It's not about need. It's about the fact that my life is pretty awesome, I have tons of spare cash, I can relax on my deck and see nothing but trees and squirrels and my dogs running around.
How much room does a family of three need? I think 4 acres is better than a two bedroom, third floor apartment surrounded by pavement and cars.
Source: Grew up on 4 acres of woodlands. Now live in SF. Would like to move back to a more rural setting after 3 years of hunting for parking spots and spending all my time/money getting away from the city when possible.
If you're an introvert, sure. I love the countryside myself. But extroverts get their energy from being around other people, and dense cities such as NYC are great places for that.
In addition, if you are an introvert, you would love a long commute sitting alone on a bus or train. You should move to the city for sure.
Plus, who said they don't like cold weather? I grew up on the East Coast and I love Winter. I love seasons. I love snowboarding and hiking in the Winter.
I lived in SF for a while and didn't really enjoy it at all. Too much congestion, too many people and no fresh air. I could barely see the stars at night.
That being said. To each their own.
Also, this may or may not be appealing to you, but I find it to be a humbling experience. Being alone in an empty winter forest really makes one feel insignificant. Not in the bad way of making one feel worthless, but instead in the way that makes your worries and aspirations seem trivial. I think it's a nice respite from the myriad concerns of daily life.
Are market prices even remotely comparable to affording that kind of luxury in SV? Hell no.
It's beyond comprehension for me to justify the cost of living out there. I'd be trading in for a postage stamp in an overly populated area.
Concrete is not a weather condition.
Instead we have hot days followed by slightly less hot nights, and I run the A/C all night lest I get no sleep at all.
Note that given the cost difference between living in SV vs Ohio (although I don't live in Ohio) I could spend 12.8 years with my wife at an all inclusive tropical resort. We'd probably get a discount if we lived there full time, so maybe 15-20 years. Not exactly your average retirement home.
Or cash on the barrel no discounts or financial aid at all I could pay list price to send SEVEN kids thru Harvard for four years with a reasonable allowance for expenses and still have money left over. I don't have seven kids, but I guess I could pay cash on the barrel to send a couple thru med school or law school instead, maybe finance a startup or small business for one of them.
Or I could cash buy six rental properties vaguely similar to the house I live in, and retire as a landlord (although from watching my great uncle do this, being a landlord is no retirement!). The rent off six houses, minus realistic expenses, would be a little less than I get paid now, but its interesting to think about.
While you can spend that much for a home in SV, you certainly don't have to.
You'll be paying over $1M for a 5 or 6 bedroom house in a "nice" part of Columbus (i.e. German Village), and you'll be paying around $1.2M for such a house in a decent (though not upper class) neighborhood in Silicon Valley.
The only drawback is cost. But I envy all of those possibilities compared to Miami, where all you have is a big city and sea, maybe watersports but precious little of everything else... and Miami is still not that far behind in terms of cost of living.
The only other experience I'd consider possibly better for raising a child is in NYC (my current home) where the best art and culture exist a short subway ride away, with regular interactions from seemingly every culture in between.
You can have your moderate weather fluctuations (I don't consider cold, rain or snow "bad" weather), I'll take a world of life outside my door.
Northern Ohio? That is not even remotely true. The climate has four very distinct, traditional seasons.
I missed that in SF. Time seems to pass a lot quicker when you don't have nature reminding you that it's happening.
(I live a little ways outside of Boston. The weather here is probably not better overall than Ohio--which I wouldn't describe as cold and rainy for 7-8 months of the year.)
No, no it is not.
Having owned a number of houses - the biggest reason is peace. I've owned houses where I felt the neighbors looked in your back window, everyone could hear what others are doing in their yard around you...
Walking out and having a bit of space is wonderful. And tools like slack and hangouts are making it easier to work remotely as well.
Oh, there's a lot of things you can do with 4 acres. You can maintain extensive gardens and supply substantial quantities of your own food, as a profitable hobby. You can consider owning small farm animals like chickens, or maintain apiaries. Children and pet cats/dogs can run around outside and the children can exercise their imagination through unstructured play in a safe environment, especially in a multi-child family, potentially replacing overly-structured and expensive after-school activities for all but the youngest children (with many opportunities to increase their physical fitness through such activity). You or your children can also practice sports, such as baseball.
I lived in a tiny apartment right in the city growing up. And I mean very, very tiny - we shared beds. I did all those things in my city-dwelling childhood. You don't have to own the land to do that stuff. In fact city life lead me to spend plenty of time with the neighborhood kids, which was really great and you don't get that if you are spending all your time on your own property. If I was bored I literally just walked outside and see which of the neighborhood kids were out. I don't believe there was or is anything "unsafe" about public property and you can do sooooooo much more on public property. We did have a very small backyard that was shared with 6 families and we spent plenty of time there. And we got to interact with the other kids who lived in the building and the kid next door who saw us playing. You can also find a surprisingly large amount of nature in the city if you go looking for it. The idea you need to own 4 acres of land to play baseball is just laughable.
I'm fact, seems more like living on 4 acres would be a prison. You couldn't leave without being driven!!!
The problem is kids aren't allowed to go outside anymore by themselves.
Growing up with very little made me such a better person. I'm way off the hedonistic treadmill.
I wouldn't call it public, it's more of a shared space an apartment complex might have.
The larger the city, the higher is the likelihood of public spaces having a variety of homeless encampments, broken glass, needles and plain old feces.
The larger the city, the higher is the likelihood of accessible but nevertheless private property having those same things; though in either case its likely to be restricted to particular parts of the city, and those are likely to be the ones with lower property values (this reduced property value is both a cause and effect of the condition, its a positive feedback loop.)
The larger the city, also the more likely public -- and accessible private -- spaces are to be fairly pristine enclaves. These will usually be found in substantially different parts of the city than the nasty bits.
Besides they yard was an after thought, I spent most of my outdoor time in public places and I was outdoors every day in the summer.
You may just as well say "I'm too good for public property, I'd rather not share with the peons." Don't hide behind "safety." There's no major safety issues in letting your children use a public park.
And anyways, it's probably much safer to let your kids have a hypothetical chance of running into hypothetical broken glass (that they can just walk away from) than to put them in a car every time they need to go somewhere, as automobile accidents are the leading cause of death in people ages 5-25 (or something along those numbers)
And bicycles are great kid transportation...