If you're from a rural area, does being in a big city make you uncomfortable? Or, if you're from an urban area, does the country make you uncomfortable?

I have lived rural for decades now and while I enjoy traveling I do not like the noise, traffic, congestion and general chaos of big cities. Once you are used to peace and quiet city noise and energy is taxing. Foreign cities are more fun than american cities though.

I live in a rural area and big cities make me nervous. The traffic probably is the biggest problem for me. Also if I get lost on a big city street, I can’t just find a wide spot in the road to turn around on.

I love living in rural America and I enjoy weekend trips to large cities. None of it makes me feel uncomfortable. I enjoy each experience, I just prefer to live in one more than the other.

I grew up in a rural area. I find it stifling and much prefer cities. I would live in Chicago if I could, but I can’t (well I could, but not under conditions I care to live under), so I live out in the suburbs (from growing up in a small burg of a couple thousand in far southern Illinois).

There is a difference between being in and living in.

As I get older I like the extremes better and better. I grew up in the suburbs, and the suburbs feel very familiar to me, but I really really appreciate the convenience of the city, and I really like the quiet of the countryside being in nature. I think the ideal for me right now is living in a small town on acreage with 25 minutes of a fairly decent sized city. Not the easiest thing to find in America. If I was single I would choose to be in a more urban setting I think.

None of it makes me uncomfortable or nervous. I would never use those terms. I would say the negative words I might use are frustrated or annoyed. Like frustrated I have to drive far to get a decent meal, or annoyed that it’s noisy when I need some quiet. That sort of thing.

When visiting friends and family I like any and all environments. When taking a vacation with my husband we prefer a more rural or secluded setting, but still things to see and do within a half hour’s drive.

I grew up in Miami for ten years, and then moved to Kentucky, so I’m extremely comfortable in both

I spent the majority of my life living in the city, and wishing I was a country boy. I was finally able to move to a rural area when I was 52.

The only reason I go to the city is for specialized medical care. You can keep the city with all its people and noise!

I like more of a country setting I find myself uneasy in big cities.

I live in a half-rural-and-half-urban area. That is, my place is basically in a city, but there are many aspects of both a city and a country here: it is wonderfully quiet for a city, but city facilities like shops, parks, airport… are present. People have access to modern technology and everyone has a proper city job, but there is almost no tall building here. No big business in this place except the airport, just regular houses, but all houses are more like those in the city…

So I think I’m tolerant to both the city and the country.

I have lived in a rural area for about the past 14 years. I am not uncomfortable being in a city, I work in a big city so every day I am in one. What I don’t like about congested urban areas (such as the Bronx), is people drive like maniacs (maybe it’s a New York driver thing, I am not sure). I am not a shy, hesitant driver. I am quick and fairly aggressive but I don’t like having to watch out so closely for other drivers and their actions (pulling out in front of you from a parked position, not obeying stop signs, not signaling, etc.).

I grew up suburban but being in rural or semi-wild settings does not perturb me. I have noticed that the few times I have been in bear country my senses are heightened (not unlike walking alone in the city) and I am wary of strange noises but otherwise being alone or part of a pair is quite enjoyable.

Not being one for crowds, all the people in the city bothers me. I am uncomfortable in large groups and having to walk up/down a crowded street puts me on edge. And, as an extension of this, the heavy traffic is noisome; all the stop and go and unexpected lane changing. Coming from a more suburban setting which entails a lot of driving but at a more leisurely, well spaced out pace the city traffic is jarring to say the least.

I have found this is not universally true however, the weeks I spent in London (without a car) and Seattle (with one) were pleasant and I thought I could get used to it.

What might be telling, is that I spent four days in Manhattan chaperoning my daughter’s 6th-grade class of 30 students on a breakneck tour of the city and was perfectly at ease.

Meanwhile, I was in a rural area of western Massachusetts for three hours and couldn’t wait to get out of there.

I think I have discovered a prejudice of mine. :^)

Rural areas used to make me uncomfortable, but now I think they’re fun and are actually better. I now understand why suburbs exist: because cities are only fun to hang out in; not live in.

I used to think rural areas were for racist uneducated people, because that’s what I encountered when I went there. When I was a teenager I was thrown out of a house party because I was black. The guy couldn’t even tell me to my face, he was asking his friends to ask me to leave. They tried to plead with him and I remember him saying “I don’t care who he is, I’ll fuckin’ kill ‘em”.

Then another time I was in the “sticks” going hiking and this mud covered, raised green pickup truck with two confederate flags waving on the side slowed down and two guys with shaved heads were staring at me so hard. They seriously looked really mad.

So things like that made me want to stay away from basically anyone with a rural or southern background lol. But I grew up and realized rural areas are just as full of nice people, but they get peace and quiet and long roads that are great for driving and they are closer to hiking,

@Blackberry That is awful, the party thing. Bah!
My rural area is comprised of old hippie types that moved to the hills back in the 60’s & 70’s, wealthy transplants from the cities that get more bang for their buck in rural communities, bigger homes and property for less and a lot of old time families that have had the same land and ranches, farms in their families for decades. Hippies, cowboys and city slickers with mega bucks that freak out when they see wild life. Go figure, you weren’t scared of all the lunatics in the city but a skunk on your porch makes you wet yourself. lol

“you weren’t scared of all the lunatics in the city but a skunk on your porch makes you wet yourself.”

@Coloma: Yeah, that’s basically me. :^)

@cookieman LOL..I used to have a “pet” skunk. One of 7 babies that were born in a drainpipe at the top of my driveway. All of “Little Dudes” siblings dispersed but he stayed home and I would make him hard boiled eggs. We had a truce, I rolled him his hard boiled egg at night on my patio and he allowed me safe passage to my hot tub.

It worked out fine and he was tame enough to never startle when I was around. Once I thought he was one of my cats on the deck at one night and I actually pushed him with my foot, he just moved away and stared at me. lol

@Coloma Well you can always fight off another human, but moose, bears, and mountain lions will literally tear you apart. I think that’s what it’s about. People that grow up in the country grew up prepared for these things. They know subtleties that most people don’t.

@Blackberry Yeah, you just need nature smarts in the rural areas and street smarts in the city. Like that exchange student that got gored in the ass by a bison in Yellowstone. The family was all within 3 to 5 feet of the bison. Really?

@Adirondackwannabe Yea that’s a city folk stereotype to the max.

@Blackberry Yeah, out here when the motion detector lights go off the last thing you think about is a human predator. It’s okay, just don’t leave the circle of light after dark. lol