Reply #2: it's NOISY, and often pretty gritty.... [View All]

[mike_c]

Full disclosure-- I've never lived in the center of urban areas because I despise them, for the most part, but I've visited numerous friends who do over the years. The most lasting impressions are heat, noise, dirty urban air that makes everything gritty, run down old apartment buildings, and having to check the building doors before exiting to make sure it's safe in the alley, parking lot, or whatever.

Give me a small town or rural setting any day.

Come to think of it, I actually DO live smack dab in the center of Blue Lake, California, about three doors down from the Volunteer Fire Dept and town hall. But this is a tiny rural "town" with no through traffic at all and only a few hundred residents. There isn't any "main street" per se. No commercial district at all. It was once just a railroad stop, but the railroad has been gone for many decades.

THAT'S my idea of town living!