Do you want to live in the city or country? Either way, why? Is there a specific place you’d like to live?
I’m basically there. I wish my property were a bit bigger with some woods and a freshwater stream coming out of the mountains, but I’m like 95% happy. Here is rural northern Japan. Having a grocery store closer would be neat. Maybe if the town grows again (it’s at around 50% of its pre-tsunami population) the one nearby will reopen.
Awesome that you’re basically there - it sounds like the idyllic environment I’ve seen in a lot of Ghibli shows. I definitely get the grocery store thing … I’ve lived in a few rural areas and the trip to get supplies is always a bit of a downer.
Between the flags on the Paseo Boriqua, Humboldt Park, Chicago
That’s pretty specific.
I’m not familiar, but an image search makes it look like you’re describing the middle of a roadway. Did I find the wrong thing?
Not the middle of the roadway, but the buildings lining it. Paseo Boriqua is the cultural heart of the neighborhood.
I want to live in an area that has a great music scene. It has to be clean and pleasant with plenty of community engagement and friendly people. I have to be able to afford a home, food, healthcare, and some things that I and the family just want. I don’t want to be scared for myself or my transgender kids, or my wife. I don’t want to be scared of the government or the people who wanted this version of it.
Basically, I want to live in United States that was promised to me when I was a kid. No matter where it is.
EDIT: Or Cicely, AK.
Always the city. I would like to remove Buffalo from the US and transplant just over the border to Canada and move there. It’s such a cool city.
Ireland or Finland. Senegal or Mexico when the cold gets unbearable
I want to live in the woods in New Hampshire again some day. It’s a beautiful place and also a place where the state and local governments don’t make me grind my teeth in frustration all the time*. I would have a house, a lot of land, and no neighbors except for pine trees.
I had most of that already and I left, because I was very lonely - I think I talked to another person face to face about once every few weeks. I thought I would be OK with that because I was used to being alone, but having no family, no friends, and a 100% remote job was too much for me. Apparently even I start going crazy if I am that isolated. Now I live somewhere I really don’t like (New York City) but I’m close to my family.
*New Hampshire is a rather libertarian state. Taxes are low but the town where I lived (population 15,000) didn’t provide water, sewers, or garbage collection. Many things are legal that aren’t legal in most other places. For example, you can drive without insurance, set off fireworks, and do almost anything with a gun except shoot another person. The state motto is “Live free or die,” and I would tell my guests that as long as they did one or the other, the state’s duty to them would be satisfied.
That sounds nice. I work remotely now and don’t talk to people outside of my home very often, but I do have a family that lives with me and they provide plenty of interaction. When we were moving, I did spend a few weeks completely alone here and it did get pretty lonely. I’m sorry you now live somewhere you don’t like.
No need to be sorry for me - I think my story is of the “learning what really matters” sort and my family is much more important to me than where I live is.
That’s a very respectable attitude.
Not in one single place.
I am lucky right now that my life is spread over 2 continents, with vastly different cultures and climates, and I love it
I also love the contrast, because not any single place is perfect, and switching every few months is just the best
There’s no single one-size-fits-all solution to your question. But maybe there are several answers.
Cabin in the woods near a river or lake somewhere in Alaska. I love the cold and the snow. I want big dogs. I like chipping wood for heat. I enjoy being along the evergreens.
I’d like to leave the United States first. Someplace diverse where I can walk or use public transit, and that has clean water and air. If there’s wilderness, hiking trails, or any other kind of nature relatively close that would be pretty swell.
Canada where all the rich ppl go I assume they know better than me
Interesting reasoning!
I want to either live in the city. Walking to everything, choices for stuff to do, people…
Or
Be in a cabin near a small in the middle of nowhere. With Internet though :p
Sounds like your preferences are pretty flexible.
Forgot to mention, never the burbs!
Really, talking realistically I’d move far north domestically, far from cities.
But if we’re talking ideally, I would definitely love Longyearbyen or the region in general. But that’s not even remotely feasible, if we are being entirely honest.
I’d never heard of that, but it looks very nice. A local merchant says that his brother lives in Norway and he loves to visit.
Insert joke along the lines of ‘I don’t.’
More seriously, I’ve thought about this a bit. The simple answer is already seen in other responses: rural enough to escape crowds, close enough to urbanity to get good internet. The more perspicacious answer is overly complex: someplace where the weather is mild enough not to kill you if you lose your keys, and likely to stay that way despite climate change, mountainous enough to have nice views and avoid flooding, flat enough to build, sparse enough for land to be affordable, populous enough to be able to get the things I want without making a long trek, wooded enough to get the benefit of trees, bare enough to allow access, not too many racists or zealots, not too rich or poor of neighbors, neighbors not close enough to disturb me, but not so far that I couldn’t run over for something if needed, somewhere politically stable, somewhere I can work without a million-mile commute, where the soil doesn’t suck, where there’s a pleasant amount of rain and sun…
It’s not a small question.
You’re mostly describing where I live! It’s really nice here. However, a few of your points are things that are lacking that I definitely wish I had. Oh well - I think this is the happiest I’ve ever been with my surroundings.
Maybe not the answer you were looking for, but I felt like sharing. I am in a stage of life I want to live wherever I find stability, it can be anywhere.
I’ve moved a lot searching for a better place and always found both happiness and misery in those four countries. There are problems everywhere and choosing those I actually care about makes my daily life a bit more meaningful.
