Is life easier in the big cities?

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I'm a 21-year-old Aspie who's lived my whole life in a small, depressing town. I can't relate to ANYBODY and I find that people are very ignorant (to put it mildly). They'll avoid me or (seemingly) have an agenda against me, but when I ask them what I should do to better my life, they'll say things like "Oh, don't worry!" and "Be yourself." They are really driving me nuts!

Do any of you know what it's like to live in bigger cities? Do you think I would be better there?

Have any of you had experience with both big and small cities? Do you find there's a difference?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

In cities there are more services, stores, job opportunities etc. You probably would want to live in a medium size city. Big cities like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles can be rough.

ruveyn

Depends on the city.

Big city aspie here. The advantage you get is simply more opportunities. If you screw yourself up somewhere, you can find a new place to work..and its easy to leave things behind and move on. You dont risk to come accross stupid people from the past when shopping in the center city. You can be anonymous and odd as you wish as the city is so big that you can ride the tube and act weird, you wont meet those people who ride with you again...you have more privacy as big city people is very selfoccupied and dont mind or care what others do around them

Big cities are better for me. More things to do, more men to meet, more jobs, and I can take buses than taking my car. But not all cities have reliable transportation or frequent bus services and some cities suck like Detriot because of all these abandoned buildings, its depressing and jobs are hard to find.


When I lived in a small town, we lived out in the country, you had to drive everywhere to get to places and you were stuck paying for gas nonetheless and sometimes you have to travel more than 30 miles to your job. My mom works in Missoula but she lives about an hour from the city, more than that now due to road construction. But in smallar towns, you get bullied less because they stick out more and teachers can work with you because they have less students to deal with and they know you better. In big cities, you are just a pupil to them and they have so many students lets say 500 they have to teach in their class, they don't have the time to know every single student well and their needs. My ex told me the principal doesn't even have time to deal with bullies because they have so many students in their school. So small schools are better for people on the spectrum and small towns are better for spectrum kids growing up but in big cities, they are prone to bullying while in small towns they are not. But bullying can still happen in small towns.

With a big city and very good transportation, I can take the bus to work and not have to drive my car every day and I don't buy as much gas. Because I am hardly working, I find driving to be cheaper because bus passes are 75 bucks a month and it costs less than that to fill my car to the top and when I do have to work or go downtown, I use cash to ride the bus. But I have to go to the bank for change and I ask to exchange my bill for ones.

Also depends on what defines "easier"
May not be the same to everyone.

Since it is impossible to know everyone and be everywhere at once in a city, it turns out that one often has regular contact with about the same number of people overall.
And people tend to act like people wherever they are.

Even with that, there is a greater choice of people in the city, making it a higher percentage of chance to eventually find someone to relate to.

City life has its own set of stresses - noise, closeness, commotion, busy-ness, congestion, bad air quality.
People in rush-rush lives trying to "keep up".
Cost of living is an issue - property costs more.
Car registration fees and car property taxes have been higher in cities in my experience.

Remember, in the end, you need to find out for you which place is best for you and your needs and desires.
Each of us have our own.

Here would be the big things to consider:

1. Transportation: Depends on whether you drive or not. If you don't drive, it would be important that a city have a good commuter rail or bus system. If you do drive, gas prices and traffic congestion are things to think about.

2. Lifestyle: Cities that are liberal tend to have prominent GLBT communities, and a lot of hipsters, and are making more of an effort to "go green". The more conservative cities are going to have a lot of faith-based activities. I don't think there are many metro areas that are heavily conservative, though. Nearly all major cities have symphony orchestras, science and art museums, and theater. For those who are religious, there are many communities geared toward one's faith. Catholics are the main faith in most U.S. cities, with Baptists prominent in the South, Mormons in the Rocky Mountain states, and the Northeast Corridor and south Florida have large Jewish communities. There are large African-American, Hispanic, and Asian communities in most major cities (in the case of African-Americans and Hispanics, occasionally constituting the majority in some cases, especially in the South and Southwest).

