I live in a bigger city but I’m currently residing in a cabin in the woods, away from civilization. It has got a fire place going, some basic stuff and lots of board games etc. It also has a nice garden thing where you can just chill out for a bit. There’s beautiful woods surrounding it where you can walk.
I like living in the city, with all its chaos. But whenever I’m out in nature I feel this immense rest coming over me. I don’t know if I can actually live here, but for now it’s good. My gf’s family is talking about buying property in rural Sweden and they want to build a house there, one where the kids can always visit. I like the idea of living a rural simple life. Can’t leave the city now though, with all the activism going on. Bit harder to radicalize the deers in the woods.
I’d live right in the middle of a big city if I could. Short of that, the closer to the centre, the better.
I’ve lived in inner city flats, suburbs, housing estates, and in a rural village, in terraced, semi-detached, and detached houses. Christ, housing in capitalism is a shitshow, isn’t it?
My favourite is the inner city flat, but that means no pets and the landlord gets to decide if you’re allowed a partner or children or visitors, so it’s not sustainable unless you’re young, single, and always at work, I don’t think.
Noisy neighbours are a pain. But that’s something that could be solved with higher building standards.
Most housing is not really built to be habitable, but to let the proles have somewhere to sleep, eat, and wash.
I do like being in the countryside, but I hate living in it. But where I live, only the cities have infrastructure. Public transport is rare or infrequent in the villages. As is the internet, which is slow and cuts out. There are very few shops or cafes and the ones that exist tend to have terrible opening hours. There are pubs in rural areas, but they’re usually chains and charge a premium. Plus they’re only accessible via car, which makes it hard to just wander or for a quick drink or to meet friends (if there are any that live anywhere nearby).
Smaller towns inside the boundaries of bigger cities can be good.
I suppose I would be tempted to live in a village if there was anything other than a petite bourgeois ‘community’ and decent infrastructure. As it is, you tend to mostly find racist, snobby, reactionary dick heads in villages. It could be ideal, but in the current set up, give me a city populated with people from everywhere.
Sounds like you should live in the south of Belgium. Small, cosy villages. Good food and drinks, great pubs. And socialist as fuck. Like, the south doesn’t have a party in charge that’s further right than centrist. It could be done.
That sounds like a dream!
How hard is it to move there? Are work visas easy to come by?
For Europeans it is easy. . For USonians also, I think. If you get a NATO job it’s easier as the HQ is here. I think for Westerners it would be pretty easy.
That’s good to know. I would like to travel. I can take sabbaticals if I time them right, but it’s finding the right destination. The South of Belgium has moved quite high up my list!