Commencement speeches suck. Then, there is this one. Speaking at a high school graduation, comedian/actor Patton Oswalt recounted being told about the “Five Environments”.
“There are Five Environments you can live in on this planet. There’s The City. The Desert. The Mountains. The Plains. And The Beach.
You can live in combinations of them. Maybe a city in the desert, or in the mountains by the ocean. Or you could choose just one. Out in the plains somewhere, perhaps.
But you need to get out there and travel, and figure out where you thrive.
Some places you’ll go to and you’ll feel yourself wither. Your brain will fog up, your body won’t respond to your thoughts and desires, and you’ll feel sad and angry.
You need to find out which of the Five Environments are yours. If you belong by the ocean, then the mountains will ruin you. If you’re suited for the blue solitude of the plains, then the city will be a tight, roaring prison cell that’ll eat you alive.
He was right. I’ve traveled and tested his theory and he was absolutely right. There are Five Environments. If you find the right combination, or the perfect singularity, your life will click…into…place. You will click into place.”
This story resonated with me. I spent decades in a city that didn’t fit me. While living there I read a book called Life 2.0
I was inspired by the stories of how technology made working remotely possible, but I was skeptical about the people being happier. Then, I moved to a place that made me feel great, like I could do anything. As Patton Oswalt said. “Everything clicked”.
So, I decided to think about the places I’ve been in my life and how they made me feel. Below are a just a few and how I would sum them up in a sentence or two:
Charlottesville, VA – (Mountains & Plains)
Family, literary, casual, lovely and historic.
I love it here. I feel creative, clearheaded and relaxed.
photo by: Tim Jarrett
San Diego, CA – (Beach & City)
Physical, active, singles – no seasons, perfect weather you take for granted.
A popular favorite that makes me feel out of sync and nervous.
photo by: Tomcio77
Buenos Aires, Argentina – (City)
Stylish, smart, creative, a nightime city.
This place gives me a buzz…in a good way. I feel inspired, energized and balanced.
photo by: Ana Cotta
Rhone Valley, France – (Mountains & Plains)
Food & wine, agriculture, nature, earth, seasons and time, tradition.
I felt warm and alive in the Southern Rhone, while the Northern Rhone felt vacant and dim. What a difference a few miles made.
photo by: Michael Davis
Kauai, Hawaii – (Beach)
Tropical, relaxed, dramatic scenery, feels small, remote and disconnected.
I could live on the lush, rainy north side of the island. The dry and sunny south side was pretty but felt generic
photo by: Jeff McNeill
What are you best and worst environment experiences? Let us know in the comments below.
Best: Beach. Definitely a tropical beach.
Worst: Anywhere cold and snowy.
Mobile, Al
A place I have fond memories of, but felt out of touch with the population. I needed a more diverse and well traveled crowd. Southern Hospitatily and truthfullness are great characteristics to take with me.
Next up,
St. Thomas, USVI
When every where you turn is beautiful, life can be beautiful. Huge spirit fulfillment. But too much restlessness amongst the locals who’d been trapped for centuries.
Wayfarer, America
Traveled for 10 years in a motorhome. Pretty great, but you can’t compost, plant or recycle well.
Las Vegas, Nevada
Lots of well traveled people. Most everyone is a transplant from somewhere and that’s diversion. Love the open spaces and red rocks. Content, but I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.
Marin County, CA
This is the perfect spot for me: 10 minutes away from San Francisco, lots of hiking trails in the woods and in the mountains. Weather is perfect and best of all, after spending 25 years here, I see someone I know everywhere I go.
i have only ever been to california for 5 days, for a workshop in petaluma. spent one brief night in SF before driving out in the morning. marin was so peacefully beautiful in july/august–such a great reminder of why CA is called the golden state. it’s narrowly #6 on my list
Augusta Ga – not the friendliest place.
San Angelo TX – The people were friendly, there was a feeling of community, and I loved the weather. However it was too far from family!
Irving Tx – I loved Irving. So many things to see and do, and it was so clean. I didn’t meet many people there however, and even the people in the church I attended disappeared after the services, not to be seen or heard from til the next Sunday.
