Do you all prefer living in an urban area or rural area?

33 comments

1. Rural hands down

2. Rural, but not too rural

3. Rural to such an extent that I actively avoid going near cities.

4. Semi rural definitely not urban

5. urban, as urban as possible. Surround me with buildings and people.

6. Urban enough to get high speed internet

7. I strongly prefer urban areas.

8. Depends. I have a friend in Tennessee who told me that some people in the ruralest areas of the state still have dialup internet and they have nonexistent cell signals.

   If we aren’t talking _that_ rural, then yeah, I prefer rural. I live in a suburban area though for work reasons.

9. Urban. I like doing social things, and I like those things to be close to my home.

   The idea of driving 25 minutes to run a simple errand sounds painful.

10. Rural. Cities suck.

11. I’ve lived in a huge variety of places and I prefer urban living by a pretty large margin. My next choice would be a small, somewhat rural town, though – I’m OK with inner-ring suburbs that are densely populated and very close to the city, but I’m fine with passing up farther-out suburbs altogether.

12. I’ve lived rural and suburban but never truly urban. I loved rural when we were young and married. We had a huge 100 × 150 foot garden and our closest neighbor was the coach of the Butler Bulldogs basketball team about 300 yards up the road(Joe Sexson,1978 to 89) We moved to suburban Indy for 7 years, then small town southern Indiana to raise our kids and then retire. There are just too many people in an urban area for me; it’s a nice place to visit but I wouldn’t want to ever live there

13. Suburban

14. I grew up on a rural area and loved my childhood there. Currently living in a suburban area, which I also love. I miss the privacy of the country, but I love the conveniences of where I live now. I wouldn’t want to live in an urban area.

15. I prefer living about an hour outside of cities. I like having a yard and woods nearby.

16. Under 35, urban. I loved it.

    Over 35, give me a big ass yard or land, only a few neighbors, and make them the kind that keep to themselves.

17. I suppose I’m in a suburb. So, suburban.

18. Rural, which is where I live now. I grew up in the suburbs, lived in cities as a young adult, but I now want to live as far away from urban areas as possible.

    Most of my preferred leisure activities are outdoors, so I prefer to live close to where I can partake of them. I also just enjoy the peace, quiet, lack of traffic, clean air and lack of light pollution at night.

    Most of my necessities are within a 20 minute drive, although some shopping items I need to make special trips for.

    I also have a faster, more reliable internet comnection that anywhere else that I’ve lived in the past 20 years, so the idea that rural areas necessarily have bad internet connections isn’t a given.

    The only downside for me is that the closest major international airport is 3 hours away, which means I pretty much need to stay the night prior at an airport hotel if I’m flying anywhere.

19. I don’t want to see my neighbors. Ever.

20. I like them more or less equally. I like the convenience of living in a city; things are close, I can walk or ride my bike for errands/commuting, there’s always something to do. I also like the wide-open spaces and relative privacy of living in a rural area. I grew up rural, spent most of my young-adult years living in a city, and now I’m back to living rural.

    I do *not* like suburbs, because in my view, they have all of the downsides of both cities **and** rural areas without nearly as many of the benefits. People are all stacked up on top of each other, just like in the city, and they’re not usually built in a way that promotes walking or cycling for anything other than leisure, just like in the country.

21. Edge-of-the-city rural. I’ve lived in densely-populated areas, and it was nice to be able to walk to the grocery store/work, etc., but I prefer having the option of keeping horses and chickens and not having to get permission from the city to build/improve whatever I want.

22. Rural, but within driving distance of a decent sized town.

    I hate living in town. I like being able to shoot my guns, play music, and work on my cars. All things that are noisy. I like being able to fish, hunt, have a large vegetable garden, and have a small amount of livestock. Most of that you just can’t really do in town.

23. I’m in the suburbs, and it’s pretty great.

    I have access to the services that you might not get in a more rural area. I don’t have to go far to get groceries. I don’t have to worry about wild animals. If I wanted to go into the country for anything though, it’s not too far away.

    I also don’t have to drive in narrow, crowded streets. That’s really my main complaint about the city. I live next to a light rail stop, so if I want to go into the city for something, that’s super easy too.

24. Urban. Do I want to live in the center of the city? No. However, I like the amenities of the big city and having easy access to things when I want them.

25. Urban, but I definitely get the appeal of very rural living although it probably wouldn’t be for me long term.

    It’s the middle ground that doesn’t appeal to me at all. The extreme ends of the spectrum both have downsides but also plenty of positive things that make up for them. I’m sure the people who live in small towns and suburbs enjoy it but it feels like the worst of both worlds to me.

26. Urban. My preference is to be able to walk or take public transportation to my job, restaurants, groceries, cafe, etc. (I do have a car but don’t like using it because of the danger, stress, and cost). There are suburban communities that are planned around walkability, so I haven’t ruled it out. But not yet.

27. Rural

28. Very rural.

29. Probably more urban than I’ll ever be able to afford. I would love to live in a building with a glass wall and an elevator but just isn’t in the cards for me.

30. Urban.

    I’d take rural over a suburb though.

31. I’ve lived in major cities and places with questionable power/internet/water access…

    Urban… it’s where all the stuff is.

32. I like living in my mid-sized Southern city. Big enough to have all the amenities and some fantastic restaurants, small enough to remain incredibly convenient.

33. Urban for work and convenience but Rural is king if you’re self sustainable