Open thread, Nov. 09 - Nov. 15, 2015

MrMind

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Short version: If telecommuting was an option, would you live in a big city? Why? Why not?

I don't know whether I am overestimating the impact of city population on my daily life. What change can I expect from moving from a city with a population of 200K to one with 2M(and between that and one of 20M)? (or, on the contrary, to one with 20K) I always wanted to move to {regional large city}, but I can't name anything that my current locale lacks, that I would really like it to have. (I know that we don't have toastmasters here, but that's not an active current desire of mine. Some specific goods ren't sold in the shops, but those need to be so specific, that eBay becomes the standard venue for acquiring them anyways.) Jobs don't matter for me specifically, as I can work from anywhere.

I think I've seen more people with colorful hair there, and traffic seemed like it could easily turn into a nightmare. (which is less of an issue, if I intend to use the underground. I don't have a car either way)

Looking into the demographics, the average age is higher, number of children low, with a significant trend of people over 20 to migrate there. I couldn't determine the make up of the migrants from a glance, but I suppose with the help of an actuarian table, I could calculate the difference between expected number of people of that age, versus actual.

I don't know whether absolute number of people with similar interests to mine, or their relative density matters more.

I am wary that I may 'want to be where it's at', or where I assume it's at, shouldering the financial costs, and not getting any of the expected benefits. (I assume job opportunities are the usual attractors)

I'm out in a small town pretty much every week, and I'm always happy to go back to the city.

Mostly it's the people. Everybody smart enough to do a knowledge worker job has left. Everybody creative enough to make art has left. Everybody who understands the value of excellent education for their kids has left. Everybody young and beautiful enough to get into the dating scene has left. Everybody who wants an exciting life has left. The people who remain are still nice (everybody everywhere is nice, really) and often admirably hard-working, but they're slow an... (read more)

2philh11y

Mostly only answering the short question, but: most of my friends are from reddit. This is super convenient, and I'd be very hesitant to move somewhere that didn't have a similar ready-made community for me. (But I don't know how I'd tell. I imagine only a handful of cities worldwide have a suitable subreddit, and a handful have large rationalist communities. Beyond that, I'd want to check for sunday assembly and for Meetup groups. But I guess not every community of suitable size and demographic will be a good fit for me, and I don't know how I'd test that in advance.) London also makes it easy to take up hobbies, and I imagine that would be more consistent in big cities. Your current location might not lack anything you currently want, but that may be partly because you haven't had a chance to discover you want them.

2Dagon11y

I suspect there are regional differences that matter as much or more as size does. A 200K city in Europe that's a short train ride from a larger city is going to feel very different from one in the southern USA with no easy connection to a metropolis or one in the west that's kind of sprawling connection of similarly-sized cities, which adds up to a large city, but over many square miles. Job is definitely one of the most common motivators, but a lot of people are drawn to aspects of the "character" of a location, which is more some mix of common habits, popular amenities, and other social expectations which make your life and interaction styles seem more or less weird than other places.

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Short version: If telecommuting was an option, would you live in a big city? Why? Why not?