Hellobee Boards

This is what we are discussing now. Growing up, commuting was all I knew (we lived outside of DC, so horrible getting anywhere) and I'm okay with it, but my husband really likes being close to it all, even though we don't do it all, you know? And though I live in the city and 11 miles away from my job, it still takes me an hour to get home in rush hour traffic because of daycare pickup. So I don't know.

So I have mixed feelings. I lived in the city, and then moved to a neighbouring town about 45km out. On the one hand, I do miss it - I miss the restaurants, I miss the shopping, I miss being able to walk places. If I won the lottery I would move back downtown in a heartbeat. That being said, I wouldn't trade my house and my yard for being back in the city - our house downtown would cost over a million dollars.

Like you, I spend 60-90 minutes commuting each way, which sucks, I'd love to have that time with my kids, but I get to listen to podcasts, I keep snacks in my car, it's kind of free time.

@catlady: you know that's exactly where we are now. I know I will miss the city and conveniences and the local friends we have made and see in the park and toddler activities. But we really need more space and I want the girls to have a backyard to play in and their own rooms, and since family isn't local, it would be really nice to have a space for guests to stay. It helps me that a lot of friends have moved out of the city and we visit their nice houses in the suburbs and play in their backyards and it's so lovely. I am just really hoping to find a neighborhood like @MaryM: where we can be friends with our neighbors and such- I've noticed if you get too far out of the city you get bigger property but less of a neighborhood feel.

Plus schools- I don't really want to play the lottery with my kids schools and not know where they will go until a few months before! And a "good" school means hiking through the city to get them there, or our nearby schools are very iffy.

DH is actually Looking at a job in a burbwhich would be amazing- we could have a house AND a short commute.

We're debating a big move from the city in one country to the burbs a couple streets away from my parents.

It would mean both finding new jobs but we could have a six bedroom house with a pool and water view with zero mortgage just using the equity from our small city house in a ridiculously expensive market.

I'm worried that I'll miss being in the middle of it all.

It's a tough call.

@oliviaoblivia: what!??? We need to catch up!

My experience is a little different. I moved from NYC to a European capital city (that is much smaller). I miss big city life. Even though this is the largest city in the country, it feels so quiet and sleepy. We were just on vacation and visited 2 major cities and it made me miss city life. I wouldn't be able to go any smaller than where we currently are.

I think this is a super personal decision and it's hard to know the right answer. For me it would depend on the details of the commute. Is it on say a commuter train, and if so would you be able to do some of your work remotely from the train, or would it involve being stuck in traffic or taking super-crowded forms of public transit for 1-1.5 hours each way? If the latter, I personally would prefer to spend those 2-3 hours with family, I think it would more than make up for having a smaller space. I've done the long commute. A half hour commute is one thing, a 1.5 hour commute each way IMO is completely different; it's exhausting and can make it impossible to do anything else in the day. Now we live in a condo in the city. I try really hard to minimize the amount of stuff we have so it doesn't feel cluttered, and I love having only a small space to maintain and not having a ton of stuff. I do really wish we could have a yard, but there's nice parks nearby. While it's more expensive, it will also hold its value well, and we save by not needing cars...

For me, the commute didn't go up too much timewise (maybe 15 minutes) as it went from in-town congestion to highway driving. My husband’s commute increased by about 20 minutes.

I miss being able to walk to things. I miss being able to walk to the farmers market and then to small grocers, restaurants, museums, etc.

I love our home and love having a larger home and much nicer than we could have afforded in-town, living on a quiet cul-de-sac and having access to a better school system. If I won the lotto though I would move back in-town in a heartbeat.

We did this in the winter and t was an easy transition. We had both lived in the city for 10+ years and we're starting to get sick of it. We lived in the house I bought before I met my husband-awesome house, but 2 bedrooms and not but enough to have kids in. I work from home so the second bedroom was my office. If we bought a bigger house in the city, we'd have had to move again once our kids are in school or do private school (public schools in the city are awful). So, we moved to the burbs in January and love it. I work from home so my commute it to the airport frequently, which is longer, but I deal. My husband's commute is at least double every day and it doesn't bother home most days...the trade off just worked. And I got pregnant right after we bought the new house, so it all made sense for us why we moved.

Yeah, this is something we consider all the time. Right now while the kids are young, I don't want my husband away from them additional hours during the day for the commute. As it is, he leaves at 8 and usually gets home at 7. If we moved further out, he'd have to leave at 7:15 and come home closer to 8--just no way, the girls would always be asleep. I work full time too, and don't want to work full time and solo parent alone every night.

Maybe when they are older and staying up later. It's hard to say. Right now, having DH home more is better than more space. Working at home will never be an option for either of us.

We lived in Seattle and moved to a suburb of it, 45 mins south, when we had our oldest daughter. I miss living in the city desperately. We like having a much cheaper home, and being close to family, but I'm a city girl and miss it: the hustle and bustle, the restaurants, tons of things to do, faster pace, an actual nightlife beyond 8 PM. Suburb life is easier with kids though- more space and a yard. (DH works remotely and I do my own projects, so work commute isn't an issue.)

I think about this every week. We live in a small city that is about 20 minutes (across a river) away from a very major city. We live in a 2bdrm condo in a walkable neighborhood, and my commute is a 20 min bus ride (30-40 mins door to door depending on traffic and bus lines).

