I make enough money to live in the city. I've been quite successful in life with my choice of profession and have been pretty miserly with my money throughout most of my life. Yet I, like many rednecks out there, prefer to live away from the city and honestly, rarely even go there. I almost never go to the truly populated areas of this state and I have near zero interest in even visiting the various metropolises that exist in this country and around the world. I have a few college buddies that live in New York City and I have visited on a number of occasions. I was there for just a few days before the hustle and bustle of city life became exhausting to me and I just wanted to get the hell out of there.
So how does this happen to a person? Why is it that some people would absolutely hate living in the country and why is it that country-folk like myself hate the other way around?
I can't speak for the city-dwellers but I will talk about why I choose to live where I do and likely always will.
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I'm not a farmer. I know very little about gardening even though I do keep a garden...poorly. I do on the other hand enjoy having a bunch of land and I'm one of those guys that enjoys maintaining the yard. I am actually in the process of building an irrigation system to make this process easier for me and since I use well water, this shouldn't even increase my cost of living very much. I like having land that is mine. My friends in the city areas, if they want any nature at all they have to go to a municipal park for the pleasure.
I went to Central Park with my friend who lives in Brooklyn and there were thousands of other people there. This kind of ruins the ambiance in my mind and doesn't really feel like nature at all.
Another thing I really enjoy about living in the countryside is that I truly relish peace and quiet. Perhaps a lot of this comes from the fact that for most of my adult life I have worked in construction and these tend to be very noisy places. By the time I get off of work I truly relish the near absolute silence of my house and land and the fact that I can hear birds and other wildlife that is on my property.
I also really love my dogs and when I see dogs that are living in an apartment or on a very small plot of land I feel bad for them. Dogs were not meant to be cooped up in a small apartment and taken for cement walks around the block once or twice a day IMO. They were meant to have a ton of space to run and play and that is what my dogs get at my place. We never have issues with them tearing up the furniture because they don't ever have a chance to be frustrated with their lack of activity. It is common for me and a few friends to sit on the back or front porch and throw tennis balls way into the distance and just have them run around until they are completely exhausted. There is no chance that a dog is going to chew up a table leg after it has run around my land for what has to be 10-20 miles every day.
One of the major factors though is affordability. Like I said before, I make a pretty great living and could afford a house in the city or suburbs, but it is just a general rule of thumb that the further you get from civilization, the cheaper land becomes. There are no housing developments or apartment complexes anywhere near my home and it is unlikely that this is going to change in my lifetime. If I were to take the total value of my house and land and try to apply this to purchasing a 1-bedroom apartment in New York City, I likely wouldn't be able to get anything. I just don't like the idea of being cramped and that is what basically all of the people I know in cities tend to do. The exceptions are reserved for people with immense wealth and I don't even know any of those people.
I also never have to deal with any level of traffic. There are only about a dozen houses within a few miles of my house and there are no shops except for one gas station that is a few miles down the road. There isn't much reason for anyone to come down here unless they are passing through on their way to the beach and I prefer it that way.
Lastly, I think one of the main reasons why I enjoy living in the country is because there is very little in the way of rules out here. There is no home-owners committee that is going to tell me what I can do on my own land, there are no nosey neighbors that are going to complain if I decide to put up a gazebo in my yard, and basically you can do whatever you want out here. I really think I could grow illegal plants on my property and if people even noticed, which they likely wouldn't, no one would even care. We out here in the country are basically self-governing and yet, it is not chaos in the streets, there is no crime, it's just peace and quiet and mostly respectful neighbors who don't need the government to mediate on our behalf.
I think that living in the country changes a person to a different mindset. We could literally get away with murder out here, but we don't do so because there is no need. I think it would be a terrible tragedy for me personally if for some reason I was ever forced to move into a city and I would quickly become quite miserable if that were to ever happen.
I like the country life and I have no plans of ever departing from it. I was raised in the country and this is where I will die eventually. I do not miss the things that the city has to offer, even if my life seems boring and repetitive in the minds of those that do live there.
What about you? Are you a lover of the countryside, or do you prefer city life? I don't think that either is right or wrong, but I know which one I prefer!