Yesterday I talked about the BIG where to live. We are here in Massachusetts, but deciding where to live once we landed here was difficult. We spent a year living on the edge of a rich suburb a few miles from Mike’s school. We had nothing to walk to and it was fairly dull. We found that the city everyone said we would love? We did. So we moved here after the first year.
We love, love, love our little city. It’s perfect for us in almost every way. We love our little townhouse. We love being able to walk to restaurants, a library, a discount natural foods store, a small indoor mall, a park, and plenty of coffee shops that make fantastic lattes.
It’s most of the things we need to be happy: Walkable! Accepting/progressive! Full of good food! Safe! Nice people!
The only shortcomings are: Winter. Cost. Diversity.
I may have made peace with the weather, check back in a few months to see. I would prefer to not be freezing for so many months. But investing in good boots, a coat, and a treadmill so I can stay active indoors even when it’s cold has helped. (The winter’s project: get good gloves and hat!)
The biggest drawback is the cost. We cannot really afford to buy a home here, they are just SO out of budget. We have saved a lot for a downpayment of a huge house in Ohio, but the housing prices are sooooo much higher here. We could move outside the city to the more rural areas, as many people do, but then we’d lose everything we love about living here. Plus, have to get a second car and drive anywhere we want to go. Driving downtown and paying for parking any time we want to go out to eat. And still have a commute for Mike.
And the area we live in seems to be only truly vibrant, walkable area in western Massachusetts. It’s all so frustrating! So, we continue to be grateful to have an affordable, comfortable townhouse to rent.
A few years ago, I had a young relative of mine who lives in a white, rich suburb. I was driving him somewhere that took us through a poorer area with more people of color. He made some comment about how unsafe it seemed and I was like, “You mean because there are poor people and brown people walking around?”
Our perceived safety is affected by the people we live around – so if we are never exposed to those who look and live differently, we *feel* less safe around them.
Anyway. So it’s a big value of mine, and something that proved incredibly hard to find in western Massachusetts. I’m not sure if it’s a New England thing or a western Mass thing, but it’s very segregated here.
In Ohio, we lived in an incredibly racially diverse neighborhood. I know it’s possible! I really hope we can land somewhere like that again.
(PS: These are just our values. No judgement on anyone with different values or who chooses to live somewhere isolated and drives everywhere! I’m only interested in living in alignment with our own values, not judging the actions of others. You do you, sister.)
Lack of diversity is definitely my major concern about where we live too. The cost of living is great, the climate is relatively mild, but visible minorities make up something like 5% of the population.
It’s not at all what I grew up with, and not what I want my daughter to grow up with either. A lot of the more diverse neighbourhoods here have lousy schools (which is a whole different depressing topic).
I’m so glad I’m not the only one who thinks about these things and the impact they have. It’s so hard.
Oh, how I feel you! I am constantly thinking about where I want my kids to grow up and it’s so hard to decide. Small, very affordable town where my parents live, very non-diverse? Or big city with so many (more, it seems) opportunities to learn new things and meet new people? Sigh.
Exactly!! It’s so so hard.
A bad area is a bad area, also regardless of race and nationality. And a “bad” area is – yes – usually a poor area, which commonly comes with many more minuses, like higher criminality rate, worse schools (less motivated children and less motivated and competent teachers), bad language, bad behaviors, less opportunities, etc.
We live where we can afford to live. That’s what we people normally do.
However, if I had to choose between a “bad” area and a “good” area, I would definitely choose the “good”, more well-off area (regardless of races and nationalities).
As a child, I was poor and my parents were poor. We lived in a bad/poor area that was very homogeneous as far as race is concerned, but bad nevertheless. Most people living there were alcoholics, lazy, uneducated, etc. – everything that usually makes and keeps you poor.
I personally, as a child, didn’t like that area at all. I preferred to read and study after school instead of going out.
At school I also experienced violence, verbal and physical.
So never again in a depressed area if I can afford it. Also, lack of diversity, if it happened, would be no problem to me. I’m sure children will have a lot of time in their lives to meet various people, for example, in college or at work.
Thank you for sharing your experiences and values.
It sounds like you have a very tough experience – I’m sorry about that. thanks for sharing our experiences and values in making decisions for your own family!
Thanks for sharing! We’re in a place of trying to decide if we stay where we are in the Front Range of Colorado. It’s a wonderful place – great weather, family around – but super expensive, crowded and bad school funding (we’re both teachers) which makes the competitive/expensive cost of living even more impactful. So…there’s lots of places we could move that would have better teacher pay and lower cost of living, but we’d lose the family and weather. We’re not looking to get rich (ha!) but do want to be able to have one of us work part-time or stay home and that’s just not an option beyond one year here. Tricky stuff!