Are you planning to leave big cities?

Probably not, I lived in rural Florida (40 minutes from a grocery store) and now I live in a major city. One thing you cannot replace about a city is the how reliable EVERYTHING is.

Power? Always working for me, one outage in 3 years. Water? No wells to dry up, also no power required for me to get water (water pump). Sewage? No septic tank maintenance. Internet? Fiber straight to my condo and never have an outage.

Meanwhile in my rural life, I had Verizon wireless internet with a 5gb data cap, one time the cell tower got zapped and no internet for two days. Our well died 3 times in 10 years, which meant no water until we dug a new one. We drove over the septic tank and broke it, so that cost a pretty penny. Every single electronic in the home had a UPS because our power browned out nearly daily.

Then you have things like living near an AWS warehouse, so I get 1 day shipping on a lot of items.

Cities have a life style that I enjoy more, maybe I'll move to the suburbs but I'll always stay in a major metropolitan area.

> What's the point of staying in big cities if most people are now working from home

WFH won't be permanent for most people. Cities won't be attractive for the next 6-12 months but eventually people's incentives to live in a big city will be back to where they were pre-COVID19.

Yep, NYC lease ended last month and I have not renewed.

Currently with parents in the suburbs. Given how long I estimate it'll take for cities to be appealing again (think: dining, bars, clubs, museums, concerts, and shows) I want to spend the next year optimizing for access to nature, more space, and gardening; preferably with a small group of friends.

See a more verbose plan here:

https://jborichevskiy.com/posts/friends-in-nature/

Some things are hard to replicate outside big cities. There's probably a restaurant from every country in the world in London. I tried Guyanese food last week, a cuisine I'm unlikely to encounter outside a big city. There are great museums and art galleries. There are flights to every place I'd ever want to go.

So personally no plans to move to a less densely populated area.

I live an hour's drive from the big city. Towns have the same pleasures - cinemas, restaurants, malls, Starbucks, McDonald's, fast internet, private schools, but more parks and less pollution.

But the big thing is the attitude. As a city friend put it, "Everyone uses each other and that's fine. You use friends. You give them a gift to make yourself happy."

Outside the city, people are less... reciprocal. A neighbor might wash your car because he was in the mood. You can throw a BBQ and just randomly invite neighbors who pool money, offer to buy, cook, or clean. Neighborhood kids come over to hang out and you can serve them tea.

I live in a dense suburb (Fairfax county) of a major metropolitan area (D.C.) and like the combo of easy access to both open spaces and city amenities. There are plenty of commuters in my neighborhood, so we have easy access to reliable power, water, and high-speed internet that I couldn't do without.

I have previously lived in both dense urban settings (NYC) and rural areas (Wimberley, TX and Soultz, France) and would not consider moving to an area where I had to deal with septic tanks and satellite internet, even for 100% remote work.

I live in Austin & plan to leave in 2-3 years.

* I live in the outskirts, not the city center, and would KILL to have a mass transit option within ~1/2 mile of my house.

* August, etc.

* When I compare property taxes with my HS friends in Appalachia, they're astonished. I pay 3-4X of my friends' rates for similar houses/land. The Texas no-income-tax schtick has worn off with me.

* I didn't grow up here & my friends are scattered around the world. So there's no allegiance to anything here. (With the strong exception to taco trucks.)

I did this 3 years ago. Marketing side, not developer though. I moved form Sydney to rural outskirts of Brisbane. Brisbane is still a major city and we are ~1 hour to CBD.

Where I am its smaller rural blocks often around 40 acres. These quickly get smaller as you head to the city until you hit suburbia 15-20 min closer in.

For myself and family its be absolutely awesome. There a great blend of IT and physical work having a WFH desk job on a farm. Also so much activity is on your doorstep so going for a hike/dirt bike/horse ride etc is something you can do for a quick break and get back to the office. Its a real game changer in doing these things which in city life was often planned weeks ahead and took much of a day. And generally great for family life, just the little things like the other day I build an impromptu flying fox off some wire rope we had around as kids latest hobby is to head into the bush looking for trees to climb.

For me its been incredible, but that said it wouldn't be ever-ones cup of tee. If you go the farm route its like having 2 jobs and your really tied to animal if you want to take holidays, so get friendly with your neighbours. Also having never really done physical work I love this aspect and even bought a bulldozer to do some road works and clearing rather than hire someone, its really cool.

If you like bars and clubs its not going to be ideal either as there no much going for social scene and at least around here some areas are unsavoury that you get with city fringes. But if you have family it probably will give you more quality time together.

If your thinking to would be good, Id say do it fast. The older you get the harder it will be. We see people like us doing it and no-one seems to dislike it.

I live in NYC right now, while it is tempting, I'm still pretty young and like being around my friends (who all still live here) and with things opening back up slowly its becoming possible to hang out with people again. Because of this I really see no reason moving. I totally see the value in moving back home and saving an arm and a leg on rent but I guess it just depends on your lifestyle.

10 comments at the time I write this. 3 of them mention people. Either the people I care about are here, so I'm not moving, or the people I care about are not here, so I'm open to moving. I think we underestimate how big a factor that is in these kinds of decisions.

No. I like walking to things still and fully expect cities to be back to normal in a few years. What’s a few years in the grand scheme of things? I also highly doubt fully remote work is actually the new normal and company HQs are still where a lot will get done in person.

On a longer trend, the full autonomy promised by Level 5 self-driving vehicles will open up interest in "beyond the burbs". Many more remote locations of America have reliable power, and a water well and septic system takes care of your utilities. Heat would be served by either natural gas, or wood. For IT people, while internet may be below broadband in more remote locations, both SpaceX and Amazon are bringing to market high speed space based satellite internet that will in some cases exceed bandwidth or latency requirements for most urban locations. If I had an option to work remotely I would select a location based around these premises.

Recently moved from Portland, OR, USA (pop. 653,115 (2018)) to Oslo, Norway (pop. 681,067 (2019)). Not sure if it is considered a "big city", but both Oslo and Portland are the biggest cities in their respective state/country. The lifestyle, transportation, and work/life balance in Oslo is much better when compared to Portland, and for that my family and I have no plans to leave anytime soon.

The attractiveness of big cities is more than just proximity of workplaces. Even if a lot of work goes remote, enough people love to live close to bars/theater/friends/etc.

I do see commuter towns getting way less popular if remote works really lifts of.

No way. Rural areas are over romanticized. I never understood rural life or even suburban.

Hamster cages in the middle of crime-ridden, infested cities is definitely a no go any more.

Quality, not that remote, well-established neighborhoods are a way to go.

Also low- or no-personal tax, low crime, clean, low dems states getting consistent inflow of migration

I live in the suburbs of Austin, and plan to stay where I am at. I like having everything I need with in a 5 minute drive.

While my current job has gone permanent WFH, my next one might not. So I wouldn't want to move too far out anyway.

I would love to live in a smaller town but still couldn't create good work opportunities there. Maybe two-three years later, I will be able to get to the countryside

Certainly not. I just moved closer to downtown, to a neighborhood where I can walk to everything I need. I don't want to go back to a car-dependent life.

I left four years ago. I miss the city, but housing for five persons is way too expensive there. I work in the city though. Long commute but modest mortgage.

No because I can look ahead more than 6 months...