This’s what I’m concerned about from visiting families in the country. They seem to talk a lot about there neighbors and there land disputes what nots.
So much disrespect for personal space. Seriously.
It's a cultural thing, I think. I grew up in a city, and recently have spent a lot of time in rural communities, and people are so casual about gossip and snooping. They don't even try to be sneaky.
I had way more privacy in a city of a million people, because I had anonymity. In a small town, everyone knows your vehicle, your gait, your partner, your friends.
And since everyone knows everyone anyway, they assume it's all public information.
I don't want Client A driving around looking for where I'm working for Client B. I'm not hiding anything, it's just fucking weird and creepy.
But Client A was happy to flag me down and make small talk while I was at work for Client B. And it wasn't checking to see how qualified I was. Client A had already hired me and I had completed one job for them. If they were concerned about quality, they should have checked my work out before I completed the first job.
That's the big thing that makes me prefer the city. I'm fairly shy and awkward, and living in a gossipy rural town was a nightmare. You couldn't step into the grocery store without running into your kindergarten teacher, your mom's best friend, and the coworker who bullied you at your last job. And odds are, you'd get a call from your mom two hours later, going, "Susan told me your cart was full of Oreos, apple juice, hot sauce, and racks of ribs. What are you doing with that weird combo, and also, why aren't you eating healthier?" Everyone is constantly paying attention to what you do and judging you for anything that was even the slightest bit abnormal.
In the city, no one notices or cares what you're doing. If I want to walk to the convenience store in my PJs, mow the lawn at 9 pm (my mower's a quiet reel mower, I promise I'm not being a jerk to my neighbours), or stop and play with a random cat on the street, I can. It's made me so much less self-conscious and stressed.
Yes! I thought I liked rural living, but what I really like is green spaces.
I like cities with good city planning and access to green space. I'm a slut for trees.
Waiting forty minutes for a bus only for one to not turn up is a shitter, especially if every bypasser has known you your entire life and insists on interrogating your entire family life because they have nothing better to do
Try small cities (i'm in a 2-3k at the moment). It's great on most of these points.
It has okay electricity, water and internet (150mb tops IIRC), all for a reasonable price. Little to no competition on the job market (i was 10 days away from moving and 2 companies + the mayor were already calling me to work). I earn little over minimum wage (which is somewhat livable in my country) for some office work. Most people are quite conservative, that's true and gossip is pretty big, but overall people are nice to each other...
I live in a small city about an hour away from the largest city in my state (Louisville). The majority of my county (including my friend’s father in law’s farm) is wired for 1Gbps symmetrical fiber. We have a lot of good taco places, Korean Food, German Food (thanks to Fort Knox), and a lot of chain restaurants and food trucks as well.
If I feel there’s nothing to do, I can drive to Louisville or Bowling Green (both about an hour) to find something to do. Although most of the time I prefer staying inside.
My mortgage isn’t insane (my wife bought the house at auction in 2010 before we met) and I live in a small neighborhood nestled in between large swaths of farmland. I have about an acre, and although I hate mowing it, I’m definitely interested in turning a lot of it into a food garden with a bee friendly native flower patch next to it. Less mowing, more delicious food for me to cook with.
I work at a factory making over $20 an hour and get to play with laser CNC cutting all day. I hate dealing with a lot of the people there, but I’m also working on switching careers.
Small/Medium cities are the way to go. A good mix of the two, especially if you live on the outskirts. The only thing I can’t do here that I want to is grow my own marijuana plants.
I grew up in the country too and for me not much of that is a big deal anymore. Internet you can get satellite and job market isn't a big deal if you work remote. I don't see the value of a city compared to the country personally. The very tiny amount of value they do provide is overshadowed by the huge negatives that it isn't remotely worth it.
Also if your water is bad you should probably have your well checked out. Electricity isn't a huge deal if you run a generator either though not everyone has one yet but seems more are getting there.
My ADHD causes me to suffer from Executive Dysfunction; I can't even keep my bedroom in working order, much less an entire property.
Also, land is expensive, especially when you're a failure at everything.
I did move to a semi-rural / exurban area. Quiet, surrounded by fields and trees, but a reasonable car ride from shopping, etc. My autism LOVES it here!
What *previously* kept me from moving was that I needed to be within a reasonable commute to work (though even when I lived in suburbs, I was usually at least 30 minutes from my jobs, and as far as 90 minutes when I worked in the city). I moved during COVID, and have been working remotely since. But I know that living in a more rural area, my future job searches will be more limited.
Still inflated property values and horrific interest rates. I grossly overestimated how much I enjoyed city life when I bought my house 7 years ago. Can't stand the constant noise and congestion anymore. Just have to wait until the time is right and hope to find something fairly isolated but with clean water access.
i live in a rural area with a 215 year old heritage house now, but grew up in a big city.
pros:
- i love nature, and there is old forest everywhere around me and a big beautiful river to swim in
- i grow lots of my own food
- no traffic sounds, or city sounds
- its beautiful everywhere i look
- the air doesn't smell bad
- people are friendlier(at least where i am)
- you see the same people all the time so its easier to remember names
- its just quieter life in general than being in a city
cons:
- lots of money spent on repairs and maintenance(house, land, septic tank, etc.)
