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[qualifier: a parent grew up rural, strived for it while mid-life and retired rural + 8 years living in Alaska living both in Anchorage and Kenai.] I've lived

[qualifier: a parent grew up rural, strived for it while mid-life and retired rural + 8 years living in Alaska living both in Anchorage and Kenai.] I've lived in Seattle for over 20 years now. I left Alaska because there was no tech scene and other personal pursuits weren't ending in anything with a future at the time. I managed to catch this city right as it was getting it's first dose of gentrification blotting out all those references that inspired and sustained the "grunge" scene as it had already died, was creamated by the record label and became "Alt-Rock" as told by the local radio station reference KNDD. This past year, my partner passed away and while I already had this fuzzy/warm idea of relocating out of town. So looking at the geopolitics, recent personal events and my home value that has literally exploded over the past 10+ years, I present my opinion with these optics and pragmatism. It honestly boils down to your own goals and where you think opportunity would have a greater chance of landing or being realized. Humans and especially hyper-nerds like HN readers are always datamining information from "the great collective" as if it's a sure thing. But that's honestly a fallacy of human nature to be "reassured" that is reinforced/exploited by cable news "commentary shows" and a form of rhetorical bias to get the dopamine fix through self-affirming data. If you are not into the communal/rural collective, neighbor helping neighbor even if they could be MAGA-hat wearing, Ted Cruz worshipping, God/Guns/Glory rednecks that espouse every stereotype and have no problems living within their own echo chamber because they are in "'Murrica" and wonder why you aren't stepping in line with the rest of "us" sheep person OR are profoundly judea-christian religous but not a Jew, then cities maybe better just in the context of finding like-minded people. It's the same reason why swing states often have a duality of "blue cities/red rural districts". States have different vibes, politics and laws steming from said political vibes. Whether or not city or country inside the state doesn't matter as much as "commute time vs. lifestyle-opportunity goals" in most cases. If you think you are a corner case, then test it. But this is how I'm breaking down the information. In the city, we try to get as much done inside the localized 24 hours we have. In the country, they are limited by nature or opportunity set by nature thus the timescale is distorted by this reality where there are hard deadlines for crop growing and harvesting which makes or breaks their bankroll. In Alaska they call it "Alaska Time" but on islands and other places, they call it "Island Time". Surely, you could try to apply the same 24 hour logic to living rurally, but our society isn't 100% built for a 24-hour lifestyle unless you have everything from your vocation to your location tuned for it. Like working remote in Europe/Asia but live in NYC - such is almost unicorn outside such a work/life balance. Then there is the balance itself: Why would you move to the country in the first place? Have you ever been, are you from and are you striving to return to it? Do you already have plans to be an employer or landlord? Do you understand the financial risks and capital investment needs going rural? I finally got my parent hooked up with Starlink this year. Prior to that, they had spotty "wireless based" internet service because the local ISP didn't give two fucks as they were the only game in town due to the majors whitewashing their coverage data or groups already invested the tens of thousands of dollars to "energize" a new cable run off a feeder spur and the person at the farthest end of the span may have or may be getting reimbursed for paying the initial cost. Which is the case for most utilities - they will run you a line/feed and hook you up if you live on a private island in the middle of a ocean: if you're willing to pay for the costs involved deploying it. But just this fact alone kept all of my siblings from spending more than a week with my rural parents due to the horrid connectivity and the mobile speed/data costs upon their cap. And a few of them are some of the first "telecommuters" on the Internet being "[Virtual] Personal Assistants" for those who need them. Then there was this disparity between "cable/satellite" and the multiple screen/cord-cutting we've all been party to with NetFlix and Disney+. There are offerings that never will be replayed on any "traditional" service like DirectTV or Comcast. Like the many "Amazon" or "Netflix" produced movies/series. Nor do you see them being offered in DVD/BD boxsets compilations either. But, for city people, this is such a large part of the "watercooler" talk we partake in at the office when we were there. If it wasn't this, it was usually the NFL game from the weekend, amirite? Cities - yes there is convenience due to the proximity. And you can replicate the same experience in the country if you hire a personal assistant or subscribe with those that strive to deliver similar. Really that's what the difference is: method of delivery. If we had "matter resequencing printers" such as those in Star Trek or Neal Stephenson's "The Diamond Age", it would be another checkbox in the relocation column of urban/rural. But cities are the people and we make up the cities even if we strive to never interact with anyone. But beware, now that we live in personal "burbclaves" in the city, realize that reality is still very real for those without homes - hence 3rd Avenue in Seattle - TODAY. Seattle has lost what made Seattle quirky under the gentrification boom of the first two 21st century decades where the push to release was the trump card to culture and social gathering. Sure we still have festivals like Bumbershoot and NW Folklife, but even all the multitude of coffee shops have been bankrupted by Starbucks and Keurig. So unless you fall way outside of the city stereotype of "woke liberal professional/struggling but aspiring robot" and the suburbs are still too tight , or you're tired of sharing a wall, or maybe you can't contain all your crap within 1500sf of space without getting a storage unit.... stay in the city. If you are self-sufficient and are willing to both give and take that mindset to someone who may/maynot like the color of your skin or music, go country - but be ready to invest and spread your income around sprouting new business as they don't have money and you're not likely to buy real friendship in most places without showing your willingness to shovel shit with them. As I tell the kids now, "Not everyone can be an Astronaut, but just about everyone can use a shovel."

