JFF-- Miss Cosmoplitan, a Suburbanite, a Country Girl, or Small Town Girl?

Hi T.-

I was an army brat...and ex was in military as well, so I have lived literally ALL over the place...small town to major metropolitan. I have truly enjoyed every place I have lived.

For ME...the ideal would be several acres of land on a mountain with a FULL change of seasons (read HOT in summer and SNOW in winter). I would like 'this place' to be close drive to a major metropolitan area for access to theatre, museums and great shopping and people watching. If not driving distance to city, then a helicopter and OODLES of $$ to have one at my beck and call!

**sigh**

Well, a girl can dream yes??

Right now I am in a small town. Everyone seems to know (or is related to) everyone else! lol

BUT, most folks seem kind...they seem to enjoy their work/lives...and the pace is a 'comfortable slow'...

A traffic jam here is some construction on main street (main street has ONE stoplight!! lol)

Good produce...great antiquing...fishing and hunting ...and even moonshine I am told (This county is the moonshine capitol of the US)

Anyway, I guess I am able to be happy and try to see the plus of each place I have lived...

Best luck!
michele/cat

We are both - city and county. City during the week and on the river at our cabin on the weekends. Love it this way. Best of both worlds for us :)

Country girl living in the suburb.

I grew up in a very small rural town where everybody knew everybody's business, there was NOTHING to do, you had to drive 1/2 hr to go to movies and a decent grocery store. I HATED it growing up. I felt as if I was born in the wrong place.

Ironically, I am going back to visitn in a couple of weeks and although I do enjoy family and friends, everything is backwards, people are slower and I guess it is fun to sit and visit and just listen to the clock tick. I admire your friend, I go bonkers within 36 hours.

I lived to get out and I did, YEAH!! I lived in NC for a while and enjoyed it a lot but I am now in a northern burb of Dallas and I LOVE it. We've been here since 1989 andI couldn't be happier.

I am 5 minutes from the store or where I need to go, 1/2 hr from downtown, within an hour from 2 airports and can be on either coast in 3 hrs or less, enjoy all the sporting and concerts, etc. and enjoy that no one is in nosy on my private life.

I am a Miss Cosmopolitan at heart, stuck in the body of a Suburbanite! LOL. I was born in Manhattan till I was 6 years old, then moved to Queens. I moved back into Manhattan when I was 18 yo, then moved to another area in Queens when I was 27 so I could have more space and had my first child. When I got preggo with #2, we needed more space again and now here I am 3 babies, 2 dogs, a mini van and living in the suburbs!!! I said I would never...be *that* mom with the minivan. But they're so convenient! And as much as I LOVE the city, I cannot trade having a backyard with a swingset and little above ground pool and deck, where the kids and I can spend hours, where my family and friends can visit all the time. I LOVE having neighbors we're close with and my kids run back and forth between my house and theirs...Our area is convenient to everything - near tons of malls and restaurants, movies and the train to the city. I frequently take my kids into the city, and my daughters love going.

I don't miss the rats in the city or the garbage smell in the summertime or the crowded and smelly subways or shady characters hanging out on street corners. I do miss everything being open all hours, and central park and late night walks by the water and all the street musicians and all the cute little restaurants and farmers markets...

So I guess my answer has to be suburbanite with a little piece of my heart as Miss Cosmopolitan.

I am Miss Cosmo for sure.

I would prefer big city anyday. I want access to history, art and good food whenever I choose. I want to be able to expose my children to many things and not have to travel hours to do so. If I want quiet, I can go inside my home!

I like the country peace - but only in short spurts. I would vacation at a cabin or something.

Your friend is right. I would love everyone not knowing my business. I love being in Chicago or St. Louis and walking down the street and NOT knowing anyone, or being able to meet someone if I choose.

I grew up in a smallish city. It has all the amenities of a real city, but no entertainment. Shout out to Amarillo, TX. On our tourism brochure, they list the next town over and our medical complex as attractions! woohoo

Then I spent a year in Houston. A huge city with much to do, but the damn traffic was so strangling, that I couldn't get out of my neighborhood to do any of it. Got outta there quick as I could.

