apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I feel for you.
Yes, I did it for 3 years after living in the city for 15 yrs. It was beautiful, 1/2 acre, mature plantings, vintage tudor house. It was tough, snow bound, no where to go after 8 pm, nothing local, fewer people. It was expensive, $500 month oil, $200 month electric for airconditioning, car payments, new roof, updated electric, granite. It was fun, grilling, badminton. Yard upkeep was a joy and a chore. Keep this in mind: A gallon of Mayo goes a long, long way. Good Luck!

I've been car-less in DC for 3 years, and I get a bit freaked out by the suburbs too. I am planning a move to a rural area in 2 years though, so I will be getting a car again before the move. I am hoping that my bad habits born of living in the suburbs for 4 years will have been thoroughly beaten out of me by then.

I remember when I first moved to the city and found it so onerous to carry my shopping basket, but I quickly realized that if I couldn't carry it around the store, then I couldn't carry it home either! I always buy too much if I use a cart.

Poor you. ;) We work in the burbs so it makes sense to live there. Haven't settled yet, but already planning strategies to do battle with the HOAs. Those lawns just make me wince.

"every time we enter suburbia, we kind of freak out"


Sounds a bit judgemental to me.

@whytephoenix: The HOA is elected by the residents of the development to enforce the rules and regulations decided upon by a vote of the residents. So battling the HOA means battling your neighbours. The problem is when people choose community living (e.g in a condo or townhouse community) but then don't want to behave communal. I've found those people to be newly relocated city dwellers. Good luck.

I've lived in cities for over 15 years, and am planning to move out soon. The suburbs scare the crap out of me! lol I'm so used to living in diverse communities and I"m just not sure how I will handle it all.

My fiance and I have promised eachother to keep with our same simple life values and not start hording unnecessary material items.

While I'd rather be back in a big city, I currently have a decent mix that's also very liveable. I'm on the first residential block off of a smaller city downtown: dense historic neighborhood with sidewalks, walkability, and Victorian small lot lines. I get a bit of my own green space (that I de-lawned and xeriscaped), no HOA, a close beach escape, a car when I need it, and a smallish house with my neighbors a seemingly huge 10' away. I (achingly) miss 24/7 culture and world class restaurants, but the ubercasual pace and cheaper cost of living lets me regularly visit my beloved London to stay sane.

I often think that if I lived 30 minutes outside of town in the pastel, fux-tuscan, patio home/stucco palace 'burbs, I'd hate it. At the same time, my transitional urban neighborhood isn't for everyone either. A few years ago I would have told you that I would never, ever live somewhere like Florida. Guess karma smacked --and is still smacking-- me around for being so judgemental.

Salty: Trust me, you can keep your clutter-free, simple life values even outside of the city. It's a bit harder, and I do have friends who think we're "strange" or our house is "sparse," but it's possible. You may also find that if you're somewhere that a minimal/green philosophy is the exception rather than the rule, it helps you quickly create bonds with like-minded people. Have a sense of wit, humor, and graciousness about it all -- because some of the comments from skeptics will be doozies!

Kh???... I'm aware. Apparently my gardening tendencies are antisocial.

I don't get freaked out when I'm in sprawl, I just get depressed. I don't shop at Wal-Mart, but just driving by it makes me sad for the direction America has taken for the past half century. When I do go there (per friends' requests), I just get overwhelmed by all the stuff and the immense waste of land suburbia takes up.

I've sort of lived in suburbia as I go to school on a residential campus, and it's in the middle of sprawl. But it's no fun to leave campus. You are forced to drive, unless you want to walk across the second-busiest street in the state.

I don't judge anyone living in sprawl (I know people there, after all), but I do encourage people to do whatever they can to live in a city or town.

I'll never choose to live in suburbia. I can't stand the anti-diversity that arises due to living in cul-de-sacs, I can't stand the sole reliance on the car, I can't stand the land use patterns, and I can't stand the complete absence of architecture.

Especially in this day and age with environmental concerns and the threat of peak oil, the city is really the only way to live sustainably. It was where people lived in the past, and it will be where people live in the future.