
Ask HN: Are you planning to leave big cities? - obilgic
I know couple of developers who have already left. They moved to lower cost cities&#x2F;places with better housing etc. I&#x27;m just wondering if this is a bigger trend. What&#x27;s the point of staying in big cities if most people are now working from home, more focused on their families while spending more time doing outdoor activities instead of going to malls, bars etc.
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bearjaws
Probably not, I lived in rural Florida (40 minutes from a grocery store) and
now I live in a major city. One thing you cannot replace about a city is the
how reliable EVERYTHING is.

Power? Always working for me, one outage in 3 years. Water? No wells to dry
up, also no power required for me to get water (water pump). Sewage? No septic
tank maintenance. Internet? Fiber straight to my condo and never have an
outage.

Meanwhile in my rural life, I had Verizon wireless internet with a 5gb data
cap, one time the cell tower got zapped and no internet for two days. Our well
died 3 times in 10 years, which meant no water until we dug a new one. We
drove over the septic tank and broke it, so that cost a pretty penny. Every
single electronic in the home had a UPS because our power browned out nearly
daily.

Then you have things like living near an AWS warehouse, so I get 1 day
shipping on a lot of items.

Cities have a life style that I enjoy more, maybe I'll move to the suburbs but
I'll always stay in a major metropolitan area.

~~~
highhedgehog
I can understand the lack of high speed internet or lack of sewage if you live
in a rural aread, but electricy? If you hadn't said you lived in Florida I
would have guessed something in a developing or 3rd world country. How is that
possible?

~~~
2rsf
(Answering from my Swedish experience) Because electricity is mostly dug in in
cities, sheltered from the weather while in the country it goes over poles
meeting roads and trees.

~~~
highhedgehog
And if you say sheltered from weather in Sweden, I could understand that. In
florida? :D

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s1t5
> What's the point of staying in big cities if most people are now working
> from home

WFH won't be permanent for most people. Cities won't be attractive for the
next 6-12 months but eventually people's incentives to live in a big city will
be back to where they were pre-COVID19.

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jborichevskiy
Yep, NYC lease ended last month and I have not renewed.

Currently with parents in the suburbs. Given how long I estimate it'll take
for cities to be appealing again (think: dining, bars, clubs, museums,
concerts, and shows) I want to spend the next year optimizing for access to
nature, more space, and gardening; preferably with a small group of friends.

See a more verbose plan here:

[https://jborichevskiy.com/posts/friends-in-
nature/](https://jborichevskiy.com/posts/friends-in-nature/)

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commonturtle
Some things are hard to replicate outside big cities. There's probably a
restaurant from every country in the world in London. I tried Guyanese food
last week, a cuisine I'm unlikely to encounter outside a big city. There are
great museums and art galleries. There are flights to every place I'd ever
want to go.

So personally no plans to move to a less densely populated area.

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muzani
I live an hour's drive from the big city. Towns have the same pleasures -
cinemas, restaurants, malls, Starbucks, McDonald's, fast internet, private
schools, but more parks and less pollution.

But the big thing is the attitude. As a city friend put it, "Everyone uses
each other and that's fine. You use friends. You give them a gift to make
yourself happy."

Outside the city, people are less... reciprocal. A neighbor might wash your
car because he was in the mood. You can throw a BBQ and just randomly invite
neighbors who pool money, offer to buy, cook, or clean. Neighborhood kids come
over to hang out and you can serve them tea.

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giaour
I live in a dense suburb (Fairfax county) of a major metropolitan area (D.C.)
and like the combo of easy access to both open spaces and city amenities.
There are plenty of commuters in my neighborhood, so we have easy access to
reliable power, water, and high-speed internet that I couldn't do without.

I have previously lived in both dense urban settings (NYC) and rural areas
(Wimberley, TX and Soultz, France) and would not consider moving to an area
where I had to deal with septic tanks and satellite internet, even for 100%
remote work.

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mud_dauber
I live in Austin & plan to leave in 2-3 years.

* I live in the outskirts, not the city center, and would KILL to have a mass transit option within ~1/2 mile of my house.

* August, etc.

* When I compare property taxes with my HS friends in Appalachia, they're astonished. I pay 3-4X of my friends' rates for similar houses/land. The Texas no-income-tax schtick has worn off with me.

* I didn't grow up here & my friends are scattered around the world. So there's no allegiance to anything here. (With the strong exception to taco trucks.)

~~~
giantg2
Land and taxes are cheap in Kentucky. Not many jobs there unless you have a
remote option. I would enjoy moving to HCOL to make more money (assuming it
goes to a mortgage) and then selling that house to retire early to a rural
area.

