I despise studies like this, you know a whole nation of middle-managers is reading this and thinking "Excellent, this year we'll just buy some potted plants for the office instead of giving raises."
Living in a nice place is well and good, but it takes MONEY.
But imagine how many trees you could have planted if you had a million quid to spend on it.
[QUOTE=junker154;43541782]Huge cities are bad, absolutely desolated rural areas are bad. Something inbetween is nice.[/QUOTE]
Yeah sure, but if I had to choose between "living in the countryside, having to drive 30 mins to get to the city" and "living in the city, having to drive 30 mins to get to the countryside", I'd definitely choose the latter. I mean, the countryside is relaxing, calm and all that. It's the kind of place that's nice to visit, but not the kind I'd like to live in.
Like I said, I lived in a veeery small town when I went to the US, and the main issue I had with the countryside are the distances. Wanna hang out with friends? Well guess what, you can't go anywhere if you don't have a car (which I didn't), and if you live far away (which I did), good luck getting a ride without having to pay some gas money. Then, you can enjoy all the fun and excitement of a small town- which is non-existant unless you're going hunting or to the lake (seriously, the county I lived was called McDowell, but so many people referred to it as "MethDowell" because drugs were pretty much the only way most teenagers had fun over there). Sure, there was a small park with a few basketball courts, a few fast food chains and a single coffee shop, but not the kind of places you'd always want to hang out at. If you wanted to go anywhere nice, you'd have to drive 40 mins to the nearest city. All that really limits the amount of time you can spend doing stuff.
And then, the city. Want to hang out with a friend? There's no hassle, just take the bus or even walk to his house or wherever it is you're meeting. Bars down the street, coffee shops in every corner, and if you're bored of the city environment, just go to one of the dozens of parks most cities offer, or drive 40 mins to the countryside, but without the limitations of actually living there.
Of course there's lots of different places and situations so this doesn't apply everywhere, but it's just my two cents. I'm probably visiting that town I lived in again, but actually living in a place like that? Good god, no way.
the town i live near has a store and a gas station and that is it. we don't even have a stoplight. i guess that i really like living out here because olympia is only a 20 minute drive away, and even then olympia as a city is filled with trees, like unless you are downtown it is difficult to be anywhere and not see some tall-ass evergreen trees.
[IMG]http://pics4.city-data.com/cpicc/cfiles42699.jpg[/IMG]
i say that i live near the town because it takes at least 6 minutes to drive into that town. this gives me a lot more space to roam about and mess around, a logging company is my nearest neighbor and they don't ever care if people go walking around the woods. stargazing is also really clear, which is cool.
only problem is that i only have dsl so internet is ass but it isn't unbearable, just takes a bit longer for downloads to complete.
[editline]14th January 2014[/editline]
my opinion of where i live improved dramatically once i was able to drive
[QUOTE=Psychokitten;43541501][img]http://media.rd.com/rd/images/rdc/books/most-scenic-drives-in-america/central-states-shawnee-hills-af.jpg[/img]
[img]http://images.travelpod.com/tw_slides/ta00/9b4/ab2/shawnee-national-forest-felsen-1-n2-decatur.jpg[/img]
[img]http://www.horsetraildirectory.com/pictures/illinois/Indian%20Kitchen.JPG[/img]
Does this look boring?[/QUOTE]
Well, yes. Can't imagine me having much fun there. At least not without an offroad vehicle or something.
And now I'd post 3 pictures of a city I find very nice and ask "Does this look depressing?"
It's all just too pointless and subjective. As a person who lives in a city with some greenery, has lived two years in Tokyo, and is forced to spend 4 weeks a year in the countryside, I just find the countryside to be dull and too insect-ridden for my tastes. Different strokes for different folks, don't be talking garbage about people just because they don't associate the countryside with a nice book while sitting by the river or meditation while listening to the sounds of nature or something.
[editline]15th January 2014[/editline]
Which is why I find what OP is saying to be complete and utter bull and I can't believe he's getting away with it.
[QUOTE=Rents;43540317]Alternate explanation, cities are a depressing place to be.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=The golden;43540373]The novelty wears off real fast. Especially in heavily congested ones.[/QUOTE]
I live in a big city and I still like cities more than nature. It's all down to personal opinion.
[QUOTE=atl101;43541329]Check out Namba Parks in Japan, I wish more cities had stuff like this - trees + buildings
[img]http://spfaust.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/12445_2_namba4big.jpg[/img][/QUOTE]
Looks a lot like Bjarke Ingels work, even though it isn't! The Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) is my favorite architectural firm, because they try to incorporate urban and natural seamlessly in almost all of their plans.
