5 ms·

You can get all three, you just have to live somewhere outside the two coasts I think. I’ve got all three in a small town in the middle. I walk on the sidewal

You can get all three, you just have to live somewhere outside the two coasts I think. I’ve got all three in a small town in the middle. I walk on the sidewalk in front of my house to the library that is a few doors down from my incredibly affordable house. It feels like a Norman Rockwell painting. I’m hoping remote work can allow more people to experience this.

gremIin 5y ago
What are you job options if you get laid off? How often do you and your spouse spend time with friends? I would hate moving to a small town and being cut off from seeing friends whenever I want to. Not to mention people tend to congregate towards larger cities, so moving to a small town probably means giving up quality food and my favorite events like sports and the symphony.
- JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
  I’m self-employed, so I can’t be laid off! My gf and I don’t really like to socialize that much and prefer to stay in and play video games and watch tv, so we love it. The ubiquity of the internet has made it possible to live almost anywhere in my opinion. For $25 a month we can see and do pretty much the same thing everyone else is doing every night on the internet. We cook our own meals also. You can always make new friends in a small town. There are trade-offs to be sure, but if you knew how low my mortgage payment is you might choose like we did. :) All the money I save has allowed me to invest heavily, which will allow me to travel and see the world instead of see a city go by every day on a commute to work until I’m old.
  - gremIin 5y ago
    I see, so your "you can have all three, you just have to..." is actually unrealistic/bad advice to those who are not self-employed, not to mention those who actually enjoy doing things in the city.
    - ghaff 5y ago
      How many places is being able to walk to a wide choice of professional jobs a realistic option? (Obviously if you expand the definition to reasonably accessible by public transit, the list gets longer but is still relatively limited given transit options and the fact that many offices are in industrial parks, not cities.) And sports/symphony limit you to a relatively large city or at least a college.
- ghaff 5y ago
  You don't really need to choose. In many places, you can live in a smaller town and be within an hour or so of a city. It doesn't need to be a choice between living in Manhattan or the middle of nowhere in Wyoming.
helen___keller 5y ago
FWIW you can have all of these on the coasts as well. For example, if you can afford a suburban Boston house, you can find any number of small towns in New England where you can afford to live and have a small walkable community (that is to say, in absolute terms these communities are expensive but in relative terms for New England they are not). The problem this is missing is that "walkable" doesn't actually include everything you need to live. Jobs are the most obvious one, for those who don't have remote work or their own business, which is to say for most Americans. You'll also probably end up driving when you need to do serious shopping because your town center's general store isn't a Wal-Mart. Similarly for any number of specialized purchases or services. In any case, small-town living and city living are very different. What's impressive about Japan is bringing a walkable, livable urban form to a mega city of 30 million people. When American towns start growing into cities (or when they are informally annexed into a larger cities' urban region) they usually do so by converting farmland into car-accessible suburbs, which is the problem.
thethethethe 5y ago
Edit: modified the list of cities based on comments Is your neighborhood truly walkable though? Do you walk to the grocery store? What about the hospital? dentist? Physical therapist? Pet store? Restaurants? Is there transit nearby? Afaik, there are only a few cities in the US (all costal) which are truly walkable in the traditional sense, SF, NYC, Boston, DC and maybe Philadelphia and only limited parts of the cities are actually walkable. These are the only cities with limited single family zoning and didn't boldoze their city centers to build parking lots and freeways in the 50s like the rest of NA cities (see https://www.vox.com/2014/12/29/7460557/urban-freeway-slider-maps https://www.vox.com/2014/12/29/7460557/urban-freeway-slider-...) Many cities and small towns in the US and Canada may have walkable elements in limited areas, but they are still very car dependent in most cases
- ghaff 5y ago
  The core of Boston is more walkable than SF is. Especially if by "walkable," you really mean walkable and with easy access to expansive public transit to easily get to all the other things you won't have in a small town center or otherwise within a 30 minute or so walk. To the sibling comment, walkable means different things to different people. Walk to a hospital or a grocery store that isn't a small market/convenience store? You're already talking a city at that point. And, in the hospital case, probably not all the medical professionals you might conceivably want to see are likely to be within a one mile or so radius. A ton of places are walkable in the sense that you can buy a house/condo and walk to a restaurant or two and pick up a few groceries. But, as you say, very few cities in the US are walkable in the sense that you really don't need a car without a lot of compromises/depending on others/using personal transportation services a lot.
  - thethethethe 5y ago
    Added an edit to the comment based on your info, thanks
- cnntth 5y ago
  Boston is /very/ walkable, the whole city can be walked end to end in a few hours and Somerville is one of the densest neighborhoods in the U.S. I'll also say D.C. (and to some extent Northern Virginia and select parts of Maryland) makes car ownership optional, the transit system does a good job of covering a lot of neighborhoods. I've been to a few college towns that also, by necessity, are dense and are walkable or at least bikeable oasis in otherwise rural areas.

gremIin 5y ago

What are you job options if you get laid off? How often do you and your spouse spend time with friends? I would hate moving to a small town and being cut off from seeing friends whenever I want to. Not to mention people tend to congregate towards larger cities, so moving to a small town probably means giving up quality food and my favorite events like sports and the symphony.

JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
I’m self-employed, so I can’t be laid off! My gf and I don’t really like to socialize that much and prefer to stay in and play video games and watch tv, so we love it. The ubiquity of the internet has made it possible to live almost anywhere in my opinion. For $25 a month we can see and do pretty much the same thing everyone else is doing every night on the internet. We cook our own meals also. You can always make new friends in a small town. There are trade-offs to be sure, but if you knew how low my mortgage payment is you might choose like we did. :) All the money I save has allowed me to invest heavily, which will allow me to travel and see the world instead of see a city go by every day on a commute to work until I’m old.
- gremIin 5y ago
  I see, so your "you can have all three, you just have to..." is actually unrealistic/bad advice to those who are not self-employed, not to mention those who actually enjoy doing things in the city.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    How many places is being able to walk to a wide choice of professional jobs a realistic option? (Obviously if you expand the definition to reasonably accessible by public transit, the list gets longer but is still relatively limited given transit options and the fact that many offices are in industrial parks, not cities.) And sports/symphony limit you to a relatively large city or at least a college.
ghaff 5y ago
You don't really need to choose. In many places, you can live in a smaller town and be within an hour or so of a city. It doesn't need to be a choice between living in Manhattan or the middle of nowhere in Wyoming.

helen___keller 5y ago

FWIW you can have all of these on the coasts as well. For example, if you can afford a suburban Boston house, you can find any number of small towns in New England where you can afford to live and have a small walkable community (that is to say, in absolute terms these communities are expensive but in relative terms for New England they are not). The problem this is missing is that "walkable" doesn't actually include everything you need to live. Jobs are the most obvious one, for those who don't have remote work or their own business, which is to say for most Americans. You'll also probably end up driving when you need to do serious shopping because your town center's general store isn't a Wal-Mart. Similarly for any number of specialized purchases or services. In any case, small-town living and city living are very different. What's impressive about Japan is bringing a walkable, livable urban form to a mega city of 30 million people. When American towns start growing into cities (or when they are informally annexed into a larger cities' urban region) they usually do so by converting farmland into car-accessible suburbs, which is the problem.

thethethethe 5y ago

Edit: modified the list of cities based on comments Is your neighborhood truly walkable though? Do you walk to the grocery store? What about the hospital? dentist? Physical therapist? Pet store? Restaurants? Is there transit nearby? Afaik, there are only a few cities in the US (all costal) which are truly walkable in the traditional sense, SF, NYC, Boston, DC and maybe Philadelphia and only limited parts of the cities are actually walkable. These are the only cities with limited single family zoning and didn't boldoze their city centers to build parking lots and freeways in the 50s like the rest of NA cities (see https://www.vox.com/2014/12/29/7460557/urban-freeway-slider-maps https://www.vox.com/2014/12/29/7460557/urban-freeway-slider-...) Many cities and small towns in the US and Canada may have walkable elements in limited areas, but they are still very car dependent in most cases

ghaff 5y ago
The core of Boston is more walkable than SF is. Especially if by "walkable," you really mean walkable and with easy access to expansive public transit to easily get to all the other things you won't have in a small town center or otherwise within a 30 minute or so walk. To the sibling comment, walkable means different things to different people. Walk to a hospital or a grocery store that isn't a small market/convenience store? You're already talking a city at that point. And, in the hospital case, probably not all the medical professionals you might conceivably want to see are likely to be within a one mile or so radius. A ton of places are walkable in the sense that you can buy a house/condo and walk to a restaurant or two and pick up a few groceries. But, as you say, very few cities in the US are walkable in the sense that you really don't need a car without a lot of compromises/depending on others/using personal transportation services a lot.
- thethethethe 5y ago
  Added an edit to the comment based on your info, thanks
cnntth 5y ago
Boston is /very/ walkable, the whole city can be walked end to end in a few hours and Somerville is one of the densest neighborhoods in the U.S. I'll also say D.C. (and to some extent Northern Virginia and select parts of Maryland) makes car ownership optional, the transit system does a good job of covering a lot of neighborhoods. I've been to a few college towns that also, by necessity, are dense and are walkable or at least bikeable oasis in otherwise rural areas.