> moves to city for education and excitement
>> "yeah dad moved us to the middle of no where when i was 10, i hated it"
> gets high pace job
>> "yeah I grew up on a small farm in the middle of no where, it was nice thb. my dad still lives there. here's bessy our cow."
> starts family
> sigma grind set to support family
> gets burnt out
> buys farm in middle of no where
:GOTO 0
Not that I care if my kids move to a city. I'll have a place to stay while going to the museums.
My parents moved us to an old dairy farm on 30 acres with only one other house on the road. 7 miles from a town of 6000 and 50 miles from the nearest Walmart. I loved it and only moved away after college because there were no jobs here.
Moved back 3.5 years later because I could buy a house for 1/3 the cost while working remote for a "city salary" and because I missed raising animals.
I’ve done rural living my entire life and I’d much rather live in a city if it were a viable option. Even very basic things are far easier in the city and the city has things like emergency rooms that are open 24/7. I can’t assume my local hospital will be open if I hurt myself and the next is a ~100km drive away.
Most rural areas are less hostile to your face, but the local rumour mill can be incredibly cruel and harmful behind one’s back should you not conform or if someone takes issue with you. A gay couple moved to my area and at least initially suffered greatly for it.
I guess the grass isn’t necessarily greener in either direction, the challenges and issues are just different.
This nails it.
> I’ll be honest I don’t really get why rural life appeals to those in the city.
There may be multiple reasons, to each their own. As a city-dweller since I was kid, the biggest issue, and the one that has me contemplate rural(-er) living, is the constant noise.
The housing market being what it is, it's very hard to find well-insulated apartments.
In France, there have been new construction regulations for noise insulation, but most of the apartments in Paris were built before that. You can more or less easily get an apartment that doesn't face a major road (or any road at all). But you can never get an apartment with no neighbors (unless you're extremely rich, which isn't my, nor most people's case).
I was willing to trade city problems for the rural problems.
Living rurally on over a 100 acres, I am free to do a not that was not even possible on our 1/4 acre not in the city. I fix up old tractors and trucks in my free time with my sons. This summer I plan to get a sawmill and try my hand at building historical structures (log cabins, old style pole barns, etc.).
There are rural cities. I'm in a rural area, classified as such by the USDA. There is ample space of farming, hunting and undeveloped wilderness. There's a fully navigable river, lakes, many fishable streams. There aren't neighborhoods, there are some stretches of houses not a great distance apart on a single road.
Then there is the city. It's not a huge city, but it's an urban environment. Again, classified by the government as such. The city is loud, active, and dense. There's no suburban area though. That's the difference. There's just rural farmland and wooded areas, no meandering neighborhoods with a random shopping center over and over. You go from rural to urban immediately. The first thing I come to is from a massive orchard to a dense violent apartment complex and a strip of 24hr stores.
I think this is part of the key. The pattern I have noticed is one kid gets the parent's farm and the rest move to find work.
You can't childproof a farm. It's way easier to die from misadventures.
I'm also single and wish to have a life partner. If and when I find someone with whom I find peace and contentment to share my life with, I imagine being in the middle of the bustle won't be as necessary.
(I'm aware I should not look for a life partner to make me at peace, but it sure would help).