Small town Louisiana – small town life is my perfect fit. I know everyone and they know me. I have people I can depend on when I need a shoulder or a partner in fun. We travel to all the places we want to – those gorgeous cities, the mountains, and my favorite – the beach for scuba diving. When we finish our adventures, it’s home, to my little house, my 2 dogs and a cat, and my family. It is my safe spot, and I love it.
I’m the same way; it’s not so much a geography that i respond to, as a lack of urbanization:p I need big open quiet; big sky, lots of green, animals, etc. A small farm near a small town is my perfect spot.
Nassau, Bahamas – Very timely post for us as we try to figure out whether this amazingly beautiful place is our ideal enviroment. Love the beauty and the weather – miss the buzz and energy and drive that is nowhere to be found.
near Kingston, New York: Small town life, close enough to several big cities for cultural activities etc. Hills, farms, fields. Nice people, gorgeous changes of season. Couldn’t survive anywhere hot. Can’t stand the beach or ocean. Find big cities oppressive. Too many busy people, too much crime. Love the mountains and lakes here. MUST have at least 3 months of snow! So beautiful.
So why are we moving to Vermont?
Terrible NYS TAXES and over-legislation!!!!
Agree on the NY taxes. $27 per $1000 home value for property taxes here in upstate.
One thing I don’t see mentioned here, is that some of the places are just totally outside the grasp of the everyday American pulling in a basic salary. Marin CA for example – the most expensive real estate in the country, and totally unrealistic to move to, unless you have relatives who own property there. A lot of people living there appear “rich” because they own property, but are actually very poor because of all the rich folks and artists migrating there and driving up the cost of living.
A lot of the other places (Las Vegas) are completely unsustainable and will be nothing more than dust within a couple of decades. The water issue alone is enough to make Las Vegas (or any other desert city) look like a disastrous choice for place to live.
So many other factors which this article didn’t consider…
- Quality of local jobs (nt just tourism)
- Local education system
- Access (near an airport or train line)
- Sustainable local agriculture
It’s not just about where you “want” to live because you think you deserve it, but finding a place that’s a good compromise between your needs and the needs of the other 9 billion on this rock.
first of all, patton oswalt = lovelovelove. if you haven’t rented “the comedians of comedy,” do it. i can’t remember the last time i laughed so hard.
also, i didn’t know he’s from northern virginia and went to high school in ashburn. i loved this bit: “The ‘nova’ I lived in was a rural coma sprinkled with chunks of strip mall numbness. I had two stable, loving parents, a sane and wise little brother and I was living in Sugarland Run, whose motto is, ‘Ooooh! A bee! Shut the door!’”
i imagine there might be the same kind of animosity toward NoVA in c’ville as there is here, seeing as how one of the things c’ville prides itself upon is its historic character, of which there is a HUGE DEARTH in NoVA. except the civil war battlefields. every time i drive west on 66, i look at the sprawling housing developments and practically have an existential crisis trying to figure out who on earth would actually want to live there.
so near the top of my “a world of NO” list is just about anywhere in northern virginia. which sucks, actually, because strictly logistically speaking, in terms of being closer to K/still close to DC, it would make a lot of sense. also on that list are any of the exurban wastelands farther outside of DC/baltimore (e.g. columbia).
my top 5 places i’ve lived/visited, as of now:
baltimore, md (city)
portland, or (city/mountains)
east glacier, mt (mountains)
montreal, qc (city)
cedar crest, nm (mountains/desert)
not going into detail on these because i may have a different list once we get back from iceland
i hope i’ll love it the way i loved new mexico, in that it seems like the landscape is akin to a whole other planet. i love visiting places like that.
Worst experience:
About 1946 or ’47. Amarillo, Texas, late August or early September, had to be there for health reasons — long “reason why” story but not for now.
Physically uncomfotable negatives of Amarillo and, indirectly, delightful positives:
Negatives: Wind blew steadily much of the time. Also wind blew with light rain; more like a heavy mist. Very hot. If raincoat was worn, shirt was drenched with sweat from interior heat; if no raincoat, my entire body was saturated with nature’s moisture along with that which my heated body generated.