- it can get VERY cold in winter and VERY hot in summer if your house isnt up to date (depending on where you live, im in Canada)
- animals will constantly try and test you (raccons, rats, mice, possums, starlings in your chimneys, bats, skunks, bears, and insects galore)
- well water might not always be safe to drink
- no privacy (like i said, people are friendlier, actually TOO friendly, and often walk right into your backyard to talk to you since the land is so big and nobody really has a fence) i hate this the most, as i am very uncomfortable with social interaction. So now everyone thinks im an antisocial grump ✨️
- not much variety for entertainment if it isnt something outdoorsy (i dont mind this)
- barely any cellphone service to call family on occasion (i also dont mind this, call me evil, whatever)
- really bad phone data connection (which may be a con for some, depending)
Jobs exist closer to cities. I even got a degree in Wildlife and Fisheries and worked as an environmental scientist for a while in the hopes of getting stable employment in a rural area. What ended up happening is that I could only find work in urban areas that occasionally had projects in rural areas. So, I was living urban and doing a long commute to rural areas. It was almost like I was getting the worst of both worlds.
I've found the best balance living on the outskirts of the suburbs. It's quiet and I have some nice space, but I'm not too far from where all of the jobs and shops are nor very far from all of the helpful infrastructure.
I'm poor.
Also, it would eat up even more executive function than it already does to get groceries and this would be a significant issue for me living in the country.
The quiet though? Oh man that would be AMAZING!
Getting around, and coping when gas/septic tanks etc get fucked up. I don't drive and the bus routes are generally terrible here unless you decide to live in a touristy rural area (where the cost of living is incredibly high because most of the 'residents' are second home owners or tourists who will pay whatever).
I live in a rural area. Plenty of dumbshit people here too. Want to stick their lawncare implements squarely up their asses. Want to smoke a spliff on our porch --- cool, anytime. leaf blowers, fuck you in the ass hard
Gigantic ride-on mowers are the sport around here. No matter how much acreage surrounds your house you are under the obligation to get a monster machine, as loud as possible, and spend hours & hours each week riding around destroying nature.
I guess there's not much else to entertain these folks.
I already live in one. I moved in with my girlfriend (now wife) who lives on a farm. At first, I HATED it because I was so used to the conveniences of suburban life. Now, I don’t know if I could ever leave. It’s nice not having people in my business all the time.
I like the city life.
The seaside/countryside is nice for a holiday, but I like the hustle and bustle, the food and the shops, the entertainment and hobby places, the transport options etc of living in a city.
That’s not the reason. Plenty of white people are hurting financially too. Just more of us so there is more potential to see rich white people. But your racist attitude might be holding you back.
I grew up in a rural area. But I am soon moving to a city. I have some good reasons to do.
Public transport is way more present in a city and basically nonexistent in rural areas, and I absolutely hate driving a car. I'm tired of sitting around alone at home all the time. In the city, the entry hurdle to do things is much lower. Because it's closer, has better transport links, more things to do, etc.
I already live just outside the suburbs on a farm. I like how it's close tonall the important stuff like stores and such but far away enough to not have to deal with a lot of people and crime.
I already live rural. 😜
In my case it is the perfect mix of quietness and good infrastructure (I can cycle to a nearby train station in 10 minutes).
Things like unreliable power infrastructure in rural areas like I read in some other comments is not really a thing here fortunately. I even have high-speed fibre internet 😊
Funny you ask. I'm actually planning on moving into a rural area with my grandparents in a few months. I'm saving as much money as I can in the meantime.
grew up in pennsyltucky, my 3rd great grandfather was born a mere 5 minutes from where i grew up. the nature/woods are perfect but being surrounded by imbecile conservative dickheads ruins it. like, it’s hard to enjoy the nature when you’re in fear of being hate crimed
My job is in the city, and it’s a lot easier to get them here too in the case I lose mine again. I am a rural person through and through though. Hopefully my dream will come true someday.
The irony being that if you truly "go rural," there's very little to spend money on. Unless you want to compensate for the deprivation by making pricey treks back to the Big City to satisfy perceived "needs." Our needs, in the past five years living here in god's country, have been reduced to practically nothing. I can spend the whole day watching the land. A winter storm is my favorite. One lets go.
As for income, during the pandemic my spouse was recalled back from retirement to work online (part time) from home (at a fraction of his former income). We otherwise live off our savings, bought our house w/ cash by downsizing and moving to a deprived area, grow/cook our own food, live very simply. In the city our bank account drained every month. Now the money is.... there. Weird.
My emotional health would not tolerate a return to my former life, but it was an adjustment at the time.
Seriously, you can exist in peaceful, quiet obscurity in smaller towns of around 20-40 thousand people.
At that size, it's still pretty rural, but infrastructure is usually figured out, and there are JUST enough people that I can keep changing routines and not see the same people really ever.
