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The promise of telecommuting for me isn't living three miles way from my nearest neighbor, but rather living in a town of less than 10,000 people and still maki

The promise of telecommuting for me isn't living three miles way from my nearest neighbor, but rather living in a town of less than 10,000 people and still making six figures. I live in a town of 7,000 with a strong community and a good downtown, but I don't have to commute a half hour into the city. Instead I can wake up at 7am, walk down to the local coffee shop and chill for a bit, then go back home and work. I can pop out for lunch to the diner, and at 5 when everyone is just getting into their cars, I'm already at the local brewery unwinding. That's the kind of lifestyle previously reserved for people living and working downtown in major cities, but can be (and for me is) a reality in small-town America. I make more money in one year than it cost me to buy my downtown, 2000 sq ft house with a two car garage and a half acre of land. And I don't have to drive anywhere unless I want to. That's what remote working can offer. That's what small towns should be promising today.

krisroadruck 8y ago
So very much this. I don't want to be disconnected from the world, I just want my location to be disconnected from my employment. I don't want to be forced into one of only 2 or 3 hyper-inflated housing market cities because that's where all the decent paying gigs have decided to focus their headquarters. I can and do make friends and socialize anywhere I go, but most of the places I like are nothing like New York or San Francisco, and most of them have a hell of a lot better cost of living.
jfoutz 8y ago
I'd take it one step further and say think about a little office a floor or two above that coffee shop, across from an artist or a lawyer. There's something nice about a place for work and a place for home. It's nicer when they're separated by a few small obstacles. With a home office, you don't have to put on pants to go to work. It's always beckoning. Although, your small town might be relaxed about walking around pantless, the walk alone will help give some hysteresis between switching from work mode to home mode.
- awvcs 8y ago
  I guess the promise of remote work is a lot about the promise of not having to pay premium for space. I can't help thinking though that once remote work become more common the same thing would happen to nice places in smaller towns as have happened to nice places in cities.
  - nitrogen 8y ago
    There is a lot of "out there" out there.
CalRobert 8y ago
I want to live in a walkable place where I can ride my bike without dying. I also want the same for my kid. Right now, in the US, that means cities. That's _it_. And even then, most cities are horrible places to cycle. But it doesn't have to be that way. I'd love to walk or cycle around Houten (NL, pop ~45,000 and built for walking and cycling from the beginning), or perhaps Rothenburg Ob Der Tauber in the old town centre (Germany, pop 10,000 for the town as a whole, smaller within the medieval walls of course). I just can't think of any place built since the rise of the car which is not a city, and pleasant to walk in, aside from some very small communities like ecovillages (which are nice but not going to be self contained) - https://ecovillage.org/ https://ecovillage.org/ . Even towns in the US that like to think of themselves as fitting this tend to be fantastically expensive and still very car dependent (San Luis Obispo comes to mind)
- freehunter 8y ago
  You might be surprised. My Midwestern 7,000 population town doesn't have very many dedicated bike lanes, but biking in town is incredibly common (to the point that the local library allows you to check out bikes like books) and we have a long-distance bike trail connecting us to the nearest "big" city. Not every town is like that, of course, which is why I picked this town to live in. The best walkable/bikable towns, I've found, don't advertise themselves as walkable or bikable. They just are.
  - CalRobert 8y ago
    If you don't mind sharing, can I ask what town it might be? Or if you don't want to reveal your home do you know of any others with similar traits?
    - freehunter 8y ago
      I'd rather not say where I live (even though I love my city and really do want you to move here), but I can tell you how to find similar cities. Pick a mid-size Midwestern metro area (say, Madison Wisconsin), then do a Google search for "best suburbs around Madison Wisconsin". I see a site like niche.com and click on it. I know the first few results are likely to be the most expensive places to live, so if my budget is high those are where I'm going. I might go down into to 5-10 range if I'm looking for a more budget-friendly place. Now I'm looking at Oregon, WI, which is about 15 miles from downtown Madison. Bringing it up in Google Maps, looks like there's a bike trail that will take me all the way into Madison without having to ride on the road? Score. Zillow shows housing prices around $150-$300k, great. Yelp shows a coffee house and a couple of tasty looking restaurants. Doesn't seem to be any local breweries, but oh well. I'll also check out Verona, another well rated suburb. Looks to be a bit more expensive in housing, but also more local food options. Again a solid bike trail into the big city. Monona might be a little too close to the big city. Sun Prairie might be a little too far away. Disclaimer, I've never lived in any of those cities, so this is all based on just 5 minutes worth of Internet research. YMMV. We got lucky when we settled down in that we knew what state we wanted to live in and what metro area we wanted to be around. From there it was just trying to find a bedroom community with a good solid downtown. Most suburbs close to the city won't have a downtown (they're more like residential areas), so it really narrows your choices a lot. I like using Google Maps to find area bike trails and bike lanes, which helps show how seriously a town/area takes bike safety and their overall attitude towards bikers/pedestrians. Hopefully that helps.

