10 ms·

Just wanted to touch on some of what you said, as I took a year to recoup from burnout in a fairly small-sized town... Saving money, and having "time" are grea

Just wanted to touch on some of what you said, as I took a year to recoup from burnout in a fairly small-sized town... Saving money, and having "time" are great, but at least for me the people in small towns live very different lives. The pace is slow and it's easy to become complacent. Compounding that is by not following the pace of life there, you're going against the grain and it will cause friction in your life. Also, if you grew up in small towns, but haven't really been back in a while a lot of them are pretty depressing these days because of things like Amazon... Where I was most, if not all independent retailers/bookstores/etc had gone out of business. In fact, there wasn't a single book store for 90 miles despite roughly 200,000+ people living in the area. Want a tech talk? Probably not unless you're a real estate agent setting up a Wordpress ;P If anyone is thinking about taking the jump and moving back home, or somewhere cheaper, my one suggestion is put a hard time-limit on it "1 year." It helped keep me sane having a deadline. Glad I took the time away, but even more glad I came the fuck back.

ethbro 6y ago
The hollowing out of small town America by Amazon & Walmart is sad to see. You can talk all you want about free market cheaper prices raising all boats, but it doesn't jive with profits circulating within a community vs being shipped back to shareholders. Here but for the missed middle ground where profits were retained locally while leveraging an efficient, free market supply chain.
- reacharavindh 6y ago
  It is sad indeed. A lot of character, creativity, and innovation goes with going big scale with Amazon, Walmart and co. However, thinking a little below the surface about it, it was also inevitable. If not Amazon, someone else is going to leverage the e-commerce scale and profit from it. I see it more like the transition from CDs/DVDs to streaming media. Sure, local video stores provided community, good exploring opportunity to look at movies that may not be in your bubble, kept profits locally etc. but it was inevitable when a more efficient means comes along. With that said, small towns will be forced to innovate yet again and do things that are actually needed and profitable to thrive. Shopping is lost to the big guys already. May be there is something else that is better done locally. Coffee shops, co-working spaces, fitness clubs, skills training centers, workshops, hobby development places etc.
stephen_cagle 6y ago
I think the same advice applies to a lot of potential moves. If you can, AirBnB at least a month before actually making the move. Far cheaper to do that and realize your mistake early than actually move and realize you screwed up. As an additional benefit, if it turns out that it is a place you actually want to move to, you will have a better idea of the sort of neighborhood you might like.
vladvasiliu 6y ago
I get what both you and GP are saying, but isn't there some middle ground? I was thinking of something along the same lines and was fearing pretty much the points you have raised. However, I'm currently living in Paris, France. So in this particular situation, instead of moving to some small town in the middle of nowhere, I could move to some town in the suburbs. That would be far enough for it to be much quieter and calmer than Paris, also much cheaper, especially since I ride a motorcycle so I wouldn't have to be close to public transportation. But it would still be close enough to Paris for it to be practical to attend conferences / cultural events / whatever without spending a day on the road. Don't arrangements like this exist in the US? Say some town 100 km or so from NY / SF that would make a terribly daily commute but would be bearable once in a while when you need to meet people / go to events?
- wikibob 6y ago
  Not really no. Anywhere close enough to commute to a tech hub, is very expensive, because everyone had the same idea.
- rubyn00bie 6y ago
  I've been trying to find a middle ground myself, but haven't yet... I dare to dream. At least in the US, 100km doesn't generally get you a ton of meaningful savings from urban areas especially like SF or NY where their suburbs/sprawl extends for probably twice that range. Where it really gets me is on those days where you somehow just work late and lose track of time, it's 11:00 p.m. and there's literally nothing open not even a grocery store. Or you need something, but it's over three hours of driving one-way or a week via an online retailer (prime, for example, is only two days in dense urban areas). I also live in a pretty progressive bubble here in the states that makes me particular hard to re-home somewhere. I won't live places where my tax dollars fund unfettered fuckery (like that going on in Arizona, Texas, Florida, etc). I've been thinking maybe there are some small/mid-sized cities with somewhat busy regional airports so cheap flights in/out are possible. Long drives just wear one down after a while and start to change how one behaves, it's weird and subtle. Flights are almost always easier/faster than driving and give you some time back since you can, if you want to, do something on the plane. Maybe other folks don't feel it as much, but all those subtle things that slow you down really add up over time. With covid altering our lives for the foreseeable future, perhaps isolation seems more reasonable or acceptable now (making it easier to just focus)... I'd say give it a try, and if you figure out a good process for it, please let me know :)

