What's wrong with living in metropolitan areas?

[beau5278]

Reading through all of these comments a couple of things come to mind.I was born and raised in the country,on a farm in northeast PA.By the time that I was married and raising kids,it was getting somewhat crowded.As others have said it all depends on the way that your raised,if you don't know what it's like to be snowed in for a couple of days,country living isn't for you.I tend to find more rural people that don't give a crap about what other people think of them but would give you the shirt off their back if you need it.

I spent a few years driving truck,I've never been to California but I've spent a good deal of time in NY,Chicago and most of the other major cities east of the Mississippi but as far as traffic and people NY and Chicago are the only ones big enough to have rush hours that can extend for hours.

The OP says that he doesn't feel like someone is watching him all of the time,could be because that's the only thing you've ever known.I moved to western NY about 9 years ago,I like the area,very rural,30 minutes from downtown Rochester and about an hour from Buffalo.I believe as far as government is concerned,NY and California have some similarities and this state stinks and it's actually pretty knife friendly,at least in this area.

One thing that does really gripe me about the mindset of a lot of urban dwellers is the thinking that anyone that lives outside of their area is a dumb hick.I don't have a problem with them wanting to live like they want but I do have a problem with them thinking that I should be more like them.

 

[Esav Benyamin]

Silverdagger, if you would leave your stereotypes at the door, and focus on the actual discussion and actual personalities here, you could learn a lot.

We had a recent thread about hating New York City and a lot of people spoke up for it who weren't New Yorkers themselves. No one place has it all. If we can find a place that has it for us as individuals, that's great.

City, country, suburbs, densely populated or out in the sticks, it all works for someone, or we wouldn't be there.

 

[Kaizen1]

You are correct, you won't hear much in an outdoorsy second ammendment freedom loving place like this about the virtues of the big city. Just won't happen.

It's not so much about not seeing people talk about the virtues of city life that I was talking about. It's more so about people making snide remarks and showing their contempt for the city areas. I really think some of the people have severely exaggerated ideas about what it's like to live in these areas.

Hoping the Big One will hit and take California, at least it's cities, outside the United States, to Communist China, where they belong. They'll be begging for government bailout money for their big spending big city foolishness soon enough.

LOL Is that what you are talking about??? ROFL

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Are you asking if this is what I'm talking about or are you just making an ignorant comment?

 

[Kaizen1]

As others have said it all depends on the way that your raised,if you don't know what it's like to be snowed in for a couple of days,country living isn't for you.

I seen the snow maybe about 6-7 times not considering TV, computers and pictures. I think I qualify for this.

I tend to find more rural people that don't give a crap about what other people think of them but would give you the shirt off their back if you need it.

I wonder if there's some stereotype floating around that this is impossible in metro areas. Human goodness is human goodness. This isn't exclusive to the country and it's not really rare in my experience. I know a lot of really good people.

The OP says that he doesn't feel like someone is watching him all of the time,could be because that's the only thing you've ever known.

I did consider this. But what exactly would I look for to see if someone is watching me? How would you know that this would be the case in city areas? Are you making this judgment by looking at knife and gun laws or something else?

One thing that does really gripe me about the mindset of a lot of urban dwellers is the thinking that anyone that lives outside of their area is a dumb hick.I don't have a problem with them wanting to live like they want but I do have a problem with them thinking that I should be more like them.

I can understand that this stereotype certainly exists, but it seems to be more about a type of xenophobia than anything else. We have "groups" and regions and people tend to create stereotypes about that which they don't know. But the thread was started because I was seeing so many comments that indicated negative stereotypes about place like where I'm from.

 

[gazz98]

I can appreciate the pros and cons of both city and rural living.

For me, the ideal situation is in the burbs of a medium sized city (say 200,000+ to 750,000ish). Say a suburb of Nashville, Knoxville, Charlotte, Raleigh, Indy, to name a few. 20+ mins in one direction put you in the downtown with restaurants, movies, shopping, plays, museums, ect. all the things a good sized city has. Go 20+ mins in the other direction and you are into some country for fishing, camping, or camping.