Downtown was about three blocks long (as I recall it) and had one two-story skyscraper. The (only?) restaurant had home-made signs on walls and ceiling. Example: ceiling sign, “What Are You Lookiing UIp Here For?” My mental answer, “Trying to figure out why you used a preposition to end a sentence. With.” (I’m told that Amarillo is extremely different now. And has air conditioning.)
Positives:
Bob and Tony, Half-brothers from Boston. One half Irish/Italian (Dad Irish). Other brother Irish (Dad and Mom both Irish). Bob and Tony were full-time hustlers and part-time pimps. Trying to hustle enough cash to get away from a forced layover in Amarillo, so they could get to Los Angeles. We lived in the same two-story, hot and swweaty, brick hotel/apartment building. Every room had a bed, dresser, closet and wash bowl. The end of the hall on each floor offered a toilet and tub for the pleasaure of all residents. I often peed in my own wash bowl
Bob had suffered a broken jaw and his upper and lower teeth were wired together to stabilize the break. Bob wouldn’t talk about it and Tony could hardly talk about it because he was laughing so hard when he told the why of it. The way the jaw was broken was that Bob had been in a car accident. Driving drunk, leg broken, unconscious. Ambulance came and took him to hospital.
Arrived, brother Tony walking alongside the stretcher bearers as they carried the stretchered Bob up the wide concrete steps leading to the hospital entrance.
Halfway up the stairs, Bob sudenly came to/awakened.. Still intensely inebriated. Resented being carried. Sat up and said, “You sonsabitches, I don’t need to be carried, I can walk!” Threw his legs over the side of the stretcher and as he stood up, his broken leg folded under him, he fell on the concrete stairs, breaking his jaw.
I only knew them a few weeks, but it was THE (only) great period in my Amarillo stay. Last time I saw them, they were heading for L.A. They had come across a musician who was driving to Sunny Southern Cal. He had a suitcase full of happy weed that he intended to peddle along the way to raise money for gas for the car. Bob and Tony knew of a kindly and marketable young woman whose affectionate kindnesses they could peddle along the way in order to raise money for food for all on their Westward Ho!
They invited me to come along.
I am now eighty-one years old; be eighty-two in a couple of weeks. I have few regrets, but the one that haunts me most is that I didn’t accept their invitation to go to California with them, a musician, a suitcase of marijuana, and a teen-age hooker.
H. Holland Harpoolo (AKA “Dutch”)
PS — if you’re curious about why I was in, and staying in, Amarillo, the reason is that I was in my mid-teens and afraid to go back to San Antonio, Texas. There was a young woman who was a waitress at the Texas Star Dance Hall in that city who wanted to find me and kill me. I figured that Amarillo would be the last place on the entire planet that she would expect me to be.
Dutch
“Iconic but exceedingly self effacing”
Love your stories, Dutch. I hope you write books. If you don’t, please, for all our sakes, do.
Yes, Dutch, Amarillo is much different now. The Air Base left in the late 60′s but we do have PANTEX and Bell Helicopter Textron and several buildings in downtown that are taller than three or four story’s tall. We are coming up on 2,000,000 population. The wind does still blow nearly every day and it is hotter than hell in the summer and when a Blue Norther comes through in the winter it can get below zero for a few days at a time. About 50 miles to the South West is Hereford, TX. where I came here from, and there are several million head of cattle in feed lots there, so when the wind is out of the SW, which it is most of the time, we can smell those feed lots here in AMA. But it is flat enough that you can see forever and the sunsets are spectacular. We do have the World Championship Ranch Rodeo coming up in November and that would be a great time for anyone to visit our fair city.
ps. thought of you guys when i saw this cover article in smithsonian magazine this month. i have always wanted to go to BA. it sounds lovely.
Beach in winter (summer has too many people) or beside a river any time or season…wonderfully relaxing and so close to God; I just feel more connected, peaceful. Living in the country is my style; the eastern shore of Maryland really is the “land of Pleasant Living”, although almost any rural area will suffice.
[...] know where you thrive best (and add your own types if you don’t feel you fit in those five). The 5 Environments: Where Do You Thrive? [Family [...]
