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In high school I was pretty excited to get out and stretch my wings, see the world that whole thing. The other day I was looking at the area where I grew up and I was flooded with memories. I never realized how much I missed being able to step outside and enjoy the summer breeze blowing off the corn fields and being able to see a sunset completely unobstructed.
When we first got married we lived right out side of the big city and couldn't stomach it much longer. A couple of years later we got some money together and bought a small farm house butt up against a subdivision. It's a much nicer pace of life, and roomier but it's still subdivisions and shopping centers.
I "moved back" by leaving. My hometown is Colorado Springs which when I was growing up had a population of maybe 50,000 t0 75,000 - not exactly rural but certainly not a big urban population center either. The house I grew up in was located right on the edge of town and had a backyard that went on to infinity as far as I was concerned when I was 8 or 9 or 10.
Today my childhood home has been replaced with malls and busy traffic choked highways and the metro area population is around 700,000. That's ten times more people now then there were then. I watched my town grow and grow into an impatient big city with the roads leading up into the mountains clogged with traffic jams. I hated the changes and I moved away not once, but twice. When I was 30 I moved 400 miles west of my hometown to the Four Corners region and I loved it.
Alas, I still had to go back and live in Colorado Springs for a few more years because I was concerned about my elderly Mom who still lived there. Fifteen years ago after my Mom passed I came back to the Four Corners where I am in my element. I live in a ranching and farming area with big skies and with big mountains and mesas. It's as close to going back to where I grew up as is possible these days.
I feel sorry for my old friends who still have to live in Colorado Springs. The poor things! To each their own, I guess.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Where I grew up the small city was 20,000 people, and mostly rural. We had 1/2 acre of fruit trees, about 40 of them and I loved the smell of the burning wet branches after pruning. Since then they are up to about 27,000 and with more apartments, condos, and a light rail station, it's not the same. Even if I wanted to go back I couldn't afford it. My parents bought our house for $32,000 and sold it in 1974 for $52,000. It's now valued at $2,300,000. The median home price there is now $1.9 million.
I have been back to visit and most memories have faded because it has changed so much, and is no longer the quiet little town it used to be.
No, I would never move back to Kansas. Life is too short to deal with dysfunctional extended family there that never leaves, horrible weather most of the year, extremely bland/overly conservative, and excessive greed and growth at all costs (Johnson County) by Kansas City, MO. Far too overpopulated.
I grew up in a quite town.
Things have changed for sure.
After I got married we moved a few towns over to a more rural environment and lived right next to a nice state park.
That was about 40 years ago.
Long gone are most of the local horse stables and areas where the kids could go 4 wheeling only to be replaced with subdivisions of mini McMansions
You wouldn’t believe what that 3/4 place is worth now or even the house I grew up in that had even more land.
Fast forward to 4 years ago,
We are once again in a rural area.
We love it.
Great views, lots of privacy, can’t see our neighbors and there are serious building development restrictions.
This place will do just fine for now.
If we need to for health reasons we can move back to the house we got when we first married.
If our now adult kids want to move back to where they grew up in it will be theirs before long.
My little hometown of 5,000 has only gone downhill since I left in the mid 70’s. It’s very shabby.
We did move back to the same state but are in an even more rural than “home” that makes the “best places to retire” lists occasionally. 7 miles from the nearest grocery store, 15 miles from shopping and 30 min from a major university. Close enough to visit, far enough away to avoid.
When I go back east to visit my best friend, who grew up next door to me in the DC suburbs, the area has changed so much in the 35 years since I moved away that it's unrecognizable to me now.
I didn't like the area when I lived there, which is why I moved to the west coast, and when I go back, I like it even less.
Thing is, people who move to a growing area don't know what it was like before they arrived, so the changes don't bother them. It's when you've been away for a long time and go back that it's so noticeable - sometimes better, sometimes worse.
I moved back to my hometown after 40 years. Left after divorce #1, just to get away from the chance of running into her. In 2012 my mother passed away and we (my brother and I) let our dad talk himself into moving to assisted living. He asked us if we wanted his house and my wife and I said yes. Yeah, the town (about 10,000) has changed, some good and some bad. I live in Mayfield, Ky., where the Dec. 10 tornado hit. Hard to see the town now but good to see people trying to get things going again.
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