3. Job prospects: This would depend on how diverse the local economy is, or what the main industries are. Detroit has dim job prospects due to the turmoil facing the auto industry, and like Spokane_Girl said, there are a lot of abandoned buildings. But if you can find a job there, feel comforted that real estate is extremely cheap there--some houses are selling for about $100, if not less. On the other end, all the major cities in Texas are doing very well, namely San Antonio, Austin, and Houston. Even though Texas is synonymous with oil, San Antonio is a major military town, Austin is a major IT hub (and their slogan is "Keep Austin Weird"), Dallas is home to many conglomerates, and Houston is a leading city when it comes to medical research. Plus there has been virtually no exposure to the subprime mortage crap here.

4. Cost of living: The West Coast, East Coast, Alaska, Hawaii, Chicago, and the Florida Gulf Coast are more expensive than most other parts of the country. The Deep South (excluding most of Florida), Texas, Oklahoma, most of the Midwest, and northern Rockies (Idaho, Montana, Wyoming) have lower costs of living. Also, tax rates are higher in some parts, and all but a handful of states have state income taxes. In addition, New York City has a city income tax.

5. Climate/Natural Phenomena: Is a Mediterranean-style climate for you, or is it a place with broiling summers but mild winters, or pleasant summers but frigid winters? The Gulf and Atlantic coasts are prone to hurricanes. North Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas are in the middle of Tornado Alley. Much of the Midwest and Northeast experiences extremely cold winters. The Pacific Northwest experiences damp, rainy conditions on a frequent basis. The West Coast, Alaska, and the Mid-Mississippi River Valley (between St. Louis and Memphis) are vulnerable to earthquakes. Alaska's Arctic Coast experiences 6 straight months of daylight, and 6 months of darkness.

Last edited by Tim_Tex on 24 Jul 2009, 10:18 pm, edited 3 times in total.

I like big cities. More people, more types of people, more stores, more places to go, more services, etc. People might say having more stores or places doesn't matter, but it does matter for stores or places that are less common. Like say you wanna find a place that teaches a martial art which isn't common. Or maybe you wanna find head shops (stores that sell marijuana paraphernalia).

I have every reason to hate small cities/towns.

Is it easier to find friends to hang with?

No.

That is one thing I have learned. Your ability to make friends depends on you, it is the same no matter where you go. You'll have to go to places where you are more likely to meet similar ppl (clubs, jobs, etc.), because in general, your ability to make friends doesnt change just because you moved from a town to a city.

In fact, ppl would suggest it becomes harder, because generally, ppl are more busy in cities, and towns are closenit and sooner or later, after bumping into same person 3x a day, you'll start talking.



Myself, I grew up in a small town, and while I had a few friends, I didn't like it. The people in generally weren't my type, and it rubbed against me. So I chose a city to move to for school. It has been hard, I've been here 4 years now and only have a handful of friends. In fact I fell into a bad bad depression because of it.

But in the end, I love the city, way more than town. There is a huge variety of people, a large amount of things to do, easy to avoid ppl, easy to find things.

I live in a more medium sized city (~1 mil I think), and I love it, I'm so glad I came here. But I have had to come to terms with the fact that its rather difficult for me to make friends, and that is just a fact of life. I cope with it, but if thats your sole reason for considering a city... I'm warning you, its not that simple >_<

I was born in a small country town, although I moved with my mum to the city when I was 4 so I can't say whether it was better or worse. I liked having lots of animals on the farm but I can't remember the social aspects of it. However my dad still lived on the farm and up until the age of 11 I would visit him every school holidays for a few days.
You are right, people in small towns can be quite ignorant and in my opinion, also closed minded. Many arguments started between my dad and his girlfriend because I acted 'too much like a city girl'. Well what did they expect? I'm from the city!! Even my dads friends weren't accepting of me because I didn't want to go hunting with them, nor did I want to eat what they had just killed. When I went food shopping with my dad in the small town it seemed that everyone knew everyone which was nice, but also bad because my dad wasn't known for good things.
I like living in the city better because it's more diverse in it's people and beliefs. Many different types of people are accpeted in the city, at least the one where I live. However I do miss the farm animals.

