Hey.
I never lived in a city, not talking about the huge cities like London but average 50.000 to 150.000 people cities so I figured I’d ask people on here who actually lived in a city.
I grew up in a small town and now I built a home in a few miles away from where I grew up in another smaller town and everything would be cool if I wouldn’t have “fomo”.
My town has about 1000 people living and the next larger city has about 500.000 people (40 minute drive by car or 1 hour by train). And two other smaller cities with each about 75.000 people but only 25 minute drive by car.
Now that my wife and I have settled I can’t get rid of fomo feeling.
I catch myself thinking “man if would have built in the city,…” but my wife is right. We can’t afford property in a city and heck, even if we could afford it there is no property left to buy. And then when I visit the city to go shopping for clothes or just eat out I am always glad I can leave again.
But than I wake up the next day and would think it would be awesome to have a gym in the same block, a grocery store under my flat, a nice bar or coffee around the corner where I could socialize with others. But then my wife comes again with reality: “And it all costs money. You’d be broke two days after paycheck if you live in the city how you live in it while you visit it” and then she explains that life in the city isn’t all that great and I ain’t missing out because most people aren’t more social in cities than in our town or small city next to our town.
I imagine city life kind of vibrant though. “Hey let’s host a boardgame night” and 10 people showing up. But it might not be like how I imagine it? Is city life kind of overrated or am I missing out?
I go to the bigger city maybe once a month to go shopping for clothes I can’t get here. Like for example the skater shop a few brands. A few friends and I also take the train every half a year to party a night out but take the train back home. There are many things I also don’t like about the city, for example sometimes the smell, the homeless, the traffic, and I sometimes think I’d still need a car because of groceries, visiting family in the country side where I live now so I couldn’t sell my car anyways. Now that I have “settled” I shouldn’t be thinking about this anyways but there is always this feeling I am missing something. Maybe I should have lived in a city just for a year to experience it before building, but I never had the desire to. I was always happy leaving the city and I still am happy when I can leave after a whole day in the city but maybe I’d like it longer if I’d live in it?
This feels like a topic I am going to ignore til I am 85 and then add to a list of things I regret: “Never experienced city life when I was young”.
The only thing that makes me feel good though is that all my friends that currently live in cities are searching for property out of the city and want to move back where we all grew up and all of them saying I didn’t miss anything. My wife is also saying it, so I guess they might be kind of right. I am saying “kind of right” because this might be something that only one can judge for him/herself if city is good or bad. I feel like I have no opinion on this subject and this makes me crazy.
Edit: The only big city life experience I had was three months traveling through South East Asia where I stayed like a week in Bangkok and I remember many nights in Kao San Road partying. But that ain’t anything one can do every day in the city especially if you work. That was like vacation city experience and I sure do know I was glad when I left Bangkok. The next city experience I had was Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) in Vietnam which was okay but I left it after day 3 feeling drained. The best experience I had was in Singapore. But I figure after reading all about Singapore that no city in my country could keep up with Singapore. I think I’d like living in Singapore more than in Bangkok or Saigon lol. But even Singapore was really busy…
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City life is what you make of it. Yes, you are missing something, but that’s the nature of choice. Likewise I visit my friends in the country/outskirts and feel a pang of avarice towards their big skies, huge kitchens, animals running all around.
Not to mention the peace and quiet of the countryside… As I’m writing this I can hear the clank of distant machinery, the incessant whine of a compressor, the beeping of something big backing up, and the eternal barking of my neighbour’s dog Teddy.
So yeah it’s not amazing, and even though it’s cacophonous when compared to the country, it’s still quieter than what I grew up with. I spent my youth in big cities and now live in a small one (less than 200k). Maybe that did help me get it out of my system, idk. Are you guys young still? I think I’m trying to say is it’s all relative, and up to what you can bear.
I know the feeling of fomo is elusive, but are you unhappy with your life?
That’s the question I’d start with anyway - like what do you really want, and is it actually missing from where you are?
