My ideal would be a house on a lake, it would have a sufficient space for my son to play outside, and It would also have a high speed internet connection, which I could use to work etc.
Before there was telecommuting, there was commuting. What people with families ultimately want is more space. Grilling out, kids in the sandbox, etc. It's all focused on spending time with kids.
Commuting enabled this "country like lifestyle", while keeping the "city benefits" of a good job, and easy access to decent restaurants. As traffic grew though, the definition of commuting changed. This is where office parts came from, and it's also where chain restaurants came from. Going downtown was not an option any more for shopping (parking!? argh). But there's this mall just a mile up the road. Of course with a limited audience of families (the single people still saw the benefit of living in a city), with limited time and money. Chains are great answers.
Getting a fully remote job. Gave me the flexibility to leave the city and buy a home near my friends and family more in the "rural" areas of the country. Did not enjoy living in the city with a new baby, not one bit. The more close-knight community life, slower-pace and more flexible work-life balance is much more my style.
Some of us certainly do love city life. My current job is remote, and my family could live anywhere; we chose to give up our spacious house in a charming small town, with a lawn and a garden and separate home offices for me and my wife, and move back to the city, where we now live in a two-bedroom townhouse. No more home office - I visit a coworking space instead - but we're in a lovely walkable neighborhood near the heart of it all. We are much happier here and wouldn't go back.
It's a lifestyle choice. Personally, I like restoring old cars, remodeling my home, building robots. I couldn't do any of these things without being already wealthy if I lived in a big city, within walking distance to the grocery store and work.
I gladly commute so I can come home to something more than an apartment or condo, because that is all that is available or affordable.
For me, what I want has changed a lot over my life. In my 20's I craved density. I loved the energy and options of cities. 30 years later, I'm the opposite. I live in the suburbs in a house big enough to give me a home gym, workshop, office, etc... but if I had a self-driving car and could get great internet, I'd move way out of the city. I want a little more space and a lot less noise.
200 acres 3 hrs away from a major metro? If all it took to be happy was land, we'd already be in our telecommuting utopia. Unfortunately, the subtle joys of life still tend to require physical presence.
I don't think "city life" is popular with today's generation because it's close to work... I think it's because we value human contact and cultural diversity above acreage or square footage.
Completely agree. There are many different lifestyles, none inherently better than the other. I just disagree with the sentiment that the only reason to live in a big city is because of work. At least for the kind of positions people on HN tend to hold. It's not like working fully remotely was impossible pre-pandemic.
I definitely see the appeal of owning a huge house and I might well consider it in the future, especially if I have children. But for now, I wouldn't know what to do with it. I own few things of the maximal quality I can afford. Even my city apartment is viewed as somewhat spartanic by some. So I prefer renting an entire place in different parts of the country with my girlfriend or friends for a couple of days at the time meanwhile living in my favorite part of the city where most everything I want to do or need is within 20 minutes walking distance.
A few years ago I made this exact tradeoff. Moving from my townhouse in a urban-suburban neighborhood that was closer to my work and the major urban center to a more a big house in an isolated suburb that was ~15 minutes farther away.
Having a bigger house is good when you have kids like I do, but I definitely prefer the former, where it wasn't exactly living in a big city but still had a lot of the benefits. I just hate having to drive more and how much time it takes up.
Remote work has the potential to make neighborhoods more dynamic. With more people at home, there's more demand for nearby coffee shops, entertainment, food options. I prefer the decentralized neighborhood approach to the hub and spoke model where you commute to a big city from the boring suburbs.
The promise of telecommuting for me isn't living three miles way from my nearest neighbor, but rather living in a town of less than 10,000 people and still making six figures. I live in a town of 7,000 with a strong community and a good downtown, but I don't have to commute a half hour into the city. Instead I can wake up at 7am, walk down to the local coffee shop and chill for a bit, then go back home and work. I can pop out for lunch to the diner, and at 5 when everyone is just getting into their cars, I'm already at the local brewery unwinding.
That's the kind of lifestyle previously reserved for people living and working downtown in major cities, but can be (and for me is) a reality in small-town America. I make more money in one year than it cost me to buy my downtown, 2000 sq ft house with a two car garage and a half acre of land. And I don't have to drive anywhere unless I want to.
That's what remote working can offer. That's what small towns should be promising today.
Good point. As you move towards expensive urban centers the advantage will tend to decrease as space becomes more expensive and transit improves.
That said I've lived with 2 people in a shoe box of a studio and still enjoyed working from home from it although I did have customers from time to time commenting on what was on the news across the way or my cat. I understand that the equation is different for others but I'm definitely firmly committed to this lifestyle.
My family does it for a living, going back a few generations. You can choose to live and work in the city, but what most of my ancestors did was buy a house on the outskirts of a relatively wealthy suburban area, like you find around almost any city. Once the houses get far enough away that you can't reasonably commute to downtown they become more affordable. You can find a sweet spot where it is reasonable to drive to the houses of the people who commute into the city, but not to do so yourself. Then your charging city rates and paying country prices. Next best thing to working remotely.
My question to this would be, why wouldn't you have this as your house if this area is close. Why commute?
Just move that 20-30 further from city/town to a few acres and have your office in a room in said house. And now you 'commute' to town when you want town things, which is probably far less than daily for most.
This is what I did anyway, and personally its been a great choice.
I live in a small apartment a short train ride from the office. It isn't big enough to work from home. If I worked from home I'd get a big house in the suburbs, and buy a car to get around. My environmental footprint would be much bigger.
Edit - if I didn't have kids I'd totally have a beach house and a mountain house to live in. Maybe in different countries too.
To me, remote work makes cities a more attractive place live than the suburbs. A family doesn’t need 2 or 3 cars anymore. You can live and work in a walkable neighborhood and get most of your errands done during the week, avoiding times of congestion. Work from a cafe or park instead of a basement or garage.
We, typical middle class 2 income and at the time no kids, used to live in a city, which was great for proximity to work and culture/nightlife. When we started to think about having children, we moved to a more rural area with lots of outdoor space and great schools close to a university town.
All that stuff sounds great until you have kids, then you want to find ways to be home as much as possible. At least, that was my experience.
I was lucky - I bought a house in the suburbs of my hometown and moved back. Told my company I was moving out of Toronto during the second lockdown last year, they didn't even question it.
Now my biggest distraction is my 2yo running in because he doesn't understand that dad works, yet. Sometimes he might be having a tantrum in the kitchen/living room and it makes it a bit difficult to concentrate...nowhere near as bad as the constant barrage of irrelevant noise from an open office.
I've elicited some strong reactions here. The commenter I responded to said this:
> When I read the stories of big city lifestyles I'm amazed so many people opt-in to it. Traffic, noise, concrete everywhere. Yuck - but to each their own.
I was simply explaining some of _my_ reasons for opting in to it. It's a tangent from the original post, I realize. I could easily come up with reasons a person might enjoy a rural or small town lifestyle, but here I simply gave my reasons for enjoying the urban life I currently live, even though I too have the option of going the remote work route.
Before there was telecommuting, there was commuting. What people with families ultimately want is more space. Grilling out, kids in the sandbox, etc. It's all focused on spending time with kids.
Commuting enabled this "country like lifestyle", while keeping the "city benefits" of a good job, and easy access to decent restaurants. As traffic grew though, the definition of commuting changed. This is where office parts came from, and it's also where chain restaurants came from. Going downtown was not an option any more for shopping (parking!? argh). But there's this mall just a mile up the road. Of course with a limited audience of families (the single people still saw the benefit of living in a city), with limited time and money. Chains are great answers.
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