Where do you want to live?

[goldensmom]

I try to think of living somewhere else. I traveled a lot when I was younger but settled in to a generational farm operation and now it is hard to even think of moving. Periodically I ask my husband where he would like to live someday when he retires and he always says ‘right here’. My choice would be the mountains of North Carolina.

[Ultralight]

Yesterday, at work, I ran into someone from another department. She is about 28. She has been working for OSU for about 5 years -- really nice gal.

Anyway, we started talking in the hallway, then on the elevator ride, etc. on our way back to our areas of work (which are next to each other).

I asked her: "So are you doing life without parole here?"

She said: "No... no way. I love the ocean and beaches too much! I want to move to somewhere near the ocean."

But she also told me she grew up two hours from Columbus in a small city and that she went to college in a small town about an hour from Columbus.

My point was that she hasn't left yet. Then I got the distinct feeling that despite her love for oceans and beaches and her expressed desire to leave Ohio she never would. She is a lifer.

I think that some folks have something in their personality to just up-and-leave and try some place new -- very new. And others are like alligators. They never leave their swamp.

Now, I think there are good things to be said for both the leavers and the stayers. But I am curious about the stayers who exist in a perpetual state of wanting to be leavers.

[catherine]

I think that some folks have something in their personality to just up-and-leave and try some place new -- very new. And others are like alligators. They never leave their swamp.

Now, I think there are good things to be said for both the leavers and the stayers. But I am curious about the stayers who exist in a perpetual state of wanting to be leavers.

Interesting point. My ancestors go back 300 years to the founding of the town in CT that I grew up in. My brother still lives there and will never leave. Lived there every day of his life except for the few years he was in the Air Force.

I've lived here in the same house in NJ for 32 years (doesn't seem possible). Yes, the muck of the swamp has a grip on my ankles, but I have faith that I'll be able to pull free and fly away. I sometimes get warm fuzzy feelings thinking about living in CT again, but I would rather be near my kids. Of course, my kids could always cut loose and leave Vermont, but I know that one of them is probably now a lifer. He just loves his life up there, his wife was born and raised there, and he is of the temperament to not rock the boat. My DD will probably get itchy feet.

My #2 choice would be to move back to the Connecticut shoreline. I may have thought I was a bit more adventurous, but I know myself well enough now that I will never leave the Northeast.

[LDAHL]

I've lived in Chicago, Boston and Los Angeles, and am currently in a small city in southeast Wisconsin. When I've reached the point where jobs are not an issue, we will most likely move to a small city in northeast or western Wisconsin. I like four seasons. Even winter serves a purpose: it keeps out the riffraff and maybe also gives you more time to slow down and reflect. I like the culture here too. I think you see less of the desperate status anxiety here than you do in other parts of the country. Few people seem interested in keeping anywhere weird or or funky or faux-bohemian. Outside a few enclaves in Madison and Milwaukee, people tend not to wear their politics on their sleeves. I like that.

One of the nice things about Wisconsin is that there's a lot of variation in the terrain. You can see bluffs, forest, great and small lakes, rivers, green rolling hills, prairie and farmland in the same weekend car trip. There are village squares on the New England pattern, repurposed industrial and port cities, quiet college towns and farming communities. There are at least a dozen places here I wouldn't mind living in. I tried to interest my wife in building an underground or earth berm house in the side of a hill with a terrific view, but she "refused to live like a badger". Ideally, we'd like a small house in one of the cities with a cabin or cottage within a couple of hours drive. That's probably still within financial reach here.

And don't get me started on the cheese.

[iris lilies]

I've lived in Chicago, Boston and Los Angeles, and am currently in a small city in southeast Wisconsin. When I've reached the point where jobs are not an issue, we will most likely move to a small city in northeast or western Wisconsin. I like four seasons. Even winter serves a purpose: it keeps out the riffraff and maybe also gives you more time to slow down and reflect. I like the culture here too. I think you see less of the desperate status anxiety here than you do in other parts of the country. Few people seem interested in keeping anywhere weird or or funky or faux-bohemian. Outside a few enclaves in Madison and Milwaukee, people tend not to wear their politics on their sleeves. I like that.

One of the nice things about Wisconsin is that there's a lot of variation in the terrain. You can see bluffs, forest, great and small lakes, rivers, green rolling hills, prairie and farmland in the same weekend car trip. There are village squares on the New England pattern, repurposed industrial and port cities, quiet college towns and farming communities. There are at least a dozen places here I wouldn't mind living in. I tried to interest my wife in building an underground or earth berm house in the side of a hill with a terrific view, but she "refused to live like a badger". Ideally, we'd like a small house in one of the cities with a cabin or cottage within a couple of hours drive. That's probably still within financial reach here.

And don't get me started on the cheese.

I like many things about Northern midwest states, but I have said : we arent moving back to snow land ever again! Still, it has attraction. New Hampshire is very attractive even though I have not been there. The winters, though....Two of our friends will be moving there, independantly.

I love Iowa City and know there are other college towns of 50,000+ that we would probably like and there are always scads of cultural things taking place in college towns. But any student protesting, and probably student centered culture, might bug me too much.

There are so many things I like about Missouri, my adopted state. Due to the Mississippi river it has several very old settlements and they are interesting. It just has a richer and varied history than my home state of Iowa, and even the topography is. Ore interesting with The Ozarks and mighty Mississippi.

[SteveinMN]

I am curious about the stayers who exist in a perpetual state of wanting to be leavers.

