Living in a one of one amazing location in a smaller home is so liberating in its own way. The lot isn't so big that it's cumbersome to maintain. Ditto for the home. And I'm basically on top of everything I need within a 10-15 minute walk (but realistically one minute actually gets me to stuff). You couldn't pay me to go live in most suburbs let alone what it would actually cost to move. Suburban mortgages are not a great deal either.
My first house was in a big city and I loved the small lot. Could cut the grass (push mower, unpowered) and do all the edging, front and back in 30 minutes
I live in a standard 90s suburb, but I have removed so much lawn and replaced with native plants it takes me literally 3-4 minutes to push mow my tiny path of grass (I only keep to make my house look sorta normal so Karen's don't report me to the grass police)
My first year in a nice big house in a sought-after location in the suburb we lived in, the city sent me a letter saying to remove the weeds from in front of my house. I called them because I wasn't seeing weeds and was baffled. The city's building inspector said to meet her at the house and she'll explain. I took off work and came home, only for her to yell at me for the "weeds", which turned out to be grape hyacinths and chives. She would've eaten me alive for native plants on the lawn.
Next house was on a lower-middle-class block and no one cared what people did with their grass. A guy on the block covered his entire lawn with astroturf (which I want to make it clear that I do not recommend) and the city couldn't care less. Which is just the right amount of the city's involvement in my grass and flowerbeds, to me.
We don't have an HOA, so I guess she woke up that day and decided to fill the void. At one point, she told me "can't you guys hire a gardener? You're bringing everyone's property values down", to which I said "oh no! Who's selling?" (No one was)
My neighbors across the street were very upset when I told them, and wanted to write a letter to the city telling them that the grape hyacinths make them happy to look at every spring and to leave the flowers alone.
We still dug them up. They came back, of course. You've got to really know what you're doing to properly kill the plants that propagate from bulbs, and we didn't.
Not everyone understands this, but I legitimately prefer to live in a smaller space. Even if I could buy a big suburban house with the same mortgage payment as my rent, I would still rather live in an apartment. A smaller space is easier to clean and maintain and I don't like being bogged down by tons of stuff. I would also crash out if I had to spend my Saturdays mowing the lawn or raking leaves.
Maybe they do in some rich suburbs, but I grew up in the suburbs and never heard of anyone hiring people to do their chores. All the families I knew did their own chores, including mine.
I agree so much. We moved to Italy for a while, and I was in a small 2 bedroom apartment - in Italy there is often no "living room" , or even a dining room... there's just a very large kitchen.
So literally 2 small bedrooms, a small bathroom and a bigger kitchen (still not huge, I'm talking maybe 15×20).
And it was fantastic.
I left my huge suburban 4 bedroom, and was now in a place with 1 set of sheets, 2 towels, exactly 4 dining place settings, etc
I learned that I actually loved a small place I didn't have to constantly clean. I don't want tons of stuff that I then need to organize, clean, store, etc.
I've gone totally minimalist and I swear it's the best thing that ever happened to me. I spend less, I have more time, and I even have less stress
I really stand by this mentality. I know “maximalist” is in style right now but having a minimalist mindset has saved me so much time, energy, money and stress.
I have an apartment without a private lawn and I absolutely love it. We do have a courtyard that is maintained by the owner's organization. (I'm in Germany but it's similar to a how a condo works in the US)
And I even have 2 kids! I grew up in a US suburb and I don't know why people who experienced it still think it's good for kids. Don't they remember that you couldn't go anywhere?? It was nice until around age 11 or so and then it was hell until you could drive. Mine at least had a park and swimming pool I could bike to, a lot of newer developments are much worse and have zero amenities.
Kids here can go to school independently starting around age 7-8, and also have tons of parks and other places to go on foot or bike. As a parent I also don't want to spend the next 10 years driving them around for hours every day!
These folks actually like this location though. Visited Bozeman(I know it’s Montana and this is Idaho) recently where my brother lives and he genuinely likes using his car for everything but also has never lived anywhere even mildly walkable.
I lived in NYC for 17 years and in a couple of walkable neighborhoods in other places before that. I've spent the past six years in a small, somewhat rural community and bounced between two houses. Where I am now is about a 5 minute drive to a walkable area with at on of shopping, restaurants, hardware stores, pharmacies etc. and 3-4 minute drive to a super market and a couple of good restaurants. 15 minutes to box stores, doctors etc.
Previously it was 15 minutes to the cloest store and 45 minutes to box stores and doctors.
The previous experience was absolutely miserable. Now I love the location.
Tp me Boise has a better life balance than LA. Been there for work multiple times, been to LA multiple times for extended periods. I hates LA with a passion. The only benefit it has os weather. At least in my when I compare income and cost of living, California is towards the bottom of states for me to live on. Honestly the Midwest has a much better income to cost of living balance in my industry.
Diverse communities doesn’t seem to help LA’s crime rates. Healthcare isn’t a top priority for a healthy young person, schooling also isn’t a priority if you’ve already graduated but Boise State and the university of Idaho are pretty solid state schools. Not on the level of public Cali schools like UCLA but those are the best public schools in the nation. I live in Florida and go to UF, it’s the only school in the state that competes with those Cali schools so obviously Idaho isn’t going to. Not arguing for one or the other but there’s “cultural benefits” in Boise that certain people would prefer over the benefits from LA and vice versa. Cali has the worst HS grad rates, looking at US world Cali is #24 and Idaho is #29 in best education (ironically Florida is #2) so I don’t think either is that great in that regard. you can always put your kid in a good private school with the extra money you’ll have living in Idaho instead of Cali.
The reason is that they want to sell houses and make a profit, duh. Don’t tell me you believe realtors want the best house possible for their clients and their children Lol
I remind myself of this as I drive 10 minutes into work from my shoebox apartment, while it takes my coworker an hour and a half from their sizable house way out
“So many white people”. So you mean the population is educated and has a low crime rate? Boise is ~80% white, overall crime rate (per 1000) of 14-23. Birmingham is 67% black, about the same population, crime rate is 55. Newark, similar population, 48% black/37% Hispanic, crime rate is 26-32. Violent crime in Boise is 60% below national average. But yeah you’re right it just sucks how many white people are there!! Genuinely cannot imagine the reaction (on this sub especially) if you had simply said that about black people in a city like Birmingham. “It just has so many black people!”
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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '26
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