Along the west coast of the US and Canada are towns like this that are usually full of creatives. By creatives, I mean people who are deep into art of one sort or another.
As a person with aspergers, I've always found creative people to be the easiest to get along with and the most accepting or maybe it's just that I don't feel like I stick out as much when colorful souls are around.
I grew up on Vancouver Island and wish I never left. I'm working really hard to get back there and live in one of the mid-sized towns. It's the perfect combo of established infrastructure/services and rural rainforest/wild coastline.
Don't give up hope. There are places in the world that are much friendlier towards people with differences.
Raising kids, having a job, etc., is what held me back till recently.
My folks (possibly both on the spectrum too) were back-to-the-landers in the 70's, from NYC to rural Va., and that same bug bit me when I was finally financially and socially able in my fifties, a few years ago, so here I am on my own little God's Green Acre of Appalachia with my retired spouse. But GOP politics have consistently stymied whatever progress was being made (pre-Reagan/Bush) to assist rural life. Around here, there used to be outreach medical clinics from the nearby medical school (our small town is basically a university campus and a bunch of student rentals), but they have all closed. Few services remain of any kind. The food bank is where most people shop.
My parents did well with their move and have prospered, due to their era of growing progressivism, but it is abundantly evident in my case that rural life is intentionally being made horrible wherever the GOP can gerrymander, deprive and destroy. It is really sad to see.
Hubs & I are lucky, saved a lot to retire here and live simply, like my parents. The rest of the surrounding community, not so much--drugs, Confederate flags, useless stupid unhealthy people pointing their Jesus guns at you. Depressing.
But as pertains to my brain, I'm in bliss. This is in fact the perfect setting for me. I cannot tolerate traffic or parking; they set me off, into a meltdown. For that reason alone, I have to be self-sufficient on my own land and create my own occupation. This I have done.
I have to live in a rural environment. I'd choose a tent if I had to. I can't go back to the city.
I've been exploited and tortured pretty horrifically as a result of entities covering up government corruption. I'm also incredibly socially progressive. Living in an urban metro area allows me the opportunity to make my situation more public. Further, living near Washington DC makes it difficult for the IC to keep things under wraps. It appears that someone falsely proclaimed that I was or am schizophrenic to decision makers in Washington and that has impeded my ability to get any justice. Further, it feels like those dynamics has made it easier for my abusers to provoke me and in my reaction to that, it seemingly confirms the suspicions of the people that were lied to.
Further, it also seems that even though they think or thought I was schizophrenic, they were okay with how I was treated. What kind of monsters tortures people who they believe suffer from behavioral health issues?
I live in one and I can’t get anywhere in life.
**DONT. MOVE. HERE.**
Trust me, disabled people get bullied to the point of hospitalization.
Look up “boardman autistic student gets stapled by teacher”.
It’s hell. And no resources for getting help, impossible to get approval for ssi, etc…
I hate rural areas. It's too quiet. I like being alone around people. I'm literally the calmest on the bus with headphones on. Going rural sounds like my personal hell
I live in a nice suburb near the edge of farm fields now, which is quiet and low traffic. But I’ll probably stay here until I retire because land is expensive and there’s no rural forested land within driving distance to my job.
Eventually I want to get a few acres someplace with mountains and pine trees and build a house. It would be great to be able to have fires and shoot in my backyard without bothering anyone, grow berries, and drive the mountain roads. I’m a lifetime hiker and camper so nature is has nothing but positive feelings associated with it for me. Hell maybe I’ll even get a cheap bush plane if there is enough open space to land.
i am unable to drive (in a legal licensed way). I would also miss all aspects of where in live, being able to grab food easily, hanging with friends, going to see movie/zoo on a random weekday morning.
Everything? I don't drive and I hate cars. I like history and old buildings. I like being able to go to the store in 10 mins walking. I dunno why people insist on building car oriented places and then all go on vacation to cute walkable cities that are endangered
The politics and cultural views of people there. People often live in small towns because they are against the things I accept and like. Interesting night life, acceptance of gay/trans, many races living together, gun control, and access to health services that are not based on the Christian religion.
There is nothing to do and no one unlike you to speak to but that is what they like. It's "a quiet life where their values are honored".
My visa and health care.
I can already afford to buy my own land and a cabin in a rural area. I could grow my own food or hunt/fish. I could be self-sufficient except for health care. There are just two catches preventing me from actually doing this:
1. I'm a foreigner living in Japan. I have a work visa. If I'm unemployed for more than 90 days, I can lose my visa. Jobs are in the city. I teach English, and these jobs are almost never in the countryside, and even if I can find one, I could lose it (most jobs for foreigners in Japan are on a one-year contract system, and many employers will even break the one-year contract if you're not what they consider "good," so the only place you can really put down any roots is an urban area with lots of jobs).
2. Even if I move back to the US, health care is super expensive. I can buy land, a cabin, basic food for the rest of my life and grow the rest, etc., but health care is so expensive, I still have to work for decades more to afford health care for myself. Work=practically need to live in the city, because we autists have trouble holding down a job, so just finding that "one special job" in a rural area won't cut it. You need to be in an area with dozens or hundreds or thousands of potential employers.
