Does how/where you grew up reflect where you live today?

I moved from a small town on the East coast to a major city on the West coast. However, I live in an apartment complex in the suburbs and know quite a few of my neighbors, and have woods fairly nearby, so it’s not quite as different as you’d think.

Totally, totally different. I was born in and grew up living in a terraced house in Manchester, UK. It had an outside loo and no garden. It was a very urban setting. I was happy there and had lots of kids to play with.

I now live in Australia on the outskirts of a city and my detached house is on an acre and a quarter of land, surrounded by trees, birds and other wildlife. We have neighbours but rarely see them. We might wave as we leave to go wherever we’re going, I’d say it’s quiet but it’s actually quite noisy because of the birds, bats and the like. They’re lovely noises though.

I was born in Los Angeles and grew up in the barrio. I now lift in the non-seedy part on North Hollywood. I work less than 10 miles from where I grew up.

Wow. I never really thought about that. Nothing has changed much.

There were 4 of us kids. We lived in Oakland, which has very mild weather. 3 of us now live in the country, where we have 4 seasons. The fourth lives just off the beach in San Francisco.

In terms of living space and surroundings, there’s very little difference. But I was raised in Texas and I now live in Not Texas, and that’s quite a difference.

I was raised in a rural town in Illinois, not far from a slightly larger suburban town, and moved to the suburban town when I was 15. Due to marital compromise, we now live in a suburban town, and I visit friends in a rural area occasionally.

I grew up on a 350 acre farm, roaming the woods and hills all the time. Our nearest neighbor was ¼ of a mile away. I lived in the city here for a while, but didn’t like it. Now I live on 21 acres with no close neighbors. I like my open spaces. It is tough in the winter, but I don’t mind.

I was born in the USA, born in the USA, born down in a dead man’s town.
The first kick I took was when I hit the grou…actually no, that’s not at all true.
Living in our mansion is so much more civilised than back in the shack where I grew up, not that it wasn’t a happy home, coz it was a little old place where we can get together, love shack baby :D

Although I grew up in a conventional commuting suburb of Manhattan, in a serious mock-Tudor house on a very small lot, I was influenced more by my summers at camp in Maine.

My present home is on 20 acres of old field and second growth woods. There are more cows than people. The pines and hemlocks smell perfect. The only trouble in paradise is the tick issue.

As a kid we lived in the country, and LOVED it you could trap shoot off the front lawn, dirt bike to your hearts content, my first job was on a local farm and could ride my dirt bike to and from work, if you heard a vehicle you know someone was coming to see you.
As an adult, live in a house ,in a small town with neighbours on every side, I miss living way out in the country, but as an adult we must live closer to our work.
So I guess different .

I’m 23, and I was raised in a suburban neighborhood. My parents payed for college, but I did terrible and didn’t finish my degree. I’m working at McDonald’s and I’m living at home, paying for rent. I have an anxiety disorder, but I guess that’s not an excuse. I really need to make something of myself.

I live in the town I grew up in. I was gone for 15 years. Boy has it changed. It’s still really safe, and sweet, there is a noisy frog outside my bedroom window.

I grew up in 2 different places, suburban CA. neighborhood and rural N.M.
I always liked the country life best and after a 6 year stint in Southern CA. ( Long Beach & San Diego ) and then moving back to NorCal and living in a neighborhood for several years when my daughter was small we moved to the hills. That was 23 years ago and I never wanted to go back to a neighborhood setting.

I like country neigh-borhoods with the closest neighbors being horses and cows and goats and chickens. I can hardly stand having to be in the city anymore and the noise factor is crazy making after being so used to peace and quiet. Going out to eat of seeing a movie is all I want to do then back to the ranch for me.

I don’t think the specifics of my house reflects how I grew up, but the way I live does. My parents used to constantly move every year and I never grew roots. I crave living in the same place. I want my daughter to have friends she grows up with from a young age until high school. I don’t want her to constantly be the new kid in class.

I live very close to the area I grew up in and yes, that’s because I was raised here. I had little desire to leave. Doesn’t mean I’ll never want to live somewhere else, but the climate here (both the literal physical climate and the social cultural one) has kept me here, at least for a while.

As for the actual place I live in, not really. I grew up in a spacious house on a 2-acre lot in a very suburban area. Now I live in a small apartment in a downtown. So maybe some day I’ll be longing for the large house and the large land, but for now I’m content in the “city” life.

I grew up in L.A. living with my Sisters and Mom in cheap apartments. As soon as I graduated from high school I got out of there and attended Humboldt State Uni. (Northern California) earning a BA there. I supported myself at college by working at Kentucky Fried Chicken. The main reason that I picked Humboldt was that it was far away form L.A. And I never went back. I now live in the Pacific North West on a half acre in the woods and I love it here. It’s wonderful sanctuary from a troubled world.

I grew up in the sticks in rural Missouri without a neighbor in sight.

