Town . City, Village, Rural... where do you prefer to live ?

hollydolly

hollydolly

SF VIP
Location
London England
Do you live in a large cosmopolitan city and wish you lived in the woods..or Vice versa.... do you have to travel far to buy a pint of milk or can you walk out your door to the nearest stores.. and entertainment.... but there's a lot of crime... but you love city life..

Do you live in a large Urban area where there is nothing but houses... no shops no entertaiemnt within easy reach... but love it..


Do you live in a small town, with all the small town gossip.. where everyone knows each other..or knows someone who knows someone who knows all your business..?


Where do you live and what would your prefer?

We once had a nice member here.. who lives/lived in such a remote part of Canada, that several times a year for hospital appointments for him or his wife..meant a 3 day drive.. and often a hotel stay overnight.... but he loves/ed..where he lives..


what about you... do you live in your ideal place? ..if not where it would it be?
 

I live in a continuing care retirement community about 20 miles north of Washington D.C. Just for fun, and a bit off topic, in my 80 years I have lived (excluding college addresses) on an Avenue (Woodstock) (childhood), a Street (N. Adams), a Highway (Lee), a Drive (Holly Ridge), a Court (Loch Ness), a Road (Fox Lair), and now back on a Drive. If I ever move to the main building on campus (for say assisted living or nursing care) I will live on a Circle.
 

I've lived just outside of DC. Since leaving there I've lived very rural. Planning is needed to make certain I don't run out of essentials because even the tiny city closest to me is a 20 minute high speed drive away.

This last move was intentional. Single floor, no or minimal steps. Substantial hospital not more than an hour away.
 
I live in a small bungalow on just under an acre lot on a country road about 10 kilometres from the little town I grew up in. It is not as remote as country roads used to be when I was a kid. In about 15 minutes I can be in the small city that I went high school in and in about 20 minutes I can be in the small town that I worked in for almost forty years.
I still love living here. I have been here for 28 years now. It's a lot different since my wife passed but my little dog Harper and I do just fine.
 
I'm definitely a city person. We live in San Jose which is a city but not much of one at that. Even though it has a big population it lacks a lot of the things I love in a city. Thankfully we're only an hour away from my third favorite city, San Francisco. If I had my way we'd live there but my wife has no desire to do so.

I love live music so being in or near a main hub for music is great for me. I also love the number of restaurants, museums, art galleries and other things that many larger cities have.

In addition it's very convenient for me to live in a big city. We are only 10 to 15 minutes from the San Jose airport that meets many of our travel needs. It is often better to go to San Francisco airport for more direct flights but that's only 40 to 90 minutes away depending on when we go there.

We definitely have lots of problems here, but in my opinion it's well worth dealing with the negatives to have the positives.
 
asp3 said:
I'm definitely a city person. We live in San Jose which is a city but not much of one at that. Even though it has a big population it lacks a lot of the things I love in a city. Thankfully we're only an hour away from my third favorite city, San Francisco. If I had my way we'd live there but my wife has no desire to do so.

I love live music so being in or near a main hub for music is great for me. I also love the number of restaurants, museums, art galleries and other things that many larger cities have.

In addition it's very convenient for me to live in a big city. We are only 10 to 15 minutes from the San Jose airport that meets many of our travel needs. It is often better to go to San Francisco airport for more direct flights but that's only 40 to 90 minutes away depending on when we go there.

We definitely have lots of problems here, but in my opinion it's well worth dealing with the negatives to have the positives.
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Hello.... I just thought of you the other day... it's been a long time....great to see you back...hope you're well.... (y)


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We are thrilled with where we live. We live in a wooded suburb in Dallas County, steps to a lake with 17 miles of trails, but are close enough to the city to be there in 10-15 minutes via surface roads. My doctor, my dentist, my pharmacy and a decent hospital are 10 minutes away as are all sorts of grocery stores and restaurants.

We do occasionally hear cars with loud mufflers, blaring music or an occasional gun shot from a distance but IMO it's all part of having convenience. The area has gentrified unbelievably since we moved here 19 years ago and will continue. Our neighbors are friendly and quiet.

I've looked into living in Mexico or Costa Rica but I think I'd get bored out of my skull taking classes on how to wrap a tamale!
 
Except for a few hiccups along life‘s road, I have always lived rural. While I couldn’t live totally off the grid, I know how and am happy to come pretty close — I like my electricity and my furnace🤠🤠

I have been told a radio should be playing the theme from Deliverance coming up my 1-1/2 lane road. It has no winter maintenance, so when the hairpin curve at the top of the hill full of trees ices over, one had better know how to drive.

One year we had such a horrendous ice storm, my deputy sheriff neighbor had to drive through his field to get to the road further down, and husband didn’t go to work. I shut the horses out of the main pasture for a week because it was a skating rink. We lost power off/on for 106 hours that week. Thank goodness for the generator.

I am only 20 minutes from a hospital in either direction, once I get down to the county road. Less than that from the stores I shop at.

I have no desire whatsoever to leave this hill. I am every bit as grateful to be here as when we moved here 22 years ago.
 
