I recently had a brief discussion with a friend about the pros and cons of high density housing. This led me down the path of thinking of the advantages and disadvantages to rural living vs city living. As I was preparing my thoughts for a post on the topic I realized there are far too many aspects to cover in a single post. Rather than trying to make it fit into a single post by excluding several factors, I decided to, instead, cover the topic is a series of posts.
Since I currently live, and grew up in, a rural area, I will be drawing on my experiences for that side of the topic. My experience with city living is limited to the time spent living in a city of 30,000; which is small by most people's definition. I hope to focus, primarily, on life in larger cities, since that is where the majority of the population lives.
I have several topic ideas in mind already, and will be also be asking for suggestions on the Facebook page. I plan to look at each topic from various perspectives, and it pertains to my own goals and priorities, such as simple living, natural living, sustainability, and environmental responsibility.
Edit: It occurred to me that it may seem likely that, based on my choice to live in a rural setting, I will judge rural life to be superior. That is, not, however, necessarily true. There are several advantages to city living, especially regarding environmental issues, which I will discuss in the future posts in the series.
This is an interesting topic, and I recently ran across two different sources trying to answer that question. End of Suburbia is a youtube video that asserts peak oil will make suburbs obsolete. More interesting is a chapter in Sharon Astyk's Making Home that suggests cities, suburbs, and rural areas all have a future, but they'll have different challenges and different people will be suited to each location. I'll be writing up a post on the topic eventually, but thought I'd throw those sources out there in case you get there first. :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the suggestions. The idea you describe from Making Home most closely matches my own opinions on the matter. While suburbs might begin to dwindle due to energy concerns, I don't see rural areas being impacted in quite the same way.
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