Fantastic post – my wife & I just got back from where we finally “clicked”, but getting there has been quite the journey
Boston, MA – I grew up here. It will always be home, and the best city in the world to me.
Augusta, GA – culture shock after Boston. Not a bad place, just really hot with big roaches.
Columbia, SC – met my wife there. Spent the first 2 years of marriage convincing my wife that we needed to move anywhere.
Augusta, ME – best place on earth in the summer, worst place on earth in the winter.
That being said, Portland, OR is our next destination. Portland seems to have all of the bits we want and not too many of the bits e don’t. Now we just have to coordinate it all.
Again, thanks for a great post.
Fort Collins, CO – I thrived there, enjoyed outdoors, hiking, biking, rock climbing, hanging with friends on a patio in old town sipping new belgium…
Cairns, Australia – beautiful, I could live there again…love the hippies!
Parker, CO – No way. Too materialistic, no activity, generic midwest town with big box stores and chains…no diversity.
But I felt like I should experience other things, so I now live in Driggs, ID. I feel good here, its beautiful…but I haven’t been able to break in with the people around here. I have a good setup so I think ill stick around another year, then I thinks its time to head to the coast, either california or lahaina, maui.
Love.
Maui was unbelivable
From age 6, I grew up in Fort Collins. I despised it after my dad died when I was 9. I’m sure that colored my feelings for the place, but I still liked it okay until I was old enough to realize I didn’t blend in well; we’d moved from Southern California and as soon as we did I gained weight and have been heavy ever since, and Fort Collins is one of the thinnest cities in the country. In California I always played inside and was skinny as a rail, but I found it too cold to go out in the winter in Colorado (when we moved there), and by the time summer came around, I no longer was in the habit of playing outside.
Just depends on your lifestyle, I guess. It’s a very pointless place for an entertainment-loving introvert who hates evergreen trees, mountains and plains.
I moved to Phoenix after high school and I like it better than Colorado, but only on the East side. I live on the West side now and it’s bland as hell. My dream is to move back to Southern California someday, when funds will allow it.
I could not agree more about Buenos Aires. I grew up in Amish country in Pa., lived in L.A. for 10 years. Buenos Aires is where i need to live. It made me feel balanced as well.
I grew up in Pennsylvania (Pennsylvania Dutch country), moved to Philadelphia for college and really liked it, then moved to California in 1980. I started in San Francisco, got partnered, and we left there for L.A. in 1986.
I love L.A. but for the lack of water and the overcrowding. California is falling apart. So this is not a winner of a location, I don’t think.
Pennsylvania, in spite of the unpredictable weather with its extremes of humid heat and heavy snowfall, might be OK. The areas I’m scouting out are close enough to NYC that I could take a three-hour bus or a 90-minute train ride to more cultural opportunities than I could ever have here. In Los Angeles, I don’t even want to drive to the beach because of traffic.
People seem happy in Portland, but family is Pennsylvanian. Kinship and the land seem to be very important to residents of the state. And I miss my family.
The PNW. west side of WA state in particular, although I could also possibly live with western montana/northern Idaho.
I enjoy the mountains and cool air. Even the cities here have reasonable access to the great outdoors. The “cold” beaches up here also have a good feel to me.
I have been all over the place and seen many parts of the world. When I was little we lived in the Philippines, of course at the age of 5 spending a day at the beach meant getting a sunburn, I was too young to think about how it made me feel. in 2008 we were forced to evacuate from hurricane Gustav. We went to Destin, Florida and to my amazement, I found myself walking the shore and listening to the waves crashing against the sand, wading my feet into the water and taking sunset photos.
I spent some time in Utah – I got to see Colorado, Wyoming and Nevada. I love the mountains – they are majestic, empowering and visually pleasing. Riding through the canyons give me a great feeling of happiness. And seeing the first snow of each year get me jittery. It’s between Beach and Mountains. I hate large cities and not fond of the country.
I currently live in south Louisiana- I hate every moment of it. From the swamps to the ridiculous religious people and the vast amount of poverty. The only thing here worth taking a peek over is the tight culture and beautiful birds from Finches to Blue Heroins.
