I hate the suburbs

[Alpinbogen]

I thought I had found nirvana when we moved from a busy street in town to a quasi-rural area a while back.  Much more peaceful!  I set up an archery target in the backyard and went hunting out my back door.  My kid was bored to tears in the summer though, with no one to play with, and it seemed difficult to coordinate play dates.  My wife and I sort of missed having people beside us to talk to, too.  When our family grew and we needed more house, the best deal we found was on a fairly quiet street in a development on the edge of town.  This is probably our ideal location at this point in life.  It's crazy convenient with work, schools, and shopping all in a mile radius.  Our neighbors are fantastic and outgoing, and we're all friends and have impromptu get-togethers constantly.  Most important, my kids are surrounded by friends in the neighborhood.  I do miss my backyard archery range and walking out to hunt, but (let's face it) in the scheme of things, that's a small part of life.  I can still be hunting or fishing in as little as 5 minutes from home, so I'm definitely not handcuffed to urban living.  My biggest "problem" so to speak seems to be whenever I'm building bows, kayaks, working on firemaking, or other obscure primitive stuff, everyone walking by stops to chat and I can't get anything done!   

[HoBow]

My situation is about like you Alpingogen.  I can be in the middle of cornfields in 5 minutes but live in a neighborhood.  It is convenient, but it would be nice to live further out.  I swore I'd never buy a house in a neighborhood again, but acreage here isn't affordable    Plus it is nice being able to be at the gym/grocery shopping/movie theater etc.  in 10 minutes

[Youngboyer2(billyf)]

"   My kid was bored to tears in the summer though, with no one to play with,  " -AlpinBogen


Make him a bow and let him run around in the woods with it, he would never get bored

[crooketarrow]

   Never lived anywhere buy the country. Where I could walk out my door and hunt ,fish ,hike just walk out into nature. Would'nt have it any other way for me and my boy's.

[oldhippy]

    I live in a development. I found that the best way to get along is just let the neighbors that you are one crazy sob that doesn't play well with others. It's worked well for me for the last 35 years.   I have always told my wife, that I wouldn't live anywhere that I couldn't pee in my back yard. When our nextdoor neighbors moved in, I told the guy that he might see me peeing in the backyard but I wouldn't be blatant about it and if I saw that he had company I would at least go to the bushes. We were good neighbors for many years afterwards.

 Steve
               

[Dane]

I guess it depends on how and where you grew up. I am from LA, and lived in major cities all my life, minus during my tour overseas in the middle of Nowhere, Bavaria. About 15 years ago, I moved to the most rural county in MA, and live in a city / town with maybe 12,000 people, few sidewalks, few street lights, and surrounded by agriculture. To this day, I miss some aspects of the city. Oddly, the sounds of traffic all night is much more comforting than that quiet you get in the country. The never-ending hum of freeways late at night is a sound I also miss, from where I grew up in a suburb of LA. It is just more normal as a soundtrack to life.

But, I love where I live now. However, everytime I go to Boston or NY City, though, I miss it again. Meeting buddies at 2 AM for pizza, the MBTA (subway) instead of having to own a car, things like that. One of the prime things I dont miss growing up in Studio City is how they would regularly find decapitated corpses in the dumpsters a few miles from where I lived.

Dane

[mitch]

Well I live in a gated comunity with a bunch of holier than thou snobs!!! You know the worst part is not that they are snobs but they are two faced about it, some are ok though. Now my folks are looking at some land 10+ acres on water outside of San Antanio! Cant wait to get out of Midland!! 

[Dictionary]

Well I live in a gated comunity with a bunch of holier than thou snobs!!! You know the worst part is not that they are snobs but they are two faced about it,

I know exactly what you're talking about.


Its 9:30, the dogs are barking again and I'm baking in here without the window open. I would do something about it other than shooting my slingshot in the dark over the fence if i wasn't such a recluse.     I am curious though, those who live in the country, you have to commute like an hr to and from work each day? Jeez. Hope i can get a job close to home. I've always wanted to commute by bicycle to work. My motorcycle is cool too though

[SA]

I live  in town and it is nice to have stores a few minutes away but there are train tracks about 1/2 a mile away and they seem  to let that horn blow all hours of the night , I probably wake up to that at least 2x a night . some people say they get used to all the city sounds but I grew up in the country and moved to the city in the 7th grade , I HATE TRAINS

[YosemiteBen]

@ Dictionary - the hour commute is not so bad in the summer - I stop and go fishing and swimming and bikini watching.  Winter can be a little more stress ful like today when we had snoe to below 2000'.  We do have folks that commute by Bicycle - it is after all only 30 some miles from my house to work.  Lots of hills and curves though.  Thought I was going to have to put on tire chains today but avoided them again. No chains for me so far this winter. Of course winter arrives just days ahead of calendar spring.