Although I didn’t realize it when I bought my current house, I’m within a few miles of where I grew up, as the crow flies. I’m largely in the sticks in rural Illinois without a neighbor in sight.
Worst move I ever made, politically/money wise. lol

I was raised in a military home where we moved every two to three years. It has affected me. I have a dislike of moving. I do love the climate in the area we live now because it is the climate that I lived in during the wonder years.

When I was very young we lived in an apartment building in a town about 45 minutes outside of New York City, depending what part if the city. Basically the suburbs, but it was a 6 story building and we could walk to the village (downtown) and it was a street of local stores, restaurants, and a movie theatre. There was a park not too far from the apartment that had monkey bars, slides, swings and other fun things for kids and also the upper park area had a running track and a baseball field. In May the community did a May Pole celebration, for Easter an Easter egg hunt and spring competitions like having the most pits in your watermelon slice.

At 9 years old we moved to a suburb if DC. It was a master planned community with paths to parks, rec centers, schools, tennis courts. The paths went under the road if there wasn’t a nearby corner to cross at. The planned community has all power lines underground. Whenever I go back I’m reminded of how much that makes a difference in the beauty of the area.

As an adult I have mostly lived in suburban settings similarish to my older growing up years. The exception was in TN I lived 8 years on 3 acres in a heavily wooded area, but in ten minutes I was in mecca suburbia. Now I live in an apartment and can walk to a very large shopping plaza. I love it! Soon we will move out to the outskirts of the suburbs. Not sure how I feel about it.

I think I like the extremes. Rural, or right in walking distance or 10 minutes driving of many things. No matter what I prefer to be within 40 minutes of a fairly major city.

I grew up less than 3 miles from Las Vegas Blvd. and a mile from McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas. I always had immediate neighbors surrounding me.

I now live on the outskirts of a town in IL with less than 400 people and our nearest neighbor is ¼ mile east. Our neighbors to the south, north and west are over one mile.

I just realized after thinking about my answer that I’ve always lived close to a major transportation route. I grew up with the sounds of airplanes, I listened to boats for 16 years when my husband and I lived one mile from the Illinois River. Now I live on a state highway with the railroad ½ mile away. I think it would feel strange if I lived somewhere without these sounds.

I’m not currently living where I want to be living in any shape or form. In that respect my childhood home also reflected that.

I was raised off a cliff next to a tidal river in a duplex that was periodically let to other people. But it was in the “bush”. I want to live in either a loft in a small city 10,000 people or so. With access to the rest of the world in a much warmer but seasonal climate with outskirts of town a wildlife extravaganza. Or slightly rural with fruit trees!

No, I don’t think so, I live in a middle class suburban neighborhood much like I grew up in but with fewer kids but that might just be because they are all inside playing video games all the time.

It might explain why I have wanted to live further out of town my entire adult life.

Having grown up in a similar environment and the resultant level of comfort I feel in it could also explain why I am where I am however.

I grew up in the suburbs near the beach.

Then I grew up, moved 500 miles away, and live in the suburbs near the beach.

Haha…obviously where I grew up had an influence on where I wanted to settle as an adult. I feel landlocked if I’m more than a 15 minute drive from a body of water.

I first lived in a small town in the San Joaquin Valley in California (one square mile surrounded by miles and miles of alfalfa and produce), then my father rented a small farm and a century-old two-story farmhouse with a pasture and orchards near the Sierra foothills, then we moved to a a new ranch-style home in a sprawling suburban environment on the Florida coast.

I’ve spent most of my adult life either in a beach town, in rolling hills near small towns, or in interesting cities, but always near a large body of water. I don’t like suburbs and new homes at all and I’ve purposely avoided living in them. They seem sterile to me.

I prefer either an old, small town with a centre to it (no sprawl, please) preferably on a beach, or in the county. But I can also live happily in a city like San Francisco or Paris with good mass-transit, museums, libraries, history, interesting graveyards, a theatre district and a nice little café on the street level below my apartment. I like the idea of being able to step out onto the sidewalk and into a cab, or bus, or subway, onto a plane, onto a commuter train at the other end, and onto a sidewalk and into another café in another country and another language without any effort at all.

But the older I get, I tend toward that little farm with rolling hills and farmhouse—like the one my father rented, I guess, near a small town with a town center to it (like the film set in To Kill a Mockingbird—complete with town square with a statue of an old general on horseback in the centre, and an old courthouse with cupola), near a large body of water, an hour or two from an interesting city. That would be almost impossible to find these days. But Bolinas, California meets most of that criteria.

@Espiritus_Corvus I adore Bolinas, my family used to rent a beach cottage on the cliffs over the ocean in Bolinias as a kid.

@Coloma A nice little town. There are quite a few of those nice little towns along that coast. I always wondered about that big, old white two-story house on that island in Tomales Bay. You can see it on a clear day from the coastal highway. You ever notice that place? I’ve fantasized about living there ever since I saw it out there 45 years ago.

@Espiritus_Corvus Yes, I know what your talking about, I always wanted to live in a lighthouse. haha I stayed in a little cottage in Ft. Bragg a few summers ago that had old fashioned push up windows with fluttery curtains and pink lillies that grew up to the window sills, sublime little place. Sigh…