| > as they cram another million people into gridlocked high-rises in their smoggy grey hellhole, that we in the country are bad for the environment? Uh yes, if you shove a million people out in the middle of nowhere, you have to cut down all the nature, remove the wetlands, pave a bunch of really wide roads, and now all of a sudden your paradise is a bland soulless sub-urban hellscape that is no longer environmentally friendly. As for gridlocked, I can walk to multiple bakeries, grocery stores, and parks. The vast majority of my driving is to places that are less than 15 minutes away. My rural friends talk about taking a quick trip that's only 90 minutes away. 90 minutes there 90 minutes back, shit, that's 2.5hrs extra spent driving compared to my 30 minute round trip commutes. If I go over the last 5 or 6 months I haven't lost a total of 2.5hrs to gridlock. > Or that the soulless crowds you have to navigate through every morning and evening are friendlier than the neighbours and strangers who wave and chat everywhere I go? Why do you think people in the city are soulless? Cities are bastion of art and creativity. I say high to my neighbors all the time, we get together for drinks and we swap baked goods. This is made all the easier by how close we are together. Indeed, once I moved into the city, meeting people became easier, and the people around me are friendlier. (And I'm in Seattle, literally the worst city for meeting people in!) |
Cruising through the countryside at top speed to a larger town with the windows down and the radio up for an hour on the rare occasion I need something urgently is a pleasure compared to sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic to and from work, or crammed into a train with everything around me being suspiciously sticky and slightly smelly twice per day. We have what we need. You'd be surprised how little you miss the overwhelming number of choices and conveniences you have in the city. Anyway, I'm not that remote - I do most of my shopping online so everything is delivered to the door (albeit a day or two later than for you).
It's the look in their eye, or their nature and priorities implicit in their choices. Cities are utterly bereft of soul, spirit, meaning, purpose, culture, etc. Whatever they do have in these respects seems to me like a cynical parody of their true form. They will convene a meeting for consultants to identify an urban area in need of beautification, commission an agendered hippie to plonk some monstrous perverted multicolour sculpture there for millions of dollars and boast about it like this isn't an insult to everything pure, and decent, and good in this world.
The baked goods trading sounds really wholesome, I'm genuinely glad you have that.
Still, there's a good reason city-folk come out here for rest and relaxation while I dread going into the big smoke and get the hell out as soon as I'm done doing what I need to do.