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This when young the city was fun but when older than mattered less thing does not match with my own experience at all. Having an extended family and running a

This when young the city was fun but when older than mattered less thing does not match with my own experience at all. Having an extended family and running a service business I have known quite a few people getting old and aging into their final years. Having people around and things to do can be critical for maintaining quality of life. It is really common for older people in rural locations to become isolated an unable to access the things that once brought joy to their lives. Seems like a potentially interesting contrast to call out.

jeffbee 2y ago
Yeah I also find this odd. Especially at my age with children at home, why would I take them away from all the opportunities a city offers? When they are very young and not social you might want them to have a place to just crawl around and taste dirt, but as soon as they are social you need people around, and in later childhood the opportunities in sports, music, dance, and other arts call for at least a fairly large town. I can imagine myself leaving the city after my kids are independent but even so, dispersed living seems to offer little except manual labor. I'd want a town of a least a few thousand so I stand a chance of meeting some new friends of my own age. A humorous book on the topic of the fact that rural life is mostly just a lot of work, see "Against The Country".
- arcbyte 2y ago
  There are life experiences that are impossible for kids in the city ever have and are more valuable than any sport, dance, or academic activity. I still cherish sports, music, and dance, but the difference in childhood environment is immediately recognizable in adults.
  - jeffbee 2y ago
    > There are life experiences that are impossible for kids in the city ever have and are more valuable than any sport, dance, or academic activity. These being? I grew up in a lot of different places but the impression I get from my own experiences is that the valuable life lessons of being alone in the woods can be acquired part-time. You don't have to relocate there. And since living totally alone in the middle of nowhere, rather than in a small town surrounded by fields, farms, and forests, is a lifestyle that only recently became possible, I doubt the value of extended isolation. Throughout human history people have gathered into settlements of at least the size of a village. Living alone is totally new.
    - b112 2y ago
      Well, if you're discussing post-agriculture yes. The equation and density changes a lot pre-agriculture. But regardless, rural != isolated. Children still go to school. This guy lives 10 miles (aka 10 minutes) from a "town", and that town is indeed where people get together. That's the thing about actual rural living. There are no stoplight (which takes 2 to 4 minutes to cycle) which slows down miles-driven. There are no traffic jams. Everyone is typically doing 60mph. 1 mile per minute. 10 miles is 10 minutes. I know people that take buses to "do city things", and it takes them > 1 hour to get anywhere. I know others that walk (20+ minutes) or drive (20+ minutes to get a mile away, or to get a few city blocks due to traffic). "Having houses apart" doesn't mean isolated from other humans. At all. Heck someone with a "few hundred acres" is often within a mile of another house. As a kid, I used to bicycle 10+ miles to see friends in the summer (when there was no school), and why not? And in the winter, you see your friends daily at school. You're not "living alone" because you're on a 200 acre parcel of land. A person would need millions of acres to even feel as if they're living alone.
      - michaelt 2y ago
        > But regardless, rural != isolated. Children still go to school. This guy lives 10 miles (aka 10 minutes) from a "town" 10 minutes for the grown-ups, who can drive whenever they feel like it. For the 14 year old who can't drive, and whose parents can't drop everything to play chauffeur? That's 40 minutes each way on a bicycle - along single-lane roads with drivers doing 60mph. Sounds like a recipe for your kid to spend all day behind a screen, to me. Source: Direct, firsthand experience. The social isolation and countless screen hours did turn me into a great programmer though, so I've got that going for me.
        defrost 2y ago
        10 miles isn't much if you're 14 and live in the country, there's horses, dirt-bikes, hitch-hiking (local traffic), riding a push bike (traffic is rarely an issue and there are usually not-road paths to bike on. Some 14 years olds drive a paddock-basher (unlicensed car) on not-public farm roads. Source: Did all of that at 14 well deep in the country ( a good 1,000 km away from anything close to a city )
laurencerowe 2y ago
My mother is losing her sight and can no longer drive. I’m so glad she lives within close walking distance of downtown with a supermarket so she can maintain her independence.

jeffbee 2y ago

Yeah I also find this odd. Especially at my age with children at home, why would I take them away from all the opportunities a city offers? When they are very young and not social you might want them to have a place to just crawl around and taste dirt, but as soon as they are social you need people around, and in later childhood the opportunities in sports, music, dance, and other arts call for at least a fairly large town. I can imagine myself leaving the city after my kids are independent but even so, dispersed living seems to offer little except manual labor. I'd want a town of a least a few thousand so I stand a chance of meeting some new friends of my own age. A humorous book on the topic of the fact that rural life is mostly just a lot of work, see "Against The Country".

arcbyte 2y ago
There are life experiences that are impossible for kids in the city ever have and are more valuable than any sport, dance, or academic activity. I still cherish sports, music, and dance, but the difference in childhood environment is immediately recognizable in adults.
- jeffbee 2y ago
  > There are life experiences that are impossible for kids in the city ever have and are more valuable than any sport, dance, or academic activity. These being? I grew up in a lot of different places but the impression I get from my own experiences is that the valuable life lessons of being alone in the woods can be acquired part-time. You don't have to relocate there. And since living totally alone in the middle of nowhere, rather than in a small town surrounded by fields, farms, and forests, is a lifestyle that only recently became possible, I doubt the value of extended isolation. Throughout human history people have gathered into settlements of at least the size of a village. Living alone is totally new.
  - b112 2y ago
    Well, if you're discussing post-agriculture yes. The equation and density changes a lot pre-agriculture. But regardless, rural != isolated. Children still go to school. This guy lives 10 miles (aka 10 minutes) from a "town", and that town is indeed where people get together. That's the thing about actual rural living. There are no stoplight (which takes 2 to 4 minutes to cycle) which slows down miles-driven. There are no traffic jams. Everyone is typically doing 60mph. 1 mile per minute. 10 miles is 10 minutes. I know people that take buses to "do city things", and it takes them > 1 hour to get anywhere. I know others that walk (20+ minutes) or drive (20+ minutes to get a mile away, or to get a few city blocks due to traffic). "Having houses apart" doesn't mean isolated from other humans. At all. Heck someone with a "few hundred acres" is often within a mile of another house. As a kid, I used to bicycle 10+ miles to see friends in the summer (when there was no school), and why not? And in the winter, you see your friends daily at school. You're not "living alone" because you're on a 200 acre parcel of land. A person would need millions of acres to even feel as if they're living alone.
    - michaelt 2y ago
      > But regardless, rural != isolated. Children still go to school. This guy lives 10 miles (aka 10 minutes) from a "town" 10 minutes for the grown-ups, who can drive whenever they feel like it. For the 14 year old who can't drive, and whose parents can't drop everything to play chauffeur? That's 40 minutes each way on a bicycle - along single-lane roads with drivers doing 60mph. Sounds like a recipe for your kid to spend all day behind a screen, to me. Source: Direct, firsthand experience. The social isolation and countless screen hours did turn me into a great programmer though, so I've got that going for me.
      - defrost 2y ago
        10 miles isn't much if you're 14 and live in the country, there's horses, dirt-bikes, hitch-hiking (local traffic), riding a push bike (traffic is rarely an issue and there are usually not-road paths to bike on. Some 14 years olds drive a paddock-basher (unlicensed car) on not-public farm roads. Source: Did all of that at 14 well deep in the country ( a good 1,000 km away from anything close to a city )

laurencerowe 2y ago

My mother is losing her sight and can no longer drive. I’m so glad she lives within close walking distance of downtown with a supermarket so she can maintain her independence.