I was reading a blog I follow called thesimpledollar.com and one of the posts was about Why I prefer living rural. I was intrigued to see all the comments about the pros and cons of city life versus country life. Most of the comments were for country living but quite a few commenters decided the pros of a city center far outweigh the country life. A few pros for city living include:

• Experience with museums, cultural events, places of interest
• Schooling opportunities
• Convenient access to grocery, shopping and stores
• Interaction with a vast array of people
• Higher income potential

  A few pros for country living include:

• Less expense cost of housing
• Relaxed atmosphere
• Usually natural beauty surrounds the area
• Social interactions are more genuine and common

One of the most interesting positive for country living is the idea country life is less hurried, less stressful, and less hectic than city life. True there is  less traffic than Los Angeles, a definite plus. But I don’t feel any less busy or hectic than when we lived in the city. In fact I feel like I have a thousand things going on and can barely keep up. What do you country folk think? I know many of you have lived all over the world. Lucky for use we are only two hours outside of a major city center. Just this past weekend we went to watch Riverdance with our family. Check out the budding riverdancers in the making.  

  It may be more difficult to share cultural experience while living in the country but I don’t remember going to any events such as this in LA. I’ve lived in big, medium, and small cities down to a 300 person village (and soon to be a mile outside the 300 person village.) In the past 14 years Milly and I have moved 17 times. From Canada to Samoa to Utah to Los Angeles to Montana to the middle of nowhere. In all those moves we have often desired to move back home. I wonder why the draw to move to the frozen Canadian tundra was so strong? (OK, it’s only 45 minutes north of the Montana border so it’s not that barren.) I firmly believe the biggest drawing force is to be around family. It’s taken us a long time but we always have planned to move closer to family. Lucky for us all of our immediate family members live within two hours of us now and the majority within an hours drive. Funny thing is, we now feel like we have several homes calling our hearts to return. I guess that is what vacations are for. I’m interested to hear what everyone thinks about the main advantages or disadvantages of both living in the city or living in the country?  And what do you do to overcome the negatives of both lifestyles?