While I live in Providence, RI and love it here, my perfect location would be Burlington, VT. There are still 4 seasons, but there’s more snow (I’m a skier). To the east, you have some of the most picturesque mountains in the country. To the west, you have Lake Champlain. I grew up on the ocean, and while I love the ocean, having the lake and the mountains would be perfect. Burlington offers everything that I want in a city without the hustle and bustle – great restaurants, great beer, great music scene, and some of the friendliest people in New England.
I’ve visited 20 countries on four continents, 30+ states and eight of 10 Canadian provinces. I’ve lived in or spent considerable amounts of time in both northern and southern California, Connecticut, Toronto, DC, and British Columbia and I keep landing back in BC which has been home the better part of the last 35 years. There’s a reason the licence plates read “The Best Place on Earth.”
You want desert? Try the South Okanagan.
Mountains? We got so many we haven’t been able to name them all and most have never been climbed; they’re just too damn remote. But we’ve also got them right in the city. From sea level in downtown Vancouver, you can look across the harbour to ski hills that are four miles away and 4,000 feet up.
Ocean and Beaches? More than 16,000 miles of beaches, cliffs, fjords, inlets, bays, and coves.
Prairies? Northeastern BC is as flat as a pancake. Like your prairies with mountains? The Fraser valley is a prairie surrounded by mountains.
You can choose your weather from dry to soaking, hot (>100F/38C) to bone chilling cold (<-40F/C).
Big Cities? Vancouver is more than a million.
Small towns? Everything down to hamlets of four or five at the end of logging roads that hardly appear on maps.
I’ve lived here 35 years now, ten years in Victoria, the capital, a city of about 200,000, eight in Vancouver, four in Nelson (10,000; too small for me) and now 13 in Kelowna (120,000, semi arid, BIG lake, hot summers, some snow but I only have to stop bicycling for six or eight weeks each winter).
You could not pay me enough to move back to my home state of California, as beautiful as parts of it are. There are some things, especially around the Bay Area, that I miss greatly: the redwoods, the Coyote Hills, the road up to Mt. Lick Observatory, swimming in the Arroyo Seco River in August, the Sierra Nevada. But there’s really nothing I miss about SoCal except my son and his family near Newport. It’s even more crowded, noisy, smoggy and dangerous than when I left in 1970.
When I was a child, we would visit my mom’s family in Portland, Seattle and Tacoma and I knew even than that I didn’t belong in California, that the Northwest was more my style. I think I finally understood the attraction when I visited the small village in County Donegal in the north of Ireland where my grandfather had grown up. The same cool, gray weather. BC just feels like “home” to me.
You could not pry me out of New York with a crowbar. Born and raised. There is nothing you could say about NYC that is not true. There is no place more full of life.
Yo Dutch! You da man!
Totally chuckling at @Ed Hausle’s “You could not pry me out of New York with a crowbar”. Good for you, I’m glad you love where you live.
I’m in Seattle (which I love), but I’m from Dublin (Ireland). I’ve been to half of the places on the list above but I’d love to visit the other half. And East Africa (because that’s where my husband was born). And Rural China – before it modernizes. And Cuba before Castro dies. If I’m lucky, I’ll achieve half of that – and the other half I’ll experience through reading travel blogs/literature. Not a bad deal.
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I’m with you about Buenos Aires – the first time I went there, it instantly felt like coming home. I felt confident and alive like no-where else I’ve ever been or lived. I’m currently in a small city (Sydney) and while it’s nice and all… I miss big, bustling, cities with culture and personality in every crevasse.
I love this idea and I’ve thought about it many times myself. I have lived in small town New Mexico and in Kona, Hawaii. Both are potential paradises for many, but I couldn’t wait to leave. I have now lived in suburban Seattle for many years and I absolutely thrive here, while for some people the gray winters and suburban sprawl would be soul-draining. But for me it’s perfect: urban amenities, lush green woods, nearby mountains, summers warm but not hot, winters cold but not frigid, casual liberal-leaning culture, and the perfect paradise of my own backyard.
I know where I thrive….the mountains, especially Asheville, NC. artsy and ecofriendly. The problem? Married to a guy who grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, the armpit of the earth. Love the guy, loathe every day spent here.
