Story Visiting a larger city has filled me with hope

[ThatStateOfMind]

I've lived in a tiny city all of my life. It's so boring, but I'm staying until I can finish college and afford to move. I decided to visit the city I was born in (was born VERY premature, the odds were against me to survive). The reason I visited was that my college art class required me to visit a museum and that was one in the list.

I spent the whole day there, even drove by the hospital, and saw the Ronald McDonald house my mom lived in while I spent months in NICU. We also went to a huge mall, might have been the biggest or maybe second biggest I've been to in my whole life. I've never even been on escalators before and so that day was the first time for me lol.

It's such a bustling area and there's so many people, and it's so diverse. Maybe I'm seeing from an inaccurate perspective and it's not really like that but it gives me hope. I still have to do around 3 more years of college before I can actually get a good paying job and afford to move out. And when I do, I've always planned to move to a larger city. The only difficult thing will be distance from my family, and navigating large city traffic, which has never been easy for me.

Anyways that's all I wanted to say. If I take a while to reply to anything, don't take it personally, I've just been way less active on this site recently.

 

[AshClouds]

Typically, the reverse is true from what I've heard from people I talked to in the past. I guess its contingent on the idea that most of your problems are linked to your current environment, and when you find yourself in a new one, you generally don't have to confront the same issues.

 

[ThatStateOfMind]

Typically, the reverse is true from what I've heard from people I talked to in the past. I guess its contingent on the idea that most of your problems are linked to your current environment, and when you find yourself in a new one, you generally don't have to confront the same issues.

True, it could be a grass is greener mentality. People from a larger city would rather live in a smaller, and vice versa. I suppose. There's a few things I could list that are bad about small towns that aren't as big of an issue in larger cities like everyone knows everyone else's business, since word travels fast in a small town, and there's literally nothing to do for fun, unless you want to drive about 45 minutes to a nearby large town that has things to do.

There are definitely some issues in big cities that aren't prevalent in small towns. I suppose I'll find out what suits me best when I eventually have experienced both :)

 

[puella]

Rates of depression and substance abuse are often high in rural areas. They are also less diverse and can be hostile to minorities. I absolutely could not live in my old small town, and moving has given me hope I can actually have a chance to get better.

You're doing so well. I hope you'll be able to move. And depending on where you move, lots of large cities have public transportation set up. I don't have to drive at all.

 

[LaVieEnRose]

That's certainly a future that is well within your reach.

 

[ThatStateOfMind]

Rates of depression and substance abuse are often high in rural areas. They are also less diverse and can be hostile to minorities. I absolutely could not live in my old small town, and moving has given me hope I can actually have a chance to get better.

You're doing so well. I hope you'll be able to move. And depending on where you move, lots of large cities have public transportation set up. I don't have to drive at all.

Oh yeah, I can second the substance abuse thing. I feel like so many people I see are on meth especially. They are also hostile to minorities. A guy at my school regularly got called the n word by some people.

It's nice to hear that moving has helped you and hopefully it will be the same for me. I don't quite know where I'll move just yet. It'll honestly depend on where I apply to jobs after college and wherever accepts me first is where I'll probably go. As far as public transportation, it would definitely be nice to not have to drive every where. My town only just recently as in maybe a year ago got Doordash, we still don't have Uber, or anything like that.

Ultimately it's just a goal of mine to just be able to leave this town behind.

That's certainly a future that is well within your reach.

Thank you!

 

[dragonofenvy]

Interesting. See, I have the opposite experience. I really hate cities. I hate the constant noise. I hate the traffic. The water has so much chlorine in it that I can barely swallow it. I can smell the smog, and worse, the people. People are in such a rush all the time and they were rude.

I went to school in a very rural area, and while it wasn't diverse everybody seemed pretty tolerant. Sure there were a few who weren't but generally nobody really cared what you looked like or what you were as long as you weren't an asshole. There was a guy who cross-dressed, a few lesbians, a gay guy, a Jewish dude, and several people of a variety of races. They made up like, 2% of the population but when I talked to them about their experience they said that it was overall pretty great other than a couple of people who were assholes to them but nearly everyone else was kind to them. The worst thing that my community experienced regarding substances was high-schoolers vaping. Yes, vaping. Nobody was on drugs or smoked... publically anyway.

Now I live in a very small town, barely any people live in it, but it sees a lot of traffic since it's near a major road and I just can't stand the noise. My hope is to move to some rural place in Idaho or something where I can escape it.

Guess it depends on the person and the place.

 

[real human being]

I've visited Tel Aviv a few times and every time I go there I get a similar feeling to the one you got. It's so lively and diverse and just has an energy to it compared to where I live. I want to move there eventually.

 

[ThatStateOfMind]

Interesting. See, I have the opposite experience. I really hate cities. I hate the constant noise. I hate the traffic. The water has so much chlorine in it that I can barely swallow it. I can smell the smog, and worse, the people. People are in such a rush all the time and they were rude.

I went to school in a very rural area, and while it wasn't diverse everybody seemed pretty tolerant. Sure there were a few who weren't but generally nobody really cared what you looked like or what you were as long as you weren't an asshole. There was a guy who cross-dressed, a few lesbians, a gay guy, a Jewish dude, and several people of a variety of races. They made up like, 2% of the population but when I talked to them about their experience they said that it was overall pretty great other than a couple of people who were assholes to them but nearly everyone else was kind to them. The worst thing that my community experienced regarding substances was high-schoolers vaping. Yes, vaping. Nobody was on drugs or smoked... publically anyway.

Now I live in a very small town, barely any people live in it, but it sees a lot of traffic since it's near a major road and I just can't stand the noise. My hope is to move to some rural place in Idaho or something where I can escape it.

Guess it depends on the person and the place.

Oh yeah I certainly agree that it will depend on the person and their liking. Me, personally, I believe a larger, more lively city might be better for me and my mental health. The noise is something I didn't consider, not that it will bother me. It will likely take some getting used to, however.

Also my school is similar but not what I'd call tolerant. Gay people constantly getting bashed, same with other races besides Mexicans (there's a lot of Mexicans here).

I don't quite know how large is too large, probably will know it when I see/experience it.

I've visited Tel Aviv a few times and every time I go there I get a similar feeling to the one you got. It's so lively and diverse and just has an energy to it compared to where I live. I want to move there eventually.

I just looked it up and it's quite beautiful and much larger than the city I was talking about. The population is nearly 2.5 times the size of the city! I'd never heard of it before today but it's very beautiful. I hope you're able to move there some day!