I also like being around a good size university. Universities always have something going on: sports, music, theatre, art exhibitis, chicks in bikinis , lectures, etc.

Not sure how much I'd like being 2 hrs away from everything and the closest neighbor is 5 miles down the road.

 

[555]

I love cities, I think everybody should move to one. Don't forget to Write me

 

[Kaizen1]

I can appreciate the pros and cons of both city and rural living.

For me, the ideal situation is in the burbs of a medium sized city (say 200,000+ to 750,000ish). Say a suburb of Nashville, Knoxville, Charlotte, Raleigh, Indy, to name a few. 20+ mins in one direction put you in the downtown with restaurants, movies, shopping, plays, museums, ect. all the things a good sized city has. Go 20+ mins in the other direction and you are into some country for fishing, camping, or camping.

I also like being around a good size university. Universities always have something going on: sports, music, theatre, art exhibitis, chicks in bikinis , lectures, etc.

Not sure how much I'd like being 2 hrs away from everything and the closest neighbor is 5 miles down the road.

I concur with your objective assessment:thumbup:

 

[beau5278]

In post 23,the quote about the big one,that has more to do with politics than anything else and if you want to pony up the money for a paid membership so you can get into the political forum on here,there are people there,me included that will gladly debate California politics with you.I'm going to try to give you a couple of examples here that hopefully won't get this sent to political.There have been a few times in my lifetime that I have wished the same thing,in my mind at least,every loony idea that comes up in politics gets tested in California.I also know that there are people in this country and this doesn't come from people here on Bladeforums,I frequent a couple other forums that have a lot of very conservative people but there are people that don't think it was a good idea for California to be developed like it was.Now I don't believe that totally but I do know Calfornia needs to get their act together.

As far as the quote about people watching you,I don't actually know how California works but I do know how things work here in NY.I read an article a while back about Monroe county in western NY,the city of Rochester takes up a lot of Monroe county.That article was saying that in Monroe county,there were between 550 and almost 700 layers of government in Monroe county,the difference in numbers according to the article depended on who you talked to about it.What I'm getting at here is that all that government involvement doesn't come free,we pay it in taxes.

Another small example of how this works,I travel frequently between western NY and northeast PA,the trip is about the same distance in both states with equal amounts of city,side road and interstate driving.In that distance,it's normal to see at least 5 or 6 police,city,county sheriffs and state police.Occasionally,I'll pass 1 in PA and normally PA roads are more heavily traveled than the roads in NY.Now that doesn't seem like a bad thing until you start to figure where the money comes from to pay the police.Another similar example,NY was given Federal money a couple years ago to add more DOT cops to watch for terrorists driving trucks,since then the Motor Carrier Enforcement cops have been on a tear in this state,of course at present,they haven't actually found any terrorists driving trucks but they have made life a real PITA for all the other trucks driving through this state.

 

[Psychopomp]

Change a few words around can get fun. Us rural people are the ones who normally get made fun, questioned, and hated by liberal elites. Anyway, I had some fun with this.

Please explain how liberals hate rural people? I'm as liberal as they come, and guess where I live? On the side of a mountain in a log cabin in the forest.

Let's not turn this into a political thing because it isn't. One's political leaning has nothing to do with geography. And there are idiots on both sides of the political spectrum.

I'm not anti-city, but I'm much happier surrounded by nothing.

I grew up in a medium sized town (75,000 people in the county), and I have no desire to go back because there's just too many people. I now live in a county with around 30,000 people.

If I want to do something I can drive 45 minutes to Asheville, NC. And there's a large university in town, so there's plenty of culture and arts and music right here.

I've spent time in cities and while a big city is nice to visit, I wouldn't want to stay.

I'll keep my mountains.

 

[Kaizen1]

I'm not anti-city, but I'm much happier surrounded by nothing.

I grew up in a medium sized town (75,000 people in the county), and I have no desire to go back because there's just too many people. I now live in a county with around 30,000 people.

If I want to do something I can drive 45 minutes to Asheville, NC. And there's a large university in town, so there's plenty of culture and arts and music right here.

I've spent time in cities and while a big city is nice to visit, I wouldn't want to stay.

I'll keep my mountains.

