Poll: Do you prefer the city or country?

[alespa]

Chas,

You made a great point earlier about "small town" which is not in the poll. Funny, but that's what we are looking for. I wasn't thinking. The Olympic Penninsula is where we are thinking seriously about. There are many small towns, of various sizes, that offer the shopping needs, and have properties where you can see the house next to you, but you still have 1+ acres.

Other comments have been made about developers, which for the most part IMHO are greedy. I say greedy because development carries a high level of social responsibility to develop in a way to "enhance" not degrade living conditions for all. I'd say that 90% of the time I don't see this. Most of the development around here, including trac homes all look the same. There's no creativity. It looks like one company "designed" every house, condo and stip mall for the whole area.

One of the key factors for us moving across the Sound is really deciding how often do we really need to be on "this side" and factor in the cost of taking the ferry and time involved. We'll see.

[peteinmn]

http://home.comcast.net/~pmmogdans/images/ourhouse.jpg

Picture says it all.

[alespa]

nice, pete!

[Sunnywindo]

We see this in southern Utah rural areas all the time - people moving in from out of state to find their space and live in a small town atmosphere. The other side of the coin is that some of them immediately start attending town council meetings and try to change the towns into places that resemble the cities they left. They want roads built, golf courses, all the big-city amenities they were supposedly giving up for a simpler life. I think it takes a certain kind of person to appreciate small towns and rural areas and what it takes to maintain them so they can be enjoyed and not overwhelmed. (That's not intended to be a slap at all the city folks, either--after all, I'm a city folk myself now.)

Susan

Wow! How true! And not just in southern Utah either. My family farm, once out in the midde of a lovely part farming country, is now being subdivided into five acre lots with these huge monster houses on them. Folks had to sell it, then the farmer who worked it gave the land to his kid who decided to build instead of farm. (The small family farmer is being forced out of existance, just not enough money to keep it going. One year a neighbor just opened up a bunch of his potatoes for anyone to come by and get them, because it would cost more to haul them to market than he would get back in profit, and he didn't want them to just waste!)

Anyhow, the point. Here is this pretty countryside, and now it's being built on left and right... and then you get folks who build next door to a farmer, but then start complaining about the smell/noise of the animals, seeking to change it into some wierd fake "country" of big houses on big lots with no real farms.

There's some kind of bizzare conflict with moving out to the country for a simpler, more peaceful life, and then building these monsterous, complex houses that a person could get lost in on their little piece of "simple country". What I wouldn't give for a small farm house, a garden, and some chickens (I love chickens!); having the pleasure of seeing the family farmers plant and harvest all around, seeing all the baby animals in the spring to watch them grow all summer. Simpler, closer to the earth type living... of a brand that is slowly disappearing into large coorprate farms, golf courses, and massive subdivisions.



Sara

[FJohnSharp]

Wherever I am, I yearn for the other.

[alespa]

John, I can see your point!

Sara, I see your point too! And I agree. We just want something low key, older and not huge. Just what meets our needs. We'd love to have a large two-story workshop in back, so we can put our office upstairs, and print shop down below. That way, we can "walk" to work, and have a physical separation between the two. We'd love some acreage so we can have a garden, sized for our needs, space for our dogs, and hopefully room for some animals as well.

I think it looks unnatural to see a surburban style mansion out in the country. Kind of like taking the city home and plopping it in a field.

matt

[happyturkeyman]

The city and the country are the best. If it was a choice of only one, it would be the city. If I could go between at my leisure, though, I would spend most of my time in the country and only a little in the city. Does that make any sense?

[alespa]

perfectly

[Darwin]

I'm one of those lucky folks who can be miserable no matter where he lives.