I was at Camden from Dec. 2010 to Oct. 2012.Originally Posted by Tammy
Small world.
I was at Camden from Dec. 2010 to Oct. 2012.
Small world.
I was there feb 2011 - July 2013. We were neighbors.
We live right downtown Indianapolis. Well within the one mile square so totally walkable. We moved there to reduce commute to almost nothing. My office was 5 blocks away and husbands was 1.5 miles. He could round trip by car in less than 10 minutes or walk. It is quiet and has nice neighbors. Downtown is now booming with several thousand new apartments, a new grocery store (Whole Foods coming), doctors, dentists and vets, and a huge new central library 5 blocks away. If we want something special, all corners of the city are available. I do not have to drive to get away.
I do not mind living in an urban area and love the "eyes" that are around in case of emergency. Tried the suburbs for 3 years and was miserable.
Small world!
Currently, I live in a small city in a rural area. But I used to live in Boston.
Pros: lots of things to do. A car is not really necessary.
Cons: housing is much more expensive. The closer you are to a bus line, the higher the rent. The closer you are to a subway/trolley stop, the rent goes even higher.
While there are a lot of stores, there are very few grocery stores. If you aren't within an easy walk of one of the few supermarkets, you will either be food shopping every other day, or getting a taxi or Zip car weekly. If you need to lug large bags of pet food or cat litter home, the bus is not the best way to do this.
Food is more expensive. Actually, just about everything is more expensive.
Most apartments in a reasonable price range do not have washers and dryers in the building, meaning that you have to lug all your clothes to the nearest laundramat, which could be over a mile away and not on a public transportation route.
It's hard to meet neighbors. Once I lived in a building with 8 apartments, and I had no idea who lived in 5 of them. Never saw them in the three years I was there.
That said, I did like living in the city, and if family and work obligations hadn't made me decide to move, I'd probably stil be there. But for everything that the city does to simplify one aspect of life, it also can throw in a complication in another area.
I am 67 and my husband is 68. We have 4 acres in what used to be the country. But suburban sprawl is rapidly surrounding us. So we have the worst of both worlds. We are getting old and have to take care a 4 acres and we have to drive 10 miles to the nearest grocery through traffic that steadily grows worse as the sprawl envelopes us. And to top it off these 2 lane country roads were never designed to handle the current amount of traffic.
We live in centralish Austin in an older neighborhood and have everything we need close by. Our main grocery is 3 blocks away, two library branches, tons of eateries and parks within a half mile. My work is 4 miles away and on a bus route if I want to take the bus. It was a very calculated move 15 years ago when we realized that the nice house in the burbs on a big lot with a pool wasn't worth the long stressful drive to work and amenities. It was the biggest thing we ever did to simplfy our lives and has made all the difference in quality of life. I loathe traffic and driving so doubt I'll ever live anywere that is totally car dependent. The downside though is that now everyone who can afford it wants to live close in because of the awful traffic - so the real estate is getting pricier by the day.
Wow, you really are downtown! Myself, not quite so downtown but on top of it. A few blocks north of the 51 and McDowell Road. Rob
I like being where I am at the moment - very close to downtown but not so close that I can't have a backyard to grow some veggies and a little space between houses. I did some research recently of a town in Arizona I've always found fascinating - Nogales - turns out housing is not that expensive there and if you live close to downtown but not right on the border things are very walkable. The idea of getting a car after all these years without one and the costs and hassles of car ownership just does not suit well. I would say living so close to downtown and essential services really does simplify my life. And something else I cherish, after having had a medical emergency in rural Utah two years ago - I am very close to a hospital - two actually - that are in my insurance plan. Having had some health issues myself that's not something I take lightly these days.
I also appreciate being so close to the Art Museum and to the public library, and when the weather is not so obnoxious - think starting Mid October I'm close to the light rail to take me to all kinds of temp banquet shifts and also to a few public parks here in Phoenix, my favorite being Tempe Town Lake, which is a man made lake that is a big tourist attraction here but it's still cool anyway. I'd say living in the middle of it all does simplify my life but there's also a part of me that yearns to be somewhere smaller and more human scaled. Meh....can't have my cake and eat it too. Rob
Rob - It's really something how we meet neighbors online. I work at MIHS - the hospital at Roosevelt and 24th st
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