How comfortable are you in your city/town?

I absolutely love where I live…hope to be here until I fall in the ocean due to a big wave.

I live in an area that was severely economically depressed before the recession. This area also makes the FBI list for the top most dangerous cities in the US every year. Most people have never heard of it, and think that we are all hillbillies, since it’s in Ohio. I can’t think of many redeeming qualities.

But it’s HOME. I plan to stay here until the day I die, yes. My friends, my family, my childhood memories are all here. I like that. I guess I’m sentimental.

I joke about this little town because I lived in Manhattan for 30 years, but it’s actually quite charming, with lovely Victorian period homes on hills, with beautiful views, surrounded by farms, waterfalls, streams and lakes, and it’s only 2 hours from NYC. I don’t expect to live here forever, but I enjoy it much more than I could have predicted.

@dpworkin you really brought up a good point that I failed to mention about my area. There is a lot of turn of the century architecture that’s absolutely beautiful. I love how unique the older areas look compared to newer buildings. I have always felt uncomfortable in more modern, cookie cutter variety neighborhoods. The old neighborhoods have so much character. They feel less sterile.

I love where I live because it is comfortable and safe. I don’t know if I would be happier anywhere else because I never tried to leave this area. I have visited numerous areas but nothing ever made me think, ‘I wouldn’t mind living here’.

I love where I live, but I do not plan on living here forever. This area is simply too expensive and I sort of have a “been there, done that” feeling about it. I’ll always love to come back to it, but I think I want to live somewhere else when I get older.

I am comfortable where I live and know many nice people,but I know I will move from here someday as my heart is elsewhere.

Starting to get uncomfortable. There must be a whole 400 people living in town now, and they won’t let me shoot the coyotes off the baseball field anymore. :(

I just erased the diatribe typed out about where I currently live. The adage, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all” started to haunt me. I’m really looking forward to moving to the small town in England where my fiancé lives. And someday, maybe we will move to Virginia where I grew up…it’s lovely there.

The suburb where I live is very bucolic but the city of Chicago itself pulsated with life and sensations I have yet to find anywhere I have ever lived or visited! Chicago ROCKS!

I fit in and adore my community!

Loads of history, beautiful river and countryside, mountains, eclectic, earthy, bohemian hub of entrepreneurs and artists and nature lovers.

Virtually zero crime, everyone on large parcels of land, wildlife galore, and the best wine and star gazing to be found most anywhere!

My little river community is a gem!

HOLY SHIT…sitting on my deck and just saw a big Mtn.Lion slinking across my lower pasture! HAH…she’s outta here…woohoo…lion watching!

My town is dull, small and safe. No major crime. The major Jaywalking offences are among seniors falling asleep while crossing the streets on the way to the 9-hole gold course.

On a fixed income, I can’t afford to escape! I need the Provincial disability benefits and health benefits. Once my wife starts getting her social security, we might be able to escape for a few months in the winter.

I like that my little city has everything I could possibly need, except the ocean is so far away. I missed our family who all live 500 miles away, but I have since established a new family group here, to help with that part.

I’m over this state in general, and this town in particular.

I’m a 30 minute drive from anything worth seeing. It’s an hour to my husband’s shop in the morning, and usually an hour from there to the jobsite.

The cops are bored, and harass citizens for any reason – including setting up gigantic roadblocks on major thoroughfares on random Tuesday afternoons. Most everyone around here is more afraid of getting a traffic ticket than of any actual crime. Crime is unexpected – we have to drive around in fear of losing our grocery money to the County Sheriff “Revenue Collector” and later being scalped by the insurance companies every day.

The schools suck.

The whole area is full of brand new houses – completely empty. Ten years of building boom, and two of foreclosure. I am so sick of seeing “For Sale” signs and adverts for foreclosure auctions.

There are no jobs. The ones that are available are paying so little due to the cutthroat nature of desperate people there’s no point in even applying. The oil issue isn’t helping anything, either. Sure, the hotels and restaurants in the Panhandle are faring OK due to the BP people, but there aren’t any of them down here.

No. I like NYC very, very much, but I loooove London. When I was there, it felt like home.

If I die in this town I’ll come back from the dead to torment it until it becomes dust. I hate this place, and no I’m not comfortable here. I’m working on gtfo of here, some day, hopefully soon. It’s just so depressing, and boring. No Goth bars, no German beer, and nobody here knows who Pearl Jam is. Just a buncha creepy closed minded fucks who’s idea of a wild time is a church picnic party that lasts until seven pm.

This is why I live here! :-/ very comfortable…....

I always said I wanted to get out of Va. Beach, but now that I’m in Jersey, I miss it! This city’s not horrible by any means, but I miss my home town. It seems to have the best of everything.

I feel safe where I am, but I don’t love it and I don’t plan to stay here. Living on a military installation has some really great benefits, but there are a lot of downsides sometimes too (especially when you are on an installation that doesn’t have your favorite stores or restaurants nearby).

We will most likely settle somewhere in Maine, but we aren’t 100% sure yet. We were also looking at a few places in Washington.

I feel like there’s enough of a blend between the conservative-religious-insanity and the resulting liberal-hippie-insanity to find a nice middle in my area of Texas near Austin. I’ll continue looking for places that aren’t insane at all, but that’s not likely to be found if there’s more than say 10 people there.

@zophu That made me laugh, in a good way.
@ EVERYONE – thank you for your honest responses.

I hope I won’t spend the rest of my life where I live now. I don’t find it comfortable, attractive or culturally interesting, all things I’ve had in other places I’ve lived. This place I live is populated mainly by people from other states and what is built here is like a movie lot set, an immitation of what people imagine Los Angeles to be or how they’d like it to be, lifestyles are caricatures of television shows. I struggle to feel a sense of belonging and comfort here, I struggle against the reality of growing old and stagnating here. Now that I’m losing my home then if not for my partner who has young children here, I’d go back “home”.