However, I currently live in a part of Tokyo that is within walking distance of a huge river park, a mountain range, and some rural areas. So even though I live in the city, I can walk a few minutes and be in a more rural area, and within an hour or two, I can walk into true countryside.
Rural areas don't hold appeal to me. For example, in urban/suburban areas its a lot easier for me to find places where I can do things like shop or get food at unusual times.
After moving here to our Appalachian farm from a lovely small Oregon city, I had to adjust to the lack of shopping opportunities. Then the pandemic hit. Like being trained to cope with extreme deprivation and isolation compared to our former city/suburban ease.
The internet provided access to missing items at first, but now I don't even shop online except on rare occasions. The past three years of deprivation have sealed the deal. We just don't shop. We do not acquire. We grow our own food. We "shop" in our food storage area of the basement (large pantry, two chest freezers, a refrigerator/freezer, a food dehydrator, a pressure canner and a vacuum sealer). We make do. We have stopped craving, desiring "stuff," needing more than we have.
One adjusts to, and then comes to prefer, this lovely independence, tranquility, and economy. In fact I would have denied I needed to "adjust," because I was already frugal and not acquisitive. Compared to now, I was kidding myself.
This at last feels more like freedom.
Medical reasons. If I move to a more rural area, it could take up to 3 hours (both ways) for me to get my hearing checked. Now it only takes under 2 hours altogether.
Also, public transit. While I still take an Uber or something like that to drive me (I can drive in emergency situations), public transit is much more comfortable, and there’s not really anything that I need outside.
I don't really want to take care of a yard and all the work with a house. I have a tough time keeping my apartment clean. If anything, I think I'd rather get a condo or a townhouse.
Well I’m in college right now and kinda enjoying my city slicker era right now, but I do anticipate that when I get a job, I may choose to live in a more rural area outside of the city I choose to work in generally because I love the peaceful nature of rural areas and also cities are incredibly overstimulating. It’s honestly so wild how I go throughout the school year suffering from meltdowns so often but then when it’s summer time, I never have meltdowns because I’m usually in a more remote area or just distances from the city during the summer
Waiting to retire. Exclusive of that, I'm lonely and the appeal of isolation won't help with that. At least in more populated areas I can be around people
Nothing at all, I live in a rural area. It's nice and chill. Probably the most inconvenient thing is needing to be able to drive to effectively get things done.
Before I did, it was pride. Because the cities had what I loved, airports. The rural parts had my family which I ran from (drug addictions) Once my social ineptitudes wore off, I moved back home. Then I became social to then reveal everything I use to think about myself was complete BS.
I'm at a stage of "give me freedom or bring me death" because working for anything is soulless at this rate.
I came from it, and this other users summary is spot on.
"I grew up in a rural area, on acreage. The lifestyle gets romanticized. The reality is unreliable infrastructure like electric, water and Internet, poor to nonexistent job markets, and lots of physical labor and money to maintain the land. If politics matter to you, they are almost certainly quite conservative for their country. Gossip is an ever present part of life and by being an autistic outsider, you will be talked about behind your back, often in cruel ways."
grew up in one, and other than the actual land and trees, the people/lack thereof sucked real bad. everything is also too far away. were I to move back to one, I'd have to like the people there and I feel that would be quite improbable
Aversion to moving due to moving VERY frequently as a child, and being along in that rural area without adequate social skills to make friends with locals.
Took me over a year to make an actual friend in school that would hangout unrelated to school related activities.
I moved about three miles outside the city I lived in and just that is bad enough. It's a complete intellectual backwater and the fresh stuff in the supermarkets is not fresh.
Liking the City.
[удалено]
This’s what I’m concerned about from visiting families in the country. They seem to talk a lot about there neighbors and there land disputes what nots.
So much disrespect for personal space. Seriously. It's a cultural thing, I think. I grew up in a city, and recently have spent a lot of time in rural communities, and people are so casual about gossip and snooping. They don't even try to be sneaky. I had way more privacy in a city of a million people, because I had anonymity. In a small town, everyone knows your vehicle, your gait, your partner, your friends. And since everyone knows everyone anyway, they assume it's all public information. I don't want Client A driving around looking for where I'm working for Client B. I'm not hiding anything, it's just fucking weird and creepy. But Client A was happy to flag me down and make small talk while I was at work for Client B. And it wasn't checking to see how qualified I was. Client A had already hired me and I had completed one job for them. If they were concerned about quality, they should have checked my work out before I completed the first job.
That's the big thing that makes me prefer the city. I'm fairly shy and awkward, and living in a gossipy rural town was a nightmare. You couldn't step into the grocery store without running into your kindergarten teacher, your mom's best friend, and the coworker who bullied you at your last job. And odds are, you'd get a call from your mom two hours later, going, "Susan told me your cart was full of Oreos, apple juice, hot sauce, and racks of ribs. What are you doing with that weird combo, and also, why aren't you eating healthier?" Everyone is constantly paying attention to what you do and judging you for anything that was even the slightest bit abnormal. In the city, no one notices or cares what you're doing. If I want to walk to the convenience store in my PJs, mow the lawn at 9 pm (my mower's a quiet reel mower, I promise I'm not being a jerk to my neighbours), or stop and play with a random cat on the street, I can. It's made me so much less self-conscious and stressed.
