Living near people or big separation

[Bethany1]

I live in a town of 3500 people. Nearest "real" stores are an hour or so to Lincoln or Omaha. I like living in a small town, but miss the conveniences of a city and the opportunities that my kids don't have here. If ours was more pedestrian and bike friendly it would be nicer.

What I will never do is live in gated community hell again. Texas was like that. Neighborhood Nazi organizations is what we called them. It was a prison with beautiful homes, 6 foot privacy fences, fake people and plenty of fire ants. I'd rather deal with a trashed house next door than face fines for my grass and snitches for neighbors.

I told DH when we were looking for houses I wanted a town with a gas station, a real grocery store (not an IGA rip-you-off store) and decent schools.

My kids hate it here and I don't blame them. There isn't anything to do and I won't let them "troll" around town out of boredom.

It wasn't until I went to Newark for a flight to England that I realized how big a city really is. Seeing the New York City skyline blew me away as it was so stunningly beautiful. I've lived near St. Louis, Austin, and San Antonio, but this was completely different. In England, we were in Newcastle and it was a crush of people everywhere. I loved the excitement and energy. Part of me would love that kind of living but then I look up at the sky at night w/o the glare of lights and decide I like living where I'm at.

[shootingstar]

What I will never do is live in gated community hell again. Texas was like that. Neighborhood Nazi organizations is what we called them. It was a prison with beautiful homes, 6 foot privacy fences, fake people and plenty of fire ants. I'd rather deal with a trashed house next door than face fines for my grass and snitches for neighbors.

Wow.....and sad.

[rivergal]

Where we live I think we have the best of both worlds, as we live within driving distance of a big city (Orlando), and live in a small community that's bordered on the east, north, and west sides by state land. To the west about 150 feet is the Wekiva River. Our community is about 70 homes, older community - no gates except the ones to keep the livestock from wandering off!

The only thing I'd like is for the Seminole County bike path to extend a little further so I could ride to it more easily. Other than that, can't complain too much, except in the summer when it's hotter than blazes and steamy, too. Right now the weather is perfect.

[Crankin]

Reminds me of Arizona. I didn't live in a gated community, but the 6 foot block walls created artificial boundaries between neighbors. One year, when I took my older son trick or treating, we rang the bell of the people who lived behind us. It was a newer house than ours and after 4 years, I finally saw who lived inside.
Here I can choose to engage with my neighbors or not. We have 2 acre lots, far back from the street, but most of the houses are on shared driveways, so there has to be some communication, about snow removal, at least. We are very lucky; we are actually friends with our driveway neighbors, who are very much like us, i.e. not people who have lived in Concord forever. The others, not so much. Pat (my neighbor) peer pressured me into attending the neighborhood "holiday tea" for women this Friday. Since neither of us can stand these people, we decided to have a glass of wine before we walk down the street.

[Koronin]

I prefer living just outside of large cities. I grew up in northeast Ohio (Warren, which is located between Cleveland and Pittsburgh and was a city of around 50,000 when I was growing up). After college I moved to Charlotte, NC, well a town just outside of Charlotte. I loved living there. Whatever I wanted or needed was close by, yea had to drive to it, but not a long drive to anything. What I will never do again is live in an HOA, horrible, horrible, horrible. Totally agree with the neighborhood Nazi analogy. Last year we moved to Jacksonville, NC. It's got around 80,000 people, although a good portion of that military. I really like where we bought our home at. Nice neighborhood where the houses are not right on top of each other and no HOA, yet still close to grocery stores, drug stores, ect. What I don't like is I still have to drive either 1 hr to Wilmington or 2 hrs to Raleigh for certain things that they don't have here.

[shootingstar]

I should clarify (lest people have certain perceptions), I grew up for the first 20 years in life in a city that was at the time 30,000. (Now it's over 100,000, twinned with another city around the same size.)

But we lived downtown --15 min. walk to a shopping mall, + shops on its main street and less than a 10 min. walk to local transit bus which we did use too. I used it as a teenager occasionally ...and more often later.

What I like about the town was that it was an established town with a defined core that developed over the decades, not a fake kind of homogenous, boring centre.

I do have great memories of growing up in that area in those years. We lived on a street off the main street with older homes, large porches (but our house was the smallest and poorest), all different character. There was (and still is) a heritage house that is marked as a tourist attraction just 1/2 block away. Treed streets, etc.

So I definitely, even living in high rise buildings, want to see green space/mature trees close by + far away from window.

We were the poorest family on the street, yet some of our neighbours were professors, bank manager, ...even 1 block down was a local university president. There were some hard working immigrant families also (German, Austrian, etc.) Not a long street.

In retrospect, it was the best environment to raise "inner city" kids. Actually I resent the term, inner city ...it has all sorts of negative contations...that could have been applied to our family. Yet given the neighbourhood I grew up, it certainly was an atypical blend of socio-economic classes. Healthy environment for kids. We were extremely lucky.

[rivergal]

Small world, Koronin. Was born in Warren, OH, and spent the first 4 years of my life in Burton, OH. Don't remember much of the area from that time, but all my siblings recall it with fondness (I'm the youngest). My eldest brother moved back to the Cleveland area this year when he retired.