This I consider to be a reasonable attitude. So to be clear, this is not what I was originally referring to. An example of what I was originally talking about was for example, under one member's location, it reads "Out in the country, thank God!". This is the condescending, contemptuous type of attitude that I was asking about.

 

[Psychopomp]

This I consider to be a reasonable attitude. So to be clear, this is not what I was originally referring to. An example of what I was originally talking about was for example, under one member's location, it reads "Out in the country, thank God!". This is the condescending, contemptuous type of attitude that I was asking about.

I understand that . And I do agree with you that there does seem to be an anti-city attitude sometimes. But, I'm not sure if it's really an anti-city attitude as much as it is an appreciation for less concrete-y surroundings.

Had I grown up in a city, my feelings may be different. Who knows. I am where I am, and right now I'm where I want to be. But I ever find myself in a city, it'll be because I wanted to be there.

 

[Kaizen1]

I understand that . And I do agree with you that there does seem to be an anti-city attitude sometimes. But, I'm not sure if it's really an anti-city attitude as much as it is an appreciation for less concrete-y surroundings.

Had I grown up in a city, my feelings may be different. Who knows. I am where I am, and right now I'm where I want to be. But I ever find myself in a city, it'll be because I wanted to be there.

I can concede that I may be reading a little too much into that particular quote, but there have been more than enough that I've seen over the past 3 years on this and other knife forums that has lead me to start this thread. Because I do enjoy California so much, to talk down on an area that I consciously choose to stay in is very much like talking down on my preference to enjoy knives or any other hobby that I do. So it's certainly one thing to love where you're at, but I don't see why it seems okay for anyone to to speak bad about how others choose to live. I hate, let me repeat, HATE the knife laws in England and Japan, but you won't see me talking about how horrible it is over there. I'm sure there are many things outside of knife laws that people can enjoy, even if none of those things apply to me.

 

[YayILikePie]

For me, the big issue that I have with metro areas is the traffic. I just can't stand adding at least half an hour to a commute if it's rush hour. If it's rush hour AND there's an accident, it's necessary to make it one hour, rather than half an hour.

Also, coming from Santa Cruz, we have a boardwalk. It's a big tourist hotspot where people hours away will drive to visit and hang out. This means that our summers are packed full of tourists left and right. I can't walk around without some darn tourist asking me which way the boardwalk is, not to mention the increase in traffic coming from the 17 as well as the 1. At times, it'll take nearly two hours to get back into the city when coming from San Jose, which is usually only about 30 minutes away. That's a commute four times as long.

 

[gajinoz]

What does it really matter? There are those who like living in a city, I have some very good friends who live in the city and wouldn't live anywhere else. Good for them.

I live in a small village in a rural area and I wouldn't live anywhere else.

It makes absolutely no difference where you live, so long as you are living where you like.

I can't understand how people can live in cities, but I'm glad most of them do, it means there are way less of them out in the bush where I am. It's a win/win situation, everyone is happy.

My friends in the city tell me they can walk just down the road in the morning and have a nice coffee and fresh bread roll from the cafe. I tell them I can walk out the back of the house in the morning, smell fresh clean air, pick some fruit from my orchard and make breakfast with it.

To each his own.

 

[midnight flyer]

This isn't a rant, it's an honest question. I put it here rather than W&C because I'd like to know what people really think and not just give people a reason to use expletives, although I realize some people need expletives to say what they really think.

Glad you inserted that. Some of the less urban denizens seem to be mighty defensive.

I've read so many little remarks about how they're so happy to live in the country areas (which is fine and I can understand that), but also implicit (and explicit) remarks about how horrible it would be to live in places like California where I live.

I wouldn't take too personally. Many times folks make fun of things they don't understand, or to simply jump on the bandwagon. The folks that post here can't really be too rural now can they? I have friends that work as cowboys on ranches about an hour or so out from San Antonio that cannot get cell phone signals or internet. Those boys are rural!

Then of course, there are personal reasons folks don't like things as well. But it does seem strange to me that others have disdain for those that don't live the way they do.

