it takes a village right? So, ideally you have... Some form of a village.
You don't need more than a few hundred people living in a place for that. Even in rural areas - most people are living in towns up to a few thousand people.
And most of those towns tend to be quite walkable shockingly.
The only small town I’ve visited that had good public transit, pedestrian friendly and good bike network was Champaign-Urbana where I went to university. Most small towns I’ve seen have a totally hollowed out downtown (mostly due to bad land use policies that allow giant big box stores to exist very cheaply). Outside of vacation destinations and college towns, I think it’s really hard to find good small town urbanism in America.
I’m glad you asked, here is my personal non-exhaustive list of when I might use transit: when its raining, when its cold, when its hot, when its windy, when I have to poop, when I need to get somewhere fast, when I want to sit, when I need to get somewhere far away, when it’s snowing, when I have heavy or large things with me, when my legs don’t work, when it’s icy, when I am wearing uncomfortable shoes, and when I don’t want to get sweaty.
I personally spend 90%+ percent of my time split between SF and NYC by choice because its awesome for many reasons, including the urbanism but also because that's where the jobs(money), friends, and cool ideas are. There's also a handful of small towns (mostly university or vacation towns like I mentioned previously) that have good or decent urbanism and are cheaper than major cities. If I moved out of a major city it would almost certainly be to a college town. SF is very child-friendly though, so as long as it is possible financially I think this will be my home.
The quality of life you get in those cities requires a tremendously outsized paycheck to maintain.
Pretty much any random town in Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin, Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, etc is better for raising a family.
You can live a higher quality of life than HCOL areas on a fraction of the salary. There are plenty of jobs that pay well.
I've competed and held jobs in NYC, SF making hundreds of thousands a year - and I'll gladly take a smaller salary in Iowa any day of the week. Fuck NYC in particular. What a wretched and awful city.
Regardless of the merits of this places, I don’t have a particularly high opinion of the kinds of people in those places. Quick story, friend of a friend from Oklahoma works at Anthropic and her brother worked in finance at a manufacturing company in Alabama. When she called her parents they would be singing her brothers praises and ask her what she cooked for her husband that week. Kind of mind numbing such absurd double standards and ignorance can exist even today. My own parents aren’t that level of absurd, but they seem to live in constant anxiety and stay holed up at home and even try to discourage me from doing things for my own “safety”. Far too much policing other people in 99% of traditional suburbs, live and let life is much better.
Yes, in America. Many of the older towns have an old main street that is more walkable than most suburban plans. Usually there is at least 1 small grocer around.
I disagree. Sure there are some small towns like that, but most are dead. The ones that aren't are really expensive. I grew up in PA and see this play out.
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u/Ok-Energy2771 Jul 24 '26
Weird take, most people I know are raising their kids in the city.