It sometimes feels crowded in our apartment with two adults, a toddler and two cats. Plus my son is home every afternoon with either my parents or a sitter. I am almost always starved for alone time. We would love a third or even fourth bedroom/office. As our son gets older, it gets harder and harder for me to concentrate when I work from home. My husband dislikes apartment living and wants more space for gear for his various hobbies.

But there is no way I would be willing to increase my commute. I depend on that extra 1-2 hours per day. It's when I see my child. I would have to overhaul my career to support a move further away.

I am totally over the hustle and bustle of the city though. I hate the rat race. It is exhausting. I do not have enough time for self care. Too much restaurant food and takeout. Not enough exercise. Ironically, the price of all the urban convenience is time which is cutting into my physical and mental health and no longer feeling so "convenient".

That being said, I cannot imagine having to use a car every single day. I grew up that way, and there is something depressing to me about that. Driving feels like so much overhead to me. I can't really explain why.

Aggghhh it is such a conflicting topic!

We are in the process of getting ready to sell our city home to build our forever country suburb home. It will actually shorten DH's commute (he works in a town near where we will live) however I work in the city so it will increase mine. Our deciding factor was schools, we wanted our girls to go to a "town" school not the city school. We both grew up in small towns and wanted the same for our girls. The difference would be graduating with a class of 700+ kids to 75, we like the smaller school size.

I'm happy I left the city. Life was getting too expensive and I could never make ends meet. I'm glad I live somewhere now that I can make a decent living. I miss the city sometimes but I go back as much as I can and find I appreciate it more when I do go back.

We lived in London for three years, NYC for five, and then moved to the suburbs for my husband's job when my oldest was 6 months old. I won't lie, there was a "mourning" period since I basically felt like I was saying good-bye to my youth. But that's just it - I LOVED city life when I was young and relatively carefree. I spent so much time (and money) shopping and dining and drinking and it was perfect for me at that time. For the short six months we were in the city with a child, it actually just kind of made me sad to be around so much fun stuff and not be able to partake aside from the (very rare) date night.

So yes, I miss the city. But for life with kids, I know we have made the right move. I love our town, the schools are fantastic, people are friendly, and there are so many kid-centric activities. AND, I never feel like an a-hole for bringing my children to a restaurant since I'm in good company out here.

ETA: it helps that our town has a real town center, parts of it are walkable and it's a historic, established community (I don't do brand new, cookie-cutter). I don't think I could manage going from city life to like, super duper suburbia, if that makes sense.

@meredithNYC: I felt like I could have written your post! So much of it is my story (except the specifics of London and nyc)

I lived in NYC (Queens) for about 5 years and moved to the suburbs 9 months ago. I don't miss it! My commute was shorter in the city, but it was super expensive and stressful. My commute now is longer, but I like it much better.

We were living in a small one bedroom, railroad style apartment (no hallway, just one room to the next) and we moved into a 4 bedroom, 2 bath house so there's no comparison there!

Me and my husband both work in the city and we are close enough to go in for dinner, plays, etc. without actually having to live there, which I prefer. The only thing I miss a little is the great food, but it's totally worth it to give that up to be out of the city in my opinion! I started to dislike NYC after living there for a couple years...

I already live in the burbs and always have; to me commute time, when you have kids, is the most important. I already WOH full time; if I have a longer commute, I basically won't spend much time with DD (and on top put the burden either all on DH or my mom). I have a 20 min commute and while I don't love my job, I won't give that up! So in your case, I'd probably stay in the city as long as you can afford a place and get that shorted commute. Or if working arrangements can be improved to have flex time, WFH options, etc.

We are struggling with this decision too!

@meredithNYC: DH and I lived in London for three years, too! What neighborhoods did you live/work in while you were there? We lived in Notting Hill and I worked in the City, so commute wasn't too bad across town on the Central Line (DH worked next to Waterloo Station and would run or bike to work through Hyde/Green Parks most days...such a lovely commute).

Since moving back from London we have lived in SF for ten years in a 1400 sq ft 2-bedroom apartment, now with a toddler and two cats (and baby on the way). It is plenty of room for us now, but LO is obsessed with plants and flowers and LOVES every friend's house we visit with a yard. DH is also a frustrated gardener and REALLY wants a house in the suburbs with a yard he can garden (the burbs around here also tend to have warmer weather, so you can actually enjoy outdoor space, whereas it is too cold in SF about 90% of the time year-round to want to be outside in a yard anyway).

We both work in the City, so right now our commutes are wonderful (DH commutes about 30-40 minutes by train or running to work, I commute a 10-min drive within our neighborhood). My commute gives me an extra 1.5-2 hours a day with LO over what I would have if we moved to one of the suburbs we are considering. I'm just not ready to give that up!

I'm super conflicted, because we can't afford to buy a house in the City (where you almost certainly need to pay for private schools too), and we both LOVE the suburb we are considering (with great public schools) but I haven't ever had a long commute and I'm afraid it might kill my soul, especially given that we both work basically 8:30-6:00 so I'm not sure we'd even see our LOs awake during weekdays...

At this point I've told DH I need another year in the city, get through the baby stage with LO#2 and my short commute, then consider moving when LO#2 is approaching 1 year old.

Complicating matters for us is that we have rent control in our current apartment at WAY UNDER MARKET rent (since we've been here 10 years and in that time an insane boom took place). So once we move, we basically can never go back (we couldn't afford current rents or home prices in the city plus childcare/education costs) so it is such a final decision!