prohobo 5y ago
Thanks for the in depth response, it took me a while to read it properly. It seems to me that cities are full of silly people who work each other to death in one way or another for no real benefit. You mention homelessness, and that's also part of what I'm talking about: people go to cities looking for opportunity, and end up simply subsisting. There's zero community, if you have a streak of bad luck you're fucked and serve as a warning to others. There are a few people who deeply embed themselves into elitist cliques, at great personal cost, and the rest just work 9-6 then do nothing except things that are Instagram-friendly. My point is that all cities have lost nearly everything that once made them attractive for tech people: 1) Culture is driven by the internet now. As long as you have good internet, you're in. In Europe, that means basically anywhere. The art/tech scenes are gone. The only art scene that isn't totally dead is urban graffiti, otherwise everything is better online. When people say there's a "tech scene" somewhere they mean there's a bunch of strangers sitting around on beanbags in a warehouse called something like "Bit Factory". 2) Networking happens on the internet. Geographical proximity is now dictated by a range of time zones rather than kilometers. 3) City wealth is illusory. Software engineers in London make £40k-£60k per year, which is way more than anywhere else in Europe - but they spend £2k per month on their apartments and end up having nothing to show for it all. The only "compelling" reason anyone ever gives these days for why you should live in a city is: good food and nightlife. Sorry, but living for nights out is embarrassingly stupid. It would be one thing if it meant fostering deep social connections, but who are we kidding? On a night out in most places you're either rich or you're a clown with piss-stained shoes. The only reason that makes sense to me is that sometimes you need to access resources and get training in things you can't find outside of the city. Things like cooking classes, for example. This is a very good reason to have cities, but I'd be happy to commute an hour every few days to access those resources. I have lived in the suburbs, satellite towns, and the boonies (rural), and I used to like those people much more than city people. But I don't know what those places are like anymore. You mention having lived in Alaska, which reminds me of that show "Northern Exposure" where the big city doctor is forced to move to Anchorage and ends up becoming part of the community. I'm not sure that kind of thing is actually possible, because this isn't TV and because of the realities of a world with the internet.

prohobo 5y ago

Thanks for the in depth response, it took me a while to read it properly. It seems to me that cities are full of silly people who work each other to death in one way or another for no real benefit. You mention homelessness, and that's also part of what I'm talking about: people go to cities looking for opportunity, and end up simply subsisting. There's zero community, if you have a streak of bad luck you're fucked and serve as a warning to others. There are a few people who deeply embed themselves into elitist cliques, at great personal cost, and the rest just work 9-6 then do nothing except things that are Instagram-friendly. My point is that all cities have lost nearly everything that once made them attractive for tech people: 1) Culture is driven by the internet now. As long as you have good internet, you're in. In Europe, that means basically anywhere. The art/tech scenes are gone. The only art scene that isn't totally dead is urban graffiti, otherwise everything is better online. When people say there's a "tech scene" somewhere they mean there's a bunch of strangers sitting around on beanbags in a warehouse called something like "Bit Factory". 2) Networking happens on the internet. Geographical proximity is now dictated by a range of time zones rather than kilometers. 3) City wealth is illusory. Software engineers in London make £40k-£60k per year, which is way more than anywhere else in Europe - but they spend £2k per month on their apartments and end up having nothing to show for it all. The only "compelling" reason anyone ever gives these days for why you should live in a city is: good food and nightlife. Sorry, but living for nights out is embarrassingly stupid. It would be one thing if it meant fostering deep social connections, but who are we kidding? On a night out in most places you're either rich or you're a clown with piss-stained shoes. The only reason that makes sense to me is that sometimes you need to access resources and get training in things you can't find outside of the city. Things like cooking classes, for example. This is a very good reason to have cities, but I'd be happy to commute an hour every few days to access those resources. I have lived in the suburbs, satellite towns, and the boonies (rural), and I used to like those people much more than city people. But I don't know what those places are like anymore. You mention having lived in Alaska, which reminds me of that show "Northern Exposure" where the big city doctor is forced to move to Anchorage and ends up becoming part of the community. I'm not sure that kind of thing is actually possible, because this isn't TV and because of the realities of a world with the internet.