Urban vs. Suburban vs. Rural: FITE!

I'm comfortable just about anywhere, besides Cincinatti.

When I was about 12, we moved to a fairly rural area of Upstate NY. Sure, within half an hour's drive, we could be in the suburbs (shopping malls) or a small city. But the nearest house was nearly a mile away, there were cornfields and cows and no one could hear us row. It felt like such a relief.

By the time I was 22 (the first time) I was bored of the rurals, I was scared of the encroaching suburbs developing their way across the cornfields, and I have spent the rest of my life in very urban environments.

Strangely, what I liked best about the city was exactly the same thing about the country. The anonymity. In the country, it was the anonymity of no one being around. In the city, it was the anonymity of there being so *many* people around that no one seems to bother caring about any specific one.

Hudson Valley, NY's got you covered, brody.

So actually, mostly urban for me. Huh.

Anyway, enough squabbling. Where do you feel more comfortable? And *why*?

I have always thought the city, but now I prefer deep country, and if I had the money, I'd live there, green wellies brigade and illiterate inbreds or no!

I'd never bring up children in the city. That's what suburbs are FOR - or what they're supposed to be, cleaner, safer, more spacious places to raise a family. But they're pretty dull the rest of the time.

The countryside is shit and the Right can have it ;)

Having grown up in them, I don't like suburbs. I prefer either pure urban or pure rural, and no-where in between. I've never lived anywhere rural, and as each year passes I think this is what I want, although I fear that I may be wrong about this.

I have been to Kingston, ONT and it is a deeply strange town, even for Canada.

The 'suburbs' as I know them are endless streets of similar looking houses, with only the occasional school or park (or powerline) to break them up. Sounds quaint, but WHAT DO YOU DO? Even if you just want to pop out for some bread you most likely have a VERY long walk to get to the nearest store/mini-mall/plaza thing. And the only 'entertainment' is typically in these cookie-cutter googaplexes that all have a multi-screen theatre, family restaurant (pick one), starbucks, home depot, etc etc (you know what i'm talking about). And of course even though it's in YOUR suburb, you still have to drive to get there.

And forget about popping out for a pint with friends - the nearest pub/bar is probably very far and even then it's not the type of place you want to go to unless you're looking for a fight. Well, if you looked like me anyway - you'd be fine with a non-ironic mullet and a pickup or Camaro.

My suburb was particularly shitty because large parts of it were light-industrial-type areas, or streets with endless gas-stations and plazas and pretty bad crime (FAR worse than most of downtown).

I did too - mostly with the help of bouze and drugs.

*doom laden start, triumphant fanfare introduction, spiralling riff*

Sprawling on the fringes of the city
In geometric order
An insulated border
In between the bright lights
And the far unlit unknown

I've always lived in urban areas, though quite leafy ones (yay! south London). I feel a little uncomfortable in other places actually, to be honest. Part of it's how I know I'll be perceived as a Londoner, part of it's the stereotypical Londoner's response to the peace and quiet of the countryside (where are the powerlines??? where are the electric lights??? what do you mean there's no cinema on the whole island???).

My girlfriend's from an amazingly rural area, moved to london 8 years ago. She loves and hates it; I'm not sure if she'll stay, though she loves Wimbledon (not that she lives here).

*fictional made-up entity consisting of parts of three states that you only hear about on local news and in car commercials, similar to Tri-State for NJ/NY/CT and Kentuckiana for KY/IN

Thanks for the Rush shout-out, Ned ;)

Ooh, but the "Florida cracker" thing isn't *quite* the same thing as the "whitey cracker" thing. It's more of a... rural native-Floridian thing? My grandfather used to refer to my little sister as the "cracker" of the family since she was born in Florida.

I luv u, kate.

My mom has friends in Rosendale!

Suburban mixes the worst aspects of both - nothing interesting to do, but without the serenity and space of rural living. And lots of upper-middle class white people.

Yes I agree, but it also mixes the both of best: lower crime, less congestion, more shopping/dining/social options.

Suburban dining options tend toward chains, too.

I'm sick of suburbia. Nuff said.

The idea of living on a ranch in New Mexico, 200 miles away from the nearest city is very appealing to me, but I'm afraid that the past 26 years of living where I have has made me accustomed to a certain level of civilization and consequently I'd not deal with such isolation very well after a few months, weeks, or even days.

I think the ideal situation for me would be living in a nice, quaint rural area that is within an hour of a decent-sized cities. There were parts of Maryland that I drove through which fit the bill.

xpost yes definitely. My argument holds up better on paper than in reality. Still, there are good dining spots---usually non-descript places in strip malls--that can be found if you search a little. I live at the edge of the Chicago burbs, where most of the growth is happening, and the roads cannot keep pace with the overwhelming influx of people.

near Cumberland? Hagerstown?

Though for once I agree with John D. If I could, I would head for the hills. If only I could do that without a petrosled. Hey, maybe I could get a horse instead. I mean, I might be mistaken for one of the green wellies hunting shooting fishing brigade, but no one ever went to war over hay.

princeton is its own weird little world.

I'm more comfortable in the city. I can't deal with small towns at all; it's like my expectations of how things should be are constantly being disappointed, there are all these points of reference that are quite close to what I'm used to but not close enough. Oddly, I'm all right with small villages, perhaps because the style of life is so identifiably different. Perhaps, also, because you're in a single... environment, maybe? If I'm in London, I can travel half an hour, two hours, three hours, and I'm still in London and recognisably so; in proper rural, if I walk for any normal amount of time the landscape and what's on the land will contain mostly the same elements. In a small town, maybe half an hour's walk and you're surrounded by fields - it's not large enough, not surrounding enough, to be a comforting environment. It feels a lot more exposed, but also a lot more hemmed-in, to be in a small town: there's nowhere you can go. (Or, rather, going means crossing a boundary between environments.)

But I doubt I'd be able to stay in proper rural that long, anyway, because I've grown (up) used to the convenience of the city, the easy availability of a whole mess of stuff from a whole mess of cultures, of a crowd of people to get lost in. Because, also, I love London for itself, for its atmosphere as much as its beauty and what it contains. It's home.

Dawlish has a population of about 12,000, and is not quite rural or suburban. I have to travel half an hour (either by car or else train&walking) to a cineam. I don't mind.

Natural beauty outweighs my desire for convenient food, but I go nutty if I go too long without visiting a city and seeing some diversity of people.

This Fite is a problem for my husband & me, though, cuz he loves urban best. If we won the lottery, we'd get an apt in NYC to go to sometimes.

Where I live now (Martha's Vineyard) is rural in winter, but has traffic jams in summer. The city sort of comes to us.

What about the Pine Barrens? Have they been developed?

Me - born in the suburbs (Sutton Coldfield), raised in the country (Wiltshire), spent the second half of my life and counting in the city (Manchester). Although there's an ongoing debate as to whether Chorlton qualifies as a suburb of Manchester. I say it isn't because I obviously like to think of myself as a hip young urban gunslinger.

I love living in the city, but my affection for the country is still intact (I have no love for the burbs whatsoever). I'd say the majority of my best friends aren't city born. Somehow they retain a certain amount of wide-eyed enthusiasm for their adopted surroundings, whereas lifelong city-dwellers seem to give in to jaded cynicism a bit more readily.