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This is a question to any of the suburbanites here, but also if you're a city person you can also answer this too depending on what you like.
What would be the exact things you'd want to have if you live in a fictitious city and move from where you currently live now? What would make it paradise for you, especially if you're a suburbanite and do not like city living? I ask because many people here say they'd never move to a city even if they were paid $100 million to do it. So what would make you move to a city to make it the paradise of your dreams, if you couldn't live in an auto-centric suburb or rural area?
Let's pretend for a bit that you have a magic wand that can create a city out of thin air and be however you want.
Bare in mind, for this question the rules are that:
-Where you'd move to has to be a city where the part where you live in will be anywhere from 30,000 people per square mile to 100,000+ people per square mile, and within a 5 mile radius at least will be that density from the point where you live. We will assume you live in the middle of it so you won't be able to live on the edge of a city. 100,000+ people per square mile would be similar to the Upper East Side or Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City.
-When you move there, you'd have to stay there for at least 10 years and you cannot move out before that at the minimum.
-You have the same amount of money that you have now, so you won't go in as a super millionaire.
-All decisions to make it the perfect city... or at least a city that is 'good enough' for you to live there will have realistic effects on everyone else in the city as if all the residents are real people with real lives, and those people would react accordingly.
-You can choose any aspect that you would want to have when you move to the city whether it be physical or non-physical. Anywhere from the architecture style, transportation options, how much it costs, to the culture of the place etc as long as it doesn't conflict with the above four rules.
If you love suburbia or rural living, what are any and all the conditions necessary for the city, the area where you'd move, has to have in order for you to feel like it is paradise or at the least a place that you'd at least consider moving to from a suburb or rural area where you live now?
Nothing. I don't want to live with all that density. I am even glad I live on the edge of the suburbs of Denver, instead of in the middle of suburbia. It feels a lot more open that way.
Been there done that. I do ot like being a ant in a ant pile.I do not believe humans where emant to live that way ;really.
True, but humans also aren't meant to live in suburbs.
If you look at the human structure in the most "traditional" communities (hunter-gatherers), there are never more than 150 people living within a settlement. Once it passes 150, decision-making by consensus becomes impossible and groups split up. Not coincidentally, this is also where most people top out when it comes to friends on Facebook. 150 is basicially the maximum number of social relationships humans can keep track of before "tuning out" people.
On the other hand, within those tiny settlements, people pretty clearly lived at urban-style densities.
Oh, I suppose for enought money I could carve myself out a nice place; maybe on Gramercy Park. Or a more modest place (but still big) and I could just take a helicopter out of town often. But that's not city living, really.
True, but humans also aren't meant to live in suburbs.
If you look at the human structure in the most "traditional" communities (hunter-gatherers), there are never more than 150 people living within a settlement. Once it passes 150, decision-making by consensus becomes impossible and groups split up. Not coincidentally, this is also where most people top out when it comes to friends on Facebook. 150 is basicially the maximum number of social relationships humans can keep track of before "tuning out" people.
This isn't those day and the standrds of what is wnated and need it's the same. Urban areas were created by jobs because of energy and transportation. A son as people could travel on modern highways the movemnt outward started. One only has to travel to see with millios of bomers retirig i the next dcades that mnay former small towns have gained alot fo popaultion. With them have gone younger people to service them along with facilities. Humans will settle for what they can get that is close to what they desire. For many that is the burbs for other and growing number of boomers ist further out .
This isn't those days and the standards of what is wanted and needed isn't the same. Urban areas were created by jobs because of energy and transportation. A soon as people could travel on modern highways the movement outward started. One only has to travel to see with millions of boomers retiring in the next decades that many former small towns have gained a lot of population. With them have gone younger people to service them along with facilities. Humans will settle for what they can get that is close to what they desire. For many that is the burbs for other and growing number of boomers it's further out.
Took the liberty of correcting your spelling, because quite honestly I couldn't figure out what you were saying previously.
You do realize that outside of the U.S., there was no general flight from the cities in the modern era right? In most places, the cities have remained desirable areas that the middle class and wealthy want to live. People in the U.S. desire a suburban life because it has been told to us it's the "normal" thing to desire for 60 years, although the worm is finally turning among certain groups.
Still, your basic point is right about rural areas/small towns. Many people would like to live there, except for the fact that there are no jobs. I hate suburbs, but I'd happily live in say Western Massachusetts, or parts of Vermont, if it wasn't for the fact there are no jobs in my or my wife's fields in those areas.
^^About 30 years ago, moving to small towns on the fringes of metro areas was quite "hip". In fact, that's what DH and I did. We both prefer small-town living to living in a big metro, whether city or suburbs. However, there are no jobs in DH's field in small towns, and not that many in mine. When we first moved to Louisville, CO it had 5000 people. It has since grown to almost 20,000, with most of that growth in the 80s and 90s. The growth has been both good and bad, mostly good. 20,000 is still a small city. A friend of mine in the DC area did the same thing at about that time.
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