4 ms·

So, what is the best way to over come this? If I already have a career in the suburbs and a family, how do I emulate this environment? That's the general case

by lief79 18y ago

So, what is the best way to over come this? If I already have a career in the suburbs and a family, how do I emulate this environment? That's the general case, which might be the easier one to address. In my specific case, I have a career in the suburbs, and I'm about to get married and probably start a family. How do I go about finding/creating a more stimulating environment? What do I look for in recognizing the highly stimulating environments? I feel like I'm in a medium environment now, and outside of the suboptimal online contact, it seems to be moving in the wrong direction.

pchristensen 18y ago
1) Carefully pick your suburb - all are not created equal 2) Ditto for location within suburb - an older home near the town center usually offers more convenient stimulation than a larger home 15 minutes out. 3) If you can't do those, try to locate convenient to train station or interstates so commuting is faster and external events aren't so hard to get to.
- nihilocrat 18y ago
  There are some satellite hamlets that are attached to larger metropolitan areas that I feel sort of achieve this. I am specifically thinking of Carrboro, NC. I spent some of my childhood there and I feel it had all the good qualities of the suburbs (I have lived my entire childhood in them) but mitigated a lot of the bad ones (alienation, etc.) because it was in an area that is denser and much more progressive by Southern standards (Carrboro/Chapel Hill). A negative example would be Cary, NC. A small one-block 'downtown' surrounded by vast urban sprawl and conservative values all around. It is a malignant growth attached to Raleigh, NC.
  - pchristensen 18y ago
    That sounds exactly like what I had in mind. The Chicago equivalents would be Naperville, Downer's Grove, or Oak Park for the good ones. I don't want to call out the bad ones specifically.

by lief79 18y ago

pchristensen 18y ago

1) Carefully pick your suburb - all are not created equal 2) Ditto for location within suburb - an older home near the town center usually offers more convenient stimulation than a larger home 15 minutes out. 3) If you can't do those, try to locate convenient to train station or interstates so commuting is faster and external events aren't so hard to get to.

nihilocrat 18y ago
There are some satellite hamlets that are attached to larger metropolitan areas that I feel sort of achieve this. I am specifically thinking of Carrboro, NC. I spent some of my childhood there and I feel it had all the good qualities of the suburbs (I have lived my entire childhood in them) but mitigated a lot of the bad ones (alienation, etc.) because it was in an area that is denser and much more progressive by Southern standards (Carrboro/Chapel Hill). A negative example would be Cary, NC. A small one-block 'downtown' surrounded by vast urban sprawl and conservative values all around. It is a malignant growth attached to Raleigh, NC.
- pchristensen 18y ago
  That sounds exactly like what I had in mind. The Chicago equivalents would be Naperville, Downer's Grove, or Oak Park for the good ones. I don't want to call out the bad ones specifically.