Country VS City

[quietheart]

I grew up in Springfield Missouri, back when you could still have chickens and rabbits there

, but I spent my summers on my grandparents farm

. I've lived in the city and the country since being out on my own. I feel country life is much better for me

. I don't deal well with being around lots of people

. Our nearest town has about 350 people

.

 

[Davaroo]

Quote:
I think, in the main, this is true for most people. Having the option of human contact seems to suit our nature better
What we'll do when our population grows beyond the "Option Point" should prove to be interesting...

 

[kagedgoddess]

my 2 cents. k. 1 i havent read it all yet, but i used to live in virginia beach/ norfolk. the largest city in VA. now i live out in a county that doesnt even have a walmart! and only ONE high school! so anyways, i missed having pizza delivered. man i missed that. driving 30min to pick up a pizza when the delivery place is right next to the grocery store seems really really dumb. so when we moved from bfe, i said i want to be able to order pizza. now we can, i am about 10min outside of really the only town in this county and it costs $30 for the silly pizza cuz of delivery fees and taxes!!! so yeah... rant over... i miss bfe. i do NOT miss they city. sitting in traffic for 2 hours to go 5miles home is redonkulous. now i think of traffic when there is a car in front of me going to slow. lol

 

[Nikki28]

I love love love our house now....but I am not sure I would have entirely when I was in High School. My boyfriend when he was in 8th grade went from the city we grew up in (Sarasota FL) to Arizona for one school year to live with his dad. It was very hard for him and he still thinks back about how lonely it was to fit in and in truth he only made one friend (If you knew him you would know how hard that is to believe).
Small town means less diversity so it can be hard from someone used to a completely different scene to fit in.

To answer your question what I love about our home:
-Land to do pretty much whatever I want with (garden, fruit trees, chickens, rabbits, someday goats and honey bees) to work toward my goal of being self sufficient.
-An AMAZING view of the mountains to wake up to every morning (as a Florida girl that is a special treat)
-Getting to really know your neighbors. (the whole time I lived in Sarasota as an adult I never knew a single neighbor people seemed to make it a point to have as little contact as possible with eachother.)

What I don't like: Hmmm the only thing I don't like is the fact that even though Prescott isn't a 'small' town everything still closes at 8! But we got used to that pretty quickly. I can say that the friends we have met here have been far more loyal and honest than our city friends. But every situation is different.

 

[Chicks_N_Horses]

COUTNRY! I could walk out naked, scream to the top of my lungs, shoot guns and no one would hear it or see! My g-grandmother lived in the city where houses are 50 feet apart it seems and I couldn't imagine having to live like that. I have to wake up and walk into Gods beautiful creation everyday looking at woods, skies, birds, fields, creeks, endless plaecs to roam, wildlife and having total peace and privacy.

I like that we only go to town once or twice a week. Our family spends lots of quality time together doing lots of outdoors activities every day. It is just so wonderful to live like you are the only ones on the planet.

I really love being able to have horses and being able just to hop on with a bridle and head out in any direction I want to. I am a country girl through and through!

 

[Rosalind]

Both. I live in a "bedroom community" outside of Boston that is extremely assertive about No Developers Allowed. Last year, a developer bought a 14-acre chunk of land across the street from me and announced his intention of putting in condos. He had many friends on the town council who saw nothing but tax $$$ from it, and thought he might win. Between the Open Spaces Committee, the Save Our Wetlands committee, the Rural Land Preservation Society, the Local River Preservation Trust and the generally irate neighbors who treasure their peace and quiet, developer dude with his millions didn't stand a chance. We love our green spaces around here. People keep cows, chickens, sheep for pets, lots are fairly large and have plenty of trees for privacy, people keep big veggie gardens and there's a 2 acre community garden area for anyone whose yard is too small. There are lots of pick-your own orchards surrounding the towns, too.

Yet, 45 minutes and I can be at the beach, taking classes at Haavaahd, or gazing upon the most incredible art exhibits in the world. The "town" jobs pay pretty well due to the cost of living, which is wonderful of course. People are fairly open-minded and contrary to Boston-based sitcoms, in cities mostly no one knows you from Adam, you're just another person.

