[lesostep]

It's the ease of the access thing. Winter was very white lately, so I swang by greenhouse on my way home, and it costed me 4 dollars and an additional hour on a subway. Met my friend, decided to have a coffee-crocheting session after work hours.

I can fit so much stuff around my work, because most places are half an hour travel distance from it. So I can visit my family, meet a friend on a crochet session and visit greenhouse all in one week, and then have my weekend totally free. It will add a few hours to my commute, yes, but I mostly read books or make plans when I'm in transition. Once a week I get home late because I go to the nearby music school to learn drums (and it doesn't add to my commute!). I also could swing by an archery or almost every other activity.

Gets better when it's summer, one summer I rode to the lake with another friend almost every day for two weeks. If our city had suburbia we would have to travel for hours.

There's a difference also between having public park as an option to go visit on a weekend, and option to visit a park on a lunch break or just because you didn't feel like staying at home. An option to run in the park every morning.

Suburbia feels like you own your home and your land. Good towns feel like you co-own them. Like you can do whatever you want, and there is a lot of options.

[scarface_74]

When I did live in the burbs of Atlanta GA- both the south side and the north side, there were also public parks, bike trails etc within 3 miles of my home.

All of the things you mentioned are right there in suburbia. We rarely went “in town” for anything and I remember having a conversation with some relatives that said it had been years since they actually been to Atlanta proper and they lived in the burbs.

Of course you can find places in most major cities that are walkable and around parks and lakes. We briefly looked at moving to this suburb of Orlando

https://www.zillow.com/orlando-fl/lake-eola-park_att/

https://www.orlando.gov/Parks-the-Environment/Directory/Lake...

If we had decided to stay in Atlanta, we were looking at places close to Piedmont Park

https://www.zillow.com/atlanta-ga/piedmont-park_att/

You don’t have to move to Europe. Right now the original poster was comparing Seattle of all places as far as affordability. That’s one of the most expensive cities in the US and the weather is always awful. I actually turned down a chance to even interview for a job there because I knew I would never want to live in Seattle and the compensation difference wouldn’t have been worth it.

[maxldn]

Three miles is quite a long way though. From central Amsterdam, for example, it’s basically as far as the ring road and contains all the main parks

[scarface_74]

So everyone lives in these idyllic places close to parks in all of the Netherlands or the EU or is that a choice people make just like in the US?

After my youngest graduated high school and we became empty nesters, we were in fact looking for that smaller place, walkable area, where we could easily get to gyms, restaurants, a park, etc.

We decided to change our entire city to a place in Florida with better weather and no state income taxes. Those places do exist in the US just like I am sure that most people who live in the EU don’t live in the idyllic places you describe.

[maxldn]

I’d say that it’s pretty normal in the Netherlands to be very close to a park. It’s a very densely populated country. In Amsterdam specifically I think they consciously decided a few hundred years ago the parks should be everywhere. It’s hard to generalise about the EU as it’s pretty large and diverse, but most of the places I’ve been, 3 miles would be a long way to go in a city. I would expect to come across several parks of varying sizes, shops, schools, etc. In the countryside there are fewer facilities generally, but less need for parks.

[VirusNewbie]

I'm not sure if you're European? If you are, do you not understand that we have more green space and public parks in America? I'm literally a two minute walk from a huge park with open lawns, walking trails, and multiple playgrounds for kids. A five minute drive and I can be at a trail head leading into the foothills.

I'm a twenty minute drive (or less) to multiple FAANG companies satellite offices. The coastal American suburbs are quite different than what many might be picturing.