Now, like Goldilocks, I have found the place that's juuuuust right! I live in a very country suburb right in between 2 huge cities - Dallas and Fort Worth. I dont see daily traffic and I can be in either citys' downtown within 15 minutes on the weekends. Theres so much variety yet, I live in a quiet, small community. I love where I live. I can go see any kind of music, eat any kind of food, see any kind of art, go to any store you've ever heard of, and still, my boss lives 5 blocks away and has horses on his property.

I am from a small town down south. Sure, everyone knows you and your mama and your mama's mama. We just moved back into my hometown, and one of my neighbors is the father of a childhood friend. The other neighbor across the street graduated with my father and worked with my grandfather. I am not sure why someone wouldn't want to know people in area in which they live. They look out for us and us them. Maybe it's the southern culture. I have lived in other areas. And it's nice to have a connection to people around you. Of course, I don't have any dirty laundry so maybe that's the difference. I don't live but about 15 minutes from the city (but I live out in the country), so I guess it's the best of both worlds.

Although I was raised in a small town, I moved to a suburban/urban area just outside of DC for 8 years and lived with my hubby there (he's from there). I was MISERABLE there and finally convinced him to move back to my rural area and we couldn't be happier. Yes, we do miss being able to just head out and have everything at our fingertips sometimes. But we're very happy where we are now and wouldn't trade it for anything.

Suburban girl! I was raised about 45 minutes outside of Boston, went to school in Boston and loved that, lived and worked in the city when I was younger and now I'm about 30 minutes outside of the city. As much as we complain about the weather here, it is nice to live in a place with 4 seasons. We're an hour away from beautiful beaches and 2 hours from mountains. I love being in a major metropolitan area - great places to go in the city (museums, aquarium) and lots of professional sports teams to root for are things I take for granted. My town is very pretty with lots of country charm (a working farm with a CSA, a local farm stand, state forest, horse farm, acres and acres of conservation land, parks, etc.) but we also have 3 grocery stores and a Target and are 10 minutes from several highways. There are some multi-generational "townie" families in my town but the majority were not born and raised literally in my town so it's not a place where everyone knows everyone else's business.

I came from a very small town in Florida. Everyone knew everybody, and your business was never private for very long. I know live in New England, and it's much different. Everyone up here seems to be in a hurry, but they do not get into your business. If they do have something to say, they say it to your face. I much prefer that , to the gossip, and looks you would get in a small town. I enjoy visiting bigger cities, such as NYC, D.C, however, I prefer living in a normal cized town. I would prefer living in the country myself, surrounded by land and farms. It's peaceful, and quiet.

I have lived in a smallish area where everyone is separated by about 2degrees, you still have to watch your business because people talk and at some point you will run into people you know and they may already know your business. I have also lived in large cities where you know NOTHING about anyone. I rather somewhere in the middle. I like to be able to go with friends to a place that is comfortable where we all know eachother and eachother's business and it's "business as usual" just as much as I like to go somewhere and be "not myself" and get a little crazy and let it all go w/out talk later.

I grew-up in the 'burbs, went to college in the 'burbs, went to grad school in a small town and now live in the 'burbs. I am definitely a Suburbanite. I love that I can be in NYC in an hour, the mountains in 30 minutes and by the beautiful Hudson River in 5 minutes! The same goes for my hometown- the beach in 5 minutes, the Everglades in 30 minutes, Miami in under an hour and Disney World or Daytona Beach in 2 hours!

I grew up in a small farming Village. We were the #1 onion producing community in the country. Lots of black dirt farms. Everyone knew everyone. I liked it and still do cause I stayed here. But now that more and more city ppl are moving up here I hate it. When I was younger you used to be able to leave your car unlocked and windows wide open and you could leave your front door open at night to get air. Now you can't do that anymore. Cars are being broken into on our street, vandilism all over, kids out all hours of the night. Drug dealers living next door. It's horrible. We have done things one way for years and now the city ppl come here and tell you what you can do and can't do. They have shut down businesses that have been here as long as I can remember cause they don't like it. There was a local bar that had been there for as long as I can remember, NYC ppl moved in and complained that they can hear the music. Come on, you are from the city and should be used to the noise. I just don't understand ppl sometimes.
Whenever we tell ppl that we are from New York they right away think New York City. They don't even think that there is country sides and farms. But then they turn around and say that we have a New England accent. Go figure.
But we have a house here and I like the schools so we are staying. Can't see myself living anywhere else.

