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Comment by matte_black | Hacker News Reader

IMO cities are crap if you have certain hobbies.

If you want to have a garden, or a wood shop, or race around RC cars or drones, or big pets, a city just won’t work well for you.

Most people are happy in cities because their lives aren’t much more than sleeping, eating, going to work, and then maybe going to some social events or watching tv, which is a perfect description of millennial life so far.

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I'm not sure what city you live in, but in Chicago there are plenty of community gardens, cultural centers with workshops, and lots and lots of open park space to play with drones.

I see plenty of medium and large dogs running with their owners on the lakeshore trail, and most parks have fenced off dedicated dog parks.

Cities work fine for all these things, it just requires that the city has shared space for people with hobbies that don't fit in an apartment.

Putting up ham radio antennas is difficult enough in the suburbs, and damn near impossible in the cities. It didn't used to be that way; you could once string up wires between buildings and no one would care.

It's 2018, who would bother with ham radio anymore?

Ham radio is often a gateway (and a destination, too) for people interested in electrical engineering.

Yep, I'm an EE.

Agreed. I want to let my dog run around in the backyard all day, swim in the pool, etc. I want to be able to work on my cars in my garage with all my tools. I want to be able to play my music and movies as loud as I please.

I lived in urban apartments when I got into my hobby of building and flying RC sailplanes. There are plenty of parks I could walk to or bike to that are big enough to fly in. When I needed more space, I drove to my sanctioned flying field which is out in a truly rural area.

Most suburban back yards are still far too small for RC flying so I'm not sure what the living suburbs gets you for this hobby that you can't have in a city.

DC is a special case because the entire city is subject to special flight rules[1]. You're SOL if you live there.

[1] https://www.faa.gov/uas/where_to_fly/no_drone_zone/

If you live in Midtown Manhattan or the Loop in Chicago, I can see why you'd believe that. But if you live in the outer neighborhoods/boroughs, thats not in the slightest bit true.

I live in Brooklyn. The hobbies I cannot participate in, mostly due to not having a car, that I once enjoyed:

Autocross/Track days

Sporting clays

Golf (dragging clubs on the subway is not fun)

Kayaking

Camping

There are other things to do, but NYC is a bad place for a person making less than 6 figures to participate in a lot of outdoor activities.

Definitely Agree. Lived throughout the Northside and West Sides of Chicago for about 8 years now. The amount of "free" activities seems to dull suburban life by comparison.

Festivals

Concerts

Bars

Shopping

Food

Gyms

Meetups

Zoo(s)

Aquarium

Beach

Bike/Jogging trails (606/lakeshore)

Holiday Parades

Holiday Events (Christkindle/July 4th, etc)

Architecture

Very accessible social circles (walking, public transit)

etc, etc

These are what I worry I'd be giving up if moving to the suburbs as a renter currently.

(edit) Can't figure out a hard-return for formatting

(edit 2) Trying to get into a bowling alley is ridiculously hard though, having an hour wait to bowl never has happened to me in the burbs.

"If you want to have a garden, or a wood shop, or race around RC cars or drones, or big pets, a city just won’t work well for you."

Also, if you like loud motorcycles, could you please f$%k off to the suburbs. Thanks.

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