Here’s my tip. Move where you love BEFORE you get married. After that, you won’t have the freedom to just go.
You are so right about moving to where you love before falling in love! I met my husband in NYC and got sick of it right about the time we got married. But his whole family is in the area and even though I feel more alive in HOT cities with SPACE, I feel kind-of stuck here. We actually moved out of the city to the country because I was so sick of the congestion and dirt, and I was glad to get out, but the country just makes me fall asleep. I feel like I list into mediocrity with all the heaviness of the long drives and total quiet and lack of stimulation. Now we go back into the city basically every week, often swapping our country house for a city apartment, and I love being there. But largely because I know I don’t have to live in some small one-bedroom apartment for long; it’s just a vacation and I can see friends and go out to eat and shop and go to the theater, and take my baby to the millions of playgrounds. Still, this doesn’t seem ideal because I’m not really inspired to be my best in the country.
I lived in Houston and really liked it, but eventually left because there wasn’t enough work. I want to try living in LA. The desert air and open space (west, by the beach, in Santa Monica) and mountains off in the distance make me feel awake and powerful. Also, I like that it IS a big city; it’s just not 8 million people living directly on top of you like in NYC.
But it’s hard because I’m married to a New Yorker . .
there are really 7 environments. You left out the Forests. And the rolling hills and streams.
I’ve traveled a lot but have to admit…only lived in Michigan and now Virginia. Jury is still out on whether the “vibe” is a great fit or not. I can say I’ve always wanted to move away from MI. Now that I have, I miss home. Strange?!
By the way, thanks for visiting my blog and the comment!
I grew up in Michigan (from about the age of 10) and left the first chance I could and boy I do NOT miss it at all!
Only 5 environments? I’m sure you missed one – and an important one at that… Forest or Woodland. I *know* it’s my favourite. Without trees, I feel slightly ‘lost’. Mountains and beaches are fine; but without trees, I can’t feel ‘at home’ anywhere.
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I don’t have a website. The sound oo your “Retrieve…”video was
terrible. A nd the video kept going when the sound was finished….Without the picture I couldn’t get anything and still really didn’t.
I’ve had the pleasure of living in several phenomenal places.
Small Town, Michigan: Where I grew up, too much dependence on cars didn’t feel right to me. No connection to nature, a certain amount of “unworldliness” in the people-too many R.L. ditto heads. Generic lifestyle.
Ketchikan, Alaska: Hardworking, self-sufficient people yet a thriving funky, arts community. Beautiful setting yet so isolated. Felt more involved in the community, more so than my hometown in MI, which was grounding. Yet, even in this setting still didn’t feel close enough to nature (confined indoors most of year).
Dordrecht, Netherlands: High population density, too flat, life was flat. In a places with that many people living together people tend to be more closed in. It was fun riding my bike a lot but everyone seemed so unhappy and in a sort of rush or a resignation to the flatness.
Small Town near Lucerne, Switzerland: 6 years in the mountains, glorious alps. Lots of hiking and skiing. This is the place I would live forever if I could. The only place I’ve felt wholly grounded and at peace. Locals were a little hard to get to know but somehow that didn’t matter so much, the slower, family orientated lifestyle suits me. (Americans think we are so family orientated but really could learn some lessons from Europeans).
Seattle, WA: Place I’ve chosen as home for now. Close enough to the mountains to get my needed dose to help center myself yet urban enough to have real jobs and cultural amenities. I chose a small- town-feeling neighborhood within the big city and feel fairly connected to my neighbors. Again, more community than my hometown in MI, WHY is that?
I’m so happy that I read your informative blog and that I came across a mention of Patton’s speech. Reading it in full totally made me smile and brighten my day.
I think I truly can feel connected and energized in most of these places, if I pick the right representation of them.
I currently live in a City in the Mountains and the Desert. Vibrant, energetic, nature and people thriving together.
I grew up on the Plains and feel very comfortable in the wide open spaces.
I love the ocean, though I have to admit I prefer rugged shores to tropical Beaches. I think because I don’t live there now, this is my yearning.