krisroadruck 8y ago

So very much this. I don't want to be disconnected from the world, I just want my location to be disconnected from my employment. I don't want to be forced into one of only 2 or 3 hyper-inflated housing market cities because that's where all the decent paying gigs have decided to focus their headquarters. I can and do make friends and socialize anywhere I go, but most of the places I like are nothing like New York or San Francisco, and most of them have a hell of a lot better cost of living.

jfoutz 8y ago

I'd take it one step further and say think about a little office a floor or two above that coffee shop, across from an artist or a lawyer. There's something nice about a place for work and a place for home. It's nicer when they're separated by a few small obstacles. With a home office, you don't have to put on pants to go to work. It's always beckoning. Although, your small town might be relaxed about walking around pantless, the walk alone will help give some hysteresis between switching from work mode to home mode.

awvcs 8y ago
I guess the promise of remote work is a lot about the promise of not having to pay premium for space. I can't help thinking though that once remote work become more common the same thing would happen to nice places in smaller towns as have happened to nice places in cities.
- nitrogen 8y ago
  There is a lot of "out there" out there.

CalRobert 8y ago

I want to live in a walkable place where I can ride my bike without dying. I also want the same for my kid. Right now, in the US, that means cities. That's _it_. And even then, most cities are horrible places to cycle. But it doesn't have to be that way. I'd love to walk or cycle around Houten (NL, pop ~45,000 and built for walking and cycling from the beginning), or perhaps Rothenburg Ob Der Tauber in the old town centre (Germany, pop 10,000 for the town as a whole, smaller within the medieval walls of course). I just can't think of any place built since the rise of the car which is not a city, and pleasant to walk in, aside from some very small communities like ecovillages (which are nice but not going to be self contained) - https://ecovillage.org/ https://ecovillage.org/ . Even towns in the US that like to think of themselves as fitting this tend to be fantastically expensive and still very car dependent (San Luis Obispo comes to mind)

freehunter 8y ago
You might be surprised. My Midwestern 7,000 population town doesn't have very many dedicated bike lanes, but biking in town is incredibly common (to the point that the local library allows you to check out bikes like books) and we have a long-distance bike trail connecting us to the nearest "big" city. Not every town is like that, of course, which is why I picked this town to live in. The best walkable/bikable towns, I've found, don't advertise themselves as walkable or bikable. They just are.
- CalRobert 8y ago
  If you don't mind sharing, can I ask what town it might be? Or if you don't want to reveal your home do you know of any others with similar traits?
  - freehunter 8y ago
    I'd rather not say where I live (even though I love my city and really do want you to move here), but I can tell you how to find similar cities. Pick a mid-size Midwestern metro area (say, Madison Wisconsin), then do a Google search for "best suburbs around Madison Wisconsin". I see a site like niche.com and click on it. I know the first few results are likely to be the most expensive places to live, so if my budget is high those are where I'm going. I might go down into to 5-10 range if I'm looking for a more budget-friendly place. Now I'm looking at Oregon, WI, which is about 15 miles from downtown Madison. Bringing it up in Google Maps, looks like there's a bike trail that will take me all the way into Madison without having to ride on the road? Score. Zillow shows housing prices around $150-$300k, great. Yelp shows a coffee house and a couple of tasty looking restaurants. Doesn't seem to be any local breweries, but oh well. I'll also check out Verona, another well rated suburb. Looks to be a bit more expensive in housing, but also more local food options. Again a solid bike trail into the big city. Monona might be a little too close to the big city. Sun Prairie might be a little too far away. Disclaimer, I've never lived in any of those cities, so this is all based on just 5 minutes worth of Internet research. YMMV. We got lucky when we settled down in that we knew what state we wanted to live in and what metro area we wanted to be around. From there it was just trying to find a bedroom community with a good solid downtown. Most suburbs close to the city won't have a downtown (they're more like residential areas), so it really narrows your choices a lot. I like using Google Maps to find area bike trails and bike lanes, which helps show how seriously a town/area takes bike safety and their overall attitude towards bikers/pedestrians. Hopefully that helps.