I think that if you want more options in where to go then the city is a good place to be. It's also easier to find people who have similar interests because with so many people in a city, there's so many interests and different hobby clubs. However be prepared for traffic jams.
Life isn't easier in the city. In many ways it's harder because in my experience, there's more pressure to achieve academically and I'm too scared to drive with so many cars on the road. It's just a different life.

I don't agree. I think the bigger the city is, the more likely you are to find your niche. I've always been drawn to big places. I went to a college with 35,000 people at it, and now I live in the Chicago area. There is something to do for everyone here, and that is no exaggeration.

JPMoney,

Here's an idea: Have you considered college towns like Ann Arbor, MI, Madison, WI, Gainesville, FL, Ames, IA, etc.? Very often in these kind of places you get the best of both worlds ... a relatively large open-minded, intellectual population + culture without all the problems of the big city (crime, pollution, parking problems, social alienation, etc.).

I do



YES

MUCH better. Larger populations=more people who could be friends/girlfriends/etc with you as well as there being a lack of a dominant social culture compared to smaller towns. And less gossip

Oh, and less xenophobia in a larger city.



Just don't masturbate on the public transport of flash your PENIS to strangers on the trains (TOO MUCH). Eventually someone will take a picture of you or do something "mean" in response. There were some articles on this.



LOL @ people. One time I dove out of an el train through the clicky thing and almost fell over. Some women looked me with a WTF look I guess. I went "lol that wasn't funny, I'm not doing it right". She was probably weirded out



I'm not sure about 'self-occupied' and 'don't care'....well seeing the homeless suggest otherwise. Also see BS cameras being set up in the streets. Someone needs to deal with those cameras



Stay Out of the Ghettos then if you're afraid of how niggaz roll



Arguably vice-versa. Small towns result in that "cozy home town feeling"...which results in those who do not 'fit in' being bullied worse. Or all sorts of annoying things. The person I know who mentioned some of the s**t that went through in his rural kentucky HS would say otherwise and that they don't carw about bullying








....yeah. smaller towns are better....NOT



I'd say it's easier in a city. e.g. being more honest in some cases and people being honest to you in response. Or there being places where people that interest you congregate.



I'm sure it'd be harder if I was in a Deep South small town. Seeing those posts from those on the internet who live in those areas again make me think otherwise.



Given how my grandparents and mother talked about "life on the country" and large families, waking up @ 5am to deal with chicken s**t, cotton worms that stung, etc....uh no. Also see, social values/beliefs. Then again people wake up @ 5am to do all sorts of random chores in large families in the city too. Then there's the arguments on how many children people in rural areas tend to have vs. those in cities and why, and how those values tend to be transplanted (e.g. black people and how many children they have-note their grandparents were raised in rural areas so their is a cultural divide-lol @ some person calling us "hicks transplanted to the inner city" via culture....

Also bike/use a bus if you can't drive. I'm in no hurry to get my license given how people drive in the city center...

I respectfully disagree ... at least in my own personal experience, which may differ from yours though you have many years of life experience over me in general. But I live in a medium-sized city, have lived here my entire life, and I will say it's very much a place full of bible thumpers and rednecks, and most people are extemely judgemental and "in your face" about it. It's home, so I have a certain attachment to it, but whenever I spend time in Chicago, I can't help myself... I get a natural high from it. There is so much awesomeness that is that city and I long to live there permanently.

I prefer the city to the country, but in my case, I've always lived in cities. I like medium size cities more than larger ones like the 500,000 resident city I grew up in par tof my childhood...that was just too big. I hav elived in several medium-sized cities from then on, and my current city is really the best of all (but it's in the Netherlands so it wouldnt'help you if you knew which it is). It's about 160,000 residents. several colleges, good transportation, a nice downtown area which is not too bad crime-wise (that's a drawback of larger cities), nice city parks, etc. There is also a good transportation connection to the neighboring towns, so I wouldn't mind living in a nearby town. There is lots of nature in the neighboring towns, so I really have the best of both.