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Comment by tjr225 | Hacker News Reader

You’re presenting a false dichotomy. There are plenty of dense places with incredible nature within just an hours drive. In the USA, Maybe not so much outside of the West Coast of the USA however.

Personally, living in a city close to nature(seattle area) has been the best thing for me so far in my life; I have spent a stupid amount of money making it happen but wouldn’t trade it for anything. On the flip side it’s not for everybody, so don’t just take my word for it.

On the other hand I will be riding my bike to a ferry, and then riding to a camp site on a beach on an island after work on Friday- weather permitting.

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> within just an hours drive

Wow that's depressing, I live in a very high density area by western standards and there's 50,000 acres of pristine rainforest literally on my doorstep while the mall is 5 minutes drive away and the city centre is 15 mins. During covid even the rare and endangered gibbons would come out hang out in the street.

Everytime I go back to Australia it seems like a suburban dystopia with 8 lane roads 60kms from the actual city. People commuting 2+ hours a day is the norm there.

You wrote: <<there's 50,000 acres of pristine rainforest literally on my doorstep while the mall is 5 minutes drive away and the city centre is 15 mins>>

Woah. Where do you live? This sounds "impossible". Singapore or Kuala Lumpur?

The presence of gibbons probably means somewhere in Malaysia or Singapore

Yes, this is absolutely a false dichotomy. I live in Zurich, with access to varied nature (hills, lake, river) all within a 15 minutes' walk and lots of stunning scenery easily accessible by train.

> There are plenty of dense places with incredible nature within just an hours drive.

What a hilarious example of what the original commenter was saying. Apparently you think having nature an hour away is acceptable, or at least counts as being close to nature. As a very anti-urban person, I consider that nightmarish. I'm glad other people like that kind of world, and hope they all keep moving to the cities to leave the rest of the world open and spacious for the rest of us.

The bay area is great in this front as well. I live in the east Bay and it's an easy bike ride to redwood groves...

Yeah, I didn’t mean to frame it as a dichotomy, but it was a HN comment so I didn’t explore the full depth of nuance, and it was scoped to the US. Yes, some places are dense while still allowing some access to nature.

No worries! I have lived in dense places on the east coast too and always felt super cramped in them as well.

I live in Berlin. I can take public transit to the forest or beautiful swimmable lakes. And there are tons of parks within the city.

Vienna even has a national park in the city. (Lobau Nationalpark)

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