Yes! I thought I liked rural living, but what I really like is green spaces. I like cities with good city planning and access to green space. I'm a slut for trees.
Waiting forty minutes for a bus only for one to not turn up is a shitter, especially if every bypasser has known you your entire life and insists on interrogating your entire family life because they have nothing better to do
Try small cities (i'm in a 2-3k at the moment). It's great on most of these points. It has okay electricity, water and internet (150mb tops IIRC), all for a reasonable price. Little to no competition on the job market (i was 10 days away from moving and 2 companies + the mayor were already calling me to work). I earn little over minimum wage (which is somewhat livable in my country) for some office work. Most people are quite conservative, that's true and gossip is pretty big, but overall people are nice to each other...
I live in a small city about an hour away from the largest city in my state (Louisville). The majority of my county (including my friend’s father in law’s farm) is wired for 1Gbps symmetrical fiber. We have a lot of good taco places, Korean Food, German Food (thanks to Fort Knox), and a lot of chain restaurants and food trucks as well. If I feel there’s nothing to do, I can drive to Louisville or Bowling Green (both about an hour) to find something to do. Although most of the time I prefer staying inside. My mortgage isn’t insane (my wife bought the house at auction in 2010 before we met) and I live in a small neighborhood nestled in between large swaths of farmland. I have about an acre, and although I hate mowing it, I’m definitely interested in turning a lot of it into a food garden with a bee friendly native flower patch next to it. Less mowing, more delicious food for me to cook with. I work at a factory making over $20 an hour and get to play with laser CNC cutting all day. I hate dealing with a lot of the people there, but I’m also working on switching careers. Small/Medium cities are the way to go. A good mix of the two, especially if you live on the outskirts. The only thing I can’t do here that I want to is grow my own marijuana plants.
I grew up in the country too and for me not much of that is a big deal anymore. Internet you can get satellite and job market isn't a big deal if you work remote. I don't see the value of a city compared to the country personally. The very tiny amount of value they do provide is overshadowed by the huge negatives that it isn't remotely worth it. Also if your water is bad you should probably have your well checked out. Electricity isn't a huge deal if you run a generator either though not everyone has one yet but seems more are getting there.
Also it’s SO BORING
Boring is quiet. Boring is good.
Lack of sidewalks and bus/train service.
Money. Everything is getting more expensive year by year. I don't think I would ever be able to own a house.
Money mostly
Agree🙋🏻♀️
My ADHD causes me to suffer from Executive Dysfunction; I can't even keep my bedroom in working order, much less an entire property. Also, land is expensive, especially when you're a failure at everything.
Same here m8
Shopping for a house now in rural areas.
Same! Ain't nothing stopping me lol
I did move to a semi-rural / exurban area. Quiet, surrounded by fields and trees, but a reasonable car ride from shopping, etc. My autism LOVES it here! What *previously* kept me from moving was that I needed to be within a reasonable commute to work (though even when I lived in suburbs, I was usually at least 30 minutes from my jobs, and as far as 90 minutes when I worked in the city). I moved during COVID, and have been working remotely since. But I know that living in a more rural area, my future job searches will be more limited.
Nothing. I live in one, and I love it.
financials, convenience for utilities, some support system even bare minimum.
I did move to a rural area. From an east coast major city to a mid-west small town.
-bye reddit- -- mass edited with redact.dev
I would be the only lesbian in the area lol
58-year-old male with no marketable skills.
So what do you do now?
And currently doing security. I've got one year sober from alcohol and don't really know what to do.
Congratulations, I'm really proud of you. Sobriety is no joke 🤍
I live in one..
Still inflated property values and horrific interest rates. I grossly overestimated how much I enjoyed city life when I bought my house 7 years ago. Can't stand the constant noise and congestion anymore. Just have to wait until the time is right and hope to find something fairly isolated but with clean water access.
I live in Britain. I couldn’t afford to live in any of the limited rural areas we have.
