Poll: In what kind of area do you prefer to live?

I love the fact that I can go for months wihtout needing a car. I love that I can visit a world-renowned museum, planetarium, or aquarium for $1.50 on their free day. I love that I can get American, Indian, Ethiopian, Italian, Mexican, Mediterranean, or Pizza, all within two blocks' walk of here. I love that I can buy hard liquor, tampons, milk, and a remote control car at the same store. I love the fact that no one ever has to ask me to clarify after I tell them the name of my city. And I absolutely adore the fact that I can be someone or noone, depending upon which mood strikes me that day.

So, have you been a naughty or nice?

Santa foof

Yeah, what they said!

Plus, (in general) the city has cooler houses. While I like the forest, there's something about exploring a city that I really like when I walk around.

I think that four years of a small town is enough for me. While it was cool the day I realized I could walk (literally) across town in a couple of hours, I like the idea of walking to skyscrapers in less than that better.

what michael said. i grew up in the suburbs and once i moved out for college, i never looked back.

I used to feel this way... I lived in NYC for 9 years, but that was about 3 years too long and I sooo longed for a different life by the time I was finally on my way to one. Perhaps I was never a city girl at heart, or perhaps I just grew in a different direction, but I know that I spent my last few years there trying to think of a way out. Luckily I found one. I don't miss it even a little bit. It all seems like a dream now.

i dont wanna know what michael is doing with hard liquor, tampons, milk, and a remote control car.

yikes. :)

but while most people hate toledo, and i do at times, i love it because it has a big-city atmosphere and small-town prices. the living there is cheap (probably because everyone there is underpaid) but there is all those kinds of food and more in a few city blocks. most people drive, though. very few people walk around toledo. with good reason, our sidwalks suck. but we have cute coffee shops, a few good shopping malls, relatively decent ethnic diversity and more food than you can imagine - toledo is a restaurant test market. so we have like 2 million of them.

but unfortunately, toledo isnt one of those "live downtown" kind of places, but they:re trying to change that. the area around COSI is getting to be pretty nice.

hiroshima is one of those places, i:m discovering, but you can really only find japanese food. wierd how that works. :)

> i dont wanna know what michael is doing with hard liquor,
> tampons, milk, and a remote control car.
>
> yikes. :)

If you have to ask, you probably wouldn't understand. ;-)

I miss VT... big time.
However, there just ain't no jobs there.

But... I love the woods.... so relaxing... just to go for a walk, or in the winter, a ski.... having wild turkeys or deer on your lawn when you wake up in the morning.... no noise, no sirens....

And, if the mood strikes, and you want to have an enormous rip-roarin party, no neighbors to complain. :D

Not to mention the fact that you tend to get a lot more snow in VT.. or even in the hilltowns of MA..... and I loooove winter.
Yum.

Living right in the center of noho, I must say it's very cool to have stuff within walking distance.. all this great music, great food... etc.... but, I'd give that up for the woods and the snow. :)

I chose small town, but my real answer is confusing because truly I want the best of all worlds. I want all the cultural opportunities of a city, the homey feeling of a small town and lots of nature to retreat to. Oddly I feel that I have found that in Northampton. It is a city (a small one, certainly) with a rich arts community and restaurants that rival those I used to frequent when I lived in NYC, but it FEELS like a small town more than any other place I have lived (including some small towns) and is moments away from the boonies. Sure, it keeps trying to kick us out, but I'm not giving up without a fight. This is where I want to be.

As a secondary choice, I have often dreamed of the boonies... a house way way up on a hill, or deep in the woods. I am a hermit at heart and could happily live all alone in the middle of nowhere without seeing another human for months. Things have changed in my life (you know, marriage and such), and I don't see myself living that way, nor would I want to as long as I have my husband to share my life with, but I could be quite content doing so if circumstances were different. The boonies could still happen for us as a family, though, and I wouldn't mind one bit.

as much as i hate the town i live in (grrr, slough) i'm soooo glad i live here, because it's so well placed. london half an hour to the east, thames poshness to the west, surrey poshness to the south, and beautiful english countryside quaintness to the north. now if only they could make slough nicer. :D

Welp, I chose City because that's where I am and I am -lovin'- it again. I grew up in the burbs and don't really want to go back. I lived in the metropolis of Boston for 4 years, but got sick of it. I lived in the small town of Brattleboro, worked in the boonies of Vermont, and took regular trips to the small city of Noho. And I truly liked all of 'em, just not for my age and station. So, now I'm back in the city, and I can get fresh fish at the market and ethnic foods delivered. so nice. :)

So, yeah, most of the above.

I think I'm a little of everything but urban. I don't think I'm really cut out for city living. It IS nice to be able to walk places, yes. But it just makes me feel so cramped.

I loved living in the boonies/woods for most of my life. Well I liked it for some parts. I loved being far away from neighbors and having total privacy. Never worrying about being too loud. But I hated being a 15-20 minute drive to anything, like a store.

I like where I live now for different reasons. I'm in an apartment now so I worry about volume. But I love that I'm not more than 15 minutes from countless stores/restaurants/etc. I live in a very "stuff"-developed town but it's not really city. It's mall-glow living. But my complex is far enough away from the mall that it's still in a charming section. And my parking situation rocks...indoor so no more snow/ice scraping. :)

I wouldn't mind living in the boonies again someday when I can afford a house. But I'm content for now. :)

I was born and raised in Brooklyn NY and i cannot imagine not living in a city.
Well, okay, that is not true at all. I can imagine living out in the middle of nowhere in Spain for a time and enjoying it. I can imagine living on a farming Kibbutz or Moshav in Israel for a while and liking that. But I couldn't do that for more than maybe two years before I had to go back to an urban center. And of course the problem with that is having grown up in New York, there's really no place better to go to. I mean, when you grow up in the cultural and financial capital of America, where are you going to run away to?
I love the city for all of the reasons that have already been mentioned... the food especially, the accessability of anything I need, the not needing to worry about transportation, museums, independent movie houses... but its not just that-- I love the *feel* of the city. At least most parts. Every part of New York has its own flavor. Each part feels and sounds and smells different. Travel around Manhattan alone and its as if you've travelled around the world. Tired of living uptown? Move downtown. It's a whole other world. For a really drastic change, switch boroughs. Move to Brooklyn or Queens. You don't have to run away from the city. You can run away from the city *to* the city as many times as you need and it never gets old.
I could never live in the burbs. Ugh!

I lived in a suburb for most of my life, and liked it fine...but then I left for school. And I absolutely adore the town of Middlebury. It's not a suburb by any means...the nearest "big city" is Burlington, and that's an hour north through cow pastures and such (and it's not big). So Middlebury is pretty self-sufficient; it has a lot of the advantages of a city, just on a much smaller scale. There's only one of everything (except the 4 bookstores)...but, there's one of everything. There's no public transportation, but you can walk anywhere. It's hard to go anywhere (on campus or in town) without running into someone you know. And the town is just *so* *cute.* I may very well end up going back to the suburbs once I'm out of school...but I think I'll always be an independent-small-town person at heart. Vermont rocks. :)

Either in a city or in a small town/rural setting. Both are great. Suburbs and medium sized cities suck the big wad. :)