I rather like being just another person. The little bitty town where I grew up, when I go back to visit (as a definitely much older, very successful adult), everyone freakin' KNOWS me and acts like I'm still a little 13-year-old caught smoking cigarettes behind the roller rink. Ferthaluvvagawd, I've got grey hair now, it's time to treat me like an adult...

 

[wombat]

I grew up in the country. My parents had (still have) a vast collection of refrigerators and freezers because it was a 10 mile drive to the store. We lived at the edge of a small community, though ... plenty of kids within a bike ride of the local ball diamond.

I went to college in the city. It was cool to be able to walk everywhere, and have so many different things within 5 mins, but I hated not being able to see to the horizon, not being able to have a dog, and having so many people living so close by.

I lived in a city early in my career, too. After a while, the petty crime, cars being vandalized, noise at all hours of the night ... people blasting boom boxes and smashing beer bottles til 5am, attempted break-ins, and the high cost of living coupled with no space outweighed the advantages.

I moved to the outskirts of the suburbs ... small housing developments mixed in between farms. We have some nice acreage, zoned mixed residential/agricultrural, and we can keep any animals we want as long as we have over an acre fenced. We have great schools, plenty of neighbors (but not too close by), and stores are a 5 min drive. It was great until the nearby farms were bought up, and high density housing went in just down the street.

Now we've got $1.5mil McMansions just down the road. They're right across the street from the neighbor's small horse farm, and McResidents are complaining about the smell. I don't know what they thought a barn smelled like before they bought a McMansion across the road from one, but I hear the McMansioners are not so happy with the rural neighbors. (The horse farm guy is a small scale developer who didn't have the connections to get *his* land rezoned for development, so he built a horse farm years ago and moved onto it himself).

We hear the McDwellers walking their little rat-dogs down the road outside our fence and exclaiming ... WOW! Those people have CHICKENS! Can they do that? ... never mind that I could keep a dozen ostrich amd a yak if I wanted to.

Still, I hope those McMansion clowns win out over the horse farm ... and we get re-zoned. If I can sub-divide, I'll have enough to pay cash for a large farm someplace else ... land was fetching $500k an acre here before the bubble burst ... and those prices will be back in this area, there's no more open space left and as gramps said, "they ain't makin' any more of it!"

 

[2DogsFarm]

I admit I haven't read all 5 pages of posts, but I think I have nearly the best of both worlds.

I lived in a Major Big City from the time I was 17 until just 5 years ago - that's 40+ years.
Loved it, had a large circle of friends and lots to do, most of it walking distance from home.
I didn't even get my drivers license until I was 39!
Public transportation was easy and someone else always had a car if I needed it.

But I commuted to the burbs, and then farther when I bought my horse in 1989. Made the 1h+ each way trip to ride 3 to 5 days a week.
DH began riding too and soon we had two horses and the trek to see them was just part of our Not City Life.

I toyed with the idea of moving closer to the horses, but he was a City Guy through & through and it never got off the ground.
Then he passed away and suddenly I was a widow still making the trip mostly by myself, occasionally with a friend I got to shareboard one of the horses.

Soooooo...
5 years ago I sold the house in the city and bought my 5ac farmette, built a barn and brought the horses home to live with me.

In those 5 years it has gotten a lot more built up here, but luckily my immediate area is still mostly small acreages with some large farming operations still keeping a lot of the development sprawl at bay...for now...
The BigBox stores are within an easy drive if I want them but I can see stars at night and my area is still pretty much Ag.

Now all I still miss is the ability to walk to a store but the tradeoffs are worth that sacrifice.
And my Big City is just a 45min drive - which I make about 2-3 times a month for a volunteer job I have there.
So I get my City Fix when I need it and now coming home feels like Home.

And, of course, now I have chickens - can't do that in a Big City

 

[Danceswithchicks]

I like the country because I can sing with a terrible voice and no one can hear you.