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Gustomaximus
I did this 3 years ago. Marketing side, not developer though. I moved form
Sydney to rural outskirts of Brisbane. Brisbane is still a major city and we
are ~1 hour to CBD.

Where I am its smaller rural blocks often around 40 acres. These quickly get
smaller as you head to the city until you hit suburbia 15-20 min closer in.

For myself and family its be absolutely awesome. There a great blend of IT and
physical work having a WFH desk job on a farm. Also so much activity is on
your doorstep so going for a hike/dirt bike/horse ride etc is something you
can do for a quick break and get back to the office. Its a real game changer
in doing these things which in city life was often planned weeks ahead and
took much of a day. And generally great for family life, just the little
things like the other day I build an impromptu flying fox off some wire rope
we had around as kids latest hobby is to head into the bush looking for trees
to climb.

For me its been incredible, but that said it wouldn't be ever-ones cup of tee.
If you go the farm route its like having 2 jobs and your really tied to animal
if you want to take holidays, so get friendly with your neighbours. Also
having never really done physical work I love this aspect and even bought a
bulldozer to do some road works and clearing rather than hire someone, its
really cool.

If you like bars and clubs its not going to be ideal either as there no much
going for social scene and at least around here some areas are unsavoury that
you get with city fringes. But if you have family it probably will give you
more quality time together.

If your thinking to would be good, Id say do it fast. The older you get the
harder it will be. We see people like us doing it and no-one seems to dislike
it.

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danielchavez
I live in NYC right now, while it is tempting, I'm still pretty young and like
being around my friends (who all still live here) and with things opening back
up slowly its becoming possible to hang out with people again. Because of this
I really see no reason moving. I totally see the value in moving back home and
saving an arm and a leg on rent but I guess it just depends on your lifestyle.

~~~
michaelmarion
I'm in a similar boat, but I've found that most of my friends have moved out,
so I'm doing the same.

If that social network was still around I'd likely stay, but it's hard to
justify the expense when more of my friends are in one place back in my
hometown.

It's all temporary, though—I'm planning on coming back once the city starts to
open back up in earnest.

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AnimalMuppet
10 comments at the time I write this. 3 of them mention people. Either the
people I care about are here, so I'm not moving, or the people I care about
are _not_ here, so I'm open to moving. I think we underestimate how big a
factor that is in these kinds of decisions.

~~~
giantg2
There's also my situation - I want to move but my wife refuses.

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dbish
No. I like walking to things still and fully expect cities to be back to
normal in a few years. What’s a few years in the grand scheme of things? I
also highly doubt fully remote work is actually the new normal and company HQs
are still where a lot will get done in person.

~~~
doopy-loopy2
I live in Toronto where new cases have pretty much dropped off. Things are
more or less back to normal - we just allowed indoor dining at restaurants,
the streets are starting to come back to life, patios are bustling, etc.

There is light at the end of the tunnel :)

The only major difference is that offices are still empty - this actually
turned out to be a good thing though - less traffic, biking and walking around
is really nice.

~~~
dbish
That sounds great. I will be very happy when Seattle can get to that level.
For now, I just order food from some restaurants I like and hang out on my
roof when it's nice enough out

~~~
doopy-loopy2
Yeah, I was in that mode for a while.

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tannerbrockwell
On a longer trend, the full autonomy promised by Level 5 self-driving vehicles
will open up interest in "beyond the burbs". Many more remote locations of
America have reliable power, and a water well and septic system takes care of
your utilities. Heat would be served by either natural gas, or wood. For IT
people, while internet may be below broadband in more remote locations, both
SpaceX and Amazon are bringing to market high speed space based satellite
internet that will in some cases exceed bandwidth or latency requirements for
most urban locations. If I had an option to work remotely I would select a
location based around these premises.

~~~
doopy-loopy2
Remains to be seen. 3 hours out of the city is still 3 hours out of the city
regardless of whether you can "take a nap" or not - which you already can on
something called a train or bus.

~~~
quickthrower2
I’m 15 min from city by car and 45 by bus so it makes a huge difference. It’s
the difference between popping out and something you need to plan.

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adreamingsoul
Recently moved from Portland, OR, USA (pop. 653,115 (2018)) to Oslo, Norway
(pop. 681,067 (2019)). Not sure if it is considered a "big city", but both
Oslo and Portland are the biggest cities in their respective state/country.
The lifestyle, transportation, and work/life balance in Oslo is much better
when compared to Portland, and for that my family and I have no plans to leave
anytime soon.

~~~
flente
I love Oslo! Are you Norwegian? If not, how is it living there as an
immigrant/expat?

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janbernhart
The attractiveness of big cities is more than just proximity of workplaces.
Even if a lot of work goes remote, enough people love to live close to
bars/theater/friends/etc.