I live in a suburb of dallas and always have. Im not tooo country I live in the city. I like having lots of things right here. My mil just moved to the country and its creepy! Its quiet and I've never seen spiders that big! Ill stay here! But that's whats neat about texas. I live in arlington which is" city" but go 5-10 miles down and its open field and pastures!

I've lived all over.
I always prefer my home State and this is where we reside.

Some say Hawaii is paradise. Some say it is a rock island and they feel claustrophobic because it is stuck in the middle of the ocean.
To each his own.

The people are great. It is great for families. It is a high cost of living though. And it is very, multicultural. Which is a good thing to grow up with.

I grew up in a "village" in the country. We are talking farmland and Amish people as neighbors. I loved it. Many ways to entertain oneself, be one with nature, feed cows, scare sheep, ride horses, play baseball and hockey with the local kids, play in creeks, swim in rivers, listen to owls and frogs at night. It was maybe a 30 minute drive to get to the local town, about an hour to get to the closest college town and 3.5 hours to get to two major metro areas. Now I live in a small city/town. It is in Iowa so there is still a lot of farmland and I don't feel as though I live in a city or the suburbs but neither do I feel like I live in a country setting. I can see my neighbors but I have a substantial yard on a waterfront. Ideally I would like to live in a more secluded area. I crave untamed space, trees, lots of green and critters in their natural environment but I also would like to be within 3 to 4 hours of a major city (primarily for health emergencies and museums).

She'd be real shocked if she lived overseas. Try comparing THAT to here in the US. The US is overspoiled and a pretty accurate indication is just walk through the grocery stores. It isnt just laundry soap; you have like ten choices of one brand. It isn't just breakfast cereal, it's national brands, and then the generic. Anything we buy there are mountains of competitor brands, and then the generic.
What your friend is describing is true. Depending on where you're from. If you live in a small rural town in any state it's bound to be everyone knows everyone. The larger the town, people are more spread out, don't tend to know many, and then more move in and expand the boundaries. All the boundaries. That means the city's and the distance between people. It isn't really different from state to state. The difference is in WHERE in the state. Go up to the U.P. and you'll find a closer knit area all over the place, but again when you get to the big city, of course there's going to be widespread people who don't know each other.
I grew up in the city, Downriver, and have lived in the country. And overseas. I like the quiet of the country. Right now I live in a community of condos where you have to be at least 55 to live. It's peaceful and in the city. I think being close to both country and city is just right. I wouldn't want to live in the heart of the city where it's noisy. But close enough to stores for one's needs.

I've lived all over. I have *very* strong preferences. <grin> I like your descriptions... but you're missing one.

Town & Country

My ideal place to live is in a small town, very, with a big old victorian house or old villa, in the middle of the country near a railroad line that is 1-2 hours from a major city. Daily life in a small town in the country, weekends in the city.

Personally, I'm thinking a couple hours out from Boston or Rome, unless I magically became wealthy. If I found gold in my backyard? Hawaii most of the year, and fly mainland stateside or abroad for 3 months of winter in the mountains; colorado, alps, whistler (lol, i'd just love to use "winter" as a verb). Since that's not going to happen... When I graduate in a few years... I'll be looking to live back east. Boston's a great town.

The thing is; I want it all.

Wake up and go swimming in my backyard when it's warm
Horseback riding
Rowing
Hiking
Crew
Snowboarding
Shooting
Treehouses
BIG house, with lots of property
and so much more

But I also want:
Museums (art, science, history)
Concerts
Theatre
Bookstores
Grocery Stores (hello, deep freezes and pantries built to be stock seasonally instead of weekly)
Restaurants
Hospitals
Zoos
and so much more

The thing is, I currently live in a city. A small one compared to some I've lived in since there's 'only' about 2 million people in it, but it is a city. Yes, there's a lot around to do... but it's all expensive. I've also lived in small towns, tiny islands, and back of beyond. The thing is... almost everything to do there... is free. The things to do in the city, I have to plan those. They are intermittent affairs, and I'm home most days. One day a week on average do I/we "take advantage" of living in the city, because it's expensive and time consuming (traffic's a botch). I FAR prefer to live in a place where daily life and adventures are free in the country for daily living, with a community of people around... and then head into the city for the same planned excursions I make living in a city.

So, myself? I'm greedy. I want it all.

Town & Country