[t]http://images.mnn.com/sites/default/files/user/130142/EuropaCityBIG4.jpeg[/t]
[t]http://huskycityrbe.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/8-house-by-bjarke-ingels-group-big-model.jpg%3Fw%3D642[/t]
[t]http://www.designboom.com/weblog/images/images_2/lauren/big/big76b.jpg[/t]
They have some [I]amazing[/I] TED talks. These guys are brilliant. Their conceptual buildings are gorgeous, and the work they've actually done is simply mindblowing.
Then again, this is south Florida, so it's all green even in the city itself.
[QUOTE=Ninja Gnome;43542097]
Washington[/QUOTE]
I swear, we could fill a small city with all the FP'ers in Washington.
Come to Singapore. We have greenery almost everywhere. There are trees in every streets and gardens next to shopping malls.
I somehow would prefer it if they ripped out every sidewalk, and converted it with nicely made dirt-paths that had bushes and trees separating the sidewalk and roads. Probably wouldn't hurt our air quality all that much. It would also cooldown the city quiet a bit:
[t]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/Newyork_heat_island.jpg[/t]
[QUOTE=JoeSkylynx;43542246]I somehow would prefer it if they ripped out every sidewalk, and converted it with nicely made dirt-paths that had bushes and trees separating the sidewalk and roads. Probably wouldn't hurt our air quality all that much. It would also cooldown the city quiet a bit:
[t]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/Newyork_heat_island.jpg[/t][/QUOTE]
That would be awful in the rain.
[QUOTE=junker154;43541782]Huge cities are bad, absolutely desolated rural areas are bad. Something inbetween is nice.[/QUOTE]
So small cities like Bismarck, ND.
[t]http://metroscenes.com/bismarck/images/bismarck_nd_metroscenes_25.jpg[/t]
As someone who is living here right now. Almost every block of this town has ten to twenty trees in it. It's really comfortable during the Summer to walk down the roads to the river to go fishing or swimming.
[QUOTE=JoeSkylynx;43542246]I somehow would prefer it if they ripped out every sidewalk, and converted it with nicely made dirt-paths that had bushes and trees separating the sidewalk and roads. Probably wouldn't hurt our air quality all that much. It would also cooldown the city quiet a bit:
[t]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/Newyork_heat_island.jpg[/t][/QUOTE]
Would be a nice idea except for the dirt paths. Would be a pain to keep them leveled and it'd be terrible with rainy weather
[QUOTE=Del91;43542272]That would be awful in the rain.[/QUOTE]
How about [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permeable_paving"]permeable pavement of sort?[/URL] Something which lets rainwater go down into the sewers, and at the same time allows for some form of pavement.
Actually... How about grass and concrete sidewalks?
[t]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Rasenpflasterstein_1.jpg[/t]
[QUOTE=ForgottenKane;43542181]Then again, this is south Florida, so it's all green even in the city itself.[/QUOTE]
I'm moving to Fort Lauderdale in a few months! However, I'll be going for the blue, not the green.
Better yet, give me a few mils and I'll plant a lot of trees, so I'll be even happier.
[QUOTE=JoeSkylynx;43542299]How about [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permeable_paving"]permeable pavement of sort?[/URL] Something which lets rainwater go down into the sewers, and at the same time allows for some form of pavement.
Actually... How about grass and concrete sidewalks?
-img-[/QUOTE]
I can't imagine that doing too well once it starts to freeze.
[QUOTE=Sobotnik;43540355]I've always found the countryside more dreary. Cities are exciting places.[/QUOTE]
It all really varies from place to place. Desperately poor rural communities are incredibly depressing.
I've lived around desert most of my life so I don't exactly have much of an attraction to green woodlands.
[QUOTE=atl101;43541329]Check out Namba Parks in Japan, I wish more cities had stuff like this - trees + buildings
[img]http://spfaust.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/12445_2_namba4big.jpg[/img][/QUOTE]
I think this is hard to accomplish due to the fact that tree roots don't give a fuck about your bricks and will eat through your walls if they find it comfortable
We have a fair-size garden and a small amount of parkland outside our house with several trees, including a small orchard's worth of mango and coconut trees. Most of these were planted by grandpa when he bought the property, so we have all the mangoes and coconuts we can eat during summer.
I really enjoy being around old, large trees and extensive parkland. It makes me feel good and I'm really into the beauty of nature.
[QUOTE=The golden;43540373]The novelty wears off real fast. Especially in heavily congested ones.[/QUOTE]
NYC was neat for the first few days.
Then I started noticing all of the homeless folk. Then I remembered how many times I had been harassed about buying some guys CD or almost getting DRAGGED into a bar by a promoter in Times Square. Then I almost stepped in vomit and DID step in piss for the fifth time that week, as well as almost getting run over by a taxi cab about a half a dozen times a day.