I do see commuter towns getting way less popular if remote works really lifts
of.

~~~
doopy-loopy2
Offices/companies came to cities because thats where young people wanted to
live, not the other way around.

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sangli
No way. Rural areas are over romanticized. I never understood rural life or
even suburban.

~~~
cyberdrunk
If you can afford a house in the city, great. Otherwise, living in an
apartment, you're constantly at the whimsy of your neighbors. They can easily
be people who like to blast loud music for hours or who otherwise make a lot
of noise. In practice, these people often cannot be reasoned with and the only
solution is to move. I've been living in apartments my whole life and, while
there were multimonth or even multiyear periods of quiet, on the whole it's
purely a lottery (as neighbors change, or their kids grow and turn into
obnoxious teenagers etc.). Now I'm planning on escaping it all by building a
house in a village outside the city.

~~~
doopy-loopy2
As someone who has lived in the burbs most of my life, this stuff is way more
of a problem in suburbs. So escape it you either need to buy a huge lot, or go
somewhere really rural.

~~~
cyberdrunk
I find it hard to believe that it's more annoying in suburbs.

I currently live in an apartment building of 25 people and am closely
surrounded by similar apartment buildings. This means that there are literally
a couple hundreds of people than can annoy me at any time - either by
listening to loud music, by doing some house renovations, by leaving a
constantly barking dog at the apartment, by parking a loud car/motorcycle near
my window, by having loud conversations near my window etc. In the suburbs,
you get similar factors (+ most likely more lawnmowers and leaf blowers than
in my district), but you only need to worry about perhaps 10-20 people
creating a nuisance, not hundreds. Not to mention that, in an apartment block,
I am often able to hear (over the walls) conversations happening in
surrounding apartments, while this is just a nonissue in the burbs.

If burbs people complain more, it might be because they expect perfection
(they bear the daily long commute so they want to get real peace and quiet in
return), while apartment dwellers just live in resignation.

~~~
doopy-loopy2
In apartments, there is a mutual understanding of common elements and that
people are living in a shared space. There is also a mediation process through
the building management and the board.

In the burbs, is is a wild west with no mediation/arbitration process. There
is a huge sense of entitlement on both sides - "this is my property and I can
do what I want" vs. "you are encroaching on my property/rights and I will
complain/behave passive aggressively about everything".

Everything you mentioned are issues in suburbs as well - often more so:

\- Neighbors dog in the backyard barking all damn day.

\- Neighbor throwing BBQ/party in the yard w/ music, and loud laughing/talking
late into the night.

\- Kids yelling/laughing/screaming.

\- Teenagers revving cars up and down the streets

\- Lawnmower at 6 in the morning

Trust me, I've lived in both. Apartments have a process to handle unacceptable
behavior and disputes. Suburbs are way worse - if you are looking for more
private space, you need to go rural where houses sit on large lots.

~~~
cyberdrunk
> In apartments, there is a mutual understanding of common elements and that
> people are living in a shared space. There is also a mediation process
> through the building management and the board.

Ok, so that must be the difference between US and my country (Poland). Here,
there's often just enough people with "fuck everyone" attitude (drunks,
depressed people, teenagers with irresponsible parents etc.) to ruin it for
everyone else. And also, because the flats are mostly owned and not rented,
there is no building management that is interested in maintaining a decent
standard of living for everyone.

~~~
doopy-loopy2
Yeah, I suppose that is true of some buildings here as well. It really depends
on the occupants of the building, and whether it is mainly owner occupied or
mostly renters.

So I can see your point.

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Trias11
Hamster cages in the middle of crime-ridden, infested cities is definitely a
no go any more.

Quality, not that remote, well-established neighborhoods are a way to go.

Also low- or no-personal tax, low crime, clean, low dems states getting
consistent inflow of migration

~~~
doopy-loopy2
You realize everything you listed here has been this way since like.. forever
right? And nothing has changed.

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pickle-wizard
I live in the suburbs of Austin, and plan to stay where I am at. I like having
everything I need with in a 5 minute drive.

While my current job has gone permanent WFH, my next one might not. So I
wouldn't want to move too far out anyway.

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machinistlov
I would love to live in a smaller town but still couldn't create good work
opportunities there. Maybe two-three years later, I will be able to get to the
countryside

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marssaxman
Certainly not. I just moved _closer_ to downtown, to a neighborhood where I
can walk to everything I need. I don't want to go back to a car-dependent
life.

~~~
doopy-loopy2
This is really underrated aspect - used to have to drive everywhere, even to
the corner store. Being able to walk, or bike everywhere is awesome.

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cpach
I left four years ago. I miss the city, but housing for five persons is way
too expensive there. I work in the city though. Long commute but modest
mortgage.

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doopy-loopy2
No because I can look ahead more than 6 months...