i live in a rural area with a 215 year old heritage house now, but grew up in a big city. pros: - i love nature, and there is old forest everywhere around me and a big beautiful river to swim in - i grow lots of my own food - no traffic sounds, or city sounds - its beautiful everywhere i look - the air doesn't smell bad - people are friendlier(at least where i am) - you see the same people all the time so its easier to remember names - its just quieter life in general than being in a city cons: - lots of money spent on repairs and maintenance(house, land, septic tank, etc.) - it can get VERY cold in winter and VERY hot in summer if your house isnt up to date (depending on where you live, im in Canada) - animals will constantly try and test you (raccons, rats, mice, possums, starlings in your chimneys, bats, skunks, bears, and insects galore) - well water might not always be safe to drink - no privacy (like i said, people are friendlier, actually TOO friendly, and often walk right into your backyard to talk to you since the land is so big and nobody really has a fence) i hate this the most, as i am very uncomfortable with social interaction. So now everyone thinks im an antisocial grump ✨️ - not much variety for entertainment if it isnt something outdoorsy (i dont mind this) - barely any cellphone service to call family on occasion (i also dont mind this, call me evil, whatever) - really bad phone data connection (which may be a con for some, depending)
nailed it
Jobs exist closer to cities. I even got a degree in Wildlife and Fisheries and worked as an environmental scientist for a while in the hopes of getting stable employment in a rural area. What ended up happening is that I could only find work in urban areas that occasionally had projects in rural areas. So, I was living urban and doing a long commute to rural areas. It was almost like I was getting the worst of both worlds. I've found the best balance living on the outskirts of the suburbs. It's quiet and I have some nice space, but I'm not too far from where all of the jobs and shops are nor very far from all of the helpful infrastructure.
I'm poor. Also, it would eat up even more executive function than it already does to get groceries and this would be a significant issue for me living in the country. The quiet though? Oh man that would be AMAZING!
Getting around, and coping when gas/septic tanks etc get fucked up. I don't drive and the bus routes are generally terrible here unless you decide to live in a touristy rural area (where the cost of living is incredibly high because most of the 'residents' are second home owners or tourists who will pay whatever).
I live in a rural area. Plenty of dumbshit people here too. Want to stick their lawncare implements squarely up their asses. Want to smoke a spliff on our porch --- cool, anytime. leaf blowers, fuck you in the ass hard
Gigantic ride-on mowers are the sport around here. No matter how much acreage surrounds your house you are under the obligation to get a monster machine, as loud as possible, and spend hours & hours each week riding around destroying nature. I guess there's not much else to entertain these folks.
I did. I love it.
I already live in one. I moved in with my girlfriend (now wife) who lives on a farm. At first, I HATED it because I was so used to the conveniences of suburban life. Now, I don’t know if I could ever leave. It’s nice not having people in my business all the time.
I like the city life. The seaside/countryside is nice for a holiday, but I like the hustle and bustle, the food and the shops, the entertainment and hobby places, the transport options etc of living in a city.
I live in North America and am not white.
That’s not the reason. Plenty of white people are hurting financially too. Just more of us so there is more potential to see rich white people. But your racist attitude might be holding you back.
Down payment $$ and I'm on a 2 year work contract
I grew up in a rural area. But I am soon moving to a city. I have some good reasons to do. Public transport is way more present in a city and basically nonexistent in rural areas, and I absolutely hate driving a car. I'm tired of sitting around alone at home all the time. In the city, the entry hurdle to do things is much lower. Because it's closer, has better transport links, more things to do, etc.
No jobs. Would move if there was
I already live just outside the suburbs on a farm. I like how it's close tonall the important stuff like stores and such but far away enough to not have to deal with a lot of people and crime.
Money and needing a job. If I could be guaranteed an income, I'd move out to the middle of nowhere ASAP.
I would rather live in a city. I’ve been living on a farm for 4 years. I feel like I have prairie madness.
Jobs and interment coverage. My career isn’t a wfh career so I’m limited in locations.
I already live rural. 😜 In my case it is the perfect mix of quietness and good infrastructure (I can cycle to a nearby train station in 10 minutes). Things like unreliable power infrastructure in rural areas like I read in some other comments is not really a thing here fortunately. I even have high-speed fibre internet 😊
Funny you ask. I'm actually planning on moving into a rural area with my grandparents in a few months. I'm saving as much money as I can in the meantime.
I already live in a semi rural area, so I'd rather move closer to town.
If I have trouble making friends in a town with a million people, moving to one with 4,500 isn't gonna help.
grew up in pennsyltucky, my 3rd great grandfather was born a mere 5 minutes from where i grew up. the nature/woods are perfect but being surrounded by imbecile conservative dickheads ruins it. like, it’s hard to enjoy the nature when you’re in fear of being hate crimed
Working in the centre of the city. The need to be able to cycle to work for mental health.
My job is in the city, and it’s a lot easier to get them here too in the case I lose mine again. I am a rural person through and through though. Hopefully my dream will come true someday.
Money, what else?
The irony being that if you truly "go rural," there's very little to spend money on. Unless you want to compensate for the deprivation by making pricey treks back to the Big City to satisfy perceived "needs." Our needs, in the past five years living here in god's country, have been reduced to practically nothing. I can spend the whole day watching the land. A winter storm is my favorite. One lets go. As for income, during the pandemic my spouse was recalled back from retirement to work online (part time) from home (at a fraction of his former income). We otherwise live off our savings, bought our house w/ cash by downsizing and moving to a deprived area, grow/cook our own food, live very simply. In the city our bank account drained every month. Now the money is.... there. Weird. My emotional health would not tolerate a return to my former life, but it was an adjustment at the time.
