Rural Living vs. Urban Living?

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What is more stressful, life in the country, or life in the city? I was raised on an apple farm in Upstate New York, and since then have lived in a California city; and have lived for the past 10 in the mountains of SoCal. I vastly prefer life in the country.

I'd say Midwestern urban, which is really just a very large town. My old city had a pop of 100,000 and that was just fine, not too crowded with all the amenities of larger urban centers such as a huge variety of things do and go to.

Both have their advantages and disadvantages.

Rural Life Pros:
More laid back
Less traffic
Less noise
People are more spaced out (not always though)

Rural Life Cons:
Less convenient (fewer retailers and services, and you have to drive further from point A to point B)
Fewer job oppurtunities


City Life Pros:
More convienient
Better opportunities

City Life Cons:
Faster paced lifestyle
More traffic
More noise
More people

I think the ideal situation would be to locate just outside a larger city (25 to 30 miles), that way you can have the best of both worlds.

I'm a suburbanite (with the exception when my wife and I had lived in downtown Spokane for a year), so my life experience is different from either rural or urban living. I will say this, though: my dad had grown up in a rural community, and he couldn't get out of there fast enough.

I like the anonymity of urban living.