It wears off [b]real[/b] fuckin' fast. Give me backwoods camping and fishing any day of the week of the month of the year.
[editline]15th January 2014[/editline]
Not to mention the fact that after Sandy, all of the subways smelled like old leather and urine.
If I won a million bucks, I'd move to Norway, and be very happy as a result
So I guess both are correct?
[QUOTE=TestECull;43541584]So make some noise. The countryside is only quiet if YOU let it be quiet.[/quote]
No I just prefer attractions in the cities. They have pubs and cinemas, cultural events, etc.
Countryside has them as well, but naturally it's always going to have less than the city, and on a smaller scale.
[quote]Which is good.[/quote]
no
[quote]I'm surrounded by farms and I don't smell them at all. But you wanna know what [i]does[/i] smell like shit?[/quote]
pig farms
[quote]Bullshit. Your eyes just get spoiled by all the streetlights in the city. Also, you can actually see shit in space out in the sticks, and that alone is enough to keep me from moving into the city.[/quote]
k
[quote]Desolation? You mean freedom. See, I live out in the sticks, and living out in the sticks lets me do things that'd have SWAT units converging on my house if I was in a suburb. I can take my 7.62mm rifle out into my back yard and plink away at oil filters all goddamn day. Nobody cares. I can run my noisy nitro RCs in my back yard all day long. Nobody cares. I can set off fireworks literally from dawn to midnight on the fourth [i]and nobody cares.[/i] If I wanted to I could buy some $200 junkers from the scrapyard and bomb around in my back yard with them until the motors gave out, then shoot 'em full of holes, and nobody would care. We also don't get people posting political bullshit in your front yard, which is wonderful.[/quote]
we get it, you want to be a psychopath and blow up stuff in your back garden, it's probably a good thing you are in the middle of nowhere where there is nobody to annoy.
the countryside isn't free to me. unless you live near something interesting it's pretty boring. all of the forests and shit end up looking the same when you go through them enough
if you don't have a car, and the buses are shite, then the countryside is shit to live in sorry. you can't fucking get anywhere without a car there and the quality of country roads makes it a crapshoot anyways (and bicycles are fun until you realize the weather is shit about 300 days of the year)
The biggest problem with the countryside is all the city slickers buying houses and pricing us out of our homes because they want somewhere to live for a weekend or summer. Cornwall is almost empty in the winter now.
I live in a small village near a major city so I have the benefits of both.
Having lived in a fairly typical quiet village for the last few years I can honestly say I detest the countryside. I just feel so disconnected from the world. Maybe it's not so bad if you can drive, but nothing pisses me off like having to take a bus for 20, train for 40, and walk for 40 minutes every day just to get to work. And the internet is horrendous.
I lived in Nottingham (so a fairly typical city) for a few years and it was better in absolutely every single way. It's not really a case of cities being romanticised, it's just a great deal more convenient for pretty much everything. The countryside is definitely romanticised - I don't really see what else the appeal could be.
[editline]15th January 2014[/editline]
and yes my village does always smell of manure
and this is a village for rich people.
I've lived in the countryside all my life, and personally I wouldn't inflict it on my kids.
You're robbed of thousands of opportunities, of diversity and reams of friends living out here. It rains all the time. It's cold. It's depressing. You have to travel for miles to get anywhere, which means you need a car, which is expensive in this country because of fuel prices. You're surrounded by old people and small-minded baby boomer conservatism (not just political).
It makes you a less complete person, less rounded and with a smaller mind. If you're born in a city you get streetwise very quickly and you can get by living almost anywhere. As a country mouse you're dumbfounded by anything that isn't country.
Can't say I'd want to live in a big city like London much either, although living near it and visiting frequently is enough.
[QUOTE=ewitwins;43543774]NYC was neat for the first few days.
Then I started noticing all of the homeless folk. Then I remembered how many times I had been harassed about buying some guys CD or almost getting DRAGGED into a bar by a promoter in Times Square. Then I almost stepped in vomit and DID step in piss for the fifth time that week, as well as almost getting run over by a taxi cab about a half a dozen times a day.
It wears off [b]real[/b] fuckin' fast. Give me backwoods camping and fishing any day of the week of the month of the year.[/QUOTE]
Not every city is NYC. I've lived in a fairly big city my whole life and never had any of the problems you speak of, save for the homeless people. All those problems are easily avoidable, there are plenty of cities out there with different policies, in states with different laws, etc, but if you want to live in the countryside, you'll have the same problems everywhere you go. Long distances, needing a car if you wanna go anywhere, shitty connection, etc. Sure, where you want to live is all about preference, but there's no denying that cities are more convenient.
Also, you can say the same thing about the countryside and about how the novelty wears off quickly, too
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