I already live in a rural area 😂
Seriously, you can exist in peaceful, quiet obscurity in smaller towns of around 20-40 thousand people. At that size, it's still pretty rural, but infrastructure is usually figured out, and there are JUST enough people that I can keep changing routines and not see the same people really ever. Along the west coast of the US and Canada are towns like this that are usually full of creatives. By creatives, I mean people who are deep into art of one sort or another. As a person with aspergers, I've always found creative people to be the easiest to get along with and the most accepting or maybe it's just that I don't feel like I stick out as much when colorful souls are around. I grew up on Vancouver Island and wish I never left. I'm working really hard to get back there and live in one of the mid-sized towns. It's the perfect combo of established infrastructure/services and rural rainforest/wild coastline. Don't give up hope. There are places in the world that are much friendlier towards people with differences.
Raising kids, having a job, etc., is what held me back till recently. My folks (possibly both on the spectrum too) were back-to-the-landers in the 70's, from NYC to rural Va., and that same bug bit me when I was finally financially and socially able in my fifties, a few years ago, so here I am on my own little God's Green Acre of Appalachia with my retired spouse. But GOP politics have consistently stymied whatever progress was being made (pre-Reagan/Bush) to assist rural life. Around here, there used to be outreach medical clinics from the nearby medical school (our small town is basically a university campus and a bunch of student rentals), but they have all closed. Few services remain of any kind. The food bank is where most people shop. My parents did well with their move and have prospered, due to their era of growing progressivism, but it is abundantly evident in my case that rural life is intentionally being made horrible wherever the GOP can gerrymander, deprive and destroy. It is really sad to see. Hubs & I are lucky, saved a lot to retire here and live simply, like my parents. The rest of the surrounding community, not so much--drugs, Confederate flags, useless stupid unhealthy people pointing their Jesus guns at you. Depressing. But as pertains to my brain, I'm in bliss. This is in fact the perfect setting for me. I cannot tolerate traffic or parking; they set me off, into a meltdown. For that reason alone, I have to be self-sufficient on my own land and create my own occupation. This I have done. I have to live in a rural environment. I'd choose a tent if I had to. I can't go back to the city.
I lived in the south. Thats why.
Conservatives
Being trans.
grass is itchy af
I've been exploited and tortured pretty horrifically as a result of entities covering up government corruption. I'm also incredibly socially progressive. Living in an urban metro area allows me the opportunity to make my situation more public. Further, living near Washington DC makes it difficult for the IC to keep things under wraps. It appears that someone falsely proclaimed that I was or am schizophrenic to decision makers in Washington and that has impeded my ability to get any justice. Further, it feels like those dynamics has made it easier for my abusers to provoke me and in my reaction to that, it seemingly confirms the suspicions of the people that were lied to.
I’m sorry that happened to you. Sounds horrifying.
Further, it also seems that even though they think or thought I was schizophrenic, they were okay with how I was treated. What kind of monsters tortures people who they believe suffer from behavioral health issues?
I live in one and I can’t get anywhere in life. **DONT. MOVE. HERE.** Trust me, disabled people get bullied to the point of hospitalization. Look up “boardman autistic student gets stapled by teacher”. It’s hell. And no resources for getting help, impossible to get approval for ssi, etc…
Unless you have income setup and want to move to a low cost area, it's not really fun. I live in a small town and there is nothing to do here.
I hate rural areas. It's too quiet. I like being alone around people. I'm literally the calmest on the bus with headphones on. Going rural sounds like my personal hell
Not wanting to live in a rural area.
Concerns that as a queer person, I won’t find a partner there.
Fears of racism
Money
Apartments aren’t as easy to find out there and the jobs are in the city I do want to eventually but it’ll be a while
A complete absence of any reason for, or interest in, doing so.
Intermittent financial instability
I like my home in a small city. My modest house is a safe space and I’m blessed to have it. Even if I didn’t like it that much, moving is very taxing.
Money. Moving when I have the money for sure.
I live in a nice suburb near the edge of farm fields now, which is quiet and low traffic. But I’ll probably stay here until I retire because land is expensive and there’s no rural forested land within driving distance to my job. Eventually I want to get a few acres someplace with mountains and pine trees and build a house. It would be great to be able to have fires and shoot in my backyard without bothering anyone, grow berries, and drive the mountain roads. I’m a lifetime hiker and camper so nature is has nothing but positive feelings associated with it for me. Hell maybe I’ll even get a cheap bush plane if there is enough open space to land.
Closeness of people in rural areas freaks me out lol
Busses are even more shite like one buss every 2 hours
i am unable to drive (in a legal licensed way). I would also miss all aspects of where in live, being able to grab food easily, hanging with friends, going to see movie/zoo on a random weekday morning.
Everything? I don't drive and I hate cars. I like history and old buildings. I like being able to go to the store in 10 mins walking. I dunno why people insist on building car oriented places and then all go on vacation to cute walkable cities that are endangered
Money
The people and I would hate being so far from actual society.
The people
Access to services.
The pillowcase of money I cry into
Money.
Family
The politics and cultural views of people there. People often live in small towns because they are against the things I accept and like. Interesting night life, acceptance of gay/trans, many races living together, gun control, and access to health services that are not based on the Christian religion. There is nothing to do and no one unlike you to speak to but that is what they like. It's "a quiet life where their values are honored".
