living places

[boreal_cryptid]

village, town, city, or mixed?

what place are you more used to? what matches your life pace more? where do you wish to live? (realistically or not). ...and everything else you wish to share about this topic!

hello to fellow villagers and townfolk! european village kid here.

lived half of my life (and most of my childhood) in the village, near small historical town (colonized, but at least some history left).

i feel at ease in the fields and forests, at the village roads. i used to soothe myself well with all of it. climbing up the trees, cyclings on the bike kilometers (miles) one way or the other - in familiar places or far far into the less explored.

we've had many Romani neighbors, and it taught me how important is the connection with one's roots and culture. it helps me immensely with my own reconnection now! (not Romani, but still). we were growing vegetables, and they were keeping farm animals, so we exchanged often.

i knew many (if not all!) village kids, and our adult neighbors always watched over us. we'd greeted each other if we'd stumble upon on the sidewalk, always.

even though i had a traumatic childhood (other reasons), i'm grateful for this particular village experience. nature helped me to survive, really. i had some air to breathe, some place to feel safe and free. i'd end badly without it for sure.

small (historical) town felt good too. i knew many corners of it, all the green parts of it (there are plenty of them!). i'd even walk it around from one end to the other sometimes (for 5-6 hours on the slow pace). quiet historical parts of it were comfortable to walk for hours without getting bored.

i moved to the big city (due to many reasons outside of my control), and i feel like i'm slowly dying here. there are the river, park and a small forest-like patch of land nearby, but... it feels artificial.
people are everywhere. stores and businesses are everywhere. cars are everywhere (thank gods part of the traffic is lighter because of the buses, trams and metro). noises, eyes, faces, asphalt, dust, artificial lights.

only after moving i realized how much i dislike the cities. ...not even dislike, i hate them. this pace is so overwhelming.
i hope one day i will move back. not to my village - it's barely possible, but somewhere else. i miss it all so much.

P.S. will probably make a post for my website out of it lolz.
P.P.S. please don't doxx yourself.

[ivo]

I wanna live alone in a small house somewhere quiet with a few spacious rooms so I can move around freely and with enough distance from the neighbor's houses so that I have to worry less about noise disturbance.

[MacroNemesis]

I've been a city boy all my life. It's hard not to be when you live in a metropolitan area. Moved from my average sized city to a bigger city and then an even bigger city. The big upside is that I'm close to everything so shopping and entertainment is not all that far away. Though I've grown to hate the traffic, and its gotten worse as I've gotten older, and its the worst in the big city I'm in.

There's a part of me that like the aesthetics of a small town. My Great Aunt that I visit lives in one, and while it's stuck in the 80s in terms of infrastructure, I like the cozy feel of it. The lack of hustle and bustle. When I grow old, perhaps I might live in such a place if it doesn't become a ghost town.

The other part of me feels that it would be nice if cities in my part of the world was more walkable and less car reliant, but let's not get too into that lol.

[solinus]

I'd like to live in a walkable/bikeable city. Perhaps something medium-density like in many european cities.

[Patachoo]

Would love to live in a japanese residential area. That's probably sounds "cliché" but I feel in love with the Nakano district in Tokyo during my travel in Japan two years ago, it's a tranquil and calm residential area with gorgeous little temples in street corners, mixed with a little vintage looking mall with charming restaurants and second-hand/retro tech shops. It's a little relaxing place still in the active city of Tokyo
But I grateful where I live too, France is a beautiful country too ! I love observing the autumn trees at the moment when going to work

[SavSoCool]

City for sure I love being around people, I like the noise and how something is always going on

[kapitanryba]

I lived in couple of places in my life so far. Always in cities but varying in size.
All my teenage years I spent in Wrocław, Poland. About 700k people, totally love the place. It's well connected, close to interesting sites, bars and restaurants have an immaculate vibe. Most importantly - my best friends and family live there.
For university I moved to Den Haag, Netherlands. Slightly smaller than Wrocław with around 600k citizens. it's by the North Sea and you really can feel cities closeness to the water. The center is not very big, but it has some cool places. I enjoyed walking in the dune parks along the coast the most. Feels like second home, as I study here and met new friends in the university.
In 3rd year of uni, I went for exchange to Bangkok, Thailand. Totally new environment with 14 million citizens. The city had everything one might want. As for a working European with Dutch student finance support, most things were affordable. The downside though was the pollution, noise and unbearable heat. Amazing place for exchange, but I'd never live there for longer.
After that I moved to Leiden, Netherlands. It's the smallest of the cities I lived in, with 120k citizens. It's cute and all, but for me it's difficult to live here. Due to housing crisis in NL I had to take the apartment without wanting to live so far away from my work (1h 40 mins one way). There isn't much to do for me in the city itself as I only have a few friends here and feel kind of miserable.
All in all Wrocław and Den Haag were the best places I lived in, and I'm planning to move back to Wrocław next year as I finish my internship soon. In the future I would like to try living in Prague, as it has the vibrancy of a city that I enjoy (It's also my favorite city in the world).
Hope you liked reading my life story :)

[Belaneura]

I'm someone who absolutely needs to live somewhere quiet with a lot of sky and fresh air, so I hate big cities. There are so many things happening at once that I eventually just start to go crazy if I'm there all day. Ironically though, I can't help but be enamored with places like Hong Kong and other mountainous cities (specifically the island, really) there's something about how the buildings rise between the trees that I really like. For some reason I feel like the more plantlife there is integrated with a city, the more my hatred of cities suddenly hits a reverse curve and it starts becoming a place where I actually would want to be. Even if it is still chaotic and overstimulating.

[Windows7Forever]

I'm fine with living in a large suburb right outside of the big city as I currently do (although at least around here, parts of the actual city itself feel no different than the municipalities that lie right outside of it and vice versa depending on the neighborhood and even what street you're on and the time of the day it is, so the lines between urban and suburban life in my area are blurred and only really determined by whether you happen to live within an arbitrary set of lines or not). My neighborhood is pretty quiet and the grocery stores and bus stops are within a walkable distance.

I used to live in the actual city proper from 2006 until 2012 when I was 6 years old and my folks and I moved to our current place a few minutes away right outside of it.

[0of64]

Here's hoping I get to live somewhere like North Carolina. As someone who's grown up in the suburbs while being in and out of cities, i am not a big fan of cities. Sure, it can get pretty over there sometimes but it's just not my thing. I like it small, quiet and surrounded by nature like the country side of NC having been there myself to visit my sister.