4 ms·

Yeah I'd be a miserable alcoholic within a month of living in a city, I'm just not wired for it at all. I get depressed living long enough in a place I can't se

Yeah I'd be a miserable alcoholic within a month of living in a city, I'm just not wired for it at all. I get depressed living long enough in a place I can't see the stars, let alone being able to almost taste the pollution every day. A lot of city-dwellers seem to think people like you or I don't exist or can be 'nudged' (behavioural psychology word for 'gaslighted' in my opinion) into adopting urban life for an abstract greater good. People sell these massive vertical arcologies as some kind of ideal but frankly I'd rather jump off the top of one than live in it. If urbanisation became mandatory I'd literally emmigrate to anywhere it wasn't even if it meant giving up my profession, I'd rather be lonely in a foreign land than forced into an urban life I'd actively despise a good 2/3s of my existence in. I cannot stress enough how deeply I reject the idea of moving to a city, and the lengths I will go to so that I can retain a rural life.

mywittyname 5y ago
Rural living can be inefficient, especially for people who want the best of both worlds: lots of space and quick access to amenities. Fossil fuels are what made this possible, in moving away from them, rural living might mean living closer to how things were 100+ years ago. Or maybe it means living an rural lifestyle is just an expensive luxury.
- nayuki 5y ago
  Not just fossil fuels, but urban infrastructure dedicated to helping people who don't live in the city - highways, parking lots, street parking.
  - 1234letshaveatw 5y ago
    That same infrastructure supplies consumables to urban residents and removes garbage, the residents aren't self-sustaining. The infrastructure doesn't exist solely for the benefit of visitors.
    - nayuki 5y ago
      That is not true to the same degree. If urban roads were only for supplying goods and removing garbage - not accommodating visitors - then the width of roads and size of parking lots would be vastly reduced. Look at Tokyo.
- BoxOfRain 5y ago
  For me I'm genuinely not too bothered about getting around, my friends are already scattered over the country in the course of their careers so if I want to see most of them I'm getting on a train regardless of urban or rural life. I work from home so commuting isn't a concern any more, and while I do currently live within fairly easy (20 minutes or so) cycling distance of grocery shops I can get much further on the bike if I have to - without a commute I have time for that kind of thing. While I'm leaving it behind temporarily to travel (planning on living on a sailing boat for a few years and seeing more of Europe now covid restrictions are going away) my plan is to eventually set up somewhere even more rural and go as off-grid as possible with a view to minimising my carbon footprint as low as I can and generally being at least minimally self-sufficient for the next global crisis. I've been learning to drive later in life than most due to medical doubt whether I'd be safe and rural life without it is definitely possible without being rich - it's just less convenient as you point out. I'm lucky that most of my hobbies are either outdoors by definition or don't really need anything more than a plug socket which isn't the case for everyone, I get that lots of people couldn't hack living out in the country away from the things they do and if others want to urbanise I don't have an issue with that but for me personally I couldn't do the reverse either. It just grinds my gears when people think all humans are compatible with urbanisation because for me it really is the difference between an ordinary life and being profoundly depressed on a permanent basis.
AngryData 5y ago
Im with you on this. On top of that, urban living would make many of my skills and livelihood either absurdly expensive or straight up impossible. I can't put my vehicle up on blocks to work on or repair it in a city, my woodworking woodshop would be absurdly expensive and with my wood having to be shipped in from hundreds of miles away rather than cut within a few miles of me, people would complain about me hammering or grinding metal at 9 PM or later or likely in the middle of the day in many cases, I certainly couldn't burn wood for heat that is completely sustainable from the surrounding land, I couldn't grow the 50% of my own food myself, and storage space for the many materials that are required for anything I build or grow or repair would be an absurd expense. Basically all of those skills would become worthless and living my frugal and resource efficient lifestyle would be impossible.
BirdieNZ 5y ago
Can I ask who it is that you see pushing people towards urban life over suburban or rural? What I mostly see is people saying that suburbia and rural areas are being subsidised by urban dwellers and that people should pay their fair share of the costs of their lifestyle. You're not going to ever be banned from living rural or suburban in any Western democracy, but right now suburbia is subsidised in most cities in the West, and there are heaps of land-use restrictions that stop people doing reasonable things like building houses. In fact, it sounds like what you want is the freedom to live the lifestyle you want, and that's all that YIMBYs really want: freedom to build houses on their land, and people paying their fair share of the costs of their infrastructure.

