Comment by pattrn | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pattrn | Hacker News Reader

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This mirrors my sentiment prior to moving to Boston. It turned out to be the opposite. It took more time to get to most places in the city than it took to get to equivalent places when I lived in New Hampshire. You name it: grocery stores, restaurants, pubs, cafes, shopping, parks, markets, etc. My wife and I moved back to NH after a year due to our quality of life dropping so drastically. Two of my childhood friends recently moved back from San Diego and Los Angeles for exactly the same reason.

Now I can get to all of the aforementioned places via car in under 5 minutes. There's Uber and Lyft for when I want to go to a bar. DoorDash serves more than 50 local restaurants. Traffic adds at most 5 minutes to any drive, and only during a small window around 5pm.

The city offers convenience in theory, but from my admittedly anecdotal experience it doesn't hold up in practice. And I'm not sure that matters. At the end of the day, it's just a preference.

> Now I can get to [grocery stores, restaurants, pubs, cafes, shopping, parks, markets, etc.] via car in under 5 minutes

I... sorry, I don't believe that. I've never seen a suburb anywhere with ALL that stuff within the 1.5 mile radius you postulate. Sure, you get some of it locally. We have restaurants within 5 minutes, but the place we want to go tonight is 11 minutes away. There's a park next to the local school, sure, but the kids want to go swimming at the place with the good slide and it's 22 minutes away.

And FWIW: I literally grew up in urban Boston, and live in west coast suburbs now.

He's in New Hampshire. It sounds legit for a place like Concord or Manchester.

I have that too, and I didn't even try for it. I'm in unincorporated land just north of Indialantic, FL.

I had to check for pubs, because I don't use them. There are some within 5 minutes. In that distance I also get a beach on the Atlantic and a fishing dock on the brackish intercoastal waterway. It's 8 minutes to Walmart and 11 to a commercial airport. My workplace is only 3 minutes away.

Near me, 3-bedroom homes of about 1200 to 2000 square feet on 0.25 acre lots are going for $120,000 to $240,000. For 4-bedroom homes of about 3000 to 4000 square feet on 0.35 to 0.65 acre lots I think you'd pay $350,000 to $650,000. To get up over a million you'd need to be on the beach (sand and waves in your yard) or on the intercoastal waterway (with a dock for your yacht).

It can't be helped if you insist on going to the far-away restaurant and the far-away park. There is always something better, so you'll end up traveling the farthest that you tolerate.

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