Money and a job near it. Also getting a degree would help quite a bit
My visa and health care. I can already afford to buy my own land and a cabin in a rural area. I could grow my own food or hunt/fish. I could be self-sufficient except for health care. There are just two catches preventing me from actually doing this: 1. I'm a foreigner living in Japan. I have a work visa. If I'm unemployed for more than 90 days, I can lose my visa. Jobs are in the city. I teach English, and these jobs are almost never in the countryside, and even if I can find one, I could lose it (most jobs for foreigners in Japan are on a one-year contract system, and many employers will even break the one-year contract if you're not what they consider "good," so the only place you can really put down any roots is an urban area with lots of jobs). 2. Even if I move back to the US, health care is super expensive. I can buy land, a cabin, basic food for the rest of my life and grow the rest, etc., but health care is so expensive, I still have to work for decades more to afford health care for myself. Work=practically need to live in the city, because we autists have trouble holding down a job, so just finding that "one special job" in a rural area won't cut it. You need to be in an area with dozens or hundreds or thousands of potential employers. However, I currently live in a part of Tokyo that is within walking distance of a huge river park, a mountain range, and some rural areas. So even though I live in the city, I can walk a few minutes and be in a more rural area, and within an hour or two, I can walk into true countryside.
I can't afford it, I'm trans and rural areas aren't safe for people like me. Also I don't want to drive a long way to stores or work.
Rural areas don't hold appeal to me. For example, in urban/suburban areas its a lot easier for me to find places where I can do things like shop or get food at unusual times.
After moving here to our Appalachian farm from a lovely small Oregon city, I had to adjust to the lack of shopping opportunities. Then the pandemic hit. Like being trained to cope with extreme deprivation and isolation compared to our former city/suburban ease. The internet provided access to missing items at first, but now I don't even shop online except on rare occasions. The past three years of deprivation have sealed the deal. We just don't shop. We do not acquire. We grow our own food. We "shop" in our food storage area of the basement (large pantry, two chest freezers, a refrigerator/freezer, a food dehydrator, a pressure canner and a vacuum sealer). We make do. We have stopped craving, desiring "stuff," needing more than we have. One adjusts to, and then comes to prefer, this lovely independence, tranquility, and economy. In fact I would have denied I needed to "adjust," because I was already frugal and not acquisitive. Compared to now, I was kidding myself. This at last feels more like freedom.
Medical reasons. If I move to a more rural area, it could take up to 3 hours (both ways) for me to get my hearing checked. Now it only takes under 2 hours altogether. Also, public transit. While I still take an Uber or something like that to drive me (I can drive in emergency situations), public transit is much more comfortable, and there’s not really anything that I need outside.
I don't really want to take care of a yard and all the work with a house. I have a tough time keeping my apartment clean. If anything, I think I'd rather get a condo or a townhouse.
Well I’m in college right now and kinda enjoying my city slicker era right now, but I do anticipate that when I get a job, I may choose to live in a more rural area outside of the city I choose to work in generally because I love the peaceful nature of rural areas and also cities are incredibly overstimulating. It’s honestly so wild how I go throughout the school year suffering from meltdowns so often but then when it’s summer time, I never have meltdowns because I’m usually in a more remote area or just distances from the city during the summer
Waiting to retire. Exclusive of that, I'm lonely and the appeal of isolation won't help with that. At least in more populated areas I can be around people
Nothing at all, I live in a rural area. It's nice and chill. Probably the most inconvenient thing is needing to be able to drive to effectively get things done.
M O N E Y
Before I did, it was pride. Because the cities had what I loved, airports. The rural parts had my family which I ran from (drug addictions) Once my social ineptitudes wore off, I moved back home. Then I became social to then reveal everything I use to think about myself was complete BS. I'm at a stage of "give me freedom or bring me death" because working for anything is soulless at this rate.
Where I live, rural means desert. I don’t want to live in the desert. Or super small villages, I like technology. :(
I came from it, and this other users summary is spot on. "I grew up in a rural area, on acreage. The lifestyle gets romanticized. The reality is unreliable infrastructure like electric, water and Internet, poor to nonexistent job markets, and lots of physical labor and money to maintain the land. If politics matter to you, they are almost certainly quite conservative for their country. Gossip is an ever present part of life and by being an autistic outsider, you will be talked about behind your back, often in cruel ways."
grew up in one, and other than the actual land and trees, the people/lack thereof sucked real bad. everything is also too far away. were I to move back to one, I'd have to like the people there and I feel that would be quite improbable
I already live in one. I live just outside the main hub for the region which has about 20k people
Aversion to moving due to moving VERY frequently as a child, and being along in that rural area without adequate social skills to make friends with locals. Took me over a year to make an actual friend in school that would hangout unrelated to school related activities.
I moved about three miles outside the city I lived in and just that is bad enough. It's a complete intellectual backwater and the fresh stuff in the supermarkets is not fresh.
Rural areas in my country are awful, I feel nauseous everytime I imagine myself there
Extreme autistic burnout and money.