That’s the direct tradeoff you make though - if you want to be near other people (which typically also means being where the jobs + interesting things are), you get less space. If you want more space, you can go live somewhere rural, but everyone else around you also gets more space, so there won’t be much nearby.
If you want a lot of space and to be near a lot of people, you’ll have to pay more. You’re basically paying to have more than your neighbors at that point.
(That aside, if you want that much land, why haven’t you moved to a more rural area then?)
I like living out in the country on a large private wooded lot. I have lived in dense cities where I could get groceries and other necessities within a short walk, and with pervasive public transportation. Hated it. I like space and seclusion. I like being able to drive anywhere to get what I need, when I need it, and not having to wait for a bus or a train.
And let me emphasize that's still suburban, not rural. I live 8 minutes from a good grocery store, 30 minutes from a city of 46,000 people. Small roads aren't paved here (the nearby highway is, and the in-town streets are), and the 20 mph road maintained by nobody else but a couple of residents with tractors is 400 feet from the house.
(And the trade-off for this level of remoteness, for those wondering, is I have about 200 square miles of public lands walkable from the house without crossing a highway. Ever taken a two-hour walk from your house, with your dogs off leash, without seeing another human?)
I live about an hour outside a major Northeast city in an ex-urban/semi-rural location. (It's not really rural but I'm one of three houses on about 100+ acres of land and can't really see my neighbors at this time of year.)
I find it's a decent compromise. I have space. I can take walks in the woods or easily drive to small mountain hikes. But I'm only about an hour to go in for live theater, a meal, etc. And there's nothing keeping me from going into town for a weekend if I wanted to.
As a person who has spent a great deal of time in rural areas, I don't think I would be happy in the long term living in cramped apartments. Too much noise and too many people.
In the suburban sprawl in which I live, the 10-12 feet between houses seems too close. Yet as much as I long for space, I will always be tied to some metro, with access to healthcare and cultural outlets.
I live on a large open expanse of almost a kilometre in each direction owing to the positioning of this farm relative to the other farm fields in the area, and one of the main problems neighbors and I have is that people from the suburbs think that "nobody lives here." Using rural areas for hiking, fishing, cycling where you are moving and there is a beginning and end to it is fine and very welcome.
Absolutely get far, it's good for the soul but, PSA about being out in nature and rural areas:
What made these places desirable was your absence. Loitering in your cars in front of peoples properties is an abuse of the peace the people who live there have invested in and created. Respect the peace of those places you go. If you are out at night, always turn off your car and all lights and be quiet. The most welcome guests are the ones who leave.
The allure of “the country”, for me, is getting way outside the cities.
I technically live in a city of 14k people, but it’s the largest municipality in the county. I’m about two hours from anything that can reasonably be considered a “city”, in a quiet neighborhood where there is practically zero traffic after 8pm or so. This was the most isolated property I could find that’s still got good Internet access.
Price-wise, there’s no comparison. I paid about $120k for a five bedroom house on half an acre. We were looking at townhouses in the last place we lived (Charlottesville, VA) with a tiny yard and half the living space that were going for $325k+.
It is about trade offs though. I moved from a 10 acre lot to a small city recently.
I love that my son and I went for an hour walk to a park (we passed a different park on the way because we played in that one yesterday) and back. I love that my work is only a few minutes drive away (now that the weather is warmer I need to get my bike working).
I miss other things about my rural lot though. There is no space to drive my tractor collection around. I can't see anywhere near as many stars at night.
It is about trade offs, I was happy in the rural area. I'm happy in town. Some think I like to do are better/easier, some things are worse/harder.
Speaking only from my own experience I'd have to disagree, to isolate yourself in a rural area you have to become the weird person with the curtains closed 24/7 that people talk about
In a city you simply cease to exist if you don't leave your apartment
I live in the country now and it's even more remote, but when I lived in the 'burbs it was on a 1/2 acre lot behind a nature preserve. I could look out my living room windows and not see anything but trees -- not a neighbor in sight. My kid could climb trees, look for frogs, go "treasure hunting" all day long. The dogs could go outside without needing to be leashed, or walked. And we could have sex on the grass at night.
Couldn't agree more. Acreage is unbelievable therapeutic compared with the city.
Source: Grew up on 4 acres of woodlands. Now live in SF. Would like to move back to a more rural setting after 3 years of hunting for parking spots and spending all my time/money getting away from the city when possible.
Americans want to be "apart"! Most people in America see high-density living as a negative. Most want a yard and a garage. The country is huge - you can fit three UKs into the state of Texas alone. We have the space, we have the roads, we like our yards.
I have moved our family into progressively rural environments and will continue to do so until the distance to basic necessities is intolerable. In most rural environments there is no meaningful traffic so people aren't that down on being in their vehicles.
You don't have to go far from some of the mid-sized cities to get a relatively rural experience. I'm 7 miles (15 minutes) from Red Hat's building in Raleigh, and 1 mile from a corn field. My house is definitely suburban, not rural, and with the way growth in my town is going, that corn field will be gone in a few years, but there's plenty of rural land just a little further out.
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