I prefer the city for infrastructure which includes shops and such as you allude to. I would only ever want to live in a city with good public transit which usually means it would be a goodly size. I think the main thing lonliness wise is there are many orgs or clubs or just groups you can be a part of. There is a walk/bike/transit advocacy group and the activities are fun. Was part of a gaming group that met at a local university. Was part of a maker space. Anime club. Cons are around each year. Many many festivals both citywide and neighborhood. Many little things to the city does people don’t even realize happen like dacing in the park. shakespeare in the park. movies in the park. restaurants and shops as you say along with bars and like things with just activities and games as their business. think dave and busters or whirlyball. So there is just much more to do really so its easier to do things but Im sure you can do lots of stuff in a small time just may take some more work to find things or you have to organize them yourself (which you sometimes do in a big city to)
Living in a city is as lonely as you make it. There are less opportunities to run into the same people unless you spend time doing it. If you invest your time in going to groups, same locations or volunteering you will see people one time and won’t be able to build a friendship. Since there is so many people its easy to get lost in a crowd.
That being said any interest you have will have a group of people doing it. Which is a great way to make friends or at least entertain yourself. Events are the same way with lots happening within a city since that is where the people are. Events are easier to get to but due to the large number of things if you don’t spend time finding them the chances of running into something you like are low. So its easier to find something if you spend time doing it, but harder unless you spend the time.
In my experience, it’s harder to make meaningful friendships in the cities I’ve lived in. I met more people, but it always seemed within five minutes or so the question “what do you do for a living?” would be asked, and the answer was “make-or-break” whether the conversation went any farther. For the record, I work in IT and have absolutely no interest talking about it outside of work (unless digital privacy is the main focus). I think a lot of city people are only interested in being friends with their own “class” or out of convenience (e.g., parents making friends because kids go to the same school, etc)
Small towns you can’t easily dispose of people you don’t see eye-to-eye with, and I really appreciate it because you don’t get stuck in echo chambers as easily, and you learn to see things from perspectives you don’t agree with. In my experience, small town people are more ok with their view points being challenged without being totally offended, even if there’s no chance in their minds being changed. You just have to do it respectfully.
My home town is super small (less than 1,000). I moved back to an area close to it with about 7,500 people and found that’s the sweet spot for me. It’s a tourist town, but my friends here are way more reliable and less fickle than the ones I had in the city. Can always plan a trip to the city if there’s some big event that looks fun.
I moved to a city three years ago after living in an adjacent town for a decade. I realized I met nobody in the town much beyond the odd neighbour, and that’s because it was pretty conservative and they’d be nobody I’d associate with. I moved to the city and found a pile of like minded friends and am much happier.
In the long run, it’s not the body count of people that makes a less lonesome atmosphere, it’s the “mind count” of people, if that makes sense. I’m sure it varies by city, but due to the hyperinflation of activity, it has become so unusual to interact in many cities that now if you try, people think it’s weird and that you want something, so it turns into a catch-22.
Yeah in a big city there’s options. I live in a small town of 25000 people and only see natives (I’m an immigrant) most of them over 50 and people from Africa.
I think it heavily depends on the other factors in your life and the lives of people you want to get go know : income, health,transportation, how much free time you and other people have. I loved the time I spend in a larger city, but I could not afford nor physically be able to do many of the things that I wanted to. The freedom and constant background of being near many strangers was excellent, and there were lots of possibilities for things to do, but they weren’t as feasible as they seemed. It didn’t work out much of the time because 1. I was broke and had limited good health days 2. Other people were also broke and extremely busy. Even free events come with other monetary costs and planning hiccups. So I think it just depends on where you prefer to live environment-wise and what you want to experience on a day to day, what you want to look at and hear outside. Cities are great if you can afford them. I enjoyed being there a lot. But It’s still logistically hard and often very expensive to socialize no matter where you live.
The difference is night and day. I’m in a small city, and even here, there are so many people that share my interests. We have a comic-con! I was able to put together a group to play a Pokemon TTRPG. I would never go back
