-hand!

All joking aside, I'd much rather visit these places than live there, at least at my age. Traffic is terrible due to insufficiently-designed roadways, public transit isn't always very good (I'm talking about you, Boston) and crime really is a problem.

When I was younger, the appeal of a big city was much greater, though I still had my hermit-like tendencies and preferred to people-watch and stay away from congested areas (unless on my way to a play or show) instead of hitting up the clubs and bars.

 

[JustinH]

We live in a subdivision on the outskirts of one of the fastest growing towns in Texas.

It was pretty rural when we got here, I enjoyed it.

Now tons of stuff is being built, and with that comes traffic.

I can still drive two blocks and see cows and longhorns roaming, but now at the other side of the road Bass Pro and Ikea are here.

My next house will be one on several acres in Georgetown or Waco Texas.

Our current house is a lot and a half in the subdivision, and it backs up to a 1.25 acre greenbelt, drainage easement so we aren't right on top of the neighbors but I don't want to see anyone.