ethbro 6y ago

The hollowing out of small town America by Amazon & Walmart is sad to see. You can talk all you want about free market cheaper prices raising all boats, but it doesn't jive with profits circulating within a community vs being shipped back to shareholders. Here but for the missed middle ground where profits were retained locally while leveraging an efficient, free market supply chain.

reacharavindh 6y ago
It is sad indeed. A lot of character, creativity, and innovation goes with going big scale with Amazon, Walmart and co. However, thinking a little below the surface about it, it was also inevitable. If not Amazon, someone else is going to leverage the e-commerce scale and profit from it. I see it more like the transition from CDs/DVDs to streaming media. Sure, local video stores provided community, good exploring opportunity to look at movies that may not be in your bubble, kept profits locally etc. but it was inevitable when a more efficient means comes along. With that said, small towns will be forced to innovate yet again and do things that are actually needed and profitable to thrive. Shopping is lost to the big guys already. May be there is something else that is better done locally. Coffee shops, co-working spaces, fitness clubs, skills training centers, workshops, hobby development places etc.

stephen_cagle 6y ago

I think the same advice applies to a lot of potential moves. If you can, AirBnB at least a month before actually making the move. Far cheaper to do that and realize your mistake early than actually move and realize you screwed up. As an additional benefit, if it turns out that it is a place you actually want to move to, you will have a better idea of the sort of neighborhood you might like.

vladvasiliu 6y ago

I get what both you and GP are saying, but isn't there some middle ground? I was thinking of something along the same lines and was fearing pretty much the points you have raised. However, I'm currently living in Paris, France. So in this particular situation, instead of moving to some small town in the middle of nowhere, I could move to some town in the suburbs. That would be far enough for it to be much quieter and calmer than Paris, also much cheaper, especially since I ride a motorcycle so I wouldn't have to be close to public transportation. But it would still be close enough to Paris for it to be practical to attend conferences / cultural events / whatever without spending a day on the road. Don't arrangements like this exist in the US? Say some town 100 km or so from NY / SF that would make a terribly daily commute but would be bearable once in a while when you need to meet people / go to events?

wikibob 6y ago
Not really no. Anywhere close enough to commute to a tech hub, is very expensive, because everyone had the same idea.
rubyn00bie 6y ago
I've been trying to find a middle ground myself, but haven't yet... I dare to dream. At least in the US, 100km doesn't generally get you a ton of meaningful savings from urban areas especially like SF or NY where their suburbs/sprawl extends for probably twice that range. Where it really gets me is on those days where you somehow just work late and lose track of time, it's 11:00 p.m. and there's literally nothing open not even a grocery store. Or you need something, but it's over three hours of driving one-way or a week via an online retailer (prime, for example, is only two days in dense urban areas). I also live in a pretty progressive bubble here in the states that makes me particular hard to re-home somewhere. I won't live places where my tax dollars fund unfettered fuckery (like that going on in Arizona, Texas, Florida, etc). I've been thinking maybe there are some small/mid-sized cities with somewhat busy regional airports so cheap flights in/out are possible. Long drives just wear one down after a while and start to change how one behaves, it's weird and subtle. Flights are almost always easier/faster than driving and give you some time back since you can, if you want to, do something on the plane. Maybe other folks don't feel it as much, but all those subtle things that slow you down really add up over time. With covid altering our lives for the foreseeable future, perhaps isolation seems more reasonable or acceptable now (making it easier to just focus)... I'd say give it a try, and if you figure out a good process for it, please let me know :)