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I grew up in Philadelphia but as an adult have lived all over in many different environments.
One thing I noticed is that every big city is really made up of many little "Sub-cities". Call 'em sections, call 'em neighborhoods, make up a name. If you are in a big city you are really concerned with only your piece of it. You almost never if ever really need to go all the way across town or over hill and dale fighting expressway traffic just to live your life.
Yes, maybe sometimes you do have to go deep into the heart of the city, usually for a hospital visit or to see a specialist for an ailment. Or maybe jury duty to just to walk around the Big Town. Two things about that:
1) At least those big hospitals and specialists there and not multi-hours and miles of driving away.
2) In a city, if you don't want to or are unable to drive in that crazy-assed environment, there are transportation options. Taxi Cabs or other for-hire transport for seniors or those with a physical encumbrance are there. Also, there is transportation specifically for seniors run by the County or the city or one of several charities or churches. In Mayberry or the Hinterlands the things you might need in the crunch might be way far away and transportation options might be prohibitively expensive or simply not available.
There are people here in Omaha who live in the West end of town. The newer suburban area. They say they haven't been east of 72nd Street in over 30 years except for when they take a cab to the airport or cross the I-80 bridge to visit relatives in Iowa. I lived in west Omaha myself for 15 yrs. I was the same way. Everything I needed or wanted was within a nice pleasant distance on the west side.
we have a great public transportation system here in nyc and the boroughs . i just got my senior mta card . i can travel the entire city for 1 dollar and 35 cents a trip.
nothing like jumping on a train and popping in to manhattan for the day . we do it all the time for shows ,concerts ,dinners ,museums .
i lived here my entire life and still never saw so much we have to offer .
you can get a nyc id card as a resident at any age and get admission and discounts at the greatest museums and attractions .
When I retired we were living in Naples Italy, we returned stateside to a home that we owned in a city. We stayed there for 3 years before deciding that urban life was no longer the right fit for us. That was when we went rural. We have been living rural now for 12 years, and we love it.
We have mostly lived in suburbs of a very large city, but were within 5 to 10 minutes of stores, at least grocery store, gas station and so on. Several years ago we moved into a more -- hmm, not sure how to describe it. It isn't exactly suburban but not rural either. It is an acreage subdivision. We are about 20 minutes away from a grocery store. Closest gas station is 12 minutes. Restaurants, etc. are 20 minutes or more. Major shopping 40 minutes.
And...I want to move back closer to the amenities. We moved here for pets. We have dogs and indoor cats and needed somewhere without a specific pet limit. All of our dogs are aged and we aren't replacing them so eventually we will down to no dogs and I think will probably move closer to amenities then.
It is sort of OK right now since we are both in good health and don't mind driving. But, even so, I find it annoying to have to drive so far to the grocery store. Or, the Y I like to attend is 30 minutes - one way. I would rather have something closer (I could go to a private gym 20 minutes away but it isn't my preferred place).
Right now, being out in the middle of nowhere is OK -- takes 5 minutes to just get out of the subdivision. Well, it is a mild annoyance. But, I know that there will come a time when we won't want to have to drive that distance to go anywhere. My mother is in her 90s and still lives alone. She manages because she is in a city where everything is really close. She could never manage living as far from stuff as we do.
At one time I thought about buying something really in the middle of the city (where I used to live). But, the traffic has really gotten bad the last several years. The other day we were there and it took half an hour to drive somewhere that should take about 5 minutes without all the traffic. It just seems so much worse than it used to be. I don't mind braving it occasionally but wouldn't like to have to deal with it all the time.
So, we will likely move to a suburb that is close to amenities and where we can go into the bigger part of the city when we need to. But, day to day stuff would be 5 or 10 minutes away from where we live.
We both grew up in small towns, appreciate and respect the general lifestyles there, but have experienced life in the big city for far too long to abandon it now. We keep thinking of keeping an open mind to other places but honestly we've lucked into an almost perfect neighborhood, that mostly feels like a small village for its friendliness and convenience, (without the all in your business of an actual small town) in a fine city with perfect weather.
Other than wanting to maybe go somewhere else to experience something different we've pretty well got what we've ever wanted- own a great house on an amazing lot, small enough to maintain easily and close enough to walk to the village for every day items, catch the bus and downtown only a couple of miles away. We've become somewhat urban snobs, if it is north of 8 or east of 15 ( the two highways demarking leaving the urban core) there better be a very good reason. I also expect autonomous vehicles to quickly become part of the transportation matrix here.
We are not retired yet but on track in three years, we'll analyze the costs more closely as we get there. But for all the noise about how expensive it is to retire here when you own the house in the neighborhood you love with nothing property taxes (prop 13) in a city that is thriving and growing, it doesn't seem untenable at all. Love being close to all the big city amenities it provides, with rural or other city options very accessible as well.
I grew up in a coastal harbor town an hour from Boston and 30 minutes from Providence. It’s not commutable to the Boston jobs so real estate prices are affordable. The town has expensive oceanfront vacation homes and Mall Hell that keep property taxes low. It’s next to a high poverty rate city of 100,000. I took a hard look at my retirement math at age 50 and moved out of the expensive area with the high paying Boston jobs. I’m financially independent. I wouldn’t have been if I’d continued to live in a place with 3x the housing cost and 5x the property taxes. Everything is a compromise. This was mine. I’d like to have the major city things closer but the math didn’t work.
Where DW and I live, South Jersey about 12 miles from Philly, we have the best of both worlds:
One mile from PATCO train station where a trip into the city takes 22 minutes and costs just $1.40 round trip if you're over 65. In Philly, SEPTA is free for seniors to go anywhere.
Within 2 miles of our house are many restaurants, several large supermarkets, competitive-priced gas stations, etc. One hour to the shore, 1 1/2 hours to NYC.
Many empty-nesters are selling suburban homes here and moving into expensive condos in the city. I feel they are overpriced and being marketed to affluent boomers. Also, while the city offers many walkable attractions, who wants to listen to police and ambulance sirens all night long?
Where DW and I live, South Jersey about 12 miles from Philly, we have the best of both worlds:
One mile from PATCO train station where a trip into the city takes 22 minutes and costs just $1.40 round trip if you're over 65. In Philly, SEPTA is free for seniors to go anywhere.
Within 2 miles of our house are many restaurants, several large supermarkets, competitive-priced gas stations, etc. One hour to the shore, 1 1/2 hours to NYC.
Many empty-nesters are selling suburban homes here and moving into expensive condos in the city. I feel they are overpriced and being marketed to affluent boomers. Also, while the city offers many walkable attractions, who wants to listen to police and ambulance sirens all night long?
Spending nearly all my life in urban areas makes me quite used to the ambience of them. In fact one of the reasons why I left rural PA and came back to Center City Philly is how dead everything was not just as night, but even during the day. Not for me at all. High school football games and church pot lucks were not the way I wanted to spend retirement.
Higher priced areas are that way for a reason, mostly because it's a highly desired place to live with good paying jobs that are a short hop away.
Last edited by s1alker; 10-01-2017 at 07:26 AM..
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