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Should more of us be moving to live near friends?

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Re: Should more of us be moving to live near friends?

#161

Post by donw »

aylmao wrote: post #143
wenc wrote: post #6

I would love to, but I come from a place where intellectual pursuits are not valued, so I would lose out on that front if I moved back. I’m the type who needs to always be learning. So I would always need to be in a big city. Alain Bertaud, the urbanist, recently said, “the big contribution of cities is randomness.” And he continues: “You don't know what to expect. You don't know who you will meet. And, it's precisel…

> Alain Bertaud, the urbanist, recently said, “the big contribution of cities is randomness.” And he continues: “You don't know what to expect. You don't know who you will meet. And, it's precisely because you meet people who are different from you, who have different ideas. Sometime even it could be obnoxious people. I think obnoxious people — I mean, what I consider obnoxious — are necessary in order to stimulate.”…

This fits with my experience living in SF: people might look different, but if you were to be blindfolded and talk to a group of them, you would struggle mightily to pick out any substantial differences between individuals.

Re: Should more of us be moving to live near friends?

#162

Post by parpfish »

swozey wrote: post #70

Paywalled but from the comments here it sounds like this is moving near your HS friends? Absolutely not. Nothing in common with them. If this is more about living in a more dense area where you have friends closeby, absolutely. I live in a very dense area and I have friends all over the neighborhood. Some across the street, some down the road. We can meet up and see a show or do friendsgiving or whatever or just grab…

I see a lot of internet commenters (here and Reddit) that act like they’ve outgrown all their friends from childhood/highschool and it always rubs me the wrong way. I’m sure there are folks with actual trauma they are running from, but it generally comes across as incredibly arrogant.

Re: Should more of us be moving to live near friends?

#163

Post by dukeofdoom »

wenc wrote: post #6

I would love to, but I come from a place where intellectual pursuits are not valued, so I would lose out on that front if I moved back. I’m the type who needs to always be learning. So I would always need to be in a big city. Alain Bertaud, the urbanist, recently said, “the big contribution of cities is randomness.” And he continues: “You don't know what to expect. You don't know who you will meet. And, it's precisel…

I grew up in a small nowhere village, lived in small and large cities, and even Rome. But I think the sweet spot is a small city of about 200k. Though I find that it probably depends on which stage of life you are at. The older I get the more I'm tempted to move to even smaller city. And now, it's even hard to go camping, without civilization being within short driving distance. People are everywhere. My closet is full of winter jackets, that somehow it never gets cold enough for me to wear. I think people sometimes shop for a solution to a problem they don't have. Or that they fear the problem so much they overcompensate.

Re: Should more of us be moving to live near friends?

#164

Post by tina_pen »

Oh! It's so nice to read something you've thought about your whole life. I have an uncle, now in his late 60s. He and his friends have been living in the same society since kindergarten. They meet almost every day, go on trips, and party at the drop of a hat, always there when they need each other. I've been jealous of that for such a long time. My friends and I, in the pursuit of money, fame, and who knows what, are now spread across continents. We probably speak once or twice a day. Recent friendships haven't stood the test of time.

Re: Should more of us be moving to live near friends?

#166

Post by lotsofpulp »

almostvindiesel wrote: post #65

100% this. Started out with two families buying houses near each other in a family centric LA neighborhood (Eagle Rock). Then it expanded to 3 --> 4 --> 5 all within walking distance. We all have similar aged children. It's magic. We watch each others kids, do frequent backyard/park/sleepover playdates, and help w dropoff/pickup. It makes parenting SO MUCH EASIER. I often joke that I'm not a real parent bc we have so…

I would bet having that many friends, friends who are married, and who want kids, and have sufficient funds/income to afford a home in SoCal puts you in a rarefied portion of society.

Re: Should more of us be moving to live near friends?

#167

Post by lotsofpulp »

julianeon wrote: post #24

More of us should be prioritizing making friends, probably: if you pull it off, you've achieved a similar effect at much lower cost. If you're the type of person who's organized and capable enough to organize a communal living space with your friends, you're logically also able to find friendships in your area, much more so than the average person is.

Yes, it is already difficult enough achieve compromises on where to live with an economically mobile spouse, much less parents/in laws, I can’t imagine achieving much success with adding friends to the mix.

Prioritize your kids, your spouse, yourself, and let the other chips fall where they may.

Re: Should more of us be moving to live near friends?

#168

Post by gonzo789620 »

pseudocomposer wrote: post #67
extr wrote: post #46

I go back and forth on this. I still keep in touch with a bunch of high school and college friends. For better or worse those guys know "the real me" and the history and relationships are impossible to replace. They all still live close together but I live far away - I only see them once or twice a year, if that (less right now because we're all in the "very young kids" stage). I miss them. On the other hand, when I…

People you meet later in life - even much later, even when you have a wife and kids - can absolutely come to know “the real you.” (I might describe “closeness of relationships over time” as “asymptotic, with an upper limit” or at least “with diminishing returns,” if we want to get really math-y about something that is not really measurable.) But you have to be open to that, and it also requires a lot of social skills…

Can you elaborate on the social skills that aren't otherwise demanded? I can relate to this a bit, but I feel like I'm only starting to scratch the surface

Re: Should more of us be moving to live near friends?

#169

Post by vel0city »

User23 wrote: post #155
vel0city wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are kind of missing the point. You can live in a small town that might be 1-2 hours separated by the next town and still not be "rural". You're still living an urban life, not a rural life. It's not like you need your town to be >1M people for it to be "urban". There's small town urban, there's a big city urban, and there's rural. Do you actually live in a place statistically considered urban or rural? If you hav…

> If you have multiple chain restaurants in your town, you're almost assuredly not "rural". By this standard, there are no rural communities east of the Mississippi. Is that congruent with what you intend to say?

I've definitely visited places which are rural which are East of the Mississippi. I have family who actually live in forests and on large farms who don't live anywhere near chain restaurants. Places where you can't even see the neighbor's fence line from your front porch. But the vast majority of places I know and have visited are urban. If there's multiple chain hotels, once again probably not rural.

Over 80% of the US population lives in an urban area. And yet so many think they live "rural" because their town isn't NYC or SF.

https://www.pewresearch.org/decoded/2019/11/22/evaluating-wh...

31% of people who live in NCHS defined suburban areas think they live in rural areas. They LARP as cowboys living in urban areas. I'm surrounded by them.

https://youtu.be/6q_BE5KPp18

Re: Should more of us be moving to live near friends?

#170

Post by Ozzie_osman »

My wife and I moved with our kids back to the country we grew up in in large part because of this. For us it wasn't just being closer to extended family, though that was a part of it. We just realized Western culture (we lived in Silicon Valley, which was probably the extreme of that) was very individualistic (or nuclear-family-focused), and people's lives aren't as intertwined as in other parts of the world. As an introvert, that was actually fine for some time, but once we had kids, we felt like it just wasn't a healthy way for our family to live and we were missing something pretty meaningful.
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