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Situation #1: 800 square foot third-story walk-up apartment in a pre-war apartment complex in the middle of a very large city near a subway / metro stop.
Work commute, 10 minutes in the subway, maybe 20 minutes walking. A small tabaqueria / corner store, 3 flights of stairs away. Multiple stores, bars, restaurants within walking distance; you don't need a car at all. At least 50 restaurants will deliver to your apartment. Your balcony overlooks a very active street. All the best services available: 30 mbps fiber internet, city water / sewage (obviously), etc. If you have a police scanner, the action is non-stop. Near public park.
Annoyances include a moderate crime risk (the apartment is in a clean, but occasionally sketchy neighborhood), $1400 / month rent (still affordable to you but a significant chunk of your income), no parking space (a lot one block down will rent you a spot for $300 / month), constant street noise. Park is scary after dark.
Situation #2: 2,400 square foot home, recent construction, 45 miles from a smallish (pop 100,000) city. Pole barn for storing ATVs, tractors, etc. and detached 4-car garage / workshop.
Work commute, approximately 60 minutes each way on a mostly 60 mph highway. A small gas station / convenience store, the nearest business, 10 miles down the highway. Nearest full-service grocery store, about 40 miles. No restaurants deliver. A large deck, with a 5 mile view in some directions, overlooks fields, woods, a stream (on your property) and hills in the distance. Near state forest, but nobody cares if you go on their mostly unsigned land. Water is from a system connected to your well. No city services whatsoever.
Joys include being able to swim in the stream in the summer, being able to have animals or use your land in any way you want, being able to snowmobile or ATV right from your house, and a relatively affordable ($300,000) price tag.
Annoyances include a long distance to any service, long wait time for first responders (though virtually no crime risk), irregular repaving of local dirt roads and snow clearance in the winter, forcing you to drive a 4x4 SUV as your main car; no neighbors or civilization nearby; no wired broadband internet, forcing you to use satellite internet.
Location: Sometimes Maryland, sometimes NoVA. Depends on the day of the week
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Well those are two major extremes! What you are asking is if people want urban or rural, and thats only something you can answer for yourself. This is apples vs organges, while your previous questions was gala vs golden delicious (which are neither, but the only other apply variety I can think of right now)
Me, I would normally go with the rural setup, but with your extreme winter, I would actually go with #1, and would store cars at a remote garage.
Actually I would go with something more like #2 but in a different region of the country, and in fact that's a decent description of our home, although it's on a state highway that has relatively low traffic (parallels Interstate) that gets plowed promptly when we get what little snow we get, shop, garage, outbuildings, room for whatever.
This one pushes the extremes. Bump up the sq. footage of choice #1 to say, 1200-1500 sq ft and suddenly it becomes a viable, even enjoyable option, for many small, professional, young families.
Choice #2 could really work well for the self-employed/tele-commuters/homeschoolers or the retired empty-nester. Most full time traditional employees or parents of school-aged children eventually find the commute time to be a major drag. Why work 50-60+ hours per week, spend 2+ hours in the car per day just to "afford" a house where one barely spends any "quality" time at all?
If I really, truly, wanted a place in the country, I would make do with a tiny place in the city, work hard, save hard, and buy a weekend get-away.
Just my 2 cents!
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