4 ms·
I think you aren't seeing all the options: 1. super-dense city core (your current situation) 2. mega sprawl like LA and Houston 3. traditional suburb, wi
by tropo 10y ago
I think you aren't seeing all the options:
1. super-dense city core (your current situation)
2. mega sprawl like LA and Houston
3. traditional suburb, with long commute into a city
4. out on the farm/ranch, maybe telecommuting
5. small town
6. small city
In particular, I think #6 is what you are missing out on. By that I mean the sort of place with 50 to 100 thousand people, laid out like a suburb but not oriented around commuting to a big city. The population density would be 1000 to 2000 per square mile.
In this sort of place, commuting is easy by both bicycle and car. Traffic is seldom much of a concern. Parking is plentiful. Usually the houses are cheap, frequently 100 to 500 thousand for free-standing homes with yards. Usually the schools are good, with enough people to have a full set of advanced classes at the local high school.
I've lived in several of these in several states. My commute is typically single-digit miles. I normally drive, but walking isn't much trouble. Currently I walk less than a mile. I'll need to do 5 miles in the near future, which should take 10 minutes by car.
What is not to like about it?
- freeone3000 10y agoIt doesn't scale, by definition.
- tropo 10y agoIt scales just fine. The continental USA can hold about 200000 of these, with a total population of 6 to 12 billion. (hey, that's everybody!) Scale by making more cities, not bigger cities.
- Spooky23 10y agoHeresy! If you don't live in SFO or NYC you're doomed to a miserable existence of restless toil.
- jdhn 10y agoI know you say this in jest, but I'll be damned if this isn't a sadly predominant attitude among people I know.
- harryjo 10y agoIf NYC was such a bad idea, why is it a massive portion of the US economy?
- Spooky23 10y agoI didn't say it was a bad idea. But... a significant percentage of professional jobs are in the NY Metro area, but not in the movie ideal NYC environment.
- DougN7 10y agoIt's not a bad idea. There's just a few hundred million of us that don't want to live there/that way. I'm happy for everyone that does want to be there.
- crooked-v 10y agoThere's also option #7, small city that's a short commute away from a large city. There are a lot of places in New England that are like this.
- ghaff 10y agoFurthermore, there seems to be an implicit assumption that the job is in the large city--which it often isn't.
- harryjo 10y agoSmall city has 0 or 1 employers that are larger than local in scope. It's fine if you are an accountant or dentist or carpenter and there aren't too many like you in town already, but what if you work in a specialized industry?
- tropo 10y agoConsider Melbourne, FL. It's in that size range. It has Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Harris, Embraer, GE Transportation Systems, GE Energy Management, FightLite Industries, Thales, Raytheon, DRS, and a bunch of little cyberwar startups. So there is plenty related to aircraft, cyberwar, and generally all sorts of engineering/manufacturing/etc. for government (especially military) purposes. Working in a specialized industry is fine. The city is specialized. OTOH, moving elsewhere is not the end of the world. There are many other fine small cities all across America. You don't have to live where there is more than one job suited for you. Moving every now and then will let you experience more of America.