mywittyname 5y ago

Rural living can be inefficient, especially for people who want the best of both worlds: lots of space and quick access to amenities. Fossil fuels are what made this possible, in moving away from them, rural living might mean living closer to how things were 100+ years ago. Or maybe it means living an rural lifestyle is just an expensive luxury.

nayuki 5y ago
Not just fossil fuels, but urban infrastructure dedicated to helping people who don't live in the city - highways, parking lots, street parking.
- 1234letshaveatw 5y ago
  That same infrastructure supplies consumables to urban residents and removes garbage, the residents aren't self-sustaining. The infrastructure doesn't exist solely for the benefit of visitors.
  - nayuki 5y ago
    That is not true to the same degree. If urban roads were only for supplying goods and removing garbage - not accommodating visitors - then the width of roads and size of parking lots would be vastly reduced. Look at Tokyo.
BoxOfRain 5y ago
For me I'm genuinely not too bothered about getting around, my friends are already scattered over the country in the course of their careers so if I want to see most of them I'm getting on a train regardless of urban or rural life. I work from home so commuting isn't a concern any more, and while I do currently live within fairly easy (20 minutes or so) cycling distance of grocery shops I can get much further on the bike if I have to - without a commute I have time for that kind of thing. While I'm leaving it behind temporarily to travel (planning on living on a sailing boat for a few years and seeing more of Europe now covid restrictions are going away) my plan is to eventually set up somewhere even more rural and go as off-grid as possible with a view to minimising my carbon footprint as low as I can and generally being at least minimally self-sufficient for the next global crisis. I've been learning to drive later in life than most due to medical doubt whether I'd be safe and rural life without it is definitely possible without being rich - it's just less convenient as you point out. I'm lucky that most of my hobbies are either outdoors by definition or don't really need anything more than a plug socket which isn't the case for everyone, I get that lots of people couldn't hack living out in the country away from the things they do and if others want to urbanise I don't have an issue with that but for me personally I couldn't do the reverse either. It just grinds my gears when people think all humans are compatible with urbanisation because for me it really is the difference between an ordinary life and being profoundly depressed on a permanent basis.

AngryData 5y ago

Im with you on this. On top of that, urban living would make many of my skills and livelihood either absurdly expensive or straight up impossible. I can't put my vehicle up on blocks to work on or repair it in a city, my woodworking woodshop would be absurdly expensive and with my wood having to be shipped in from hundreds of miles away rather than cut within a few miles of me, people would complain about me hammering or grinding metal at 9 PM or later or likely in the middle of the day in many cases, I certainly couldn't burn wood for heat that is completely sustainable from the surrounding land, I couldn't grow the 50% of my own food myself, and storage space for the many materials that are required for anything I build or grow or repair would be an absurd expense. Basically all of those skills would become worthless and living my frugal and resource efficient lifestyle would be impossible.

BirdieNZ 5y ago

Can I ask who it is that you see pushing people towards urban life over suburban or rural? What I mostly see is people saying that suburbia and rural areas are being subsidised by urban dwellers and that people should pay their fair share of the costs of their lifestyle. You're not going to ever be banned from living rural or suburban in any Western democracy, but right now suburbia is subsidised in most cities in the West, and there are heaps of land-use restrictions that stop people doing reasonable things like building houses. In fact, it sounds like what you want is the freedom to live the lifestyle you want, and that's all that YIMBYs really want: freedom to build houses on their land, and people paying their fair share of the costs of their infrastructure.