I think we all know people who stay where they are despite a (sometimes very public) longing to be elsewhere. Sometimes the pull is provided by a lack of finances, sometimes by familial obligations (caring for an elderly parent, etc.). But many (most?) times I believe it's that it's far easier to express the interest than it is to plan the logistics of a big move and to find a new place to live, miss family and old friends, work at making new friends, learn which radio and TV stations have the programming you like, investigate new grocery and hardware stores, etc. It takes emotional energy and that sometimes can be in short supply.

I live in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and am happy to be here.

Winters can be tough -- whenever I think of living elsewhere it's usually in the middle of a long gray February -- but, as LDAHL mentioned, it keeps the riff-raff out. Enjoying four seasons is important; it really would warp time for me if the only weather change were that a few months were more rainy than others. I also don't do so well in heat and humidity. 90-degree days here typically can be counted on the fingers of two hands. The snow is measured in feet (usually 4-5 feet a winter) but we dress for it and have the tools we need (snowplows, snowblowers, winter tires, etc.) to manage it better than places further south.

I like it here. I like the seasons. I like having the benefits of an urban area without enduring the extremely high density of larger metro areas. I like that urban Minnesota is quite progressive (though the rest of the state is not quite so progressive). I like living somewhere with a growing economy. I can identify with the largely-Nordic/German cast to the demographics here. Though taxes are relatively high here, I do see what they're buying (something I did not see in my native New York). Though some Minnesotans are quite xenophobic about some of the newest ethnic groups moving here, I am proud that many Minnesotans were concerned enough about the welfare of groups like the Hmong and eastern Africans (Somalians, Eritreans, etc.) to have done the work to offer those groups refuge here and to help them get established.

Interestingly, most people I know here have iived here their entire lives. Even those who leave for university or a job promotion aim to come back. Sometimes living someplace one's entire life implies an insularity. Indeed, I find that the Minnesotans who complain the loudest about life in Minnesota typically have not lived anywhere else to provide a comparison (good or bad). But I think it speaks well of life here that folks can move elsewhere, sometimes for decades, and want to come back.

If I lived somewhere else? Seattle has always been tempting, but I think that entire area is becoming a victim of its own success, with a growth rate that has outstripped the ability of infrastructure to keep up. Portland, maybe, though I've only been there a time or two and I see some of the Seattle experience there. What I've seen and heard about Sweden and Norway interests me, but not seriously enough to even consider a move. What would be more likely would be moving to a smaller city with a good-sized university there, like Duluth, Rochester (MN), or Ames, Iowa. A little less of what I like about the Twin Cities but probably still enough.

Some long-time friends of DW's (now my friends as well) have long talked about co-housing. I notice the requirements changing from when the topic first came up a decade ago. A third- or fourth-ring suburb was the ideal choice for the "compound" before; now I hear that proximity to mass transit is a requirement because, well, we're all getting older and who wants to get stuck in some outer-ring suburb because driving is difficult in the ice and the dark? The general plan has been to have rooms for each couple off a common kitchen/dining/living area, but discussion gets bogged down by the fact that some of us will be able to get there sooner than others but the financial arrangements would have to come early. A cooperative form of housing seems to be the best approach, though that leaves the issue of what happens when one couple sells -- who moves in? The idea is co-housing with these folks, not just co-housing in general. As Ultralight mentioned, it's tough to arrange the details.

[Tybee]

My roots in this country go back to New England and Virginia. I've lived or visited several of the places where I later found I had ancestors, such as Massachusetts, Virginia, Vermont, and the Cherokee Nation of North Carolina. I have loved them all and felt recognition of the place at some cellular level. I think if the kids were not in the equation, I would live in Bennington, Vermont,and summer down in Southern Coastal Georgia, where I was born.

But those grandchildren--Ireally, really want to be in their lives. They are such a blessing.

ETA: oh , if I couldalso live outside of this country,then Yorkshire or Lucerne.

[Float On]

I like the area I live in. I like my little cabin in the woods, I like my access to the lakes within minutes. I'd probably be more interested in staying here if I had more friends (people tend to move in and out of this area).
I wouldn't mind moving home to the farm (5 hours north of me). My brother and I will inherit it but I doubt he'd move back from OR, he'd come home for spring and fall hunts.
If I could pick anywhere and had an unlimited budget....outside of Santa Fe. I look forward to going out there 1 to 2 times a year and haven't had my fill yet. I lived there in '85 and have wanted to return since.

[pinkytoe]

it's far easier to express the interest than it is to plan the logistics of a big move and to find a new place to live

I cannot emphasize especially to older folks how difficult a big move is. Looking back on ours, I am amazed we got through it at all. The remembrance of culling stuff, leaving our house 0f 15+ years for the last time, driving 800 miles with two cats in a cage in the back of the car, all of it...makes me shudder now. And as mentioned, the practical aspects of finding everything again takes a toll. Recently, I read a book about the various families who left Missouri to travel west during the great expansion back in the 1800s. Traveling for weeks in wagons full of their stuff and enduring all the hardships along the way. There must be something in our DNA that propels us to continue searching for a better place. I do know there is another chapter in our future but I don't want to ponder it just yet.

[ApatheticNoMore]

I plan to stay pretty much, the only thing that says otherwise is not buying property, and maybe I'll do that (but trust me no other decision I could possibly make has the power to ruin my finances and make my otherwise financially stable and financially quite safe existence the complete opposite than committing to buying property here - plus make life more difficult in other ways as well ... but I think A LOT more about making that crazy commitment than I do about leaving). But even though I doubt I make such a high income as to make it really a no brainer rather than a risky affair, I do wonder if I should just looking at pulling that trigger, now maybe that is a question for a financial planner.