City, no doubt in my mind.
Being able to walk, bike and take transit instead of having to own a car is important for me. I’m not interested in the additional maintenance involved with owning a house, an apartment suits me a lot better. I also like having good access to plenty of things to do in the form of a great selection of restaurants and being close to international transportation options. Good access to nature without having to drive a car is also important to me.
Sounds like a city that’s not in North America. But OP didn’t specify.
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that includes mini scooters for me, and guys on racing bikes in full spandex gear yelling “cmon!” to people
Size doesn’t really matter to me. Density and accessibility matter to me most.
I would rather live in a community of ~10k that is walkable than a community of 1m+ where I have to drive everywhere. If I can access groceries, dining, and public transportation without ever needing to own a car, I am happy.
I could live in North Bend, Washington, but not Gary, Indiana.
I could live in NYC, but not L.A.
It’s all about girth!
Small town. Cities are high energy. I like visiting but get worn down by the hustle and bustle.
If I could live in West Virginia but without West Virginians, I’d probably do that.
Perfectly located small town. 10k population, right besides the train station which takes me in 10min to either a small city, a medium sized city or, in 30min, to the largest city of the country.
Countryside.
Having lived in both, I prefer the big city. Aside from numerous reasons already mentioned in this thread, I notice that big city people are more open-minded and more diverse. Being slightly different for whatever reason is more of an issue in a small community.
Small town. Less traffic, crime, pollution, expense. More sense of community.
I grew up in a small town. I live in a big city. While I can see the allure of smallish towns (20-50k people), I prefer not having to drive several miles to get anywhere. I have three grocery stores and a bar/restaurant/music venue within walking distance. Cities that size also tend to have urban sprawl which I think is ugly af.
The town I grew up in had about 2500 people and you had to drive an hour and a half to get to a town with more than 10k people. People there tend to be very conservative which is odd considering the government is the biggest employer and towns like that take more state funds than they produce.
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My house used to be next to the highway, the sound was so irritating
You don’t dislike the city, you dislike cars. Cars in cities are often people who live outside the city imposing the cost of their life style onto the city.
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Whichever is more walkable. I’m living crazy cheap with no car these past few years and I don’t want to go back.
Cities are generally better if you need to walk to stores, restaurants, entertainment, etc. also better public transit
Yeah for sure, but here in the UK a small town with a train station gets you a good blend of both worlds
Big city! Given those 2 extremes. Not that I genuinely know. Every choice of residence has been out of extreme necessity. Never made a “voluntary” choice to move with proper time.
I want walkability, access to services, and robust infrastructure.
2nd choice is middle of nowhere where I can do all that stuff myself and homestead.
City. Around 100k is the comfortable size.
Not like I require the city’s wider array of amenities all that much. I will still be spending 97% of my time at work or at home.
But if I lived in a small town again (born and raised in a town of <8,000), that extra 3% of the time I wanted to go out I’d have to remind myself, “Oh yeah, I live in a dead end town in the middle of nowhere that services none of my personal interests,” and that 3% would rapidly become 0%. I’d live fine with that, but eh. Why take a strict net loss when I can simply not?
The walkabiity and community arguments for small towns are complete non-factors for me, seeing as I go basically nowhere and talk to basically no one. And I’m not persuaded by the cost of living argument for small towns, since lower rent would be almost equally counterbalanced by lower salary opportunities.
100k is a big town, not a city.
Not only does the salary go down in small towns but the number of positions are greatly reduced. All it takes is a layoff and that “cheaper” small town could be too expensive because there are no more positions to fill.
The exception would be high-paid remote work, I guess. But with the reputation that corpos big enough to field those salaries have been recently building, going mask-off with no warning for no reason and asking employees to start filling desks again, I don’t know if I’d risk it.
I live 15 minutes outside a small town, 1 hour away from the city.
Love it.