I like where I live, but I hate that there is so much crime not very far from the town I live in. Most of the people around me are annoyign when it comes to politics, but if I leave that subject off of the table, the people are very social, and we have made a few wonderful friends. I felt most at home in FL. I liked the diversity, the weather, and was more in sync with people politically, religiously, and general view of the world.

I love where I grew up and my parents still live there so I can go home and visit whenever I want to. However, I don’t really care for my current city, but I have to be here for work. The air quality is nasty, most of the beaches are dirty, the traffic is horrible and the people get on my nerves, but other than that, it’s fabulous!

I eventually want to move somewhere quiet and peaceful, but not out in Bumfuck Egypt or anything. Perhaps on a small ranch so I can keep my pigs and a few other animals. Or perhaps right next door to @lucillelucillelucille. :)

Just a matter of convenience and past history.

@Vunessuh Lmao Bumfuck Egypt. XD

Very comfortable with my small town! Quiet, very little crime, very neat, great schools, clean, and lots of nice people that are friendly! Also, I’ve the best neighbors a man could wish for. Been here for 30 years!

I live in a generic, white-bread suburb north of Boston. It’s built around a big lake that was a vacation destination in the 1940s. Now it’s a combination of run-down former cabins and nice middle-class homes. I live in one of the latter – and I like my house – but basically we just sleep here.

All our activities, school and work are done elsewhere.

In the twenty years I’ve been here, I’ve yet to meet anyone of interest or found anything entertaining or engaging to do here (minus a couple of decent restaurants). My neighbors are very nice people, but hold vastly different views on religion, politics, entertainment and just about everything else, from us.

But, it’s inexpensive to live here and there’s practically no crime.

I’d love to move, but probably couldn’t afford it unless I move out of state. And that won’t happen as long as my inlaws are alive.

Los Angeles and I are a perfect fit. I’ve lived here all of my 56 years and although I’ve enjoyed quite a bit of travel, I’ve never given much thought to living elsewhere. I’ve lived in the same house for 27 years, in the foothills, literally on the edge of the suburbs. I feel comfortable and safe here and the extremely wide variety of people keep this place very interesting, with a simultaneous high energy level and kick-back attitude. And, of course, it is home of the World Champion Lakers. I am not budging from here. See ya….Gary/wtf

I live in South Central Kansas. I don’t particularly like the town I live in, but I do love Kansas. I’ve just lived here all my life and all my family is here. It’s safe, except for the Meth heads. There isn’t much to do unless you’ve never been to the Space Museum or the Salt Mine Museum. There isn’t any great shopping, our mall is full of empty store fronts and offices, no where exciting to eat out, really. There are good schools.Most of the big employers have left town. Unless you want to work at the hospital or Walmart, you’re pretty much out of luck. My husband is in school and will be done in May 2011. We are hoping to move outside of Wichita. Wichita has everything you could ever want and we lived there when we first got married, but of course we came back to Hutchinson.

@Symbeline -That’s pretty much it!LOL
@Vunessuh -Just do it!:)

I hate it. It’s in the middle of nowhere. There is nothing to do; even in driving distance, there isn’t much. When I’m in a city for an extended period of time, I walk around and try to get a sense of it. Seeing children playing, couples going out, homeless people… It’s the truth and beauty of humanity. Out here, you could walk for miles with nothing but corn to look at. And corn isn’t pretty.

I wonder if this is a “grass is always greener” mentality but , after living in a hilly/mountainous town, it got in my blood . I had no idea of the emptiness that flatlands would give me. But I can’t leave; my daughter would go ballistic if I did. I look out on the horizon and it’s just….. trees. I guess that’s what vacations are for.

I love my city and I wouldn’t dream of moving away from it, but I would like a nicer (and bigger) house.

I live in a rural area, I can keep my doors unlocked and it is very quiet, I grew up here as well. The only downside is the traveling required to get to work and the difficulty meeting anyone new. Will I live here in the near future? I do not know. Alot of memories here however.

I’m comfortable enough where we live. There is a factory that pollutes quite a bit about 20 mins drive from here, so i don’t like that much, and would like to move further away from that. Closer to home, i’d like to move to a quieter street – we live in a quiet suburb, but the one street along the side of our house seems to be one of the through roads through this suburb, and i don’t like that, i don’t like hearing cars drive by so often.
I think i’d like to move to another country though, for reasons i don’t feel like getting into now (i’m in South Africa), but it’s quite unlikely that this will happen.
All in all, i’d like to move to a quiet town, similar to this one, that still has all the “luxuries” of city life nearby (ie shopping malls, restaurants etc, so i won’t move to a faraway farm or anything).

I don’t know if I’ll ever find somewhere I want to live forever. I have a deep-set restlessness that keeps me wanting to move. I love my hometown, Berkeley, a lot as well as the town I go to college in, Oberlin. I lived in Berkeley for 18 years. I’ve lived in Oberlin for 4 and may stay there a couple more—I think experiencing the town as a resident rather than a college student will be rewarding for me—but I don’t think I’ll stay much longer.

I want so many experiences for my life and, for me, part of that is living in a lot of different places.

I worry a little about making new friends in each new place, but I have confidence that as I get older I will have a great many friends scattered throughout the world—and still be able to make new ones.

@lapilofu thanks for answering some of my qs, :)
I’ve been around and I love urban places – NYC, London, Brussels…though I can definitely plug into nature and separate myself from the world, I feel that I simply can’t, given what I know.