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'Cottagecore' and the rise of the modern rural fantasy

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Re: 'Cottagecore' and the rise of the modern rural fantasy

#221

Post by lmm »

TrispusAttucks wrote: post #180
lmm wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like you're throwing a bunch of arguments at the wall and hoping some of them stick rather than trying to figure out what's true. Wealth is presumably fixed at first-order, so comparing equally wealthy rural or urban residents seems fairest (unless you're trying to argue that cities are bad because they increase economic growth?); if the argument is something like "emissions are only higher in rural areas beca…

> I can't even follow what your unsourced talk of sub-urbanization is trying to claim. I can't find the paper at the moment. I will try to get it posted here tomorrow. The gist is that suburban grow is an overflow of city growth onto the surrounding area. When a suburban areas GHG accounting is taken into consideration it further removes any "apparent" per capita efficiency of the city. It is really all just another…

> The gist is that suburban grow is an overflow of city growth onto the surrounding area. When a suburban areas GHG accounting is taken into consideration it further removes any "apparent" per capita efficiency of the city.

I'm happy to believe that suburban lifestyles are inefficient, but I don't find that a good argument for discouraging urban lifestyles - wouldn't that increase rather than decreasing suburban sprawl? (E.g. if you limit development in city centres, that's going to push more of it to nearby suburbs).

Re: 'Cottagecore' and the rise of the modern rural fantasy

#222

Post by nicbou »

wonderwonder wrote: post #78

Its the result of complete burnout of a large portion of society. So many people feel they work too much and dream of just getting away to something simpler. I think its a reflection of so much going wrong currently with society and the way we live in general. But I'm just some guy on the internet; I am probably projecting :) Edit: I often think about buying a cheap old isolated house on a couple acres in Italy, fixi…

This is it. All of my friends are now toying with a plan to work less, remotely and on their own terms. We've never had this conversation before but now everyone talks about it.

People are just tired of the commute, the mindless work and the idle time. They don't identify with their job, and don't expect any superfluous loyalty from their employer.

Re: 'Cottagecore' and the rise of the modern rural fantasy

#223

Post by verve_rat »

sjwalter wrote: post #168
tibbydudeza wrote: post #8

Dealing with septic tanks - rotting uneven floors , shitty no pun intended plumbing and electrics - broadband from the copper era. No thanks - much prefer my modern sterile IKEA isocube.

I live in a town in rural Montana that has fiber to the home. Population is 800.

Same as my town in NZ. Approx 600 people in town, my place is surrounded by farms on three sides, gigabit fiber.

Plus, I can actually afford a house here, unlike the city I moved from. Fleeing the city has never been this good.

Re: 'Cottagecore' and the rise of the modern rural fantasy

#224

Post by rnoorda »

schnevets wrote: post #56

I love my backyard garden (even though my Brussels Sprout experiment this year proved to be a huge waste of time). I also love the aesthetic that cottagecore is revitalizing. I love drinking at local wineries, buying stuff at my local farmer's market, brewing beer and swapping bottles with homebrew friends, etc... But holy shit am I repulsed by the influencer aspect that is growing with this "movement". Ways of Seein…

I find myself struggling with this sometimes. I know I shouldn't, but it's easier to justify time spent with some sort of idea that it will be "worth it" in some way in the future. This is mostly an issue with new interests- I'm more content with old hobbies just for fun.

Re: 'Cottagecore' and the rise of the modern rural fantasy

#225

Post by EdwardDiego »

redis_mlc wrote: post #4

I grew up in a farming area, and my family had a 30'x30' garden. Farming is a lot of work. It's a job, not a hobby. Even the garden was a fair amount of work, but more importantly, it's a lot of veggies to eat after harvest. I had tomato sandwiches daily for months. Plus insects to control. Doable, but not glamorous like the "cottagecore" photos. If I did a serious garden again, I'd focus on becoming a skilled grower…

Yeah, in my country, people like to buy a "lifestyle block" when they've acquired enough capital and reached their mid 40s - 50s - usually a big house with say 10 acres of land or so.