Living in S. Texas is a blast. I can drive 20 minutes to a bird hunting lease from my house, primitive camp in near solitude (if not actual) in near wilderness 45 minutes from my house, and have hiking trails galore less than 20 minutes away. I spent 3 days last week in the Texas hill country that was heaven. Fresh farm eggs straight from the coop every morning, homemade bread and biscuits, and a 100 foot walk to the fishing hole. Cell phone didn't work, and there was no phone or internet in the cabin.

We have a gun/knife show at least once a month. We all know "old so and so" that lives in the sticks. They all come into town to go "dancin' and drankin' " since the small town bars around here are pretty much old honky tonks. They tease us about our uppity snotty chicks, and we tease them about finding women with a most of their teeth.

You can go see a Broadway show, and cowboy boots (often costing several hundred dollars) are as welcome as Cole-Haans. Same with the symphony. Folks standing outside the New York traveling show of the Nutcracker in tuxedos will be talking about the deer moving around "pretty good" because of the weather change, looking forward to getting out for the hunt.

I guess most of us get along pretty well down here and there aren't really a lot of lines drawn about who lives the right way or why they prefer their way of life. It's a pretty big melting pot of cultures.

As for California, well.... a few camping trips and a few vacations to see the Sequoias, Hearst Castle, the Pacific Coast Highway, China Town, Oakville, Carmel, a TON of state parks, Lake Tahoe (beauty beyond description), Napa Valley, and the prettiest place on Earth - Yosemite, would change just about anyone's mind about California.

With all that history, culture, natural beauty as part of the state, I could put up with a lot. But I didn't have to. In all my time there in CA, I only met one guy that gave me a lot of trouble for being from Texas. Sure a lot of folks teased me for my slight accent (West Texas is the twangy area) but it was all in good fun. They loved the fact actually drove a truck all my life and never owned a car. They were pleased I had several "six shooters" but disappointed I had no gun rack. Many asked me to say "ya'll" in good fun, but after an afternoon of wine tasting it crept out on its own. They thought it was pretty funny, and some of the women did their valley girl impressions for me. The folks in CA were nice, helpful and fun whether I was in the city or in the country.

I loved all of CA except Los Angeles. It was a scary place to be.

Don't judge all the folks here by the biggest posters or the most hard core/opinionated. I am sure there are plenty of folks like me that partake of the different aspects of culture as they want, on their own terms. If someone bags on your city or State or your living arrangements, let it roll off your back. In your heart you know what kind of person you are talking to.

Robert

 

[Praxis]

I like the country and the city. I grew up in a rural part of the Pacific Northwest, but I have lived in, or near, major cities on the East Coast much of my adult life. I love the country and would be happy to move somewhere like Alaska if I could find work in my field. On the other hand, cities are fun. If I had a job in NYC or Chicago, I'd probably live there for a year or two. Couldn't handle it long-term due to political restrictions and other issues. Some cities I would definitely avoid like LA. Just not a fan of the LA lifestyle.

So, to each his own, I guess.

 

[kycolonel]

I live in an area as gazz98 described, 20 minutes from the city and 20 minutes from the country. I have to say this has provided a good blend for raising a family. As for people with "anti-" city sentiments, I believe most of this has its roots in an increasing political chasm in the country. Legit or not, there is a palpable sense that the population of Northeast major cities (greater NY, Boston), Chicago, and the West Coast cities believe they are on intellectual and cultural higher ground, and that the rest of America is fly over country. These are the areas that consider themselves "progressives" (implied meaning: everyone else is "regressive" or backwards). Not to get off on a political tangent with this thread- but for many people where I live it is hard to believe that politicians like Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank even exist, and even harder to believe that they could get reelected. I'm sure the feeling is mutual regarding politicians like Mitch McConnel from my neck of the woods.

Unfortunately, I think the gap between rural and urban America is going to get wider before before it gets any better. People from both sides of the fence have to remember that not everyone who lives in a certain area is "that way".

 

[GregY]

I grew up in NYC, which I believe counts as a big city.

The OP likes Cali. He likes the weather, and the women. That's great. Except that for other people, there are more things to life than nice weather and available women. I went to school in Boston and stayed (despite the weather) because of the women and availability of tech jobs. But comes the day when you're older, and not single, and bagging college girls means a lot less than it used to.... Anyway.