I live in a city of about 150,000 and it suits me at this point in my life.

My neighborhood is a mixed bag with all of the usual benefits and problems.

The old 40s apartment complex of about 200 units, where I live, is characterized as ‘affordable housing’.

I’ve been here for over fifteen years and am simply too lazy to move until it becomes necessary due to advancing age and or declining health.

I would love the luxury of a small seasonal cottage on a remote lake but anything that I could afford would probably be more densely populated than my city neighborhood. 😉🤭😂
 
I live in a farming community on one forested acre on the side of a mountain at 7200 ft elevation, five miles/8km to the nearest town, pop 2100, 25 miles/40km to the nearest Walmart. Six hours to a major city. There is a large creek running through the property, right next to the house. Lots of wildlife. There are neighbors, all very quiet. The house faces a county road that is well-maintained during winter, although I just stay home when it gets snowy. As someone else said, living this way requires some planning ahead.

Lived most of my life in major cities. I do miss some of the stores since here I must drive over an hour to get to Home Depot, etc. I miss Ikea, six hours away. Internet shopping is a savior; the UPS/FedEx drivers know everybody. However, a bad traffic day here is if I have to wait for more than three or four cars to make a turn.

People are friendly and helpful. The only in-person contact I have is when I hire someone to do work on this house or brief encounters with clerks in the local stores. Two weeks may go by before I see other people.

One very unusual thing...the local pharmacy, owned and run by the same man for decades, fills all of my prescriptions. I have the doctor write the scripts to be filled for a year. Four prescriptions, filled for a year, cost $180.00. (I do not have insurance for meds.) The first time I did this, I was expecting it to be $1,000 or so. I asked the clerk if there was some mistake, "this can't be right". She said John-the-pharmacist and owner, doesn't have much of a mark up. I was stunned.
 
I was born in a city ; moved to a village and now live in a mini forest way up north WA way! [small town attached] some say boring - i say peaceful and then even have a HACCS centre for the elderly and will pick you up drop you off and return you later - heaven. Cities and towns yuck villages and forests great!
 
Ideally I'd like to move out of Borehamwood and go somewhere a bit more rural, but as we get older, it's convenient to have the dentist literally just at the end of our road and round the corner, and a Tesco and a Lidl both within staggering distance, as well as the local pharmacy, post office, plumbers, autoparts shop, chip shop and a 7 - 11. The only thing we don't have locally is a pub. However, there is a private club up on the green opposite the shops on Manor Way that one can join, and that is a pub of sorts.

So although I've never liked it here, and have always wanted to move somewhere better, I think I'll probably be taken out of here in a box.
 
I've lived right here in the city of Buffalo for most of my adult life,never left the neighborhood,3 blocks{15 min walking} from where I used to live, my childhood home is 2 blocks away.I can easily walk down the street to local co op for some items There are small shops I can walk to as well
Since I moved here to Canterbury Woods-Gates a yr ago,which is a continuing care retirement community if I need to go anywhere, e.g. dr's appt, grocery shopping, I make a reservation ahead of time take the van,driver will drop me off when I"m ready to call our receptionist will be picked up
I just prefer the city life
 
I live rual and am happy here though housing developments are popping up all over. I'm within 15/20 minutes of several major highways, any store you could ever want, and very good hospitals. Also this area is well known for a variety of park systems where you can hike, bike or kayak.

What I like most is having enough property to be buffered from my neighbors, plus the amount of wildlife that I see or hear daily is always a thrill for me.

The highlighted area is my little piece of the world. Screenshot_20251130_085250_Chrome.jpg
 
hollydolly said:
do you live in your ideal place? ..if not where it would it be?
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Ideal enough. Our home is on mostly wooded acreage on the side of a small mountain with over a quarter mile of road frontage on a lightly traveled, paved road to nowhere. There's a small town with a hospital and basic services about 20 minutes away. Three small (pop. 20,000 - 70,000) cities about an hour away. Two hours to Boston. I haven't been to Boston in over 20 years . . . I detest big cities.
 
spectratg said:
I live in a continuing care retirement community about 20 miles north of Washington D.C. Just for fun, and a bit off topic, in my 80 years I have lived (excluding college addresses) on an Avenue (Woodstock) (childhood), a Street (N. Adams), a Highway (Lee), a Drive (Holly Ridge), a Court (Loch Ness), a Road (Fox Lair), and now back on a Drive. If I ever move to the main building on campus (for say assisted living or nursing care) I will live on a Circle.
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That’s so neat!! I’ve listed all the addresses I’ve lived but never considered whether they were street, road, etc. Now I will go look at my list and make a new list!!
 
An interesting thread, I was surprised to see how many 'townees' would either like to live in a country place or had been forced to move to town for 'convenience. Having lived in a wide variety of rural villages in both GB and Canada all my near 80 life I dont know how long I would last in a town or city but without my son with his own set of rooms downstairs I have little doubt that that is where I would be!

After around a dozen rural homes in 2 countries and the longest time in one place right here right now they may have to drag me outa here, something that may well happen but not soon I hope!
(Jim Slim) I have 30 acres of woodland here thats getting hard to keep up....
 

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