I do agree with people “clicking” into the right environment. However, I feel there are definitely more than five. What about icy tundra? Swamps? Forests? Not to mention variations between them such as grasslands, lakes, farms, etc. If your big 5 are the 5 most pure environments, then you must also include tundra or some other word for an icy territory.
The place I feel most at home is home: Marin County, CA. I was born in San Francisco, and I can’t really get lost in SF.
but I also love Mendocino, CA, and Vancouver, BC, and Auckland, NZ.
I live south of SF now, and have since 1986, but I’ve never really felt at home here.
I lived in Colorado for a couple of years, but experienced culture shock there.
I couldn’t live anywhere where the weather is pernicious.
First choice:
Mountains!! Not rolling hills that only climb to maybe 3000 ft…noooo the the bigger the better…and add a dash of H2O and then an easy drive to a multicultural city…sounds like the pacific northwest…Seattle is a very good choice….OOOOO really the only choice…live in that enviroment but just not Seattle! I live where its hot and dry in the Summer…I perfer the cooler climate of the puget sound area.
I’ve learned that City+Mountains+Ocean = paradise for me. Some observations:
San Francisco: My hometown. Culture, food, nature, a walking culture, mild weather (a bit too breezy at times). It’s makes me feel alive and it would be perfect, except for the cost of living means it’s a very transient place of “billionaires & beggars”. Also, there’s a certain provincial smugness in the people here that I find intolerable now that I’ve lived in other places. Now that I’m starting a family, I have to look at my options..
Los Angeles: I lived in West LA and never quite felt at home. The flat blandness of it, plus the phony, silly attitude of the beach crowd turned me off. I moved to near Pasadena and loved it. The San Gabriel mountains, mature trees, older architecture and laid back sophistication made me feel very at home. I would consider moving back.
Portland: A hip, urbane, leafy town and I loved it on my first visit. But somehow the smallness of it, not being a major port city and lacking diversity. The lack of jobs and major international companies. It just seems too sleepy and self satisfied. Not a place for big thinkers.
Seattle: Turned me off on the first visit. Seemed like San Diego North (a bland, mostly suburban city in a spectacular natural environment). On my second visit, I loved Seattle though. It has an impressive skyline, trees, mountains, walkable neighborhoods, a growing economy, no income tax, relatively affordable housing, and now decent public transportation with the light rail. My #1 choice for relocation at this point.
Vancouver: Another Pac NW city giving me mixed signals. Impressive at first glance: dense, modern condos, buzzing neighborhoods, mountains, oceans – what’s not to love? But on second glance, it has an extreme cost of living just like S.F. and it’s been panned as “not a city, but a resort”. There’s probably a grain of truth to that. A quick view of job listings came up fairly slim. But I still dream of living there from time to time
New York, NY: Not impressed. As far as megacities go, I found Tokyo, Moscow and Buenos Aires all left NY in the dust as far as the general feeling of big city buzz. Somehow NY thinks it’s the greatest but it doesn’t really have the best of anything at this point (film, high tech, architecture, beaches). Even in finance, London is a tie basically. I’d give it a second chance as I just visited on a weekend.
Asian cities (Tokyo, Hong Kong, etc): All the major Asian cities make American cities look run-down and backwards in comparision. However, I’m not Asian and Asian cultures tend to be homogenous and insular. I’d always be an outsider.
Milan: I somehow felt at home here. It’s Italy’s most diverse, international city so you don’t feel like you’re in a museum like other beautiful but staid cities (cough: Florence) in Italy. On the downside, it’s flat, industrial and terribly muggy in the summer.
Buenos Aires: Loved it, loved it. Buzz, sex appeal and urbane, 24-7 culture. Ocean is close and spectacular mountains are a day’s drive away. It’s also inexpensive for Americans. If I wasn’t married…
Clarksville, TN: A place I lived for a year (don’t ask). Hated it. It was pretty enough and people were friendly, but I found the middle South to be absolutely suffocating. It felt like a death trap for my soul.
Wow….great comments Dante. Thanks so much for sharing your experiences. I’ve been to or am interested in every city you mentioned (except Clarksville) so I loved seeing your take on them.
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