Some of us would like to be able to buy a house, and afford to raise some kids. Or maybe afford some land, something more than a 50x50 postage stamp lot.

If I were wealthy, I would definitely maintain an in-town residence. But it wouldn't be my only, or even primary, residence.

Oh, and you really ought to *look* closely and carefully at your tax returns, Fed and (especially for the OP) state. It'll teach you something.

 

[SilverFoxKnows]

I'm Californian, born and raised. And I can tell you, it's not the same state I grew up in. All the fields I used to ride my bike in as a kid are gone, now, all condo complexes. El Toro air station, where my Mom & Grandma used to work, is defunct, surrounded by tract housing and huge open air malls. Tagging, alternately 18th Street or MS 13, adorn the walls of my neighborhood every few weeks. There are cameras at nearly every traffic stop. You need to know how to speak about four languages, but you really REALLY need to know Spanish. There are freeway interchanges that move about as fast as walking. Housing is outrageously expensive. So is gasoline. And God forbid you ever have to go to the ER, you will wait for five hours (and need to speak Spanish). There is a brown cloud that hangs over the megalopolis. It's no bueno.

There are some good things about SoCal, though. First, the weather. Lewis Black said the world's best job would be weatherman in San Diego. "What's the weather like out there?"..."Nice! It was nice yesterday. It's nice today. And it's going to be nice tomorrow". Second, chicks. With warm weather comes baby doll tank tops. Frakking awesome. Okay, some of them are a little plastic but by no means all. Also, museums, theatre, clubs, concerts. Beach, mountains & desert all within driving distance. And food. Where else can you get authentic Mexican food, Arabic food & Vietnamese food on the same street?

Another big plus is tolerance. Don't laugh yet, hear me out. It's not perfect. I've gotten dirty looks from a bunch of Vietnamese gansters for giving a Vietnamese girl a hug. And one or two brothers looked at me like "Who brought the white boy?" But I never really got any grief for hanging out with a bunch of black guys, they were overwhelmingly cool. One of my best friends Thanh, Vietnamese parents- he was born & raised here, married a cute little white girl from Tennessee. They've never mentioned getting any grief for it. When I dated a Mexican girl I didn't get any grief for it. And for every flaming queen you see on TV at a gay pride parade are ten normal gay dudes who just want some kind of legal standing should their partner end up in the hospital. Considering how many cultures, languages & religions there are in SoCal there are very few troubles because of it. Okay, laugh if you want, now.

For the moment I'm staying put. But I keep looking at southwestern Idaho, or maybe eastern Washington or Oregon. Anybody from there? How do you like it?

Frank

 

[carrot]

For all practical purposes, I've lived all my life in an urban area here in St. Louis.
From the heavily-industrialized era in the 50s and 60s through the manufacturing decline and the "white flight" era to the present day.
Advantages.... Even though St. Louis is no longer a "big" city, you can still find anything you want at nearly any time. Art, culture, entertainment, fine dining, not-so-fine dining...You name it, it's available. You don't have to drive 20 miles for a cappucino or a new set of strings for your guitar or nearly anything else.

We live in the county, and we get excellent services as well. The streets get cleaned off promptly when it snows. Utilities are quickly repaired if there's an outage. If you get sick, there are excellent hospitals and urgent care facilities all over.
Response time for emergencies is in terms of minutes in most cases.

Disadvantages... Some areas of the city are nasty. There are single streets that account for 1/2 the annual homicides. Traffic can be very bad at times, and bad weather can make it horrible.
Local politics can be....Interesting. Despite being a fairly large city St. Louis still has some very parochial and small-town attitudes. Almost all the industry is gone. No more car manufacturing, no big industrial plants.
My wife and I find the idea of living "out" in a rural area to be rather terrifying. We get a little panicky if we're more than 5 minutes from a cappuccino.

I visited St. Louis and found it was pretty empty between 8-10pm. Is it always quiet during a Cardinals game?

Also, you're lucky... Peets Coffee is the best coffee chain in the universe.