Not enough to run a financially viable headcount of stock. Maybe enough to run a midlife crisis horse for your spouse who desperately wanted a pony as a child but couldn't get one. Now you have a horse that's desperately lonely, and costs a metric shit ton to keep in reasonable health.

And then, you find out the maintenance required... ...how the local government will fine you if you let your grass grow to the "massive fire risk" level, so either you acquire sheep/goats etc. to graze it - and lose money on doing so, or you buy a ride-on mower / small tractor with mowing attachment, and spend one day a fortnight (at least) mowing, wondering what the hell the "lifestyle" you were buying actually is.

Oh, and of course, maintaining your own water supply. Nothing says "living the dream" like E Coli in your private well from your grass maintaining animals shitting too close to it (or your well being too shallow to avoid aquifer contamination from dairy farmers upstream).

Re: 'Cottagecore' and the rise of the modern rural fantasy

#226

Post by KozmoNau7 »

7thaccount wrote: post #186
giantg2 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. My grandpa worked in the mines and a quarry to help make money in addition to the farm. I think some farmers were lucky enough to have the government pay for food (or even the destruction of food) so that they could distribute the food and drive up prices for the people who did have money.

I had no idea they were destroying food. Sounds so wrong to be doing that, but I believe you!

    The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth.

    There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.
- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

I think that sums it up better than I could ever do.

Re: 'Cottagecore' and the rise of the modern rural fantasy

#228

Post by Broken_Hippo »

asdff wrote: post #165
dragonwriter wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even what we do build in terms of apartments is only really studios or 1 or 2 bedroom units. In suburbia, sure. In urban areas, 3+ bedroom apartments are definitely a thing, as are relatively spacious apartments for their bedroom count, and overlooking luxurious courtyards. They are as expensive as you’d expect from places where studios are more expensive than suburban 3 bedroom single-family homes, though.

I live in a city of 4 million people and I can tell you that in these new construction builds that they legitimately do not build for families. You will rarely if ever see a new construction 3 or 4 bedroom, its typical for these builds to have some studios and 1 or 2s but hardly ever larger units. All that's available of that size is old housing stock from the 1970s or before.

That's just your area. I live in a city of around 200,000. They definitely build for families here. I can buy a new 2 or 3 bedroom apartment - a brand-new studio might be more difficult. You can find older ones, though.

(Most families only need 2-3 bedrooms due to family sizes)

Re: 'Cottagecore' and the rise of the modern rural fantasy

#229

Post by Broken_Hippo »

asdff wrote: post #172
maxerickson wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of recent TV paints living in a large apartment building as a completely normal thing to do.

Everyone does it in their 20s. Everyone likes being walking distance from the bars at that age. Few last into their 30s or 40s with kids in tow unless they are very wealthy or too poor to afford the high upfront costs of moving to a cheaper area.

There is more to life than bars: More likely, where I am, you are walking distance from grocery stores as bars aren't peppered everywhere. (Going to bars is an expensive hobby in Norway, and pre/post drinking is quite normal). Also, you can't bring the kids to the bar in most places (It used to be legal in Tennessee to a point)

So sure, they aren't going to bars. But they are going to work. They are living in areas where their 6-year-old child can walk to school. Where they can take public transportation to work. And so on.

Re: 'Cottagecore' and the rise of the modern rural fantasy

#230

Post by Aeolun »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #130
wonderwonder wrote: post #78

Its the result of complete burnout of a large portion of society. So many people feel they work too much and dream of just getting away to something simpler. I think its a reflection of so much going wrong currently with society and the way we live in general. But I'm just some guy on the internet; I am probably projecting :) Edit: I often think about buying a cheap old isolated house on a couple acres in Italy, fixi…

> So many people feel they work too much and dream of just getting away to something simpler. I agree that this the popular sentiment, but I think work is a smaller part of it than we like to think. I think people are simply overwhelmed with the always-on, always-connected lifestyles that fill our every waking moment with outrage-bait headlines and more entertainment media than we could possibly ever consume. Anyone…

> The notion that things would be easier if we simply rolled back the clock to simpler times is demonstrably not true

Things might not be any easier, but they would definitely be simpler.

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